Cheap Labor Research Paper

To elaborate, the farmworkers have been laboring day and night, even when their bodies are in pain. As stated by a young girl, named Carmen, “‘She (mom) doesn’t want to see me work there (in the fields), … she says because it’s a lot of work, … She doesn’t want me to go through what she goes through (in the fields). She says it’s really painful, hard work. Every night I massage her back so that she can feel better in the morning.’” As migrant worker, children who work and go to school, never have the chance to have a full education or experiences with friends. We know this because NBC’s Child Labor: Young Hands Picking Our Food states, “Critics of current U.S. labor law say these childhood dreams are jeopardized by a relentless cycle where young workers drop out of school to follow their families and the crops for work and then remain stuck in the fields because the children never finish their high school education.” Also, the Braceros during WWII worked hard, however, their paychecks seem to always show signs of deduction. We know this from the article, The Realities of Life and Labor, in which a man stated, “‘Sometimes the check stubs indicate the deduction and sometimes they

Some 800,000 under-aged children work with their families harvesting crops across America. Babies born to migrant workers suffer 25 percent higher infant mortality than the rest of the population.

Almost all farm workers are illegal immigrants and are day laborers, must chase crops to make a living. Farm workers are also constantly at the mercy of variable adversities like natural disasters and bad weather. On average illegal migrant workers spend half of the year working and quarter of the year looking for a job. In addition illegal immigrants are hard to find a place to stay because they are in not in legal status and are required proper documentation by law to rent an apartment. On the other hand Illegal immigrants keep move place to place to find a job and looking for shelter to stay. Most of the illegal immigrants live with fear in face all time because of lack of job security and insecure life. According to Schlosser’s article "In 1951 the President 's Commission on Migratory Labor condemned the abysmal living conditions of illegal immigrants employed as migrant farm workers in the United States. At the time, workers were found living in orchards and irrigation ditches. They

The wages and conditions of the work environment are good in relation to other opportunities the citizens of these countries have. Not only do these people now have a job that feeds their families, they are learning skills that may benefit them in the future. The companies may also argue that they are not violating any laws that the country has enacted. Without the use of cheap labor in foreign markets not only would the company and it’s stockholders lose profits, but the products being produced would be more expensive when entering the United States’ market. This in turn would adversely affect the American consumer.

Babies born to migrant workers suffer 25 percent higher infant mortality than the rest of the population. Malnutrition among migrant worker children is ten times higher in the nation. (Chavez)

Third World immigration into the U.S. has not produced a highly skilled labor force, as the above statistics show. Instead, the U.S. labor pool has become flooded with low level, menial laborers, whose desperation for work of any sort has undercut the wages paid at the lower end of the labor market, which in turn made it more difficult for native born American citizens to escape poverty. An estimated 1,880,000 American workers are displaced from their jobs every year by immigration. The cost for providing welfare and assistance to these Americans is over $15 billion a year. (Associated Press, 1997)

According to the Cesar Chavez Foundation, “Some 800,000 under-aged children work with their families harvesting crops across America and as much as 30 percent of Northern California's garlic harvesters are under-aged children” (Chavez Foundation 1). All those children are being of an education because they are too busy working all day to go to school. Also because they are working all day farm workers have no time to teach their kids how to read and write so the kids never really develop the skills necessary to be able to communicate with other people. In addition the Cesar Chavez Foundation affirms that, “Babies born to migrant workers suffer 25 percent higher infant mortality than the rest of the population. Malnutrition among migrant worker children is 10 times higher than the national rate. Farm workers' average life expectancy is still 49 years --compared to 73 years for the average American” (Chavez Foundation 1). Most of those infant deaths are because the migrant workers don’t have the time or access to the medical attention required to raise infants. Farm workers' average life expectancy is probably so short due to the strenuous work they do on a daily

According to The Associated Press, “many young people ages 13 to 16 work 70 to 80 hours a week and risk pesticide poisoning, heat illness, injuries and lifelong disabilities.” If these children worked everyday of the week, they would be doing over 10 hours per day. Consequently, this extreme labor can leave lifelong physical and mental scars. There are many safety precautions that are ignored when it comes to agricultural child labor. Louis Whitman, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Children’s Rights Division, states that “‘U.S. laws should be changed to protect the health, safety and education of all children’” because “The report said these abuses are possible because the laws governing child labor in agriculture are much less stringent than those for other types of work”(The Associated Press). Because agricultural child labor is not regulated, more children are able to be put in this dangerous field of

