China Blue

Sweatshops have been around for centuries, beginning around the late 1880’s. Sweatshops are classified by three main components, long work hours, very low pay and unsafe and unhealthy working environments. Sweatshops are usually found in manufacturing industries and the most highlighted production is clothing corporations, who take full advantage of the low production costs of their products. Many may think sweatshops are a thing of the past but they are still affecting many lives across the nations. There are many ways sweatshops affect lives, but a recent article titled “New study finds ‘more sweatshops than Starbucks’ in Chicago” explains that there are many low wage industry jobs that are violating labor laws in the United States alone. The article also reports how employees who are working in such conditions won’t speak up in fear of the retaliation employers will implement. Analyzing Sweatshops through the lens of the Sociological perspectives will help us better understand the illegal conditions of workplaces that still exist today.

A majority of the clothing worn and purchased today in the United States has been manufactured overseas in sweatshops. Since the beginning of factories and businesses, owners have always looked for a way to cut production costs while still managing to produce large quantities of their product. It was found that the best way to cut costs was to utilize cheap labor in factories known as sweatshops. According to the US General Account Office, sweatshops are defined as a “business that regularly violates both wage or child labor and safety or health laws”. These sweatshops exploit their workers in various ways: making them work long hours in dangerous working conditions for little to no pay. Personally, I believe that the come up and employment of these sweatshops is unethical, but through my research I plan to find out if these shops produce more positive than negatives by giving these people in need a job despite the rough conditions.

Once the Chang family moved into Los Angeles and had their herbalist shop and asparagus farm under way, they realized the need for more laborers. In order to support their wives and kids with groceries, clothing, and education, the Chang’s needed to find the cheapest labor possible while still establishing the farm as a business that could support their income. The cheapest laborers were relatives, and they were for the most part thankful to come and work for Yitang, even if it was not their ideal working situation. One frustration Sam expressed in the book that may correlate to the continuing poor treatment and vision of the Chinese, is that within the Chinese workforce, most hard-working laborers in the railroad, farming, mining, and

1. In the essay “Sweatshirts to Sweatshops,” many of the universal intellectual standards are violated. To begin with, the speaker talks about the “little girl…working hour after hour…trying not to collapse from the heat…” and that violates the fairness of the argument. He is trying to manipulate the audience by appealing to their emotional side. This argument is not based in factual evidence, and therefore, could be dismissed by the audience. There may not be a little girl in this exact situation described, and therefore, this statement is irrelevant. This could be corrected by leaving the entire story of the “little girl” out, or an interview of a child that works in the factory could be conducted giving a first-hand look into the

Cambridge dictionary defines sweatshop as a small factory where workers are paid very little and work many hours under bad conditions. People working there are deprived of any kind of worker’s benefit. Child labor is very common in sweatshops. Workers in sweatshops are often missing key pieces of safety equipment such as face masks to ensure safe breathing or work in environments with insufficient means of emergency exit since employers may lock the doors and windows to prevent theft during working hours (Hartman ). The workers are abused, beaten, kicked, and shoved, even if they are sick or pregnant. Sweatshop is nothing but a modern form of slavery, because the workers are forced to work in harsh condition for a little wage, and they are denied any fundamental human rights .

Sweatshops date back to as far as the 16th century, but were first exposed in Britain in 1889. Around the 1830s-1840s, immigrants started coming to the United States and organized sweatshops in tenement buildings. Despite poor health problems and disease from the harsh conditions, immigrants needed the work and were appreciative. Today sweatshops are often found in slow, developing countries, but many are found around the world. Majority of the workers are commonly women and children, who are usually uneducated. By classifying what a sweatshop is, it is a workplace that violates more than one federal and state labor law and their employees work for long

In present China, forced and unpaid prison labor is widespread and common. Characteristics of Chinese sweatshops include overcrowding, lack of sanitary conditions, no worker breaks, demands to complete a task within a limited period of time, and a total lack of job security. Government negligence is what allows such abuses to persist. Some plants force employees into working extraordinary amounts of hours, for example, a Price Waterhouse audit of Nike factories in China found that some require seven days of work per week. Many workers who supposedly have the choice to work overtime must do so in order to survive on their low wage rates. The people working in Chinese sweatshops only get a small amount of payment for their work and nothing more. The locals do not benefit at all, but instead suffer from the presence of foreign businesses in their country. As for the foreigners, one telling statistic is that the United States imports an estimated $100 million per year in goods produced by Chinese migrant workers. The outside companies gain millions as the developing countries struggle to survive.

