An Education in one Land's End Order

For years I have purchased Land's End products, and although the quality of those products seemed to diminish even before Sears purchased the company, I continued to buy certain items, especially the interlock cardigans and turtleneck and mock-turtleneck sweaters. The clothes were reasonably priced and adequate to my casual lifestyle. Also, I just dislike spending time driving to and from--and spending time wandering in and out of--clothing shops. I just don't much like shopping. So I tend to buy my clothes online: Land's End when I'm looking for something reasonably priced and Marketplace India to accessorize those boring Land's End products.

And because I like to buy products on sale, I often purchase items at the end of a season for the next year. In spring, I may buy a pair of boots. In the fall, I may order a couple of pairs of shorts and t-shirts. So last week, I sent in a large order--for me--to Land's End (and, near the same time, to Marketplace India--I also tend to buy a lot of needed items at one time, thus reducing the amount of time I spend on online shopping!) What an eye-opener when I began unpacking my new clothes and removing the plastic packaging from each item. Every item seemed to have originated in a different country. Here's the list: Hong Kong, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Egypt, Indonesia, Brunei Darussalam, and Q.I.Z. Jordan. Good God! It boggles the mind to think that one of my turtlenecks originated in an Asian country and that another was imported from Central America.

And what the heck is Q.I.Z. Jordan? I discovered that Q.I.Z. is the acronymn for "Qualifying Industrial Zones." According to Wikipedia, qualifying industrial zones are

industrial parks that house manufacturing operations in Jordan and Egypt. They are a special free trade zones established in collaboration with Israel to take advantage of the free trade agreements between the United States and Israel. Under the trade agreements with Jordan as laid down by the United States, goods produced in QIZ-notified areas can directly access US markets without tariff or quota restrictions, subject to certain conditions. To qualify, goods produced in these zones must contain a small portion of Israeli input. In addition, a minimum 35% value to the goods must be added to the finished product.

According to the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, Congress authorized QIZ in 1996, amending the "United State-Israel Free Trade Area Implementation Act of 1985 with the goal of promoting peace, development, and trade between Israel and the surrounding countries, namely Egypt, since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979."

According to CorpWatch, an activist organization, in 2003, most of the workers in the QIZ factories were women who made a minimum wage of about $3.50 a day (while at least one of those factories made a profit of over 2 million dollars a years). Well, no wonder my turtlenecks are so damn cheap.