There are many hotly debated and contentious issues today. Issues that people often find themselves arguing about with their friends, or something that people have a very strong presupposed belief of. But none more hotly debated or more querulous perhaps, than our immigration system. Very few issues have the magnitude and aptitude to tear an entire nation apart, and this is one of them. As with every struggle, there are two point of views. There are those that welcome the cultural differences and the economical possibilities that immigrants bring with them, along with their traditions and their work ethic. On the opposite side, there are those that view them as a potential threat to our barely recovering economy and to their American way of

Since the first human civilization, cheap, exploitable labor has been inherent to the economic system. This was illustrated in The Life of Peasants, one of the provided stimulus materials, in which it was accepted that providing for the upper classes was “the obligation of the servile class”. Ergo, the US can trace its history through the various exploited labor systems, starting with our dependance on indentured servants, to slavery, to our current reliance on undocumented workers.Unfortunately, the cultural progress indicated by the advancements of modern life, have not been paralleled by an alternate method of production. Worker exploitation, especially in agriculture, is conventional and commonplace. In the midst of the 2016 presidential primaries, with illegal immigration a hot topic among all candidates, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the people most often victimized by this system are mexican immigrants. “America’s immigration system is broken” - Hillary “The country has to be able to lock its doors” says Kasich. Trump suggests building a wall. Bernie advocates for comprehensive immigration reform and a path toward citizenship. Regardless of political leanings, our politician’s inciting statements whisper of truth. The immigration system is broken, and there is an overwhelming number of undocumented immigrants in America. An estimated 11.4 million of them (as of 2012 according to the department of homeland

Have you ever wondered how really bad it is to be an immigrant farm worker? The article “In the Strawberry Fields” by Eric Scholsser, he looks at the hardships that face immigrant farmers. Though there are laws to try and help the immigrants Schlosser observed “The temptation to break the law can be great. The punishments for doing so are rarely applied” (86). From sharecropping and low wages to deplorable living conditions the farmers take advantage of immigrant workers at nearly every turn. Enforcing the laws will help improve immigrant farmers working and living conditions.

The agriculture field is one of the biggest employers, employing over 155 million people in the United States. What do you think about when you hear the word “agriculture?” Many people would say farming, but this is not the most common occupation in this field. Farmers make up a fraction of the agricultural jobs at 900,000, but over 2.1 million people own, rent, and claim farming as a primary source of income. The average farm size has dropped from 460 acres in 1990 to 418 acres in 2007, while the average age of this occupation rose to 57, making this one of the older workforces in the United States.

In the twenty-first century, it is not a secret that many American companies are actually setting up factories in foreign countries, with the majority located in Asia. Notable examples of this include athletic shoe companies such as Nike, Adidas, and Reebok Additionally, most people know the reason these companies make their products overseas: “cheap labor.” However, what exactly does the term “cheap labor” entail? Moreover, how are international politics and the global economy affected by this outsourcing? While it may seem like a simple question with a simple answer, the cause of such a relationship and its effects on international commerce are deeply complex and morally questionable.

The item I researched was Levis jeans. I believe this item is a need in life because, it is necessary we cover our body from the public. In my dresser at home I have about five Levi jeans that I wear almost everyday. Since I wear jeans almost everyday, I wear one pair of jeans a day. Bodies grow everyday so with the amount of jeans I have and wear, my jeans should last at least one to one and half years. After that I need to buy new jeans and with that I usually donate my jeans to Goodwill or hand them down family friends in need of jeans. Borrowing jeans is harder when you get older because your body is completely different from the person’s body next to you. When I was younger I wore hand down jeans from the neighbor girls

The Sweatshop Watch, established in the year 1995 in Los Angeles, is a syndicate dedicated to advocating for the rights of sweatshop workers. In an article released by the Sweatshop Watch entitled, “Supporting Mexican Garment Workers at the Tarrant Ajalpan Factory,” they delineate the repeatedly ignored endeavors of the sweatshop workers to resist the relentless abuse they endure from the Ajalpan factory in Tarrant, Mexico. The Ajalpan factory, began operation in 1999 and distributes products to numerous brand name clothing companies including Polo Ralph Lauren. On June 10, 2003, as an attempt to ensure that the factory would mitigate the abysmal conditions that they experience everyday, 800 workers stood in protest and refused to work (Sweatshop