Blue Jeans and Voodoo Economics … By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture

July 7, 2011 Whitney Farmer 0 Comments

Whitney runs a rock music venue on the beach in L.A.. She has an M.B.A, and hates cockroaches of all kinds.

The only thing I haven’t missed about living in old buildings in big cities is cockroaches. I was stunned to see a crab-sized one climbing up the wall at my parents’ pristine O.C. condo. The laughter from our extended family gathering or the aggressive weeding that the gardener did outside today must have jostled it from its lair.

Frantically, we all scrambled to find a shoe to crush it but struggled because it’s a glorious summer and we live in paradise and no one has serious footwear.

“Who has a shoe?!?” I screamed.

By the time we finally unleashed our combined arsenal of a patent leather blueberry clog and a metallic weave platform with a cork heel, the monster had climbed nearly to the top of the wall and out of my reach.  I threw the clog and missed, then the platform which caused enough of a vibration on the wall to dislodge its claws, and it fell right at my feet into the sweet spot of death. I stomped it with a reindeer pelt slipper from Iceland.

The family effort added to the wild joy that is this brief, shining moment when we are all able to be together.  My dad even decided to get a new pair of 501s…or rather, he said ‘yes’ when mom said that she wanted to take her boy-toy shopping. When they came back, she was calling him ‘eye-candy’ and he was calling her ‘sugar-momma’, and I decided that life could be worse.

With pride, dad showed me the tag on his new Levis: Made in Haiti. He knew what it would mean to me. I was thrilled as I hugged him. A post-quake rise in textile manufacturing has been something that I’ve hoped to see. Of the industries that could be competitive internationally amongst the rubble, this is the one that seemed to be the most likely. The consequent collateral benefits to the economy could flow in every direction in that land, from telecommunications to tourism to education to construction.

I went online to see how broadly the Levi Strauss execs were smiling and how much they were patting themselves on the back for braving the risks of sourcing there.  Like in high school, everyone follows the one that everyone wants to be like. And Levi Strauss is an American icon. Where they go, others will follow.

But a review of the most recent news from Haiti showed that Levi Strauss is at the center of a severe and troubling controversy.  On June 1, 2011, The Nation published “Let Them Live on $3 a Day”. In the article, it was alleged that the corporation hired a contractor that was part of a trade group that successfully lobbied, with the backing of the U.S. State Department, to create a two-tiered wage system that allowed clothing assemblers to pay their workforce the equivalent of $3.00 daily rather than the mandated $5.00 that had been passed under the Haitian legislature under then President René Préval.  Levi Strauss vehemently rejected the allegation that they had lobbied to keep the wages low or that they had paid any consultant to do so on their behalf.  Technically, this is accurate: Their contractor was part of a group that spearheaded the effort.  Put differently, Levi Strauss had protested being charged with creating only one firewall when they had in fact created two degrees of separation.

The U.S. government also was tagged in this discussion, particularly the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department, and the U.S. Embassy. Ambassador Janet Sanderson urged President Préval to intervene in a cable issued to Washington on June 10, 2009.  Two months later, President Préval used his influence to create the two-tiered minimum wage increase that provided the textile industry exemption to what had been previously mandated to a revised requirement of $3.00 daily per worker. Additional comments were released from U.S. representatives, including a deputy chief of mission David E. Lindwall who stated that the wage increase was a populist measure that didn’t take into account economic realities to appeal to the “…unemployed and underpaid masses…” The revelations regarding American involvement with this issue came as a result of the release of 1,918 cables made available through WikiLeaks.  The U.A. government has thus far declined comment.

Haiti continues to challenge and reveal the light and dark.  Levi Strauss – as well as other textile manufacturers such as Hanes – scramble to defend their decisions and governments struggle to avoid saying anything.  Unexpectedly and with clearly defined constraints, the position of these powerful entities in the tiered wage increase can be viewed as prudent and defensible. WITH constraints…

Haiti has had damaging blows delivered to its emergent industrial development. The earthquake is the most recent and visible. But prior to this, their economy atrophied under the embargo imposed by then-President Bill Clinton in an attempt to weaken a plague of consecutive dictatorships. Former President Clinton has done what others have not: He has stated publically that his policy was a move he hated to do but that it was necessary for a period of time to dislodge conditions that could otherwise continue to perpetuate misery and injustice far into the future.  His actions and subsequent honesty and fortitude regarding them are a model that all parties involved in the Haitian minimum wage controversy would be wise to study and emulate.

If you asked me to sew a straight line, we all would be embarrassed by the result.  Given time, I would be able to hone my skills and might become an impressive craftsman.  I am like the Haitian textile industry: I have entry-level skills, but the more experience I have, the more I can accomplish. Subsequently, I will have more leverage to negotiate concessions for my benefit.  Haiti is surrounded by skilled and low wage labor forces in surrounding countries.  The Dominican Republic, as an example,  no longer recruits the type of textile manufacturing that is being re-established in Haiti because their workforce has developed beyond that. They can now recruit more challenging work and can demand higher compensation as a result.

For a time, for a brief season, it can make humanitarian sense as well as economic sense to have a lower wage for a gateway industry with a temporarily unskilled labor force in a country with nearly 80% unemployment.  A wage even this low will allow children to go to school and parents to begin to plan for a future that doesn’t include burying their children from starvation.  If it is for just a season…The concern arises when corporations and politicians aren’t honest about what might need to be done. It causes concern that there may be more to the story.

Quote of the Blog, lyrics from Ed, Dude of Light and Fog, after scaring me by climbing up on a high ladder without a spotter: “Don’t worry. I’ve got great balance. When I broke my leg, I used to ride my unicycle everywhere. It was easier than crutches.”