The Price is Wrong

The cost of clothing made by factory workers in Nicaragua is no game.

It all began while I was walking down the street looking at everyone wearing jeans. It seemed as though 3 out of 4 people had a pair of jeans on. Everyone knows that we can get this “staple of North American fashion” by looking in almost any retail store. But, where do our jeans really come from?

It’s starting to become common knowledge that the fashion industry out sources a large majority of its manufacturing to overseas manufactures. We see labels on our clothes that read: “made in China”, “made in India”, and “made in Turkey”; but never really think about the folks who actually sit down and construct a garment from the waist-band up. A lot of the news on overseas manufacturers over the past decade has been generally negative, with the words “Sweatshop” and “Child Labour” being thrown around like chicken feed. The fact is, over the past decade the International Labour Standards has increased major fashion outsourcing countries GDP to astounding new heights.

It’s not only the fashion industry that out sources front line work to overseas countries. Almost every industry from automotive, to customer service is now outsourcing to cheaper, quality-focused countries intent on building a more stable economy for their population. Some say that without having the benefit of incoming cash flow from the outsourcing corporations into over-populated or developing countries, the citizens of the countries would be forces not only to work for far lower wages, but may be forces into illegal and degrading industries such as gun trade, sex trade, and human trafficking.

Getting back to my thoughts on where jeans come from: I was so interested, that I ended up going home and researching where some major North American retailers get their jeans produced. Once I started digging into it a bit, I found out that J.C. Penny, Wal-Mart, Kohl’s, K-Mart, and several other major retailers get their jeans manufactured in Nicaragua. There are four major jean-manufacturing plants there; a Taiwanese company called Nien Hsing Textile Co. Ltd owns them all. Together, they produce 90,000 pairs of jeans each day. The flagship factory, Chentex, produces 22,000 of these.

Nien Hsing Textile was founded as a producer of various types of denim in 1986. The company went public in 1999 with approximately $31.2 million in profits on sales of $154.9 million. By those numbers, one of the smaller companies listed on the market.

Recently, an unnamed reporter and photographer were allowed into the Chentex compound. Although seeing a crowded, nauseating atmosphere they didn’t witness any instances of physical or verbal abuse or other problems raised by the National Labor Committee.

“It was crowded but reasonably clean inside Chentex, although lint dust from the acres of denim in the plant irritated eyes and noses. Salsa music played on a sound system in the sewing and cutting area. The restrooms were clean but provided no toilet paper, which is not uncommon in Nicaragua, a country where people carry their own or do without.”
The article went on to include a brief description of the buildings over-all appearance. Being in a “free-trade-zone” of Nicaragua, the building was designed specifically for the intense heat. Steel walls with openings along the top that act as makeshift windows make up the outer shell of the complex. There is a large gap that runs along the entirety of the building, designed to let hot air out. They even have air conditioning in the embroidery and office areas.

The unnamed reporter continues by describing the largest area of the plant “The cutting and sewing area takes up most of the plant. But because Chentex makes jeans, it also has a laundry. The smell of chemicals used to wash and soften the denim dominates that area. The drum-shaped washers can handle as many as 100 pairs of jeans in each load. The pipes above them look like they're barely holding together, bound with layers of tape. The dryers are 6 feet high, capable of drying 200 pounds at a time. The floors are wet; the machines, loud.”

Carlos Yiin, the current plant manager, talks about his experience with management issues:

"A long time ago, I told supervisors not to say bad words," Yiin said. "Sometimes they said, 'If you don't stay today, you don't come Saturday.' "

Yiin continued: "We tell them (the supervisors) to behave well."

Yiin maintained that despite the criticism from American activists, conditions in the plants in Nicaragua are much better than those at factories in his native China.

"In China, the salary is only $30 to $40 a month," Yiin said. "In here, the salary is $150. In China, they can do anything they want. They don't need to take care of health care for workers."

Two-and-a-half years ago the Nicaraguan Government passed new labour laws that require employers to pay for health insurance. They also passed a mandate that provides workers with two months of paid vacation every year – one for personal vacation and one for Christmas. Workers claim that conditions have improved since the debut of their union.

The last known accurate figure of wages at Chentex was reported in 1999 and show that the employees make an average of 3 dollars a day, which over the past 8 years has been raised to a claimed 5 dollars a day.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Kmart Corp., Target Corp. and J.C. Penney Co. are a few of the major retailers that buy large quantities of jeans from Chentex, however, it’s the rapidly growing Kohl’s (USA) that has landed itself in the spotlight for its buying habits regarding Chentex. In 2000 there were massive protests outside of Kohl’s department stores, which were directly linked to the working conditions at Chentex.

The word sweatshop is defined as factories that pays substandard wages and provides a substandard working environment. Not knowing the standard for Nicaragua, I couldn’t say if Chentex would be considered a sweatshop, however, I can say that Chentex wouldn’t exist without the implicit support from company’s like Wal-Mart, Target, and Kohl’s. If these company’s are the primary reason Chentex exists, its logical to say the corporations keeping Chentex in business owe the workers some recognition. In this regard Chentex can be linked to North American, multi-billion dollar, corporations which would never allow employees to work in a Chentex-type work environment.

Simply because poor countries have citizens that are willing to work for substandard wages to make huge North American corporations richer, should it be allowed? Do Canadians have a responsibility to ensure fairness with regard to the millions of pairs of jeans we buy each year? Those questions can only be answered by the individual. You’ll have to ask yourself, where do your jeans come from?