Lora Jo Foo and Nikki Fortunato Bas, October 2003

Today, many garment workers and their advocates are concerned about how free trade policies will impact the daily lives of workers. On 31 December 2004, all textile and apparel quotas are scheduled to be eliminated for the 148 countries of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), bringing near-complete free trade of textiles and apparel.

This paper aims to provide a picture of the changing structure of global apparel production due to the phase-out of quotas, and trends in trade policies from the authors’ perspectives as US advocates. While many studies exist on the quota phase-out, there is no consensus on the real impact, except that most economists predict that China will gain a larger share of production, the US will lose more textile and apparel jobs and the apparel industries of the smaller developing countries may be decimated.

As part of a ‘grand bargain’, the developing countries obtained the phase-out of quotas along with greater access to Northern markets for agricultural products in exchange for joining the WTO and abiding by its multilateral agreements. In striking this bargain, the developing countries accepted a trading regime and rules that prevent them from pursuing policies of economic development that will lift them out of poverty, and that also ensures that they fall further behind the rich countries. Now the poorer developing countries may not even see the benefit of their ‘bargain’ as they are poised to lose garment industries altogether as a result of quota elimination.


Right now these women still have work; time will tell if the removal of MFA quotas will also remove their jobs

The authors believe the quota removal must be renegotiated to mitigate the harsh impact on poorer developing countries. The authors also believe that the current free trade system is fundamentally unfair. We challenge the ideology of free trade that furthers the interests of multinational corporations (MNC) and the world’s investor class at the expense of a more just society, with full employment, fair wages, a healthy environment, and a democratic and transparent forum for negotiation.


Today’s debates about the future of the textile and apparel industries unfortunately place blame on China for job losses. Opportunist US politicians would like US workers to believe that Chinese workers are taking our jobs, but the reality is that US MNCs are moving production every day in search of lower costs and higher profits. If we recognise that the problem lies with MNCs whose only concern is the bottom line, we can unite across national borders in holding them and global institutions accountable because they control the current rules of the global economy.

Garment workers in every country must address unique local needs. However, new global strategies and alliances are required to tackle the imminent changes in the garment industry due to ‘free trade’.

Trade in Textiles and Apparel
The collapse of the WTO Cancún meeting in September 2003 signals a ray of hope for workers across the globe. Developing nations demonstrated a united front and successfully challenged the bullying of rich developed countries on new issues, as well as the removal of agricultural subsidies and tariffs on manufactured goods. The US and European Union (EU) sought to expand the WTO’s scope by beginning negotiations on new agreements on investment, government procurement, competition and trade facilitation. These proposals would provide more privileges for foreign investors and restrict countries’ domestic purchasing. Developing nations demanded that the WTO instead focus on the serious problems in the existing WTO rules, and these countries succeeded in stalling new negotiations. Now, there is an opening to push for alternative economic agreements that will truly benefit the world’s poorest countries. Nonetheless, a difficult fight still lies ahead, especially for the world’s garment workers, whose jobs may be lost and whose working conditions may worsen as apparel trade is further deregulated.


American woman garment worker
Photo: Roxane Auer

Textile and apparel industries are vital parts of the world economy, providing employment to tens of millions of mostly women workers in nearly 200 countries.1 For the past 30 years, a complex quota system has governed global textile and apparel trade, valued at US$344 billion in 2001.2 The elimination of this quota system in 2005 portends disaster for garment workers in the US and worldwide, as ‘free trade’ in textiles and apparel will cause massive job losses in many countries and accelerate the ‘race to the bottom’ in wages and working conditions.

The Elimination of Textile and Apparel Quotas
In 1974, the United States, Europe, and Canada adopted the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) that imposed import quotas to protect their domestic industries. Quotas limited the amount of textiles and apparel that could be imported into these countries. Developing nations that relied on garment exports for jobs and foreign exchange earnings demanded the removal of quotas to gain greater access to large US and EU markets. A decade ago, the countries that created the WTO established the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC). The ATC phases out all quotas on textiles and apparel over ten years, eliminating quotas altogether on 31 December 2004.3

MFA quotas work by restricting the amount of textiles and clothing that a producing country (usually developing) can legally export to a consumer country (US, EU, Canada). For example, when the US negotiates a bilateral trade agreement, it negotiates quotas with the exporting country, imposing limits on the quantities of specific categories of textiles and clothing the country can export to the US. To illustrate this system, Bangladesh’s quota limit on cotton trousers is 3.8 million dozen pairs. Once Bangladesh meets this quota, US retailers such as Sears, Target, or Wal-Mart must seek another country that has not reached its quota to produce their cotton trousers.

