Michigan featured in 'Badidas' sweatshop article
Link: http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/dollars/post/_/id/3390/why-are-college…
So Nike and Adidas are sweatshoppers.....
Coming in the 2017 football season...?
....Under Armour is now "in the conference," (founder is a Maryland guy) I think this is a genuine possibility.
April 30th, 2013 at 12:38 PM ^
I guess this is why Michigan is going with Adidas:
University of Michigan currently enjoys the most lucrative adidas contract in college athletics, a deal worth $60 million.
April 30th, 2013 at 10:12 AM ^
IIRC one of the reasons Bill Martin went to Adidas was their environmental record and their transparency WRT their overseas production facilities. Irony!!
Word from people at Nike is that they have a countdown clock to when the adidas contract runs out, at which point they will pay 'whatever the cost' to carry the Michigan Athletics brand. Plus, nearly 2/3 of our student athletes said in their end-of-year exit interviews that they would be able to perform better with Nike products.
Fear not for the future, DB will get his money and our athletes wont have to wear tear-away jerseys.
for people smarter and more in tune with the issue than me: If the west stops using these types of shops how do those working in them make a living? Again, I don't have the answer but it is a question I always find myself coming back to when I hear about these.
I would also like to know what the average income is in these countries to get an accurate estimation on just how poorly these people are getting paid in relation to their fellow countrymen.
One thing I can say is in the economic climate we find ourselves in today, jobs are jobs. Even in my country (which has faired pretty well through all of this economic turmoil) jobs are difficult to come by and when you look at places like Spain (30% unemployment rate) it really puts things in perspective.
So what I always wonder is if we shut these things down, what would that do to those who were employed there? Also, if the pay that they receive (though very low to us) was near the average pay people receive in that country...why is it such a bad thing?
The consequences for the dismissed children and their parents were not anticipated. The children may have been freed, but at the same time they were trapped in a harsh environment with no skills, little or no education, and precious few alternatives. Schools were either inaccessible, useless or costly. A series of follow-up visits by UNICEF, local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) discovered that children went looking for new sources of income, and found them in work such as stone-crushing, street hustling and prostitution — all of them more hazardous and exploitative than garment production. In several cases, the mothers of dismissed children had to leave their jobs in order to look after their children.
Also:
http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1da717/til_during_the_19…
This is a very tricky topic. But its just the way the global economy works right now
The circumstances that give rise to the desperation that leads seeking employment in sweatshops are engineered. There's a documentary called Life and Debt that everyone should see.
April 30th, 2013 at 10:13 AM ^
Thanks for the info on the documentary. I'll try to find that.
Just for reference, the minimum wage in Bangladesh is 38 dollars a month, citizens of other countries where these shops exist may not be so "lucky".
It's just a developmental stage in capitalism. The US, UK, and all the other industrialized nations went through this years ago.
April 30th, 2013 at 10:20 AM ^
Here is an example of your point.
Its not fair or pretty but much like bankrupcy, forest fires, and batman we fall so we can learn to pick ourselves up.
It is however our fault that american and global consumers demand price drops across all products to the point where almost every manufacturing job is being moved to the 3rd world.
April 30th, 2013 at 11:47 AM ^
It's not consumer demand for price drops - it's Capital's need for surplus-value. Market saturation happens so capital finds ways to extract more out of its costs in order to continue creating profits.
April 30th, 2013 at 11:26 AM ^
Not like this.
There was a difference between American firms paying children sub-standard wages during our industrialization and what is occurring here.
Adidas (or their contractor) is in Bangladesh specifically because life in Bangladesh is so terrible that their horrible jobs are slightly better than other alternative horrible jobs. In the US, as workers organized, and the government passes Labor Laws, coporations stayed in the country, abided by the laws, and increased wages (at least, until the last 15-20 years or so).
If the Bangladeshi government begins cracking down, or the workers start to organize, Adidas, a multi-national coporation, isn't going to stick around and pay wages while the nation develops. They will uproot, find a sweat-shop in a nation that will allow itself to be exploited, just as Bangladesh does, and all the people in their current employ will be dropped back down to where they started.
