The article goes on to talk about ‘protectionism and how Brazil in particular is addressing this plan with the use of this economic idea. Protectionism is, “the theory, practice, or system of fostering or developing domestic industries by protecting them from foreign competition through duties or quotas imposed on importations” (Protectionism). So pretty much it’s saying that in the United States case, we would be protected from competing with other countries to produce certain goods but putting certain numbers allowed in on foreign imports. No wonder other nations are upset with this fact. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva also stated the following, “Now they [the United States] had created a crisis they should not turn to the protectionism which had so often held the world back” (Obama). I feel that President Lula is nicely saying that we just have to ‘roll with the punches’ and try and get out of this economic slump without taking away business from other countries that the U.S. does business with.
I thought it was interesting to think that if this happened in the case of the t-shirt international trade system what might occur? If for some reason China told the cotton growers in Lubbock, Texas that they weren’t going to take cotton from the United States anymore, but instead from their own Chinese cotton-farmers, how would the United States, particularly the cotton farmers handle that?
Another article from a website off of bbc.com, comes from the middle of January of this year and discusses sweatshop conditions in a UK factory. Some of the complaints by the investigator of the story, as well as the employees were that the environment they were working in was too cold, too cramped, and had safety hazards throughout it (i.e. boxes blocking fire exits) (Primark). Not only were the working conditions in the actual factory not very safe or very pleasant for the employees, but the workers hours were in the proximity of 12 hours a day for seven days a week. In this article child labor is also talked about. It talks about how Primark, the company being investigated, gets the clothing it works on in the sweatshop in question from a factory in India that has children working for them. It doesn’t seem like Primark can catch a break in this case (Primark).
The most interesting part of this story to me is that we aren’t discussing a far away nation who is in the ‘sweatshop business.’ But, instead we’re talking about the UK! I’ve been to the UK! I think it’s a little bit easier to live with the idea of children and workers going through these horrible working conditions when we know that they live in a far away country like India and China. I’ve never been to either one of these countries, and not that they don’t exist but in my mind they don’t really hit me because I’ve never experienced either country. If this is happening in the UK who’s to say that in some small town or big city in our own country something like this isn’t happening?
This directly relates to the talk given in the video in the previous class because the author talks about child labor and horrible conditions that some of these workers have to work in. For example, the women in China who are all set up in rows and simply do the same job over and over again, making the task at hand probably very boring. I’m sure the people involved in the sweatshop in the UK are working (or worked) in very similar conditions.
Work Cited
"Obama signs $787bn Stimulus Plan." BBC News. 17 Feb. 2009. BBC. 17 Feb. 2009
"Primark linked to UK sweatshops." NewsRound. 13 Jan. 2009. BBC. 17 Feb. 2009
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_7820000/newsid_7826500/7826559.stm>.
"Protectionism." Protectionism. 17 Feb. 2009
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