This quota system has a number of effects. It has distributed apparel production to nearly 200 countries, forcing retailers to cobble together their inventories from up to 50 countries at a time. Quotas add to the cost of production because they are often sold by exporting governments to brokers or factories; quotas also protect jobs in developed countries.

The Smaller Developing Countries Suffer
Labour advocates who pushed so hard to eliminate quotas did not anticipate that their apparel industries may also be decimated. Apparel MNCs like The Gap and Levi-Strauss currently produce garments in 50 countries at a time due to quota restrictions. The elimination of quotas will allow garment retailers and manufacturers to consolidate production in fewer countries. Reports, including one by the US State Department, maintain that companies that currently purchase goods from 40 to 60 countries will buy from 20 to 30 by early 2006. By 2010, the number of foreign suppliers could drop to one-quarter of the present number.4 Apparel manufacturing will likely concentrate in countries offering lowest labour costs, most efficient production, and most developed transport and telecommunications infrastructure. Apparel firms are also looking for countries that produce both the raw materials (i.e. textiles) and finished garments. Countries providing ‘full-package’ services - from textile production to cutting, sewing, and packaging - will be the most competitive.


Workers in Cambodia are worried about their future. Let’s hope the union can protect them.

Traditional giants of textile and apparel - China, India, and Pakistan (and upcoming Vietnam) - have the competitive advantage in all these areas. As the quota phase-out nears completion, where production is now shifting confirms smaller developing countries’ fears that retailers and brand-name manufacturers will move apparel production to these countries. For example after quotas on brassieres disappeared, China’s exports to the US rose 232 percent; after quotas on baby clothes vanished, China’s exports surged 826 percent while those from Bangladesh and the Philippines fell 18 and 17 percent respectively.5

The phase-out threatens many smaller developing countries that rely on textile and apparel exports for foreign exchange earnings and employment. For example, textile and apparel represented 84 percent of Bangladesh’s export earnings in 2000 and those exports accounted for 95 percent of total manufacturing exports. Employment in textiles and apparel accounts for roughly 65 percent of workers in Bangladesh’s industries.6

Bangladesh, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Kenya, the Dominican Republic and other nations fear that there may be little or nothing left of their apparel industries after 2005. Bangladesh faces a potential loss of one million jobs, as does Indonesia.7 They offer only low cost labour but no raw materials. Entire apparel industries may go in sub-Saharan Africa and countries like Brunei and Fiji, whose only competitive advantage is their quotas.

The US Textile Industry Blames China
Declining textile jobs have alarmed the US textile industry which blames increased imports from China. In July 2003, a coalition led by the American Textile Manufacturers Institute filed a petition with the US Commerce Department to limit Chinese imports, specifically brassieres, gloves, dressing gowns, and knit fabric. The US textile industry claims that since quotas were lifted on these items, China has flooded the market causing job losses.8

Accor-ding to a textile-specific safeguard in China’s agreement to enter the WTO, any WTO member can re-impose quotas on Chinese imports for one year, from 2005 to 2008, if there are market disruptions.9 China maintains that the petitions fail to show a clear link between Chinese imports and US job losses, and do not differentiate between the impact of Chinese imports and the impact of imports from other countries; US importers and retailers are siding with China.

Beyond China Bashing
Public debate on the future of the apparel and textile industries points an accusing finger at China as the ‘big winner’ in the global economy. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham recently issued a statement that illustrates the tone towards China. “I have long maintained that China cheats on trade agreements,” he said. “The practices of Chinese companies and the policies of the Chinese government are illegal and give them an unfair advantage in the textile market.”10

However, some labour advocates are also succumbing to this China bashing syndrome by asserting that China is leading the race to the bottom. But blaming China fails to address the root problems of economic globalisation, and also fails to address widespread labour and human rights abuses in China. The true culprits of the race to the bottom are powerful MNCs and undemocratic institutions like the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. Giant retailers and brand-name manufacturers firmly control decisions to move production to China or elsewhere that offers low costs and high profits. US-based MNCs are consciously shaping the rules of ‘free trade’ and influencing governments to aid them.