It's a fundamentally different world than when we industrialized.
April 30th, 2013 at 12:56 PM ^
"It's a fundamentally different world than when we industrialized."
Absolutely incorrect. Transportation costs have gone down, but that's it.
Your argument is sound; what people always assume is that $1US=$1 in another country so the fact that some worker is only making $38/day is blasphemy. In reality, since most of these sweatshops are located in 3rd world and/or developing economies, your choice is $38/day or farming/fishing for 12 hours a day, and then attempt to sell your wares aka no steady income.
I am still kind of at a loss as to how you can contract with someone and be on the hook for the cost of labor though, must be a low risk/high reward item the local Gov. puts in and this time it bite Adidas in the butt.
April 30th, 2013 at 10:11 AM ^
38 dollars per day (a totally hypothetical number, I know) there may be the equivelent of 200 dollars per day here when cost of living and other things are taken into account for all I know.
The poster Jblaze does offer some other ideas as to why this may be a problem that I hadn't really thought a lot about though, those being the working conditions, long hours and things of that nature.
April 30th, 2013 at 11:32 AM ^
I mean...do you see the distinction between poverty existing, and profiting from it existing?
April 30th, 2013 at 12:20 PM ^
What I asked was whether these jobs were really that much worse in terms of pay and working conditions than other jobs that people of that country have to pick from? If they are than that's one thing, shut them down. If they aren't though, and these people actually like the jobs and live well off the pay they receive (when comparing them to others in the same country) what does removing shops like this accomplish? Probably nothing more than putting a shit load of people out of work.
I would be all for Adidas and any other company who takes part in things like this to provide work here in North America because heaven knows there are plenty of people looking for jobs here. The problem then becomes what happens to all those people who were once under their employ in these third world countries?
I mean...it's easy for you or me to sit here and look down our noses at the money these people make when jobs pay so much more here. What I want to know is what THEY feel about it. Not you or me, but the people who are actually doing the work and getting the money. Do they feel exploited? I don't know the answer to that question but that is what I'm interested in not what some guy living in Chicago thinks about it.
You and I might think we're doing the right things and for the right reasons but those who are actually affected by the loss of these jobs might not thank us for taking food off their tables.
The argument is not for Adidas to pull production from foreign soil and place it in the US. Being in foreign lands is not what landed them in this place.
Contracting with factories that subject workers to subhuman and unsafe conditions (as evidenced by the recent disaster in Bangladesh) in countries with corrupt governments that subject them to no regulation is the problem. I don't want "the food taken off the table" of Bengladeshi's, I want a multi-billion dollar corporation to not use the poverty of a third-world hell-hole as an opportunity to make an extra 5% in margin. Put the production in Bangladesh, hell put ALL the production in Bangladesh. Just:
1) Don't conciously put production in places for the express purpose of shirking government regulation
2) Don't produce goods in unsafe place.
Adidas is more than powerful enough to make their contracted labor provider use a building that isn't falling down. They decided to not do anything about it. That's the problem.
I think I am not expressing what I want to say very well so I'll try one last time. I have all the same issue with what has happened as you do and agree 100% with what you are saying. I also don't have nearly as good a grasp on all the politics that go on in situations like this (which you seem to from your posts).
But when I read posts like yours it seems that they are saying (to me at least) that in a perfect world this is what should happen. My point is just that we don't live in a perfect world, so would people in west making a big stink about what happened in Bangladesh make Adidas more accountable and have them clean up their act or would it cause them to close up shop and move to another unfortunate country where they could simply do the same things?
If the answer is they would clean up their act than I would be behind it 100%. If it meant that Bangladesh would develop labour laws and protect their workforce that would be fantastic. But if the answer is they would simply pack up and move (which seems more likely in my admittedly limited understanding) than all that would be accomplished is many people becoming unemployed.
