Of course, India is a very cheap place. You could simply avoid buying some pairs of jeans and save some money and then take yourself and your money to India and start up an ethical factory. For instance.

DK

If you’re suggesting that the children should still be employed but that Primark and others might insist on a tad of education for them as well: I’m with you. My argument with what is happening started with hte point that the children have all been fired….which isn’t a good thing.

That’s true, but if Primark or French Connection or Benetton or whoever wants to do the right thing then having a local representative who states upfront what a Western fashion house is prepared to tolerate in employment conditions in return for allowing children to work on clothes for them, is the way to go BEFORE the abuse begins, not after.

The incentive is clearly that if an employer in India would like a higher margin of a Western fashion house, then they’d have to accept that they’re not going to make as much profit as they thought by hiring orphan children on thruppence a day and pocketing the difference.

I think I’ve now gotten through to people that application of capitalism without comprehension of social impacts is a very high risk strategy for a Western importer of discretionary goods.

Oh, and looking after orphans is India’s responsibility, not Primark’s.

you’ve not been to Primark recently, have you?

Bullshit.

I also find it astonishing that we have people on this website not distinguishing between fungible goods like oil which has a worldwide price set on it, and highly discretionary goods like fashionable jeans where the value is set mainly by the reputation of the fashion label.

So it isn’t good business for Primark to continue to use child labour to produce its line of jeans, because its customers (western women with discretionary income who can afford to make choices based on fashion) would turn and despise the label.

That means that Primark will have to break contracts with the scumbags, sorry, business owners, making clear that the children must be educated for at least a few hours a day and have strict conditions set upon the amount of time spent working and the conditions of that work – or face not being able to sell those jeans at all. (see Tim? I didn’t call for the factories to be closed down, only the working conditions altered)

PJ:

Can’t help but wish John A had read a history book once in his life. In 18th century Britain we had children younger than 11 working in factories in conditions just as bad.

Its a shame you didn’t read on, because then you’d have found that the same lousy arguments were used to perpetuate child labour then as Tim has attempted to deploy now.

Try cracking a history book before replying.

Tim:

In 1993, child workers in Bangladesh were found to be producing clothing for Wal-Mart, and Senator Tom Harkin proposed legislation banning imports from countries employing underage workers. The direct result was that Bangladeshi textile factories stopped employing children. But did the children go back to school? Did they return to happy homes? Not according to Oxfam, which found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets and that a significant number were forced into prostitution.”

Quite. Which is why its bad business and bad economics to ignore the social conditions of the workers in a global free market – because nobody wins.

Primark cannot afford to use this form of child labour even though it (temporarily) maximizes profits, because of the highly discretionary nature of its business and the foibles of its key market. This is a globally connected, 24 hour, YouTube fixated world where Primark’s fashion business could be ruined in minutes right around the world if those factories are shown. Then nobody wins.

So what it is to be done?

Dismantle the fucking useless and incompetent carbon emissions market, and use the money to feed and educate the poor and the orphans (ie do some good). Maybe we could tap Al Gore for a few million of the fortune he’s made selling indulgences carbon credits…

Or alternatively do what other Western businesses do, which is to regulate the employment and social conditions of the people who produce the goods, in particular to insist on education of a few hours a day for the children, to fix a minimum wage which must be paid, and to limit the working day and the working week for employees.

I don’t live in some effete soft lefty world where everyone can feel good all of the time. I accept that in the 3rd world, the basic necessities of life and the economic realities of business in such places make the employment of children a necessity – but this is not just employment but endentured slavery.

I know it. Tim knows it. And Primark’s customers won’t wear it.

Tim adds: If you’re suggesting that the children should still be employed but that Primark and others might insist on a tad of education for them as well: I’m with you. My argument with what is happening started with hte point that the children have all been fired….which isn’t a good thing.

Their sales figures show otherwise.

No, I don’t accept that this is the only option. I would not buy clothes from Primark that were made in such circumstances, because Primark answers to its customers and its customers do not want clothes made by child slaves. It’s exploitation of orphans by ruthless people – the lowest fucking scumbags of the low.

I’m astonished that in a so-called civilized society we would even need to justify the increased cost of discretionary items like jeans in order to make sure that the people who made it are well taken care of.

Instead we have a justification for sweatshops for child orphans as “better than the alternative”

I’m extraordinarily disappointed with you Tim. I had hoped you knew better than to make such a foul argument as this.

End. Of. Discussion.

Tim adds: Not the end of the discussion at all. Try this.
http://www.pkarchive.org/column/42201.html
“Even when political action doesn’t backfire, when the movement gets what it wants, the effects are often startlingly malign. For example, could anything be worse than having children work in sweatshops? Alas, yes. In 1993, child workers in Bangladesh were found to be producing clothing for Wal-Mart, and Senator Tom Harkin proposed legislation banning imports from countries employing underage workers. The direct result was that Bangladeshi textile factories stopped employing children. But did the children go back to school? Did they return to happy homes? Not according to Oxfam, which found that the displaced child workers ended up in even worse jobs, or on the streets � and that a significant number were forced into prostitution.”

“The most sophisticated answer was that the movement doesn’t want to stop exports � it just wants better working conditions and higher wages.

But it’s not a serious position. Third-world countries desperately need their export industries � they cannot retreat to an imaginary rural Arcadia. They can’t have those export industries unless they are allowed to sell goods produced under conditions that Westerners find appalling, by workers who receive very low wages. And that’s a fact the anti- globalization activists refuse to accept. So who are the bad guys? The activists are getting the images they wanted from Quebec City: leaders sitting inside their fortified enclosure, with thousands of police protecting them from the outraged masses outside. But images can deceive. Many of the people inside that chain-link fence are sincerely trying to help the world’s poor. And the people outside the fence, whatever their intentions, are doing their best to make the poor even poorer. ”

Sorry there John, but the universe doesn’t offer all people all options. It offers a disturbingly large number of people a rather short list of mostly shitty ones: and we shouldn’t, in our moral outrage, make that list even smaller nor shittier.

So I’ll repeat: yup, I’m all in favour of child labour for I’m all against child prostitution and child starvation.

Having crunched a few numbers (subject to wide margins of error), I wouldn’t be surprised if the latter course of action benefitted them more. Plus you get a pair of jeans.

The Primark Better Lives Foundation will provide financial assistance to organisations devoted to improving the lives of young people, including those identified by the BBC.

If you’re that keen on improving their lives, I’m not sure firing them all was an ideal first step.