Fist Waving Feminism

Things that make you go hmmm… Globalization of labor edition

• over 2,000 multinational corporations have drawn over a half million workers, two thirds of them women, who get paid between $3.75 and $4.50 a day. 
• In El Salvador, women employees of Taiwanese maquilabor Mandarin are forced to work shifts of 12-21 hours during which they are seldom allowed bathroom breaks; they are paid about 18 cents per shirt, which is later sold for 20 dollars each. They make clothes for the GAP, J. Crew and Eddie Bauer. 
• In Haiti, women sewing clothing at Disney’s contract plants are paid 6 cents for every $19.99 101 dalmatians outfit they sew; they make 33 cents an hour. Meanwhile, Disney makes record profits and could easily pay workers a living wage for less than one half of 1 percent of the sales price of one outfit. 
• In Vietnam, 90 percent of Nike’s workers are females between the ages of 15 and 28. Nike’s labor for a pair of basketball shoes(which retail for 149.50) cost Nike $1.50, 1 percent of the retail price.