Sweatshops
The Cause and Effect
A sweatshop is a factory work environment with horrible working conditions that are violent, extremely unsanitary, and all together threatening. Sweatshops are the factories producing not only the new technical gadgets, which are vastly popular in wealthy nations such as America, but also common goods such as shoe, clothing, rugs, toys, chocolate, bananas, and coffee. According to the social awareness group known as End Modern Slavery, “Abuse, whether it is physical, mental or sexual, is extremely common in these factories. Doors are often locked and staff are forced to work more than one shift in a row.” These are typically located in foreign countries due to American corporations placing factories over seas in order to manipulate the lack of regulations of working conditions. By doing this, heads of businesses are able to keep the excessive profits for their own selfish benefits. Overall, sweatshops are inhumane and unbeneficial to third world workers since workers are exploited and working conditions are severe (Proquest Staff).
Sweatshops are recorded to have originated in Ecuador in the textile industry. The horrid working conditions were displayed to the public by the time “the British government established a Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System in 1889”(“Sweatshops”). This standard inspired immigrants to peruse the idea of American Dream that began in the 1880’s. These immigrants were willing work despite the minuet salaries and an absence of safety regulations.
Workers were not knowledgeable enough defend to their rights. Most lower class Americans and immigrants who needed this form of employment did not know how to read or write. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was a breakthrough in exposing the massive flaw in working conditions of factories, in addition to the flaw in food quality being produced and distributed to the American population. This mainly conveyed attention towards the problem of food impurity, and only did an inconsiderable amount for the problematic operating circumstances. In 1912, Thomas S. Adams and Helen Summer distributed Labor Problems, which exposed the conditions of sweatshops and how they affect the consumer. This caused unions to begin working towards goals of improvement in the blue-collar working class. As commonly seen in history, in took a dramatic travesty to gain the attention of every individual. A sweatshop in New York, known as the Triangle Shirt Waist factory, was a textile workshop. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire led to the deaths of 146 workers: mainly young women. Management did not want the workers to leave when hey were supposed to be working so they locked the doors causing the difficulty in existing. This entire disaster could have been prevented if there were building regulations and improved working conditions (“Sweatshops”).
These events expanded the responsiveness of the people. Once discovered by the public, it frustrated society that these detestations were occurring. In response, the American government was able to intervene and produce child labor laws, building regulations, worker policies, and government agencies to monitor operational environments and entitlements for laborers. Big corporations are presently becoming less dominant according to the chart in Norberg’s “Three Cheers for Global Capitalism” provided by Sebastian Edwards, Openness, Productivity and Growth. It states that “of the 500 biggest enterprises in the United States in 1980, one third had disappeared by 1990”. Major corporations dropped by another 40 percent the five years falling. This is significant because it displays the result to the public discovering the horrors that occur; the less individuals have supported these vicious machine emperors known as corporations, the less little they are to make profits.
Despite the great improvement, the fight is still not over. In April 2013, Dhaka, Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza garment factory had the eighth-floor collapse in on the rest of the building, which caused the loss of 1,129 people. Later it was discover this was caused by lack of regulations and safety precautions. The top floors were added illegally, workers were young women, and they were only making nine dollars a week, as if the world did not learn from the incidences of the Triangle Waist Shirt Factory, this. The only gain from this is the government was then forced to double the workers pay to 16 dollars a week, which will not give the lives back to the thousand of people lost (McManus). This is not only a problem in oversea nations, although illegal, sweatshops are presently active in America. In 2000, there were more than 11,000 sweatshops in the United States. They were all breaking both overtime and minimum wage laws. An additional 16,000 had broken health and safety conditions” according to End Modern Slavery.
The reason sweatshops still exist despite all the tremendously apparent problems is largely due to the jobs it does provide for the citizens of impoverished countries. Another argument for the use of sweatshops is globalization. Globalization is “the process by which people, information, trade, investments, democracy, and the market economy tend more and more to cross national border”(Norberg), which basically means the use of foreign faculties. Corporations claim this improves economy because the wealth is being spread from the influential and prosperous super powers to the poverty stricken countries. However, these laborers are still not making enough to feed themselves, and they are “never able to save enough money to improve their lives and get out of the situation. So, they’re trapped in a vicious cycle,” (Earth Divas’ Blog).
