Globalization of Garment Industry

In response to “Is Having a Garment Industry Worth All the Trouble?” Joel Kotkin, Opinion, Jan. 19:

Flexibility through geographical mobility is nothing new. Guess’ decision to shift its production to Mexico and South America represents a decades-old profit-enhancing strategy valued and sought after by firms in all sectors of commodity production. What has happened since the early 1970s, however, has been the merging of computer and telecommunications technologies, which has greatly accelerated corporate capability to reorganize production on a global scale, be it automotive, computer, toys or apparel.

A convergence of a series of even more recent phenomena, centered on Mexico, has virtually pushed the production dispersion pedal to the floor: NAFTA, the peso devaluation, privatization and development strategies geared to attract global production. On a global scale, apparel production is shifting, slowly but steadily, in the direction of Mexico. However if early indicators are correct, much of the relocation is coming from Asia, not Southern California.

I concur with Kotkin--the Southern California garment industry, the nation’s largest, is clearly “worth all the trouble.” I also reluctantly share his view that, given their current outdated organizing strategies, it is unlikely that labor unions will ever make any significant inroads in the L.A. garment industry.

Politicians need to recognize the value of immigrant labor and labor organizers need to educate themselves in the realities of a global economy. Robert Reich’s call to educate U.S. society’s members from the ground up goes unheeded while we continue to enact immigration legislation that is designed to effectively shoot ourselves economically in the foot.

JUDI A. KESSLER

Department of Sociology

UC Santa Barbara

* NAFTA strikes again with the departure of Southern California’s largest apparel manufacturer, Guess, with its related jobs, to south of the border (Jan. 15). Guess’ lost jobs are in addition to the 26,000 garment industry jobs that have already moved to Mexico from the United States. Guess thus joins Price Pfister from Pacoima, the nation’s third-largest faucet manufacturer, which is relocating its manufacturing to Mexicali.

Perhaps our Valley congressman, Howard Berman, who fought hard to pass NAFTA, can explain how all this benefits his constituents, and the workers of the United States!

ROBERT WALTON

Sylmar