They were run by middle class businessmen taking advantage of families in poor financial situations. In Chinatown, there was a system set in place, used by most employers. In front of their building they would have a sign, one most likely written in Chinese, asking for employees. Within the buildings, there would be a similar setup; no outdoor light, rusty machines, bad equipment, and many workers. Jane H. Lii from the New York Times was a reporter who was said to have infiltrated a sweatshop in Chinatown. After working for seven days, and a total of 84 hours, she didn’t even get a paycheck but simply the promise that she would be given around $55 in three weeks (Lii 1). Sweatshops were the common business in New York’s Chinatown. “When you have an education and speak the language, you can afford to be choosy,'' said Lin Qing. ''But for people like us, there aren't that many alternatives. We have to compromise. If we don't like what we do, we stay home and starve,” (Lii 2). Workers within sweatshops had to put aside any hope of another job. They had qualities that few, maybe no employers would respect so their livelihood, was largely confined to labor. Sweatshops throughout Chinatown became unpleasant to the general population, however the attitude of the workers was rarely different due to their objectionable living

Pietra Rivoli, the author of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, utilized her personal investigation of how the t-shirt was created (Rivoli, X). By her putting herself in the different locations where the shirt process is made, truly provides an eye-opening view on the situation. Rivoli saw how researches would simply collect statistical data but not have personal observations on what was happening. There are many people who are looking at sweatshops from afar and assuming only negative aspects about them.

Almost everyone knows sweatshops are not acceptable places to work or support. Sweatshops, per definition from the International Labor Organization are organizations that violate more than two labor laws (Venkidaslam). There are several arguments against sweatshops. First, is that these organizations exploit their workers. They provide them low wages and some pay below the minimum wage of the home nation. Moreover, these workers are forced to work more than 60 hours per week and are mandated to work overtime. In addition, workers are subjected to unsafe environments and sexual abuse. Finally, sweatshops are known for their child labor, where children below the legal working age are paid extremely small wages. Anyone who is against sweatshops will say, choosing to partner with these organizations are unethical.

In many sweatshops, however, the workers are there voluntarily. Even the meager wages earned are more than the undocumented immigrants workers would earn in their home countries. As long as there is a supply of willing workers, sweatshops will flourish.

In her novel Factory Girls, Leslie Chang offers an insider’s perspective of the Chinese export business that ultimately exposes the true colors of factory life in China to the people of the western society. Throughout the novel, she cites historical reasoning as to why a sudden growth in factory workers has occurred and how it has turned into the monstrous industry that it is now. Mainly, she credits the large migration of people from the rural areas to the cities because this caused major political reform. The PRC were then able to move into the global economy with a new strategy, given by Deng Xiao Ping, which consequently caused trade to open up and certain cities to be designated as placeholders for economic development with the potential for newer business.

By definition a sweatshop is a “negatively connoted term for any working environment considered to be unacceptably difficult or dangerous. Sweatshop workers often work long hours for very low pay in horrible conditions, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay and or minimum wage”. Many corporations in the United States use sweatshop labor in countries over seas such as China to produce their products at a lower cost. As entailed in the letter from a man born in China, many citizens on these countries resort to factory labor to support themselves to escape other sources on income such as prostitution. Without these corporations usage of oversea sweatshops these employees would be forced to return to self-demeaning jobs such as these.

The emergence of the market economy has spurred unprecedented waves of rural to urban migration seeking emplotment. One particular group of women that have migrated, especially for factory work, are dagongmei, or “working girls,” young female migrants. As explored in Leslie Chang’s book Factory Girls and her TED talk, it is important to listen to the voices and lived experiences of the migrants themselves, rather than speak for them or assume them to be helpless victims of capitalist exploitation. It is important to recognize that many of these women choose to migrate for a variety of reasons, some to get away from the family, some to gain a sense of independence, others to escape a difficult rural life. As explored in her book Made in China, Pan Pun Ngai does agree that it is true that many women eagerly migrate for work voluntarily, and usually do not view their circumstance as being one of victimhood. In fact, many view the label of dagongmei as not an identity to be ashamed of, but rather a new identity and sense of self for the millions of young country women

In these sweatshops, workers are generally offered low wages with little nonwage benefits. In certain factories, workers have been denied of a “living wage” as their take-home pay have been insufficient to satisfy basic standards of living. Typically, in these countries, the minimum wage laws were violated and workers were weakly unionised to bargain for higher wages. For example, a typical Chinese worker earns a wage of Rmb$250-$350 while the minimum wage was supposed to be Rmb$350.