21941: Knowles on 21916: Esser: Re: 21880: Durban: About Labor Creation in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Phil Knowles <phildk@prodigy.net>

I cannot understand people who object to any and all low wage work in Haiti
but have no other suggestion for improving the economy.
I don't like squalid factories with painful working conditions. I think you
can have work and minimally decent conditions. Whether you can have "a
living wage" is certainly unclear - the wages have to be competitive or the
work will not come, and  some wage is probably better than no wage.  A
factory where you can try to improve conditions and raise wages is better
than no factory.
Haiti, unfortunately, is just another source of cheap labor in a global
evolution  - the work  gets done somewhere - shoes in South America, clock
radios and all our toys in China  -  while Haiti wrings her hands. Bleating
about profits leaving the country is well-intentioned, but it solves
nothing.
The neat thing about Haiti: look how close it is to the US! Yet it is unable
to compete with China, Sri Lanka, or India!  Is it acceptable to reform
Haiti into a sugar plantation and forced labor, just to stay away from
making shirts and pants for Walmart?