In Praise of the Maligned Sweatshop - New York Times
The New York Times

June 6, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

In Praise of the Maligned Sweatshop
By
NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

WINDHOEK, Namibia

Africa desperately needs Western help in the form of schools, clinics and
sweatshops.

Oops, don't spill your coffee. We in the West mostly despise sweatshops as
exploiters of the poor, while the poor themselves tend to see sweatshops as
opportunities.

On a street here in the capital of Namibia, in the southwestern corner of
Africa, I spoke to a group of young men who were trying to get hired as day
laborers
on construction sites.

"I come here every day," said Naftal Shaanika, a 20-year-old. "I actually
find work only about once a week."

Mr. Shaanika and the other young men noted that the construction jobs were
dangerous and arduous, and that they would vastly prefer steady jobs in,
yes,
sweatshops. Sure, sweatshop work is tedious, grueling and sometimes
dangerous. But over all, sewing clothes is considerably less dangerous or
arduous -
or sweaty - than most alternatives in poor countries.

Well-meaning American university students regularly campaign against
sweatshops. But instead, anyone who cares about fighting poverty should
campaign in
favor of sweatshops, demanding that companies set up factories in Africa. If
Africa could establish a clothing export industry, that would fight poverty
far more effectively than any foreign aid program.

Namibia was supposed to be a pioneer in Africa's garment industry, for it is
stable, pleasant and safe, and its government has tried hard to entice
foreign
investors. On the edge of Windhoek are a series of low factories set up to
produce garments for the American marketplace.

The biggest is the Ramatex Textile Factory, a Malaysian investment that
employs 6,000 people. But the owners say they are losing money and will pull
out,
and other factories have stopped operating as well.

In Windhoek's Chinatown, I met Sun Zhimei, a Chinese woman who operates a
small factory employing Namibians. "I'd like to help this country, by
boosting
its garment industry," she said. But on the day I visited, her factory was
deserted. "It's cheaper to import goods all the way from China than to make
them here," she complained.

The problem is that it's still costly to manufacture in Africa. The
headaches across much of the continent include red tape, corruption,
political instability,
unreliable electricity and ports, and an inexperienced labor force that
leads to low productivity and quality. The anti-sweatshop movement isn't a
prime
obstacle, but it's one more reason not to manufacture in Africa.

Imagine that a Nike vice president proposed manufacturing cheap T-shirts in
Ethiopia: "Look, boss, it would be tough to operate there, but a factory
would
be a godsend to one of the poorest countries in the world. And if we kept a
tight eye on costs and paid 25 cents an hour, we might be able to make a go
of it."

The boss would reply: "You're crazy! We'd be boycotted on every campus in
the country."

So companies like Nike, itself once a target of sweatshop critics, tend not
to have highly labor-intensive factories in the very poorest countries, but
rather more capital-intensive factories (in which machines do more of the
work) in better-off nations like Malaysia or Indonesia. And the real losers
are
the world's poorest people.

Some of those who campaign against sweatshops respond to my arguments by
noting that they aren't against factories in Africa, but only demand a
"living
wage" in them. After all, if labor costs amount to only $1 per shirt, then
doubling wages would barely make a difference in the final cost.

One problem - as the closure of the Namibian factories suggests - is that it
already isn't profitable to pay respectable salaries, and so any pressure to
raise them becomes one more reason to avoid Africa altogether. Moreover,
when Western companies do pay above-market wages, in places like Cambodia,
local
managers extort huge bribes in exchange for jobs. So the workers themselves
don't get the benefit.

One of the best U.S. initiatives in Africa has been the African Growth and
Opportunity Act, which allows duty-free imports from Africa - and thus has
stimulated
manufacturing there. But last year, partly because of competition from
China, textile and clothing imports under the initiative fell by 12 percent.

The Congo Republic's president, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, told me that he would
love to have more factories. It's incredibly frustrating, he noted, to see
African
countries export cotton, timber and other raw materials but rarely have the
chance to process them. The American initiative "is a step in the right
direction,"
he said. "But it needs more of a push."

One push needs to come from African countries themselves: a crackdown on
corruption and red tape. But another useful step would be for American
students
to stop trying to ban sweatshops, and instead campaign to bring them to the
most desperately poor countries.

Possted by Miriam V.