I'm not being funny, but what else did you expect? I'm not saying its right, or excusable, but I just assume that every single major sportswear manufacturer operates sweatshop conditions in Asia. Or is that just me?
I just think it's particularly ironic (and disgraceful) given all the guff we get fed about the London Olympics.
But whoever made the GB kit this wouldve applied to. I like the Guardian but it's lazy journalism and the kind I'd expect to see in the Mail. edit - aah, just noticed it was from a report in the Indy. Makes more sense now.
whats wrong with stuff we buy being made in sweat shops and possibly by kids ? We all complain at the price of the things we feel we cant do without , from iPhones and laptops to trainers and football shirts. Of course in a perfect world kids wont work and will be educated in a school , minimum pay of a reasonable wage will be set across the whole world BUT in the world we live in , we demand these essentials and want to pay the lowest price. So dont ****ing cry because some Pilipino is earning 10c an hour making our precious goods . If it bothers people they should boycott and not wring their hankies in some equally fake support. Be thankful you live in a part of the world were we dont suffer the way the poorest do , and play with your iPhones safe in the knowlage
No, it's just their kind of story. They wouldve been waiting for the GB team to announce who were making the kits and immediately investigated them until they found something even remotely unscrupulous. As I said, the word Adidas in this report is completely interchangeable with any other major sportswear manufacturer. People work long hours for little to no money to make things for Westerners as cheaply as possible, it's not nice but its the world we live in.
Reckon you're right there - but it's good to see the politicians and sports toffs exposed as hypocrites. Even if we can do fook-all about the situation.
The Great British Public are very keen on buying the cheapest ****e going, so our high streets are full of New Look, Primark, Poundshop's and various other ****-holes, if you want to find decent high streets nowadays, you need to shop outside the UK.
Like has been mentioned previous that in an ideal world people working in these sweatshops would earn decent money,have regular rest and meal breaks,get sick pay etc etc. Basically all the things we enjoy but the fact is they are a good fifty years away from that. That figure is a guess before anyone picks up on it. What are the alternatives for these people if all these places were shut down in any case? Begging, prostitution or selling a kidney? Not trying to be flippant about this topic and I appreciate that a lot of people are making vast amounts of money off the back of this industry. Supply and demand and consumer greed are the driving force behind this. Make the whole world a communist state, that's my solution.
Seriously? Yes we want to pay the cheapest possible but have you not heard of cost price? DO you realise that having them made over there by kids only benefits the companies and not us. Adidas tops cost about £5 to make, so we are still paying a **** loads, the workers are paid **** and the only ones benefitting are the companies... We could still pay the same amount for having them made here, the only difference is the profit made by the companies would be smaller.
Not entirely true. If you buy stuff at Primark et al, you are getting cheap prices because the people who made them got paid **** all for doing so. If the same goods were made here, the cost of them would be higher than their current selling prices. With the sportswear companies, things are slightly different, as the majority of the cost is actually the advertising of the product(and sponsorship) that creates the demand in the first place. The most extreme example of this is perfumes, where a £30 bottle of perfume is about £1 for the perfume, a few quid for the bottle and box and a tenner for the advertising(no sweatshops involved, it's all made by machines). Umbro tops might cost a lot and they might not pay their factories very generously, but they still made a £42m loss last year.
Mitre employ kids under the age of 15 in Pakistan and they make on average 4 footballs a day, get paid 50p for each ball, £2 a day. The footballs City play with are made the same, everything is, unfortunately.
And what's always ignored when they come out with these "they only earn £2 a day" figures is the cost of living in those countries.
Can't agree with this. I suppose your question is best answered with another one - Would it be alright for your mother and kids to work in a sweatshop? For some reason the suffering of the Asian poor doesn't seem to register as highly with us as other races. Maybe it's because they look so alike to us that we don't think of them as individuals. I don't know. The argument that poor people in this country are responsible because they shop in Primark etc is also well off the mark. When you have no money you buy the best you can get with what you have. The responibility for this exploitation lies with the retail outlets and those who are in the luxurious position of being able to afford ethics.
If the alternative was to work as prostitutes or beggars then yes. It's alright saying we wouldn't let it happen here so it's wrong, but if it's still better than what would happen if they closed the sweatshops then we need to adjust our standards to acknowledge that. It's not a satisfactory end point, but if it's a step in the right direction in those countries then it would be counter productive to close them down.
So if your mother and kids worked in a sweatshop is that what you would tell them? Again I'm confused why we consider their problems in a different way than we would if they were ours. You shouldn't accept one outrage because it's better than another.
Yes it is if we were living in a poor country, because all things are relative. In a rich country like we have it's much easier to set high standards of living as the minimum than it is in a poor country. If you start saying the big companies can't have these sweatshops and have to apply western standards to the production process then they'll cease to be profitable and they may as well have production based nearer to the eventual sales market to reduce the transport costs. That would remove the jobs and money going into the poor countries by removing the jobs. If the sweatshops are better than the alternative then they shouldn't be condemned, over time they're introducing wealth to those countries who will then be able to improve standards across the board. If they chose to stay in those countries despite the increased standards they would create a rich elite in the country who would end up doing little for the poor. (corruption ensuring jobs at the factory went to the "right people")