Due to the tremendously extensive work hours, these employees deserve not only minimum wage according to cost of living, but large sums of money for their excessive overtime additionally. These are not better opportunities for workers because they could easily have double their salary and it would only affect the cost of the product minimally. According to a study discussed in End Modern Slavery’s article “Facts about Sweatshops,” doing this would only increase the price of the product in retailers but about 1.8 percent. The article then goes on to state that the majority of consumers would rather pay 15 percent extra, or even more, to be assured the product they are purchasing was made in a safe and authorized manner.
There are solutions to this epidemic and ways common civilians can intervene. By no longer funding or supporting, companies who produce their products in inhumane methods, they will be forced to make improvements or die out, as seen previously in the statistics in Norberg’s “Three Cheers for Global Capitalism”. Buying American made goods assists in supporting respectable surroundings and benefits for workers due to the regulations enforced in the U.S. Although this will not help solve the problem of poverty in foreign countries, it will expectantly initiate a ripple effect, which will spread into China, Bangladesh, and eventually extent across the entire surface of the global. If companies were losing profits to other businesses with adequate labor procedures, then in response they should improve theirs in order close the gap in profits. Companies need to realize the profit they might lose by doubling factory workers pay is only trivial in comparison to the amount they might lose if they continue their poor habits followed by consumers’ reaction.
The Cause and Effect
A sweatshop is a factory work environment with horrible working conditions that are violent, extremely unsanitary, and all together threatening. Sweatshops are the factories producing not only the new technical gadgets, which are vastly popular in wealthy nations such as America, but also common goods such as shoe, clothing, rugs, toys, chocolate, bananas, and coffee. According to the social awareness group known as End Modern Slavery, “Abuse, whether it is physical, mental or sexual, is extremely common in these factories. Doors are often locked and staff are forced to work more than one shift in a row.” These are typically located in foreign countries due to American corporations placing factories over seas in order to manipulate the lack of regulations of working conditions. By doing this, heads of businesses are able to keep the excessive profits for their own selfish benefits. Overall, sweatshops are inhumane and unbeneficial to third world workers since workers are exploited and working conditions are severe (Proquest Staff).
Sweatshops are recorded to have originated in Ecuador in the textile industry. The horrid working conditions were displayed to the public by the time “the British government established a Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System in 1889”(“Sweatshops”). This standard inspired immigrants to peruse the idea of American Dream that began in the 1880’s. These immigrants were willing work despite the minuet salaries and an absence of safety regulations.
Workers were not knowledgeable enough defend to their rights. Most lower class Americans and immigrants who needed this form of employment did not know how to read or write. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle was a breakthrough in exposing the massive flaw in working conditions of factories, in addition to the flaw in food quality being produced and distributed to the American population. This mainly conveyed attention towards the problem of food impurity, and only did an inconsiderable amount for the problematic operating circumstances. In 1912, Thomas S. Adams and Helen Summer distributed Labor Problems, which exposed the conditions of sweatshops and how they affect the consumer. This caused unions to begin working towards goals of improvement in the blue-collar working class. As commonly seen in history, in took a dramatic travesty to gain the attention of every individual. A sweatshop in New York, known as the Triangle Shirt Waist factory, was a textile workshop. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire led to the deaths of 146 workers: mainly young women. Management did not want the workers to leave when hey were supposed to be working so they locked the doors causing the difficulty in existing. This entire disaster could have been prevented if there were building regulations and improved working conditions (“Sweatshops”).
