Moving jobs from North to South

Many companies are closing factories in North America and moving production to other countries where their clothes can be made very cheaply.

"North to South"

Take, for example, the famous jeans company, Levi Strauss & Co.

Between 1981 and 1990, the company closed 58 factories and made 10,400 people jobless. Levi moved about half of its production outside of the US, to countries where the most skilled workers were paid only around 10% of the wages that were paid to North American workers who did the same job.

Workers lose their jobs

Petra Marta used to work for a Levi factory in San Antonio, Texas. In 1990, Levi closed the company and moved production to Costa Rica. 1,150 workers suddenly found that they had no jobs. Most of the workers were women, and nearly all of them were Latina.

LATINA: (n) a woman who comes from Latin America (from Mexico, Central or South America)

Many of the workers were told about the situation less than 24 hours before the factory closed. Petra remembers

"People screamed, cried, fainted. When you lose your job you feel like nothing but trash, a machine to be thrown out. They take away your dignity.

"You get scared. How are you going to pay for the car, the house, the kids to eat and go to school?

"After so many years of working for Levi, overnight we have nothing."

FAINT: (v) lose consciousness & fall to the ground

DIGNITY: (n) respect and honour

Some of the women, including Petra, formed an organisation called "Fuerza Unida" (United Force) to fight for justice and proper compensation for the workers who lost their jobs

COMPENSATION: (n) money that is given to you by someone who has hurt you

They are still fighting. In 1997 Levi announced that it was closing 11 more US factories. These factories had employed 6,395 people. The telephones at Fuerza Unida rang constantly, with calls from Levi workers who had lost their jobs.

Where do the jobs go?

It is cheaper for companies like Levi to contract out the making of their clothes to other companies, especially in the developing world. The factories that these companies own can be large or very small, and most of them have terrible working conditions.

For example:

CONTRACT OUT: (V) to pay another company to make your clothes, instead of having your own factories

• Saipan: In 1991 a Levi's contractor was accused of keeping Chinese women almost like slaves. He took away their passports so that they could not leave. He made them work for 84 hours a week and paid them less than the legal minimum wage

MINIMUM WAGE: (n) by law the lowest pay that a worker can recieve

• Indonesia: Here, women are allowed to take one day off work with pay every month, when they are menstruating. At one company, women who took a day off were strip searched, to check that they really were menstruating. This company was inspected by Levi and the inspector said the company was acceptable

STRIP SEARCH: to make someone take off all their clothing in order to search their bodies

When a woman is MENSTRUATING, she is losing blood from her monthly period.

Sweat shops

Factories like these are often called "sweat shops". The use of badly paid and badly treated workers to make products cheaply is called "sweated labour".

SWEAT SHOP: (n) a place where people work very hard for very low pay

Levi is not the only company that has its clothes made in countries where wages are very poor and working conditions are terrible. Here are more well-known labels from some of the other companies that do this:

Guess?, Lee, Wrangler, Calvin Klein, Arizona (for the department store, J C Penny's), Hunt Club (also for J C Penny's), Polo (for Ralph Lauren), Fila, Sasson, XXX, Faded Glory, Code Bleu, Real Pro, Todd Oldham, Ellememo.

SWEATED LABOUR: (n) hard work that is poorly paid

One country used by many North American garment companies is Mexico, where the 'maquila' factories have become notorious for their sweated labour.

NOTORIOUS: (adj) famous for something bad