The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global

Economy
Chapter VII
Starting in the 1950s the Chinese had a system for classifying people according to where they
live. The hukou that most Chinese belong under is rural hukou. These were people who were
required to remain in the countryside and produce food. They were hardly ever allowed to travel
to a city, and if they were, then they couldn't even buy any food there. To buy food in a city you
had to have an urban hukou. Because the hukou is passed down from generation to generation,
the rural hukou began to grow in size, while the family still had the same plot of land. This
created quite a surplus amount of people living in the countryside, and many of the woman didn't
like working long hours in the heat on the farm. When textile mills began sprouting up along the
coast the government realized that they needed cheap labor to make cloth and clothes that they
could sell for lower prices than their competitors. By letting rural hukou woman come and work
in the mills both sides were happy. The government had cheap labor, and the woman got out of
the sun and into a factory. Though, there were still many restrictions that the rural hukou factory
workers had. As in, they ate the food provided to them from the factory, curfew, and they had to
sleep together in dormitories. The factories didn't provide less work or more pay, but they did
allow rural hukous to live near, and go into cities. Cities provide many things that the
countryside cannot, and that was why many women preferred living and working at a factory,
rather than a farm.
Chapter VIII
Because of activists, the conditions in most of the textile mills across China have improved
tremendously. China's government has made codes that factories have to follow, about how
much they have to pay their employees and how to get rid of waste. Their rules are so strict that a
traditional textile and clothing mill won't pass in the southern half of the country. Plus, because
of University students, the factories in China are checked regularly by inspectors sent from
America to make sure that they're following all of the guidelines. Chemicals like PVC and
phthalates couldn't be used to make the pictures on shirts; instead a plastic made from corn is
used.
There was a study done about how bad for the environment a T-shirt is, and the found that hardly
any of the pollutants in a T-shirt's life are from the production phase. Most are from the shirt
being washed and dried by the owner. Over 60 percent of the shirts environmental impact can be
reduced by simply washing it with colder water, and letting it dry outside instead of in a dryer.
Many factories in China are moving to poorer countries so that they'll be able to pay their
employees less, and charge the same. Also, poorer countries tend to have looser rules on
pollution, quality, and working conditions. Though, the U.S. and most other countries are now
putting requirements in their contracts with overseas T-shirt manufacturers, so one way or
another most T-shirts have to be made by a fairly paid employee in good working conditions.
Chapter IX
After the T-shirt is made, it is shipped back to America, where it ends up in a screen-printing
factory. In 2007, 95 percent of shirts purchased in the U.S. were made overseas. In July 2003,
many organizations banded together, to save American jobs, by demanding that restrictions be
placed on the amount of Chinese clothing that can be imported. The restrictions were made, so
that the American cloth and clothing manufacturers didn't have as much competition in the
American market, but there's still enough to cause American made apparel businesses to close.
Nowadays the rules governing apparel imports into the United States change almost daily. Most
cotton T-shirts that don't meet the requirements for "preferential treatment" are charged an
import tariff of 16.5 percent.
Until 2005, imports an additional 40 countries were limited under the Agreement on Textiles and
Clothing. On January 1, 2009, the quotas for apparel from China were lifted. When this event
occurred, the U.S. apparel industry was expected to rapidly disappear. Most people are happy
that the limits were put in effect for dozens of categories of Chinese textiles and apparel because
this means cheaper clothing products in American stores.
Chapter X
Neither America nor China likes the rules governing imports of T-shirts into the United States.
Though, the U.S. is still the world's leader of free trade. The cotton weavers began to complain
about Asia's cheap fabric around the end of WWII, so in order to quiet them the Eisenhower
administration persuaded Japan to "voluntarily" limit its exports of cotton textiles to the United
States. Because Japanese exports to the United States were limited, this gave other countries
(especially, Honk Kong and Taiwan) the opportunity to supply the U.S. Market.
Between 1956 and 1961, imports of cotton goods from Honk Kong rose by nearly 700 percent.
This caused American cotton weavers to complain, again. So in the 1960 presidential campaign,
JF Kennedy promised Governor Ernest Hollings of South Carolina that he would work to limit
Hong Kong's imports to America. Kennedy fulfilled his promise by instituting the Short Term
Arrangement on Cotton Textiles as temporary assistance to the U.S. cotton weavers. This gave
Washington, D.C., the power to negotiate cotton textile import limits to protect the U.S. industry.
It also covered more goods than the original Japanese V.E.R. Of course, as the global production
of cotton goods began to increase, so did American imports of cotton goods too. To protect the
American cotton industry, once again, the Kennedy administration created the Long Term
Arrangement for Cotton Textiles, effective from 1962 to 1967. This also covered more countries
and more products than the previous Arrangement.
Chapter XI
As employment in the textile industry of the U.S. is going down, the production is staying steady
or even rising. This goes true for most other American industries as well because of
technological advance we can make more, with less. The same fact is true in China too. Textile
job losses were the most severe of any industry in China because technology can take the place
of people for less money.
Tariffs and quotas no longer help the American textile market survive, but instead, help smaller
countries, by limiting the number of T-shirts, and the profit, that larger countries can have by
sending their products to the U.S. Some people think that we should get rid of the quotas
entirely, so that Americans can have much cheaper clothing from other countries. The problem
with doing that though, is that thousands of American textile workers would get laid off. Most
economists think there is a way to lift the quota, and still make everyone, except for the smaller
countries, happy. The compensation principle should help provide the textile workers with
enough money and time to find another job. The author also points out that with the destruction
of old jobs comes the creation of new ones. For instance, since the textile production in the
United States is dwindling, jobs are created to slow down the death of the American cloth
industry. Also, as T-shirt imports are rising, more jobs are needed to control the flow of the
imports.
Tariffs are usually higher for smaller countries that export their products to larger ones compared
to large countries exporting their products to another large country. However, quotas are usually
set lower for larger countries than they are for smaller ones. It appears that if the quotas were
lifted then China would completely dominate the apparel market, so small countries try to
support the quotas. It is predicted that if the quotas were lifted then there would be about 30
million job losses world-wide as a result of China taking over all of its competition.