Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: For scholars and activists engaged in understanding and improving working conditions in developing countries, the new millennium presents a landscape that is different from the preceding decades in many important ways. During much of the post-war period, transnational corporations (TNCs) established production and assembly sites, particularly in Latin America and Asia. This process only accelerated in the past twenty-five years, with many manufacturing plants closing down in the United States and relocating to countries that offered cheap labor and fewer health and safety regulations.

Many states and governments benefited directly or indirectly, legally or illegally from the establishment of TNCs. Others have made attempts to regulate and legislate foreign capital for the purpose of benefiting local industries. Initiatives to improve both wages and working conditions were mainly the result of organized or unorganized workers. Predominantly, local states and governments engaged in the suppression of these efforts.

After the downfall of the Soviet Union, and the virtual nonexistence of viable socialist societies, the efforts to address inequities acquired special characteristics. On theoretical and practical levels, scholars and activists contemplate the co-existence of market economies with effective means to ensure adequate wage levels and working conditions for its workers. Looking at it from one perspective, the issue at hand is to subordinate the market to social needs and social justice. From the opposite perspective, the stated objectives are capitalist market economies “with a human face.” Somewhere in between these two views, the simple question is “can profits and corporate responsibility co-exist as a viable form of economic organization?” Another distinguishing feature of efforts to address inequities is that political and social participation and change has become geographically localized, while simultaneously linking itself to global networks.

This manuscript examines attempts to improve wages and working conditions in the garment industry in three countries: Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua. In the landscape of the new millennium, the capacity and relevance of states is still important, but, many would argue, far less compared to the greater part of the past 150 years. Instead, the institutions that wield the greatest economic influence over the world economy are supra-national and not subject to scrutiny and accountability to the average citizen.

However, this hegemony has become increasingly challenged by a coalition of different constituencies that include labor unions and activists, human rights organizations, and corporate responsibility monitors. As is the case with the most important global capitalist institutions, the organization and functioning of this coalition cuts across geographical boundaries. Links between activist groups in developed countries with labor and community groups in developing countries have played an integral role in the mobilization effort.

The research in this manuscript shows that Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), comprised primarily of a cross-national network of solidarity that links grass roots organizers in export processing zones with students, consumer awareness groups, and independent monitoring efforts, has achieved the greatest success in pressuring brand-name retailers, local manufacturers, and local authorities to improve wages and working conditions. These NGOs have proven far more effective than alternative “top-down” mechanisms such as company-contracted monitors, and far more effective than government sponsored and sanctioned initiatives such as NAFTA.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper will explore the phenomenon of corporate monitoring in the apparel industry in terms of its original relationship to neo-liberal politics and to the struggle against those politics. The paper will then detail the role monitoring has played (both commercial and independent) in local struggles in key cases including Dominican Republic and Kukdong/Mexmode in Puebla, Mexico.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Development theorists exhort policy makers and apparel firms to upgrade by re-organinizing around Japanese-style lean techniques and/or full-package production to compete globally. The Mexican garment firm under study accomplished both, proclaimed by state and business leaders as a model firm. Howerver five years after the changes, the firm faces bankrupcy. I argue that third world firms, although competing and working with first world firms, face differential constraints. The case study will show how lower levels of capitalization and sunk costs incurred in becoming compatible with U.S. retailer work methods make the third world firms more vulnerable to global fluctuations. Data is based on 9 months of participant observation in a garment factory and over 70 in-depth interviews with workers and managers.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Vietnam offers a particularly intriguing case to study shifting patterns of industrial governance and labor/class dynamics. A Communist Party is spearheading (and trying to control) “reforms” that will relink it exports to global trade, open the country up to foreign investors, and move its economy toward increasing reliance on markets. The contradictory image of “market reform” by a communist led state, raises key issues about recent global economic restructuring, including debates about moves toward “flexible production,” the structure of new types of “buyer-driven commodity chains,” and arguments about positive and negative roles for states in the process of economic transformation.
This paper focuses on the recent emergence and growth of a western-oriented export apparel industry in Vietnam. It is based on co-author fieldwork between 1994 and this past fall (2003). After providing an overview of the garment production in the Asian Pacific Rim, we sketch out the recent history of the Vietnamese textile and garment industries. The focus is on the last decade when this manufacturing sector’s output and export volumes increased dramatically, foreign investment surged, various US trade agreements were enacted, and an industrial structure that was once monopolized by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) gave way a more differentiated one including foreign and domestic private companies, various types of joint ventures, and some privatization of SOEs. We attempt to offer some sense of how key actors from various social classes (local businesspeople, state bureaucrats and SOE managers, foreign investors and managers, and local workers) are agents in dynamics of change. Vietnam

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Laos PDR is one of the poorest countries in the Southeast Asian region with a GDP per capita of only US$500, and two-third of its 6 million population living on less than US$2 per day. In order to promote its economy, the Government of Laos introduced a new economic industrial policy called the New Economic Mechanism in 1986. Since then, its economy has transformed from a centrally planned to a market oriented economy. In addition, its industrial sector has grown steadily especially the garment industry, which currently holds the largest export share.

This study focuses on the garment industry and examines how its skills development is carried out. The study was conducted in Vientiane, Capital City of Laos, PDR, and interviews were conducted to government officers, specialists in development organizations such as UNIDO and JICA, and managers in 21 local garment factories.

The study found that the garment industry has the potential to promote Laos’ economic growth; however, the sector does not receive much support from the government. The skills development is primarily conducted by each garment factory and there are issues of shortage of skilled workers and low repetition of workers.