These events expanded the responsiveness of the people. Once discovered by the public, it frustrated society that these detestations were occurring. In response, the American government was able to intervene and produce child labor laws, building regulations, worker policies, and government agencies to monitor operational environments and entitlements for laborers. Big corporations are presently becoming less dominant according to the chart in Norberg’s “Three Cheers for Global Capitalism” provided by Sebastian Edwards, Openness, Productivity and Growth. It states that “of the 500 biggest enterprises in the United States in 1980, one third had disappeared by 1990”. Major corporations dropped by another 40 percent the five years falling. This is significant because it displays the result to the public discovering the horrors that occur; the less individuals have supported these vicious machine emperors known as corporations, the less little they are to make profits.
Despite the great improvement, the fight is still not over. In April 2013, Dhaka, Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza garment factory had the eighth-floor collapse in on the rest of the building, which caused the loss of 1,129 people. Later it was discover this was caused by lack of regulations and safety precautions. The top floors were added illegally, workers were young women, and they were only making nine dollars a week, as if the world did not learn from the incidences of the Triangle Waist Shirt Factory, this. The only gain from this is the government was then forced to double the workers pay to 16 dollars a week, which will not give the lives back to the thousand of people lost (McManus). This is not only a problem in oversea nations, although illegal, sweatshops are presently active in America. In 2000, there were more than 11,000 sweatshops in the United States. They were all breaking both overtime and minimum wage laws. An additional 16,000 had broken health and safety conditions” according to End Modern Slavery.
The reason sweatshops still exist despite all the tremendously apparent problems is largely due to the jobs it does provide for the citizens of impoverished countries. Another argument for the use of sweatshops is globalization. Globalization is “the process by which people, information, trade, investments, democracy, and the market economy tend more and more to cross national border”(Norberg), which basically means the use of foreign faculties. Corporations claim this improves economy because the wealth is being spread from the influential and prosperous super powers to the poverty stricken countries. However, these laborers are still not making enough to feed themselves, and they are “never able to save enough money to improve their lives and get out of the situation. So, they’re trapped in a vicious cycle,” (Earth Divas’ Blog).
Due to the tremendously extensive work hours, these employees deserve not only minimum wage according to cost of living, but large sums of money for their excessive overtime additionally. These are not better opportunities for workers because they could easily have double their salary and it would only affect the cost of the product minimally. According to a study discussed in End Modern Slavery’s article “Facts about Sweatshops,” doing this would only increase the price of the product in retailers but about 1.8 percent. The article then goes on to state that the majority of consumers would rather pay 15 percent extra, or even more, to be assured the product they are purchasing was made in a safe and authorized manner.
There are solutions to this epidemic and ways common civilians can intervene. By no longer funding or supporting, companies who produce their products in inhumane methods, they will be forced to make improvements or die out, as seen previously in the statistics in Norberg’s “Three Cheers for Global Capitalism”. Buying American made goods assists in supporting respectable surroundings and benefits for workers due to the regulations enforced in the U.S. Although this will not help solve the problem of poverty in foreign countries, it will expectantly initiate a ripple effect, which will spread into China, Bangladesh, and eventually extent across the entire surface of the global. If companies were losing profits to other businesses with adequate labor procedures, then in response they should improve theirs in order close the gap in profits. Companies need to realize the profit they might lose by doubling factory workers pay is only trivial in comparison to the amount they might lose if they continue their poor habits followed by consumers’ reaction.
Works Cited
"Benefits of Sweatshops | Benefits Of.” Benefits of Sweatshops | Benefits Of. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
"Earth Divas' Blog." The Truth About SweatShops.. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.
Endmodernslavery. "Facts About Sweatshops." End Modern Slavery. N.p., 24 Nov. 2013. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.
McManus, Doyle. "Dying for a Cheap Shirt." Los Angeles Times. 23 Apr. 2014: A.13. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.
Norberg, Johan. "Three Cheers for Global Capitalism." American Enterprise. June 2004: 20-27. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 05 Dec. 2014.
Proquest Staff. "At Issue: Sweatshops." ProQuest LLC. 2014: n.pag. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 03 Dec. 2014.
"Sweatshops." Encyclopedia of Management. 01 Jan. 2009. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.