Anyway, I just wanted to make my point more clear in that I agree with everything you're saying. I just wonder whether in the reality of the situation these changes people speak of are all that likely to come to pass or if they are just a fantasy, and pushing will just leave lots and lots of people out of work. I want to be clear...It's the people I am concerned about, not any of these companies that exploit them.
April 30th, 2013 at 11:33 AM ^
I used to do a lot of travel back and forth to india in the 2004-2007 timeframe. Jobs such as a live in cook/house keeper or full time driver (and I really do mean full time, like sleep in the car full time) paid on the order of $100-150 US per week iirc and were generally considered reasonably desirable jobs by many people there. In many parts of the world, what is considered a sweatshop in the US can actually be a fairly highly desirable job. And reasonably make the difference between homeless and/or starving and living a survivable life.
April 30th, 2013 at 11:51 AM ^
I assure you Capital will never pay for labor at a price greater than the maintenance of the local standard of living. It has absolutely no insentive to do so and every incentive to pay as little as necessary. To not do so would be "leaving margin on the table."
April 30th, 2013 at 10:18 AM ^
I think the biggest issue is really the lack of roots of these factories. For example there used to be a lot more athletic shoes made in Thailand, however overtime using internal and external pressure the workers pushed the daily wage in the factories up. Eventually the workers finally got brave enough to demand a sizable raise and within a year many of the factories had relocated to China. Supposedly the same thing has been happening in the electronics industry.
Basically the factory isn't capable of becoming an engine of economic advancement, it is just there to exploit the fact that working in a shitty factory for shitty pay is slightly better than working on a shittier farm for shittier pay. Plus the profits go to the parent company which is located in some other country, so the nation state as a whole doesn't get a benefit. At least during America's sweatshop area the money stayed within America since American companes ran the sweatshops.
Also's China's impact on all of this is a problem. The Chinese government actively works to control the wages of migrant workers to keep China attractive for manufacturing. Many companies love setting up in China because they tell the workers "We'd totally bump you from $1.25 a day to $1.50 a day, but the CCP says we can't."
April 30th, 2013 at 12:12 PM ^
What you describe is a textbook definition of exploitation.
It would be more concise for you just to state that you believe in the exploitatin of poverty to maximize profits.
Howver, we don't believe that to be true in the US. Such an approach is described as "unethical" and "immoral."
April 30th, 2013 at 12:32 PM ^
Sorry if your post wasn't directed at me but I am having a difficult time figuring out who is responding to whom in this thread.
I will say that if it was me it was directed at I absolutely don't agree with the exploitation of poverty to maximize profits. The only people I am concerned about in any of this are the people who have to live in these countries.
I couldn't care less if adidas went under tomorrow, or any other company who takes part in these practices. I also couldn't care less if I had to pay extra for a t-shirt if it meant these folks could make a better living doing what they do. My concern is what happens to these employees if we stop these companies?
I think the problem is we keep trying to compare what these people are making and the environments in which they are working to what we have here in North America...but they aren't in North America. Perhaps when compared to other workers in the same country these people might not feel as "exploited" as we like to think.
I guess what I am saying is maybe these people are happy with what they have. If that's the case, what right do we have to close down these shops and in so doing render thousands of people unemployed just because it doesn't align with what we think is "ethical"?
Again, what I have is questions, not answers but many here think they have the answers when really it just looks like they are making a lot of assumptions without any facts.
April 30th, 2013 at 12:56 PM ^
Ignorance is bliss and happiness that results due to a lack of understand from opprtunity cost is meaningless.
For example in this documentary check out at the 25:00 minute mark, where the public face of the union says exactly what the company wants her to say (everyone is happy, etc). Right after that you get the workers saying what they really think. I definitely recommend watching the entire thing.
This isn't the best example, but lets say your town builds the Hoover Dam. 22 people will die during its construction, but soon after you'll have the giant cash cow that is Las Vegas due to the economic resources generated by the dam. Whereas lets say your town builds a garment factory, no one dies but five generations from now your kids are still are still sewing together Nikes in sweatshop conditions due to the fact pay has never gone much above the subsistence level.
