Author and radio commentator Rachel Louise Snyder spoke Thursday at ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ about global trade practices and warned that often clothing labels βare lying to you.β
Snyder asked the audience of more than 200 to help illustrate her point by instructing everybody in attendance to βlook down the shirt of the person next to youβ to find the origin of the clothing. She said countries often mislead customers, for example, by saying a shirt that was labeled from Malaysia may have had 90 percent of the work done in China.
The event was organized by the ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ Global Perspectives Office, and was part of two 2011-2012 university-wide themes, βPeople Power, Politics and Global Changeβ and βCovering Global Crises from the Frontlines.β
Snyder is the author of βFugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade.β The book examines the tremendous human, political and financial capital that go into a typical pair of denim jeans.
Describing the unique, sweatshop-free labor system set up in Cambodia in 1995 during the Clinton Administration, she said that not all βsweatshopsβ are the same. Manufacturing plant workers in Cambodia receive benefits and possess rights unthinkable in other developing countries that have poor working conditions, she said.
When asked whether sweatshops are better than unemployment for workers in developing countries, Snyder stressed the importance of Cambodiaβs example. There is a growing interest in the human aspect of the manufacturing process that makes Cambodian labor both desirable and economically viable, she said. βThe choice is not poverty or sweatshop, the choice is poverty or no poverty.β
In addition to the Global Perspectives Office, sponsors of the presentation included Lawrence J. Chastang and the Chastang Foundation, the Orlando Area Committee on Foreign Relations, the Sibille H. Pritchard Global Peace Fellowship program, the ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ Global Peace and Security Studies Program, the ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ Nicholson School of Communication, ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ LIFE, the ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ Book Festival 2012 in association with the Morgridge International Reading Center, the ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ Political Science Department, the ΒιΆΉΣ³»΄«Γ½ International Services Center and the Global Connections Foundation.