Continually demonising China could recreate the racist, anti-China mentalities of the US’ past. In the 19th century, Congress enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act under the pretext of protecting US jobs from Chinese workers, perceived as ‘coolies’ and strike-breakers. This was the US’ first racist immigration policy. In the 20th century, the Cold War renewed xenophobic views of China as the US fostered fear of ‘Red Chinese’ threatening US security. Today, economic uncertainty has led to the scapegoating of Chinese and other immigrants in the US for the problems caused by globalisation.11 Such scapegoating shifts the focus from US and international policies and corporate practices, fostering divisions among working people. As we address the looming threats to garment workers due to free trade, we must remember where those threats originate - MNCs, their global institutions, and the governments that enable them.

The Role of Free Trade Agreements
At the WTO meeting in Cancún, the US hoped to eliminate more barriers to textile and apparel trade by phasing out tariffs. After the collapse of the WTO negotiations, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said the US will continue its free trade agenda through regional and bilateral trade agreements, and not rely solely on the WTO. “The US trade strategy…includes advances on multiple fronts. We have free trade agreements with six countries right now. And we’re negotiating free trade agreements with 14 more.”12

US trade officials have not been explicit about a schedule for phasing out tariffs since the failed WTO talks, but said that the US is pushing for reciprocal market access, “[Developing countries] have to give us the market access we will give them.”13

Trade agreements will continue to play a regulating role in apparel and textile trade, but tariff preferences are not as significant as quotas. The average tariff on apparel is 17 percent, while quotas ‘cost’ more than double.14 Today, quotas constrain more than half the imports from China and other Asian countries. When quotas are lifted, the tariff-free benefits enjoyed by Mexico, for example, will provide little competitive advantage over Asian countries.

Countries that are part of trading blocs with the US will have varying levels of advantage after the quota phase-out. Mexico, through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Caribbean nations, through the Caribbean Basin Trade Preferences Act (CBTPA), will continue to have a slight advantage on tariffs and will compete most successfully on turnaround times. Nonetheless, these countries have seen exports to the US decline under phased lifting of quotas. China is now the number one clothing supplier to the US, surpassing Mexico where from 2001 - 2003 325 of Mexico’s 1,122 garment factories have closed down,15 many moving to China, leaving over 220,000 Mexican workers jobless.16

As the US shifts focus from the WTO to regional and bilateral trade agreements, these negotiations must be monitored, not only for their impact on apparel production but also for their inclusion of labour issues. The US is touting labour provisions in bilateral agreements with Chile and Singapore as models for labour rights protection. Yet, these provisions only require that the partner countries enforce existing labour laws: “strive to ensure” that they do not “encourage trade or investment by weakening or reducing the protections afforded in domestic labour laws,” and “strive to ensure” that domestic labour laws recognise and protect international labour standards.17

Some labour advocates seek to go beyond such provisions by pushing for enforceable labour standards in trade agreements, using the US-Cambodia free trade agreement as a model. In that agreement, the US grants increased market access to Cambodia based on compliance with international labour standards, which are monitored and reported by the ILO.18 A coalition of US labour advocates is suggesting a similar proposal for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and some international advocates are exploring whether labour rights compliance can be a competitive advantage for some apparel-producing countries.

A Call to Action
As 2005 draws near and with the dawning realisation of the impact on their apparel industries, countries and labour advocates are responding in many different ways.

The US textile industry, fearing that a surge of imports from China will decimate the domestic industry, is calling for quotas on Chinese imports. On the other hand, US retailers and apparel makers welcome the quota phase-out because it gives them more flexibility to locate production anywhere they want. In addition, Chinese textile lobbyists are reportedly joining US retailers to oppose restrictions on Chinese imports into the US.

In Bangladesh, the Make Trade Fair Alliance of 24 organisations supports tariff- and quota-free market access, flexible rules of origin19 (see article by Oxfam International) and removal of other technical barriers to strengthen its garment industry. Apparel and textile firms in Indonesia and the Philippines are calling on their governments to help them boost their competitiveness in the global market through programmes aimed at improving productivity and technology.

Leading up to the WTO meeting in Cancún, there was talk of extending the quota system. But the WTO agreement to eliminate quotas explicitly prohibits any extension. All 148 WTO member countries will have to agree to renegotiate further regulation of the trade. With China, India, and Pakistan poised to benefit from total quota phase-out, it is doubtful that consensus can be reached. Indeed, during the Cancún meeting proposals fell short of an explicit call to extend quotas.
In Cancún, the ICFTU, the world’s largest union body, called on the WTO to conduct an urgent review of the impact of the quota phase-out on development sustainability, employment, and working conditions for the tens of millions of apparel and textile workers. The ICFTU also called for greater co-operation between the WTO and relevant United Nations agencies and the ILO as collaboration is needed to ensure a social dimension to trade.

