Upside down!

15 % of my readers are visitors from America and Australia! That’s why I’m writing this one in English.

In October 2002 I closed down my textile factory here in Portugal. By then, all my customers had already left due to high labor costs. My sadness was not only about my personal situation. It was no longer possible to compete on equal terms. I know I treated my workers with respect. Now, in 2008, the minimum salary in Portugal is 426 Euros per month and the workers get 14 salaries per year. A household definitely needs two salaries but the country structure is still built as if women were housewives.

So, the production companies had to move to cheaper countries. Left in the country of origin is design, sales and distribution, sometimes also purchase and quality control of raw materials. Most chose not to run their own production factories anymore. Instead they contract suppliers, often on very short term contracts. Like this, it is easier to move from one country to another if the salary level increases and they feel no responsibility for what is going on during production.

How could this happen? After decades of environmental research and after having created some kind of dignity for the workers in the industrialized world, did we give it all up? That easy? My criticism is not to the designing companies, please note that. They do what they have to do to provide us with what we want – cheaper clothes! My criticism is to all of us, to the consumers! How can we accept what is going on! We know children are forced into production. Why do we buy clothes made by children? Or by exhausted women practically locked up in factories? Or by men and women working with poisonous chemicals that are forbidden in Europe? Every time I open my mouth about these issues, I get answers like: “But isn’t it their time to get industrialized, don’t you think these countries should be given a chance to develop? That’s exactly how we once started” “Children working, well but that’s better than starving, isn’t it?” or arguments like “I would love to get looked up in a factory rather than being a prostitute in Bangkok!”

Conclusion: We cannot just leave the responsibility to the designing companies. They only get us what we want. What we can do is telling them – No! We don’t want this! Stop, enough, we’ve had it! It’s time to show some decency here! Is the worker’s salary the only cost that can be reduced? What favor are we doing these people? Giving them a disrespectful alternative to death and starvation? Isn’t there anything else we can do for them? After all, they do work for us!

We as consumers, we do have a great power of influence! We have the money the clothing producers are fighting each other about! Through marketing and out pricing each other. We can easily make them produce what we want. And we have to tell them that!

Just think 20 years back. Recycled toilet paper was sooo complicated to produce and the price was almost the double. But as the sales increased surprisingly fast, the paper production companies complained less and soon the price level was down to normal and production of bleached paper practically disappeared.

I am not asking anyone to stop shopping. That’s hard in our modern world and for many the only true pleasure. I just want you to be aware every time you pay for a new garment, by sending a little thought to the person who actually made it. Try to picture her face and what it would look like if she knew that you cared.


PS. The pictures are taken at sunset in the old part of Cascais. They are not related to the text.