Mardi Gras: Made In China

I just watched the most fabulous documentary, Mardi Gras: Made in China. It is about the production of Mardi Gras beads and trinkets.

One girl that is followed in the doc is 18 and she has worked in the factory for 4 years. (Yes, do the math, she started when she was 14.) They work 12 hour shifts per day and live in dorms on the grounds of the factory. They share a bed with another worker since they only need the bed in shifts. So there are 10 girls in a room with 5 beds. They are only allowed to leave the factory compound on Sundays and only if they are not required to work that day. The workers are given a 10% bonus if they meet a certain level, but they are charged a 5% fee if they don't make their quota. This girls' quota was pulling 200 lbs of beads out of the molding machine per day. She pulls beads from the machine 3000 times per day. If she is caught talking while working she is fined an entire days pay. The factory finishes 8000 lbs of beads per day.

She makes a total of $62 per month and the factory employs 400 workers ($24800 per month, $300K per year)

The factory profits $1.5 million a year.

The company in the US that imports the beads and resells them to Walmart and Kmart profits $13 million a year.

They also covered a sewing house making Mardi Gras sewn goods. I just want to force every apparel importer in this country to watch this and say, LOOK... THIS is what you are supporting. Do you get that? When you place that order from the nice people over the phone, do you GET that this is the economy that you are supporting? Especially the manufacturer's of children's products. Can you imagine this life for your 14 year old?

These people's lifestyle includes being in a factory 14 hours per day every single day of the week and then every piece of what they make is shipped over here to be sold for pennies and thrown away like garbage. They slave their lives away while we disregard every bit of what is brought here. How many times have you bought dollar store garbage? How much plastic nonsense does your family consume and toss out every year? I know I am guilty of it too but I've made a commitment to make changes. I question every single thing I buy now. From food to household cleaners to birthday goodie bags. And I've always attributed most of our spending to used goods.

If everyone simply took 10 seconds to think about where every THING they put into their shopping carts came from - what it took to actually physically make it - and tried to change a small percentage of their buying to sweatshop free products.... wow, what a difference we could make.

Other fun things: All of the Mardi Gras beads are made from petroleum based products with Styrene in them which is a "possible human carcinogen" when melted and the fumes inhaled; if workers are caught showing affection for another worker, they are charged one month's pay; the female ratio of workers is kept no lower than 90% and preferred at 95% - the factory owner admitted it is because it is easier to control the women. sweet.

I was going to post my opinions on free trade as well, but far more intelligent and educated people than myself have already done a much better job of this:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/12/who_benefits_fr.html

Wow - I'm reading econ blogs. My roots are showing...

So, two other things to think about:

1. Just because you are not buying something at Walmart DOES NOT mean that it was manufactured and imported with fair wages and ethics. Someone (you know who you are!) once accused me of spitting on the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 by purchasing my burp cloths from Walmart. Yes - at one time I used to purchase the burp cloths that I use for the line at Walmart. However - these particular burp cloths are made in the USA. The implication was that buying a different brand at a froofier discounter was a better prospect than purchasing from Walmart. Walmart is pure evil, I get that, but don't kid yourself into thinking that any other retailer that you shop from isn't buying their goods from the exact same factories and just charging different prices for it and sticking a different label on it. The jeans you bought yesterday for $100 could very well have come from the exact same factory that the ones you might buy for $20 at a discount store. You can not make assumptions based upon the store itself!

This is a great resource for some major stores, but pretty much any major retailer is likely to have similar practices. Otherwise they would tell you that they DON'T:
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/responsibleshopper/companiesbyname.cfm#B
http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/sweatshops/scorecard.cfm


2. I dig green, I dig sustainable, and leave no carbon footprint rocks. All of the green and sustainable and organic products are fabulous, again don't get me wrong, but the emphasis that is placed on being organic deters us from questioning where it came from. Yay, I left no carbon footprint by buying this shirt, but the worker that sewed it made ten cents. When a manufacturer says, Hey, Look at Us, We're Green and Organic and Good.... what is being glossed over?

Shop locally. Know your retailer and question the manufacturing. Read labels!!!! I think you would be surprised to see where some of your food comes from. Apple juice from China? ... and we just miles from the nation's top apple-producing state, Washington. Why would that be necessary?

Consume deliberately!