Folks,
Worker abuse is no laughing matter, but concern should be reserved for real
cases. A current article follows below with my comments interspersed. My
thesis is what exploited and child labor goods are produced worldwide, they
do not make it to the USA, simply because such labor is unreliable for a
market that needs reliability, such as ours. The conditions below sound like
something Upton Sinclair would describe; not true, but necessary to advance
the cause of people who want raises.
To wit (widen the email window so the spacing corrects):
Report: Factory Workers Beaten
By Christopher Newton
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2001; 8:12 p.m. EST
WASHINGTON –– Factory workers in American Samoa who
made clothes for J.C. Penney
Co. and other retailers were beaten, poorly fed and
cheated out of wages, according to a Labor
Department report.
(Felonies all!)
The report, dated Dec. 14, said the 300 workers at
the plant were fed meager rations of rice,
chicken broth and cabbage and resembled "walking
skeletons." The plant closed in January.
(Criminal!)
The Labor Department report was made public by the
National Labor Committee – an
anti-sweatshop activist group working to expose poor
conditions at overseas factories and
pressure retailers to improve conditions at plants.
(Or perhaps to unjustly deny US consumers choice by limiting competition from
imports.)
Labor Department officials declined to comment on the
report Tuesday.
(Why? If it is true, then let us know and let the prosecutions begin. If
not true, then say so.)
J.C. Penney stopped selling the factory's clothes
when it learned of the problems in December.
(And were they ever happy to be able to cancel orders in season where they
way overbought on inventory. What luck!).
It also canceled contracts with supplier M. Hidary &
Co., which ordered goods from the
factory, according to a letter from J.C. Penney vice
president Peter McGrath to Charles
Kernaghan, spokesman for the National Labor
Committee. The letter, dated Feb. 1, also said
Hidary had paid the workers back wages.
(Hidary would be what we call an overseas agent. Now the workers have a
choice, go home to Vietnam or find a another job in Samoa. It would be
interesting to know of their choice. If the "walking skeleton" charge were
true, was this from life in Samoa or life in Vietnam?)
J.C. Penney officials did not return several calls
seeking comment on Tuesday.
Kernaghan said the Labor Department report shows that
large retailers are failing to police
factories they contract to produce goods.
(A non sequitor.)
"What happened to the screening process? What
happened to the monitoring program? It
didn't happen here," Kernaghan said.
(What happened to the author, the date, the details of the report? This is a
rush to judgment. It is very likely "here" didn't happen here.)
"These violations throw into doubt how serious J.C.
Penney is about stopping these kinds of
abuses. Without a Department of Labor investigation,
this would have continued."
(If any abuses in fact took place, which the Labor Department will not
confirm. So Kernaghan goes too far.)
The factory, owned by Korean manufacturer Daewoosa,
employed mainly Vietnamese women
flown to the U.S. Pacific territory and paid below
the Samoan minimum wage of $2.60 an
hour, the report said. Most federal labor standards
are supposed to apply in U.S. territories.
(The word "spinster" comes from the women who moved from Ireland to USA to
work in textile factories to escape Ireland... in factories owned by
foreignors and paid low wages and so on... why are we so eager to outlaw for
others precisely the means we used to move ahead?)
The women lived 36 to a room, and were slapped or
kicked if they were late for work. They
were also watched while they bathed, the report said.
One federal investigator likened the
factory compound to a prison.
(Assault, invasion of privacy...what one might see as a prison keeping people
in another may see as a fort keeping predators out...the last thing a
Vietnamese girl hoping to improve her life working overseas needs is sexual
assault in a strange land...but again no confirmation from the source of the
report. Why have our civil servants fallen silent?)
The employees have sued Daewoosa, alleging their
wages were withheld and they were charged
up to $200 – almost half their salary – for
accommodation that had been promised for free.
The status of that lawsuit was uncertain.
(A report has material information on specific crimes and felonies yet a
civil suit is lodged? After all these crimes and felonies all they want is
some back wages? Something is fishy here...)
Daewoosa lawyers would not comment while the case was
before the courts.
(Which courts? $200 in back wages? That is small claims court. Why is this
article so short on information?)
The Labor Department reported (sic) was first
reported Tuesday by The New York Times.
(Well, what else do we need? Aside from lazy editors, apparently the
newspaper of record can no longer spot a bogus story.)
© Copyright 2001 The Associated
Press
Wednesday, February 7, 2001
Workers Beaten For JC Penney
Tuesday, February 6, 2001
Re: RE: [spiers] Re: Trade Worldwide Classroom Password
In a message dated 2/6/01 10:07:57 AM, rlmurray1@qwest.net writes:
<< Without customers one merely has a hobby with potential.
Start with "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael E. Gerber and grow your idea
into a business instead of owning a job. >>
Ahem...or, as an alternative, start with my class....(but I do love "merely
hobby with potential" and "owning a job"))
John Spiers
Re: [spiers] Re: Trade Worldwide Classroom Password
Without customers one merely has a hobby with potential.
Start with "The E-Myth Revisited" by Michael E. Gerber and grow your idea
into a business instead of owning a job.
