FACTORY WOMEN IN ASIA

1. Women transmigrants in Special Economic Zones (SEZs)
   1. What is an SEZ?
      1. Special area set up inside a country to attract foreign investment
      2. Significance:
      3. Factories
         1. Can be foreign owned
         2. JVs
         3. COMMODITY CHAIN: seeing how capital flows one way and goods another.
   2. Women workers preferred
      1. Women make up 42.7% of Southeast Asia's labor force, up from 30% in 1970 (figures from Indonesia).
         1. Overwhelming majority of SEZ workers are female
         2. One textile factory polled had 80% female workers.
         3. Women almost always in "unskilled" jobs.
      2. Recruiters prefer very young women from the countryside
         1. TRANSMIGRATION: migration within a country, usually planned by the government.
   3. Working Conditions
      1. Dangerous environments
         1. Corporal punishment in China.
         2. Dormitories
      2. Wages and Hours
         1. Hours
            1. Indonesia: Average work day is 11.5 hours. 81% of workers work 7 days per week.
            2. Survey of 8 factories in Guangdong showed average of 69 hours per week, no bonuses for overtime. Legal max is 44 hours.
         2. Wages are low
         3. Indenturing workers.
         4. Other discipline
   4. Gender Bias
   5. Manufacturers themselves agree
2. These are SWEATSHOPS
   1. Analogy to early British and American factories.
   2. Why do manufacturers go there?
3. After the Asian Debt Crisis----Indonesia
   1. The only thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited at all.
      1. Layoffs
      2. Decreased wages for those still working
      3. Structural Adjustment means few social benefits, like unemployment or welfare.
      4. Poverty on the rise
4. Global Problems, Global Solutions
   1. The problem is global----it transcends specific national geographies.
      1. If one country tries to deal with it, by enacting a higher minimum wage, the corporation just goes to a lower wage area.
   2. A global solution?
      1. Labor activists banding together in anti-sweatshop activism
      2. Fair Labor Association vs. Worker Rights Consortium
   3. Opposed by many Asian and Latin American countries themselves
   4. This is a sticky global issue. You have to decide for yourself what you should do:
      1. Nothing: these people need the jobs. Keep buying products because it helps people stay employed.
      2. Don't buy: Just don't buy the products made there
      3. Activism: join a campus group, push for labor rights laws and independent monitoring of factories.