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[Yes, if I'm a famous-name artist, and can get $10,000 for a pencil-on-paper sketch that cost me $5 and 10 minute to produce, that's fine. But...] Reading the

[Yes, if I'm a famous-name artist, and can get $10,000 for a pencil-on-paper sketch that cost me $5 and 10 minute to produce, that's fine. But...] Reading the article... BusinessInsider's headline has little to do with the prosecutor's government's stated concerns: > In probes through March and April, investigators found evidence that workers were sleeping in the facility so bags could be produced around the clock, Reuters reported. They also tracked electricity-consumption data, which showed work was being carried out during nights and holidays, the report said. > The subcontractors were Chinese-owned firms, prosecutors said. They said most of the workers were from China, with two living in the country illegally and another seven working without required documentation. > The probe also said safety devices on gluing and brushing machines were removed so workers could operate them faster. > The prosecution said violating labor rules was a common industry practice that luxury giants relied on for higher profits. > "It's not something sporadic that concerns single production lots, but a generalized and consolidated manufacturing method," court documents about the decision to place Dior under administration said, according to Reuters. > "The main problem is obviously people being mistreated: applying labor laws, so health and safety, hours, pay," Fabio Roia, the president of the Milan Court, told Reuters earlier this year. "But there is also another huge problem: the unfair competition that pushes law-abiding firms off the market." Normally, I'd assumed that "famous brands used sub-contractors to do the dirty work" ==> "famous brand gets off with a slapped wrist". But the third subtitle: > Judges placed Dior and Armani units under judicial administration for one year. So hopefully not, this time?

jeremyjh 2y ago
I think the price matters insofar as they clearly have the revenue to produce quality goods safely. But they'd rather inflict human misery on people to save 0.4% of the retail cost.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > they clearly have the revenue to produce quality goods safely The headline figure does “not include raw materials such as leather,” nor core costs like distribution, R&D, retail and marketing. (That a “luxury” brand can be made by abused workers is a separate farce.)
- 14 2y ago
  I find it funny rich people buying a cheaply made Chinese product and thinking it is a status symbol and that their bag is superior.
  - chmod775 2y ago
    There's not enough actually rich people around to explain the revenue these brands make. It's not rich people for the most part, just people who want to appear rich. These brands exist to separate the 100k-200k household income demographic from their disposable income, and maybe some other demographics from money they didn't really have in the first place. Most people who have money and manage to hold on to it have more sense than buying an overpriced low-quality bag that telegraphs they're a sucker.
    - GreatLdisisp88 2y ago
      You obviously havnt heard of ex-Malaysian Prime Minister's wife bag collection. There are rich or super rich people with habits like a drug addicts buying up these branded goods. Is basically like YTers getting patreon patrons. They dont need millions of followers. They just need 1000 hardcore fans that pay them monthly.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    I'd figure that the "status" it symbolizes is some combination of: - Juvenile any-excuse-to-say-I'm-betterism - Convenient stupidity - Willful ignorance - Gloating that they're in the 0.1%, and need not care what is done to the bottom 99% in the name of catering to their petty wishes (But I'll admit that, if enough of their social circle has such "luxuries", then they're stuck in a "I am in Rome, so ..." situation.)
eddiewithzato 2y ago
Globalism is the greatest thing to ever happen to the slave trade. It pretty much put the “problem” away from people’s eyes. Now no one sees the insane conditions and “salary” that is being paid. No need to own anybody, just pay them $10 a day at some foreign country. Works out cheaper as well.
alephnerd 2y ago
> The subcontractors were Chinese-owned firms, prosecutors said. They said most of the workers were from China, with two living in the country illegally and another seven working without required documentation This is how almost all "Made in Italy" clothing products are produced. Local Italian governments made SEZs where garment manufacturing would occur but with no oversight from labor inspectors. You'd have a bunch of small shops do piece work that was outsourced by the brands, and these small shops were largely Wu dialect speakers due to the mass migration from Zhejiang back in the 90s. It's been reported on for decades but no one cared [0][1][2]. Italy has a massive shadow economy powered by laborers trafficked from China (garments), India (dairy), Sri Lanka (garments), etc. 30 years ago it would have been Albanians, Yugoslavians, Romanians, or Poles but they'd rather go to Germany which has been developed much longer than Italy (Italy's HDI in the early-mid 1990s was comparable to Mexico, China, Thailand, and Serbia's HDI today) [0] - https://inthesetimes.com/article/working-for-fashion-chinese-labor-in-italy https://inthesetimes.com/article/working-for-fashion-chinese... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-sweatshop-insight/insight-italys-chinese-garment-workshops-boom-as-workers-suffer-idUSBRE9BS04D20131229/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-sweatshop-insight/i... [2] - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-workers-who-assemble-designer-bags-in-tuscany https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-wo...
- eddiewithzato 2y ago
  Idk I been to a dairy farm in central Italy, the margins aren’t that great for the farmer. He was mostly self employed working literal 10+ hour days. The supermarkets get most of the cut. He explained getting a worker trained and then paying them wasn’t feasible.
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    You can't justify leaving migrant workers to literally die due to workplace accidents and not taking them to get medical care [0][1] This has been an issue for decades in Italy. While Italy might be in Europe, it's rule of law and lack of support for those at the bottom rung of society is comparable to (not much) poorer Eastern European peers like Czechia. [0] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49687248 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49687248 [1] - https://www.meltingpot.org/2024/06/a-latina-satnam-singh-e-stato-ucciso-dal-sistema-di-sfruttamento/ https://www.meltingpot.org/2024/06/a-latina-satnam-singh-e-s...
trimethylpurine 2y ago
> Normally, I'd assumed that "famous brands used sub-contractors to do the dirty work" ==> "famous brand gets off with a slapped wrist". Typically licensees work very hard to gain the licensing to manufacture for a brand. And the licensor has requirements like regular inspections for work conditions, that the licensee typically pays for, because they don't want publicity like this to damage their brand. Without knowing the details I could guess that Dior wouldn't have wanted whichever factory they hired to shirk their guidelines. But, Eastern and Western norms for work conditions are very much different and getting Easterners to follow Western guidelines is quite difficult no matter how much you're willing to pay. In many cases factories put on a show for the inspector. Once he/she returns to their home country, the factory returns to its regular operating conditions, which are usually just normal work conditions for their country.

