Photo Credit: Indigo Furniture Company – UK
We live in a globalized world in which outsourcing production or services to another country has become a way of doing business. For those who have lost their jobs to lower-paid, overseas workers, outsourcing is a painful reality. For workers in an emerging economy like Brazil, outsourcing offers an opportunity to rise out of poverty.
At Italbras Leather Producer & Exporter Ltd.,* I worked with a number of furniture companies worldwide that outsourced the production of their upholstery leather covers. My first and largest client was the Canadian Furniture Company* with factories in Canada and the United States. Italbras had secured this contract owing to its well-equipped factory, with emphasis on worker safety, and fair labor practices: remuneration in accordance with Brazil’s minimum wage plus additional benefits of on-site meals, private bus transport, uniforms, and a medical doctor on duty.
I had direct contact with three representatives at Canadian Furniture in purchasing, production, and quality control. They were friendly, attentive, and responsive to our needs for information and in resolving setbacks.
Production Manager Brandon* and a senior sewing instructor were our first visitors from Canadian Furniture. They came to conduct a two-week training program for the production of complete sets of two new upholstery models. The sewing instructor was a small Asian-Canadian woman in her forties. With Mr. Leonelli,* our Italian Commercial Director, and Brandon walking a little distance behind us, I escorted her to the tannery where our Export Department was located.
After asking her about her trip and hotel accommodation, I said: “The supervisor of our cut-and-sew factory is happy that you’re here. She has lots of questions for you.”
“I didn’t want to come,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “The women in my team said I shouldn’t teach everything… They’re afraid of losing their jobs.”
What could I say? Until that moment, I had not considered the consequences of our cut-and-sew operations for the sewers at Canadian Furniture Company.
The training program was intense and exhausting. Mr. Leonelli assigned me the task of acting as the English-Portuguese interpreter. I learned a few new sewing terms. I’m no professional interpreter. Occasionally, in the rapid back-and-forth exchanges, I switched the languages. I gained an appreciation for the sewing skills of our female staff. Matching up the numerous notches was tough, painstaking work. They made sewing straight line, topstitched seams look like nothing. The instructor emphasized the importance of paying attention to every detail. A tiny error could create problems when mounting the covers on the furniture frames.
Were sewers laid off at the Canadian Furniture Company as a result of outsourcing some of their production to Italbras? It was not my place to ask Brandon such questions. Besides, I was in no position to criticize a system that was working in our favor.
Until corporations change the way they do business to create value for their shareholders, workers will continue to suffer the adverse effects of outsourcing.
* Fictitious name
Three Worlds One Vision 
Reblogged this on Guyanese Online and commented:
Our thanks to Rosaliene Bacchus for another informative Blog entry.
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Cyril, thanks for reading and sharing with your followers on Guyanese Online.
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Rosaliene
Industrial espionage is as “ongoing” as political esponiage….CIA MI5 KGB et al…..
Post ww2 the Japanese were very active in this field….eventually overtaking the
BRITISH in building their “invincible” wartime fleet.
Today Snowden has exposed “spies” and “spying” for the right reasons…
much to the embarrassment of the american government.
Governments are now waking up to the fact that “outsourcing” is not only
counter productive in long term but also politically incorrect.
Germany has been most successful in its industrialisation by
uniting east/west in order to reduce their labour costs.
It is fact that if one can maintain low labour costs in production
one maintains their competitiveness.
I can go on and on but your experiences does highlight the problem
of industrial espionage.
Mea culpa mea culpa.
Today the world is but a global village where the rights of individuals are
eroded by giant corporations and their ruthless CEOs…I point my finger
to political elite to make the decisions necessary to correct the imbalances.
Get it wrong and get de-selected.
Kamptan
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Kamptan, I’ve never equated outsourcing with industrial espionage since the transfer of technology and know-how is a decision made by the corporation’s top management. However, on the individual level I suppose it can be seen as a “forced” transferal of know-how. The senior sewing instructor from the Canadian company was required to transfer her skills to foreign workers who could one day take away her job. Is refusal an option for skilled workers in her position?
I agree with you, only the political elite can bring about the necessary changes to correct this imbalance. But when corporate person-hood is able to usurp political power for its own perpetuity, there’s little chance of this happening.
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Your fine essay made me think of Kant, who (despite his personal failings) articulated the idea of the categorical imperative: to do only those things that would still be a good idea if everyone did them.
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Dr. Stein, I’m not sure how Kant’s categorical imperative would work when applied to outsourcing. This practice will always be a good idea for those who benefit from it: the big corporations. It’s also a good idea for consumers in the developed world who can enjoy products and services at a low cost. The real cost of “low cost” never crosses our minds until it affects us. By then it’s too late to reverse the process.
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Good point, Rosaliene. I think I put the idea out there just as a point of reference and to generate some ideas among your good readers. The world is more complicated than in Kant’s day, but still, it is worth considering. We have in some corporations a view that “profit above all” is a proper point of view. If we all were motivated in that way (and all individuals similarly motivated), then, I suspect, Kant would say that the world would be the worse for it.
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Thanks, Dr. Stein. I always appreciate your contributions to the discussion. I, too, believe that Kant would have perceived the corporation’s folly of placing profit-making above the well-being of people. But the corporation is not people and does not know better.
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“the corporations is not people and does not know better”
CEO s are people and they know better…..but prefer to take the easier
option…..reduce numbers and increase profits……short term mentality.
Usually moving on to “next” challenge to foster/fester their careers.
On the public sector side corporations CEO s with political ambitions
usually create jobs to enhance their status quo/job security….where
removing them cost taxpayers a fortune.
A catch 22 situ..
Politicians must get the balance right or everyone looses/suffers….
My spin
Kamptan
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Good discussion. Giving a legal entity, the corporation, “person” status is a criminal and ethical error. But deciding what is “good” is also a matter of morality – the best for the most? And what is the “best”?
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If we-the-people don’t succeed in reversing this law of corporate personhood, corporate power will decide what’s “good” and “best” for humanity. We already know what they consider the best: more economic growth, more profits. As I see it, morality plays no part in corporate decision-making.
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