Today in Apparel Industry Disasters

Another horrible disaster in the global apparel industry. This time it was in the Philippines where at least 72 are dead after a fire burned a slipper factory. There might not have been many deaths, despite the fact that the sparks set off chemicals used in making the slippers, had the owners not put bars on the second floor windows. It does seem that this factory was producing strictly for the Philippine market. But that doesn’t mean the types of global labor standards I argue for in Out of Sight could not have an impact in a situation like this. Since I advocate the U.S. to more strongly regulate the goods entering the country and the factory conditions of American companies operating abroad while empowering workers to have the power to take these matters into their own hands, these standards would have a race to the top effect by making it harder for companies with substandard conditions and unsafe factories to operate. If workers could leave for safer factories, they would and other companies would presumably have to improve conditions to play catch-up. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t be as effective as I think, but we have to ensure that apparel made by American companies or for American consumers is produced ethically. Hopefully it would have cascading effects.