>On Behalf Of Rakesh Bhandari
> I don't have the WSJ article or your post. Didn't article quote AFLCIO
> admitting that while there were fewer factories in which child labor was
> employed according to inspection, it is quite probable that child labor
> has only gone underground.
Moreover,
> what happened to the children who were released. Did they go to school?
An AFL-CIO official did speculate on the possibility, but the article did note that many of the children have gone to school. That was one of the goals of the program.
>For example, one hears stories of women locked into
> factories to complete pending orders. The absence of the right to organize
> unions may be the least of the problems.
> Yet the US has accepted a surge of exports from Bangladesh.
Now I am just flat out confused on what your position is on all the social clause debates and trade. You had argued before that labor was promoting them as a form of protectionism, yet you now seem to be objecting to this program because it has led to expansion of exports (possibly because of speculative behind-the-scene concessions?)
Speculation is useful for thinking about followup research, but the evidence presented in the WSJ article was that the ILO had found a signficant drop in child labor. And that many of the children were now going to school instead.
Those two things seem like good things, especially when combined with an expansion of exports and needed hard currency for Bangladesh - an expansion of hard currency that you earlier had argued was needed.
It was a limited bill, so the results by definition will be limited. That is one reason labor unions globally are pushing for more comprehensive labor clauses for the trade regime.
-- Nathan Newman