Made in America

Who’s responsible for the outsourcing of our jobs to countries like China and India? Just look in the mirror. We clamored for cheaper prices at retail stores, but didn’t realize these imports would often be shoddy or unsafe. Did we even care that the factory workers, often children, labored for long hours under dangerous conditions?

Free trade agreements made it easier for companies like Walmart to import cheaply made, low-price merchandise from foreign countries. We often hear about some imported product bursting into flames or having a contaminant. Nowwe learn that a Bangladesh shirt factory, its exit doors locked, caught fire, killing scores of workers.

The March1911Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in NewYork City, where scores of immigrant workers perished due to sealed doors and no fire escapes, alerted customers to the human cost of lusting after cheap merchandise. If you want safe and well-built products built by Americans not laboring in some sweatshop, you’ll have to demand them — and be willing to pay a fair price.

Boycott stores that sell excessive imports, email the CEOs of these firms that you want products made in America, and lean on Congress to bring our jobs back.

Marvin M. Kaplan Casselberry