Should quotas or preferential market access be extended to protect jobs in the smaller developing countries? Should restrictions be placed on countries like China to prevent US firms moving production from smaller countries? What about protection for US garment workers? How will the new trading environment affect workers’ ability to defend labour rights? There are no easy answers. At the moment the question of which workers and countries will lose out and which will benefit from ending quotas is left entirely to apparel MNCs whose only concern is the bottom line.

But one thing is clear, if quotas are completely eliminated, many developing countries will not benefit from the bargain they negotiated during the Uruguay Round of negotiations that created the WTO. In fact, they have already given up too much in return for a benefit that now appears illusory.

The Grand Bargain
Every ten years since the end of World War II when the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was created, the member countries engage in mega-negotiations on tariff reductions and various ways to lower trade barriers. During the Uruguay Round of negotiations that began in 1986 and concluded with the founding of the WTO in 1994, the industrialised countries wanted trade agreements on intellectual property and services. GATT covered only the trade in goods and the US was running substantial trade deficits on goods. Increasingly, a larger proportion of its trade was in services. The US also saw its economic future in intellectual property trade. It wanted multilateral agreements that lowered trade barriers in these two areas as well as further trade liberalisation for goods.

Developing countries wanted greater access to industrialised countries’ markets, particularly reigning in the renegade sectors – agriculture and textile/apparel – and an end to the MFA’s textile and apparel quotas. Despite the fact that GATT applied to all goods, the US and Europe protected their agricultural industries through higher tariffs, export subsidies, and domestic price supports.

The Uruguay Round was negotiated primarily by the US, EU, and Japan while developing countries had little influence. In the end, the developing countries could not simply continue as parties to the GATT. In order for continued access to the industrialised countries’ markets, they had to join the WTO and agree to all the multilateral agreements negotiated by the US and EU.

A grand bargain was reached. The US and EU gave developing countries greater market access for agricultural products (reduction in domestic price supports by 1999, export subsidies, tariffs), and the elimination of quotas on textiles and apparel over 10 years. In return, the developing countries agreed to be bound by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) (recognising intellectual property rights as property rights and an enforceable mechanism to protect the patents, copyrights, and trademarks), the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) (allowing developed countries to penetrate service markets in telecommunications, law, and finance), the Agreement on Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMS) and numerous other agreements and understandings.20
US pharmaceutical companies used the TRIPS agreement to patent drugs to prevent countries such as South Africa, India, and Brazil from producing and selling cheaper generic versions of drugs to fight AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases. After TRIPS, the prices of medicines in many developing countries increased dramatically. Developing countries must use scarce resources to develop judicial systems that US and EU firms can use to file lawsuits against copyright, patent, etc. infringements. Biotechnology firms patented indigenous plants like beans and herbs with medicinal properties to prevent their use and sale by the very people in developing countries who have used these plants for hundreds of years. There is fear that GATS will be used to privatise and increase the prices of essential services such as water, electricity, education, and health care that are presently supplied by local governments.

The North obviously got much more from the bargain than the South. Even so the US and EU are reneging on the deal. They have been slow in reducing farm subsidies and price supports for agriculture. For example, in recent months, the US authorised a 10-year subsidy for cotton farmers. Subsidised US cotton farmers overproduce and now dump so much on the global market that it has driven down world prices, impoverishing developing countries’ farmers, while subsidised US corn floods their markets. With the ending of apparel quotas, garment industries in smaller developing countries will shrink or disappear altogether.

A Different Route to Development
The grand bargain was a bad bargain for the developing countries in an even more fundamental way. It required the developing countries to be bound by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Understanding. Prior to joining the WTO, developing countries could benefit from reduced tariffs and non-tariff barriers provided in the GATT while at the same time ignoring GATT rules to protect domestic industries. Long-term economic growth depends on the development of domestic industries.

A strategy of exporting to the North does not necessarily lead to long-term economic growth. For example, from 1975 to 1994, half of the 25 developing countries with high export-GDP ratios had less than modest success in growth and half of those had negative growth.21 No country has ever developed by opening itself up indiscriminately to imports. In fact, the US and EU experienced their fastest rates of growth behind high walls of protectionism throughout the nineteenth century until after Word War II. Much of East Asia, including South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, generated an economic miracle through industrial policies that are now banned by the WTO. These policies included liberal use of quotas to protect domestic industries and markets, patent-infringement (reverse engineering) to gain technological knowledge, generous export subsidies, performance requirements such as export-import balance requirements, domestic content requirements on foreign investors when allowed in, and restriction on capital flows (including foreign direct investment). These policies that the rich countries and East Asian tigers used during their period of ascendancy are now denied to almost 100 developing countries that need them just as much.