jeremyjh 2y ago

I think the price matters insofar as they clearly have the revenue to produce quality goods safely. But they'd rather inflict human misery on people to save 0.4% of the retail cost.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> they clearly have the revenue to produce quality goods safely The headline figure does “not include raw materials such as leather,” nor core costs like distribution, R&D, retail and marketing. (That a “luxury” brand can be made by abused workers is a separate farce.)
14 2y ago
I find it funny rich people buying a cheaply made Chinese product and thinking it is a status symbol and that their bag is superior.
- chmod775 2y ago
  There's not enough actually rich people around to explain the revenue these brands make. It's not rich people for the most part, just people who want to appear rich. These brands exist to separate the 100k-200k household income demographic from their disposable income, and maybe some other demographics from money they didn't really have in the first place. Most people who have money and manage to hold on to it have more sense than buying an overpriced low-quality bag that telegraphs they're a sucker.
  - GreatLdisisp88 2y ago
    You obviously havnt heard of ex-Malaysian Prime Minister's wife bag collection. There are rich or super rich people with habits like a drug addicts buying up these branded goods. Is basically like YTers getting patreon patrons. They dont need millions of followers. They just need 1000 hardcore fans that pay them monthly.
- bell-cot 2y ago
  I'd figure that the "status" it symbolizes is some combination of: - Juvenile any-excuse-to-say-I'm-betterism - Convenient stupidity - Willful ignorance - Gloating that they're in the 0.1%, and need not care what is done to the bottom 99% in the name of catering to their petty wishes (But I'll admit that, if enough of their social circle has such "luxuries", then they're stuck in a "I am in Rome, so ..." situation.)

eddiewithzato 2y ago

Globalism is the greatest thing to ever happen to the slave trade. It pretty much put the “problem” away from people’s eyes. Now no one sees the insane conditions and “salary” that is being paid. No need to own anybody, just pay them $10 a day at some foreign country. Works out cheaper as well.

alephnerd 2y ago

> The subcontractors were Chinese-owned firms, prosecutors said. They said most of the workers were from China, with two living in the country illegally and another seven working without required documentation This is how almost all "Made in Italy" clothing products are produced. Local Italian governments made SEZs where garment manufacturing would occur but with no oversight from labor inspectors. You'd have a bunch of small shops do piece work that was outsourced by the brands, and these small shops were largely Wu dialect speakers due to the mass migration from Zhejiang back in the 90s. It's been reported on for decades but no one cared [0][1][2]. Italy has a massive shadow economy powered by laborers trafficked from China (garments), India (dairy), Sri Lanka (garments), etc. 30 years ago it would have been Albanians, Yugoslavians, Romanians, or Poles but they'd rather go to Germany which has been developed much longer than Italy (Italy's HDI in the early-mid 1990s was comparable to Mexico, China, Thailand, and Serbia's HDI today) [0] - https://inthesetimes.com/article/working-for-fashion-chinese-labor-in-italy https://inthesetimes.com/article/working-for-fashion-chinese... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-sweatshop-insight/insight-italys-chinese-garment-workshops-boom-as-workers-suffer-idUSBRE9BS04D20131229/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-sweatshop-insight/i... [2] - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-workers-who-assemble-designer-bags-in-tuscany https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/16/the-chinese-wo...

eddiewithzato 2y ago
Idk I been to a dairy farm in central Italy, the margins aren’t that great for the farmer. He was mostly self employed working literal 10+ hour days. The supermarkets get most of the cut. He explained getting a worker trained and then paying them wasn’t feasible.
- alephnerd 2y ago
  You can't justify leaving migrant workers to literally die due to workplace accidents and not taking them to get medical care [0][1] This has been an issue for decades in Italy. While Italy might be in Europe, it's rule of law and lack of support for those at the bottom rung of society is comparable to (not much) poorer Eastern European peers like Czechia. [0] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49687248 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49687248 [1] - https://www.meltingpot.org/2024/06/a-latina-satnam-singh-e-stato-ucciso-dal-sistema-di-sfruttamento/ https://www.meltingpot.org/2024/06/a-latina-satnam-singh-e-s...

trimethylpurine 2y ago

> Normally, I'd assumed that "famous brands used sub-contractors to do the dirty work" ==> "famous brand gets off with a slapped wrist". Typically licensees work very hard to gain the licensing to manufacture for a brand. And the licensor has requirements like regular inspections for work conditions, that the licensee typically pays for, because they don't want publicity like this to damage their brand. Without knowing the details I could guess that Dior wouldn't have wanted whichever factory they hired to shirk their guidelines. But, Eastern and Western norms for work conditions are very much different and getting Easterners to follow Western guidelines is quite difficult no matter how much you're willing to pay. In many cases factories put on a show for the inspector. Once he/she returns to their home country, the factory returns to its regular operating conditions, which are usually just normal work conditions for their country.