Compare And Contrast The Arguments For And Against Sweatshops

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.

Sweatshops are large dim lit factories. Hours are incredibly long, normally from 6 am to 10 pm. The air is dusty and dirty, which makes it very hard to breath. Blisters and sores are not uncommon to be found on the hands of these workers. Most importantly, at the end of the day you will have only earned a whopping 27 cents. This is insane and should be considered a form of slavery. It should not be allowed for people to be treated this way and worked like this. Children are even put to work in these sweatshops. Children who are well under 16 and need to help support their families, so they are put to work at these young ages. Americans cannot possibly think that this is okay.

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.

     As companies grow larger and more competitive, they are looking for cheaper ways to produce their wares and increase their profit. That is, after all, how companies are able to succeed, by giving their customers a comparable product for a cheaper price. This increases sales and the overall bottom line. Which seems to be a beneficial plan for both the companies and the consumers. That is, as long as the consumers don’t know how the product is being produced. The places that produce these products for an extremely cheap cost are called “Sweatshops”. A sweatshop is a small manufacturing establishment in which employees work long hours under substandard conditions for low wages. Sweatshops came about

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 .

“My concern isn’t that there are too many sweatshops, but that there are too few” (Stossel, 586). This theory holds that developing countries improve their condition by charging less but do the same work. Also developed countries will be better off, because their workers can shift to jobs that they can do better at (561). These are the jobs that some economists say usually show a certain level of education and training that can be difficult to obtain in the developing world (579). Consequently, developing countries get factories that provide multiple jobs that they would not otherwise; therefore improving the technology and capital. With this situation occurring, developing countries try to keep low constant wages, because sweatshops tend to just get moved on to another location that is more willing, for fear of losing investments and boosting gross domestic product (GDP). This only means average wages will increase at a steady rate around the world; a nation gets left behind if it demands wages are higher than the current market price asked for (Ross, 566).

Sweatshops help the distribution of wealth in the world. They make sure that rich first world countries don't simply become richer. Without sweatshops, the population in third world countries would just become poorer and poorer. Several studies have shown that the poverty level of many developing nations has decreased significantly after implementation of mass scale privatization.

I. Claim 1: Sweatshops increase the standards of living for the workers and their communities

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.

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.

Abstract: Many countries, industries and people are becoming more affected by sweatshops in different ways because of they’re continuous increase in growth. Sweatshops benefit many developing countries as they provide opportunities of employment to the people living in poverty and benefit the community at large by creating an economic infrastructure that utilizes the country’s resources and increases their tax base. These institutions first came into existence in the early 1800’s and were referred to as dwelling houses, which were local factories that generally had the same idea of the sweatshop that we have in today’s society. There

Sweatshops first came into existence in the 18th century in Great Britain. It later came to the United States in the late 19th century, due to a huge increase of immigration in the country. Sweatshops were commonly known in more urban areas. Usually the owners of these factories were people that were rich and were getting richer, while the poor stayed poor. With them staying poor, they could not climb the corporate ladder.(encyclopedia.com) Immigrants were usually employed in sweatshops because coming into this country they would take any job at any wage, it did not matter how low. Due to

Most of the clothes that people wear every day in America were more likely made in sweatshops. Sweatshops are factories, and they exist in most countries, especially in third world countries. Sweatshops are usually crowded with many workers into small tenement rooms, poorly ventilated, and prone to fires and rat infestation. Products that commonly come from sweatshops are carpets, cotton, garments, cocoa, coffee, toys, and furniture. The danger of sweatshops are affecting many people around the world including men, women and young children. Sweatshops violates more than two of the labor laws, and they exploit many workers by offering them very low wages that could barely pay for food to survive, and they make

Basically the two obvious choices that the sweat shops workers have are to stay and work at the condition and treatment that we know of or choose to work in the fields. Some can argue that one if better than other. Such as if you worked in the fields you would have more bathroom breaks, however it is dirtier to work at the fields then it is to work at the sweat shops. In actuality both situation is pretty bad for any workers. So if workers choose to leave the shops, they would just be placing themselves in another bad situation. So this shows us that these workers really do not have many options.