Re: [cicdd] France rejects shit (+wddm for info)

[Giorgio Menon <menon(at)pd.infn.it>]

Georges Metanomski wrote:

> Giorgio Menon wrote:
>
>
> > Hi Georges,
> > i'm sure (simple worker that i am) that 35 hours a day, 5 days a week,
> > are far better than 11.5 hours a day, 6 days a week (currently chinese
> > standards). Add some 20 years of jail to anyone who dares to strike to
> > get the full picture. What could possibly be the reason of  saying No to
> > those 35 hours?
> =======================================================>Just makes production too expensive for competition and
> drives enterprises to bankrupcy and the employees to
> exclusion, which is worse than 48 hours.
>
> French socialists have chosen in a similar toughly
> competitive situation to cut the branch on which the
> workers were sitting.
I have a different story in my mind: American Apparel.

"American Apparel, Charney's clothing company, is going against the
trend of globalization in clothing manufacturing; he's making mad cash
with unbranded T-shirts, all locally produced in his downtown L.A. factory.

His workers are paid U.S. minimum or more. They are offered free ESL
classes and health and life insurance, they march together on May Day
and, oh, the company has recently implemented a recycling program for
all its pounds of scraps. But before you get out your Kleenex box,
remember, this is no charity operation — Charney is out to produce the
best damn T-shirt in the world, while raking in an honest American buck
($40-million U.S. in sales last year and our approaching 75 million for
2003). "
Charney:
"I'm going to prove, and I'm going to embarrass the entire fucking
establishment, is that sweatshops are more expensive in the end than
vertically integrated manufacturing in Canada or the U.S."

"You see, those prisons in China are inefficient and the opportunity
cost of offshore production is huge, because you can't respond to market
demands as quickly. You can take 100 men in China with abacuses or you
can take one with a G4 PowerBook and there's no comparison.

"What I'm talking about is the exploitation of human potential instead
of the exploitation of humanity. I'm saying you don't have to fuck the
Third World up the ass, or the shareholders, or the consumers, or the
Canadian and American workers, to do business."
http://www.americanapparel.net/presscenter/articles/20030828montrealmirror.html

Thus (my conclusion) if Charney can make it, others can. At the end he's
right when he says that keeping the money/machinery/knowledge inside the
society brings more benefits than exporting them.

> BTW you know me and it's unfair to suggest that I like
> the Chinese Gulag. Whatever one may say about western
> "democracies" they cannot be compared to Gulag.

How did you get this? In my 5-line question i never mentioned any gulag
nor your support. I was just asking.

Best regards

Giorgio