Paper short abstract:

How do labour practices in foreign-owned companies lead to exploitative working conditions in Ethiopia? How do the government's manufacturing policy and lack of government labour inspection in companies cheapen wages and create social inequalities associated with "abundant labour?"

Paper long abstract:

Ethiopia, emulating the developmental state model of east Asian states, attracted labour-intensive manufacturing industries to create job opportunities for its young people by providing a class of "cheapened labourers" for global production. Thousands of young rural girls and university graduates work for foreign companies that have relocated their factories to Ethiopian industrial parks. Drawing on fieldwork in two foreign garment companies misleadingly named Green Garment Company (GGC) and Blue Apparel Company (BAC) in Bole Lemi industrial park (BLIP) in Addis Ababa, this paper explores how the market's abundance of job-seeking labour forces cheapened factory workers' wages, allowing foreign companies to exploit local workers and extract unpaid surplus labour from them. It will also investigate how workers in garment factories perceive and resist exploitative working conditions.