T-shirts...

I’m constantly in trouble because of the news. Well, not the news exactly, but what I make of it. Sometimes I think it would be better to simply react to a report rather than think and try to form an opinion. It can really get me into trouble when I say what I’m thinking. Let me explain.

Last night there was a report on how Tesco clothing is made in ‘sweatshops’ in Pakistan. Workers get paid less than six pence a garment which amounts to about three pounds a day for a ten hour day. The report attempted to make the connection between the factory fire that killed so many people recently, poorly constructed factories, low wages and the huge profits being made by supermarkets like Tesco. I’m sure that there are connections and that keeping costs low does lead to practices and conditions that would not be tolerated in the western world. But let’s think about the alternative.

The reason that these factories exist is the fact that can be run cheaply and make goods at a fraction of the cost they could be made in the west. If the workforce were paid UK minimum wage the cost of the extra salary alone would make each garment produced cost twenty times the cost it is sold for now. That’s without the costs of transporting it to the UK. Add to that the cost of bringing factories up to European standards and suddenly a value T-shirt that costs £2 currently is going to cost £50 upwards – and no, I’m not exaggerating, you can do the maths as easily as I.

Now I might be being a little too objective but I can’t believe that there are many people who would be happy to pay £50 for a Tesco branded cotton T-shirt, in fact I can’t believe there are many people who would be happy to pay £50 for any T-shirt.

It’s easy to look at those Pakistani workers and cry ‘exploitation’ and ‘slave labour’. It’s also easy to decry Tesco and other chains for using cheap labour to boost their profits. But without them there wouldn’t be any ‘sweatshops’ for those workers to work in. Would that be that a good thing? They’d be jobless, and a hard life would become no life at all. Back home the cost of a new T-shirt would be almost unaffordable, certainly few people would have the choice of wardrobe they have now – not that that would necessarily be a bad thing.

We’d return to a time when we might as well make the things ourselves as have them made abroad like we used to back in the past. Back in our past of satanic mills when we worked for much lower wages – just shillings a week – and didn’t expect to own a house, a car, a mobile phone, have twenty pairs of shoes, a laptop, a tablet, a 3D, high definition, fully integrated satellite linked television and eat take-away food instead of boiling potatoes on an open range.

I agree that things can be made better for those Pakistani factory workers; safer surroundings, improved conditions, better pay. But remember where it led us… and don’t be surprised when you can’t afford to buy a new T-shirt.