The developing countries exchanged policy autonomy for improved market access in the North mistakenly believing that they could grow economically only with access to the North’s markets. They bought into the North’s mantra that free trade is a rising tide that will lift the world’s countries into prosperity. The impact of the apparel quota phase-out puts a big hole in this mantra.

The question is not simply whether apparel and textile quotas should be extended to protect the smaller developing countries; there should be renegotiations of quotas, or differential tariff rates for, or preferential access to, those countries in need of more time to make their apparel industries more competitive or to cope with their inevitable loss altogether. But these are only temporary protections. Developing countries need to renegotiate the terms of all the WTO agreements that bar them from adopting the development strategies that the North and the Asian Tigers used that will truly raise them out of poverty.

Developing countries also need to stop relying on cheap labour as a means of development. Increasingly, as the primary strategy for development, smaller developing countries attract Northern industries by creating Export Processing Zones (EPZ) where enforcement of labour laws is lax and outright repression of worker organising is promised. These countries make no demand for majority ownership, local content requirements, or transfer of expertise and knowledge. EPZs’ goods are for export, with no linkage to the local economy and no multiplier effects, with flow of corporate profits towards the North and no local control over what is produced and how it is produced. Production is partial, e.g. fabrication of immediate components or assembly of final products from components produced elsewhere. Virtually no transfer of technologies happens. No industrial base providing for the needs of the local population is developed. EPZ workforces are young, largely female, and low paid, often barely covering basic necessities. The labour force is quickly worn out, turning over every one to two years in some factories. This type of division of labour perpetuates the dependency of developing countries and is not a major improvement over traditional agriculture.

By over-reliance on cheap labour in the apparel industry, developing countries lock themselves into a situation where they cannot transform their economies. Quota extensions or similar restrictions, can give them the time they need to develop alternative models of economic development.

A Fair Global Trading System
The elimination of textile and apparel quotas raises the question: ‘What is a fair global trading system?’ The imminent economic threats of the quota phase-out, coupled with the recent failure of the WTO, provide an important opportunity for dialogue and debate about fair trade. In addition, the shift of millions of apparel and textile jobs to China, India, and Pakistan creates an urgency for discussing trade and labour rights22—among developing countries that will lose jobs to larger developing countries, as well as among labour activists in developed countries.

The Preamble to the WTO Charter makes clear that trade and economic endeavours “...should be conducted with a view to raising standards of living, ensuring full employment and a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective demand...” Far from raising standards of living, today’s world trade regime, governed by the rules of the WTO and policies of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Asian Development Bank that continually push for lower trade barriers have resulted in more poverty. WTO trade rules were written to prevent developing countries from pursuing the type of economic development that would truly raise standards of living and that would allow them to catch up technologically with the rich countries. The beneficiaries of the free trade regime have been MNCs and the world’s investor class. We challenge their ideology of free trade. To create a fair trading system where every person can enjoy a living wage and benefits in a safe work environment, we must work with the intention of building a global movement for fair trade. Any future trading system must:
• Not force developing countries to give up policy autonomy for market access or financial assistance.
• Not include reciprocal market access leaving developing countries unable to protect their domestic industries and service sectors from Northern competition.
• Not include intellectual property rights rules that prevent developing countries from upgrading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and other technologies to catch up with the North.
Any trade agreements for apparel and textiles must strive to keep corporations and international institutions from pitting countries against each other. Agreements must:
• Be negotiated with the principles of democracy, transparency, and accountability. Negotiations should include democratic participation by workers and their organisations. Draft text, proposals, and meeting agendas should be made public.
• Ensure that workers’ rights and environmental rights are recognised and protected. These rights must be covered by dispute resolution and effective enforcement mechanisms.
• Ensure that dislocated workers have access to job training and placement, and an adequate social safety net.