-----Original Message-----
From: Good Angel [mailto:goodangel27@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2001 8:52 PM
To: spiers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [spiers] Re: Trade Worldwide Classroom Password
Science has proven that no experiment that is observed can be truly
objective due to the fact that the observer influences the experiment
by the very fact of his observation. If you believe a premise or a
hypothesis to be true and you perform the experiment often enough you
will eventually get results that will lead you to the conclusions you
want. The questions is not whether or not the premise, customer first,
manufacture second, is true for John. The answer is if you believe it
will work for you, it will work for you, just as it works for John
whether you believe it or not because he does. "MidnightRider."
--- wileyccc@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 1/31/01 6:27:04 AM, ar writes:
>
> << Is finding customers is part of this course?
>
> ***yes, I feel strongly if one has no customers, one has no
> business***
>
> The great discovery every novice makes:
> " in any field there is a club, whose
> members deal with each other primarily."
>
> ***this novice made that discovery too, and I hope my course reflects
> that
> knowledge.***
>
> The trick is to be accepted in the club.
>
> ***Yes, and I lay out steps I believe are the shortest distance
> between
> outside and in***
>
> This entrance
> fee takes couple of years of pain and suffering.
>
> ***"Passion" means "pain", and hence the first exercises we do are
> related to
> determining what your passions are - after 25 years it is still
> painful to
> see others products who arent quite right, or worse yet, competitors
> products
> who sometimes are better, if you are passionate, the pain never
> goes...but
> the entrance fee is providing a value, not pain and suffering, and
> certainly
> not years to get in. You can get in on day one by providing a value,
> and the
> entrance committee is customers. they decide if you are allowed in
> or not,
> so again, that is why we start with customers.***
>
> I understand it, so I am looking for a member of the
> club to work for.
>
> ***This is always an option, but you dont need a class to work for
> somone
> else, this class is designed for those who wish to start a company
> from
> scratch...***
>
> You make the class fun, but the joke is on us, is it?
>
> ***I truly do try to make the class fun, even going as far as
> studying M V
> Martialis for tips on epigrammatics, the style best suited to
> internet relay
> chat communication. But I am baffled as to what the joke would be,
> and why
> would it be on the students...please do elucidate.***
>
> You wrote:
> ***this .. without customers you are doomed, and you
> need no partners to get customers.***
> OK.
> What is the secret? My impression is the secret is:
> staying in business for 2 years,
> nocking at 1000 doors,
> being rejected 99% of the time,
>
> ***I think this is what most people do, nothing secret aboout it, and
> it is a
> terrible waste, and certainly not what those successful have done.
> As you
> will see, the patterns I lay out are nothing like you imagine
> here.***
>
> until (if ever) you become accepted as a legitimate
> member of the club.
> 99% of aspirants are broke in that time financially,
> psyckologically, physically, and become taxi drivers
> and computer programmers. The rest 1%, the lucky ones,
> prove it can be done, so new suckers would keep trying
>
> ***again, membership is decided by customers, no one else. if you
> provide a
> value, you are a member from day one. merely proposing to provide a
> value
> has always made me a member from day one. the only question is HOW
> MUCH
> value you provide, and you can tell how much value you provide by
> your
> income. yes, very many people do not succeed at business (or at
> poetry, or
> at love, or at mathematics, or any of many attempts, but somehow life
> goes
> on...I am passionate about skiing, sex and chess, but not very good
> at any of
> them...am I bitter? heck no... I just keep at it and hope my partners
> dont
> quit on me.)... What this class offers is a detailed look at what
> steps may
> be taken to start a real business, steps those you see who have
> succeeded
> took. If 99% fail, it is because 99% did not provide a value in the
> marketplace. Ski lessons from someone who knows how might help me.***
>
> You started working FOR SOMEBODY, which is a
> secret of success probably.
> But you boldly declared that you can teach us the
> trick of breaking in on our own.
>
> ***yes, at 19 I went to work for an import company as a delivery boy.
> I went
> to work for others who started their own businesses. It took at
> least ten
> years to learn what it takes to start my own business (I am a slow
> learner)... then I started my own... the skills necessary to work for
> someone
> else are not the skills necessary to start your own biz... this class
>
> focusses on starting your own, something I started teaching because
> nobody
> else teaches this (there are some who claim to, but they dont bother
> with
> finding customers or suppliers or products). Not only do i teach
> what it
> takes to start your own, I take you through the very steps. I dont
> want you
> to take my word for anything...I want you to go through the steps
> that those
> who are successful go through, and then you tell me what happens.***
>
> The message is too sckeptical to say it in the class,
> I don't want to be a "party pooper", so I am sending
> it outside of class. >>
>
> *** I actually enjoy the challenges...but if your premises are wrong,
> might
> your conclusions be wrong?****
>
> john
>
=====
we teach that which we most need to learn.
we reject in others that which we most need to love in ourselves.
TO err is human but to forgive is divine.
Divinity anyone?
Monday, February 5, 2001
Re: [spiers] Re: Trade Worldwide Classroom Password
Science has proven that no experiment that is observed can be truly
objective due to the fact that the observer influences the experiment
by the very fact of his observation. If you believe a premise or a
hypothesis to be true and you perform the experiment often enough you
will eventually get results that will lead you to the conclusions you
want. The questions is not whether or not the premise, customer first,
manufacture second, is true for John. The answer is if you believe it
will work for you, it will work for you, just as it works for John
whether you believe it or not because he does. "MidnightRider."
Good Angel