Only when workers' rights are respected can we generate more contracts with American companies. But to get those contracts, El Salvador must compete with neighbors like Honduras and Nicaragua, where wages are lower and the population even poorer and more eager for work. Since Gap pioneered the independent monitoring effort, few other American companies have followed. They cite costs, politics and questionable effectiveness. Gap executives echo those worries when they assess the experience at Charter.
Consumers make decisions on lots of factors, including price.
There is no clear benefit in having invested in independent monitoring to a consumer and it is not clear if we were to make it more broad policy that consumers would get a benefit or care at all. As she shopped at the Gap flagship store at Herald Square in Manhattan, Claire Cosslett fingered an aqua cotton T-shirt made in El Salvador to check for quality. American companies dread comments like that. Yet for all their fears, they ultimately have to balance their concern over image, and any feelings they have about third-world workers, with customers' attitudes. Then there are the competitive pressures to keep costs low.