With the growing lack of credibility of the WTO and increasing doubts about the promises of free trade, there is now greater room for new alternatives to emerge from the grassroots, and for new international alliances to develop. As Walden Bello of Focus on the Global South stated in Cancún, “Society, not economics, must drive the market. Profitability must be subordinate to community, life, and solidarity.”23

Notes
1 International Labour Organisation (ILO), Notes on the Proceedings: Tripartite Meeting on Labour Practices in the Footwear, Leather, Textiles and Clothing Industries, Geneva: ILO, 16-20 October 2000
2 “UN Study Addresses Quotas End”, Women’s Wear Daily, 22 July 2003
3 The full text of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) can be found at http://otexa.ita.doc.gov/atc.htm; see details at http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm5_e.htm
4 “Quota Phaseout Poses Worry for Some”, Women’s Wear Daily, 26 August 2003
5 US International Trade Commission, http://www.usitc.gov; Hiebert, Murray, “Getting Ready for Free Trade”, Far East Economic Review, 31 July 2003
6 EU Directorate General on Trade, Evolution of Trade in Textile and Clothing Trade World-Wide — Trade Figures and Structural Data, background paper prepared for the Conference on “The Future of Textiles and Clothing Trade After 2005”, Brussels, 5-6 May 2003 (http://trade-info.cec.eu.int/textiles/documents/102.doc)
7 International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers’ Federation, “What future for Textiles and Clothing Trade After 2005 ?”, 2 September 2003, (http://www.itglwf.org/displaydocument.asp?DocType=Press&Language=&Index=595)
8 American Textile Manufacturers Institute (ATMI), “The China Threat to World Textile and Apparel Trade”, Washington, D.C.: ATMI, 3 September 2003, (http://www.atmi.org/Textiletrade/ChinaThreat.pdf)
9 Li, Yuefen, “China’s Accession to the WTO”; “Exaggerated Fears?”, United Nations Committee on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Discussion Paper No. 165, November 2002, (http://www.unctad.org/en/docs//osgdp165_en.pdf)
10 Barboza, David, “Textile Industry Seeks Trade Limits on Chinese”, New York Times, 25 July 2003
11 Wong, Kent and Bernard, Elaine, “Rethinking the China Campaign – A Critique of the American Labor Movement’s Stance”, China Rights Forum, Spring 2001, (http://www.socialdemocrats.org/RethinkingChina.html)
12 Zoellick, Robert, US Trade Representative Press Conference, WTO Fifth Ministerial Meeting, Cancún, Mexico, 14 September 2003
13 Ellis, Kristi, “Cancún Talks Come to a Halt”, Women’s Wear Daily, 15 September 2003
14 Nathan Associates Inc, “Changes In The Global Trade Rules For Textiles And Apparel: Implications For Developing Countries”, Arlington, VA; Nathan Associates, Inc, Research Report, 20 November 2002 (http://www.nathaninc.com/nathan/files/ccPageContentdocfilename145825705546TCB_Textiles_(final).pdf)
15 US Commerce Department, Office of Textiles and Apparel, http://otexa.ita.doc.gov; Ellis, Kristi, “China Takes Apparel Import Lead”, Women’s Wear Daily, 13 October 2003
16 Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN), “Codes Memo, Number 15: Labor Rights, Trade Agreements and the MFA Phase Out”, Toronto, Canada: MSN, September 2003, (http://www.maquilasolidarity.org/resources/codes/memo15.htm); Ryder, Guy, International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) Press Conference, WTO Fifth Ministerial Meeting, Cancún, Mexico, 12 September 2003
17 Human Rights Watch, “Labor Rights Protections in CAFTA”, October 2003 (http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/cafta1003.htm)
18 ILO, “First Synthesis Report on the Working Conditions in Cambodia’s Garment Sector”, Geneva: ILO, November 2001 (http://bravo.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/cambodia.htm)
19 Rules of origin require the use of trading partners’ yarns, fabric, and dying. Trade agreements usually have rules requiring the use of regional fabrics, called ‘yarn forward’ rules
20 These WTO multilateral agreements are annexed to The WTO Agreement, dated 15 April 1994, and can be found on the WTO Web site at http://www.wto.org or www.worldtradelaw.net
21 Rodrik, Dani, “The New Global Economy and Developing Countries: Making Openness Work”, Policy Essay No.4, (1999) published by Overseas Development Council, Washington DC, distributed by Johns Hopkins University Press
22 For background on labour issues in China see Chan, Anita, “A Race to the Bottom – Globalisation and China’s Labour Standards”, China Perspectives, No. 46, March – April 2003, (http://rspas.anu.edu.au/~anita/#4)
23 Bello, Walden, “Voices from the Global South and Toward Real Solidarity between North and South”, SIGTUR Forum, Cancún, Mexico, 11 September 2003