LL Bean as bad as WalMart?

[MaineDem]

I was at the Freeport store the other day and I actually read some of the labels on the clothing. Everything was imported. Made in China, Bangladesh, Canada, Indonesia...

I did see that their hunting boots were sewn in Maine.

I've always liked this company and had the impression that they were local-friendly.

It's not like their clothing is inexpensive so, in that regard, they aren't using foreign imports to lower prices like WalMart.

I'm really torn here. They do employ Maine people but they support foreign laborers.

A dilemma...

[La_Serpiente]

1. It seems like everyone

Is now shifting labor overseas. Levis, who's had a known track record for workers rights, left overseas because they just couldn't compete any longer.

Osh Kosh Bigosh, K-Mart, Wal-Mart, everyone does it now.

Ambercrombie And Fitch, GAP, Old Navy. It's kind of disgusting.

I really would like some labor standards put into it.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. Look at their market share increase

I think they have few choices given the prodigous business they are doing. As an example: their catalogue is now nationally circulated. But the question is fair.

[boilerbabe]

3. NAFTA ruined pretty much everyone

I was an unwitting party to the furtherance of cheap labor 3 yrs ago, when I helped start up a paper mill in Guyana on behalf of the owners of the company I work for. My altruism turned into somewhat of a skepticism when I saw the pervasive poverty of the general populace, the low wages generally paid to workers, and the evironmental impact on the area, which has no sewerage or water treatment to speak of.

The only rationalization I could make was that we were providing employment to several people who were displaced due to a closure of a local Rum brewery. I never heard any complaints amongst the people I worked with there, maybe it was a kind of national optimism that things would be ok. I always will view my participation in this endeavour in a somewhat positive way, since many people's livlihoods were dependent on this mill, but on the other hand, I would have liked to see better wages, and environmental protections more in place. I am under the impression that there will be more environmental strictures in the future, and am hopeful that there will be more equity in the wages there.

I still keep in touch with some of the friends I made there, and all I can do is hope that things will get better for them.

XXXOOO

[pdx_prog]

4. A clothing factory

in Tennessee used to make most all of the LL Bean coats and jackets. I used to buy them and London Fog coats at their outlet store for really dirt cheap.

[cosmicdot]

5. Prices haven't gone down, have they? Probably, up.

... so, if they come back to shore, they'll raise the prices saying it's because of higher labor costs despite never lowering them in the first place ...