In both of those cases, you're happy because both dam construction and shoe sewing pay better than farming, but one of those cases you're getting screwed in the long run. However you're happy due to your lack of education or economic knowledge and the fact you no longer run the risk of being gored by a water buffalo while farming. If you educated a worker on what he (well likely his kids and grandkids) could have had by following a Korean or Japanese model of industralization versus working away at a garment factory, I bet he's suddenly a lot less happy.
I'd also say you're overreacting in terms of closing down the factories and rendering people unemployed. No one, aside from some insane fringe groups, wants to just close it down and create unemployment. The issue is that despite having billions of dollars of market share these companies are not engaging in sustainable actions that will get the people beyond subsistence level. Instead they're just hiring 8 year olds and making them career shoe assemblers. In fact when the companes are asked to engage in sustainable activity (al la Indonesia) they (well Addidas) breaks the law to avoid paying out anything. Or when unions form and actually demand fair wages, the company just up and relocates to some other area where the labor isn't organized.
The other issue is humane treatment. It's not so bad that people (sometimes kids) are paid little vs US wages, but that they are treated so poorly (super long work hours, no workers comp, no breaks...).
Just so you know, the issue that caused the recent bad press wasn't the use of child labor but they closed a shop and refused to pay the workers what they were owed.
Has Adidas done anything well with Michigan? Honestly. Has anyone ever thought to themselves, "Wow, that _______ is impressive. Good job Adidas!" Well, they do pay lots of $? Ah, I guess that's the only thing that matters in college sports now, so as long as they keep the money flowing...
I personally liked the Sugar Bowl uniforms and the basketball throwback this year.
2013 football t-shirt.
2013 gear is starting to come out on MDen
To answer your question: NO
I didnt know the whole shirt-as-a-dress womens fashion thing was crossing over into guy's fashion. Looks like I'm going to have to shave these chewbacca legs if I'm wearing that shirt...
/s in case you dont get the joke.
I like my Adidas hoodies. Very comfortable. Better than the Nike ones IMHO.
At the same time, MBB and the football team's jerseys look cheap.
Howeva, I'm not sure that I want to see what the LSD-addled designers of the COMBAT UNIFORMZ!!!! will come up with for Michigan.
Finally, for the poster above who advocated UnderArmour, I present for your viewing pleasure
Don't mind the matte black helmets...just everything else.
contrast that with the fantastic job they did for Northwestern. ultimately its up to the school to OK or not OK the designs. The Thunderbees jerseys, the horrific Alabama Jerseys and the Capital One bowl disasters are all our university's fault for saying "yeah, we can do that." I assure you, there's no way in hell they have creative control over what we wear on game days.
April 30th, 2013 at 11:58 AM ^
People way overdo the adidas thing. The clothing is not that bad. Adidas makes better hoodies and sweatpants then Nike. And im pretty sure Addas put in the contract a guarantee that U-M would be the highest paid university. The only thing I miss about Nike is real maize. People don't remember this but Nike was ready to leave us in 2000 because of the student protests. In 07' they were trying to lowball Bill Martin. Supposedly we didn't have the cache anymore.
The big thing here is money. 32million more than Nike over 8 years. Think about that and how long our basketball facilities went into decay. The cost for the player devolopment center was 23 million. 53 Million for renovating Chrysler. Cut 32 mil out of our budget, do those things happen? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But at the very least the Adidas $ has helped.
As a supplement to the discussion, here is the lawsuit filed by the University Of Wisconsin last July (LINK).
One of the more interesting portions of the filing asserts that Adidas indeed also broke Indonesian labor laws in the process. As of the time the suit was filed last summer, that they had been the only company that employed the facility to not contribute towards the government's calculated total compensation for the 2,700 employees (some $1.8 million of $3.4 million at that point in time). I assume that the settlement means this lawsuit eventually gets dropped (per the article), but it is still an interesting read.
Not to overly stereotype labor laws in LDCs but if you are BREAKING INDONESIAN LABOR LAWS your labor practices probably really suck.
Keep it simple. Keep it classy.
It don't matter who makes it.
