Film Analysis : China Blue By Micha Peled

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.

Sweltering heat, long hours, unfair working conditions are a few descriptive words that Americans use to describe a sweatshop. I believe our judgment is being misguided by the success of our nation, and it is imperative we redefine the word “sweatshop”. Individuals that endure life in third world countries know hardships that Americans could not imagine. If we were to recognize these economical differences it may shine a light on why these workers seek sweatshop jobs. In many of these cases, children must work to aid in the family’s survival. If these jobs are voluntary and both parties agree to working conditions, it results in a mutually beneficial arrangement. One of the worst things we can do as outsiders, to help these impoverished

Sweatshops a big issue in today’s society, even though their existence can sometimes stay hidden from the public’s eye. A famous author named Berry states, “ most of us get all the things we need by buying them and most of us know only vaguely, if at all, where those things came from; and most of us know not at all what damage is involved in their production. We are almost entirely dependent on an economy of which we are almost entirely ignorant.” The majority of people in the US have no idea where the clothes they are purchasing are actually coming from. Most people would not support the exploitation of their own race of people. If they were able to see and come to realization about what is actually happening they would have a much different change of heart.

In his opinion essay, “Sweatshop Oppression,” published in the student newspaper, The Lantern, at Ohio State University, writer Rajeev Ravisankar uses his article as a platform to raise awareness about the deplorable conditions in sweatshops. Ravisankar awakens his readers from their slumber and brings to light the fact that they are partly responsible for the problem. His first goal in the essay is to designate college students as conscious consumers who look to purchase goods at the lowest prices. Then he makes the connection between this type of low-cost consumerism and the high human cost that workers are forced to pay in sweatshops. His second goal is to place the real burden of responsibility directly with the companies that perpetuate this system of exploitation. Finally, he proposes what can be done about it. By establishing a relationship that includes himself in the audience, working to assign responsibility to the reader, and keeping them emotionally invested, Ravisankar makes a powerful argument that eventually prompts his student reader to take responsibility for their actions and make a change.

Sweltering heat, long hours, and unfair working conditions are a few descriptive words that Americans use to describe a sweatshop. I believe our judgment is being misguided by the success of our nation, and it is imperative we redefine the word “sweatshop”. Individuals that endure life in third world countries know hardships that Americans could not imagine. If we were to recognize these economical differences it may shine a light on why these workers seek sweatshop jobs. In many of these cases, children must work to aid in the family’s survival. If these jobs are voluntary and both parties agree to work conditions, it results in a mutually beneficial arrangement. One of the worst things we can do as outsiders, to help these impoverished

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.

Time and time again, there have been opposing views on just about every single possible topic one could fathom. From the most politically controversial topics of gun control and stem cell research to the more mundane transparent ones of brown or white rice and hat or no hat—it continues. Sweatshops and the controversy surrounding them is one that is unable to be put into simplistic terms, for sweatshops themselves are complex. The grand debate of opposing views in regards to sweatshops continues between two writers who both make convincing arguments as to why and how sweatshops should or should not be dealt with. In Sweat, Fire and Ethics, by Bob Jeffcott, he argues that more people ought to worry less about the outer layers of sweatshops and delve deeper into the real reason they exist and the unnecessariness of them. In contrast, Jeffrey D. Sachs writes of the urgent requirement of sweatshops needed during the industrialization time in a developing country, in his article of Bangladesh: On the Ladder of Development. The question is then asked: How do sweatshops positively and negatively affect people here in the United States of America and in other countries around the world?

When I first heard the title Where am I Wearing, I wasn’t too excited about reading it. I thought it would be another boring school book that I was required to study. However, after reading a few chapters, I became intrigued and started to enjoy reading it. Kelsey Timmerman isn’t just another activist who is trying to convince you to stop buying clothes from big companies who use sweat shops and chid laborers. He is giving you a perspective into the lives of those who work in these factories and how they function in their everyday lives. It was interesting to hear the different encounters that he had with these people. Timmerman presents us with the ongoing concern of are sweatshops and globalization good for the people who live in these countries or do they do more harm then good?

In his New York Times opinion column, “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream”, writer Nicholas D. Kristof uses his experience living in East Asia to argue his positive outlook on sweatshops. Kristof wants to persuade his audience, Obama and his team, along with others who are for “labor standards”, that the best way to help people in poor countries is to promote manufacturing there, not campaign against them. He uses Phnom Penh as an example to show why working in the sweatshops is a dream for the families there. They would rather work at a sweatshop than stay in the dangerous garbage dump, searching for something to recycle for change. The writer establishes credibility through his experience

ATTENTION GETTER: Somewhere, someone in this room is more than likely wearing a piece of clothing or accessory that has been produced in a human sweatshop. A Sweatshop is an unfit working environment considered to be too dangerous and difficult to work in. Their widespread outbreak happened in the mid 1800’s where clothing could be produced faster and inexpensive without regulations from overseers’.

Mo' Better Blues is a 1990 music drama film. Mo' Better Blues follows a jazz musician named Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington) who is obsessed with his art, but because he begins a path that separates him from the person closest to him. Another band member encountered a problem in another quintet named Shadow Henderson (Wesley Snipes), which led to everyone in the band. Their manager Giant (Spike Lee) is Bleek's best friend because he is a child, but as a manager, he is absolutely horrible, deep gambling debt. In addition, Blake (Bleek) balance the two women indigo (Joie Lee) between the love of life, another name is Clark (Cynda Williams) is a lady of the upcoming singer The His film has a strong message about causality, a bit about fate

From the minute Chinese citizens began to work for outside companies, they were exploited and taken advantage of. (Miller 2013) Once sweatshops were outlawed in North America and Europe in the mid 1900s due to their inhumane practices, foreigners were quick to flock to developing countries that did not have the same laws in place. Firms sought out manufacturers in poorer nations that could provide the highest quality product at the cheapest cost and Chinese migrants were easy prey for manufacturers who paid small wages and offered poor working conditions. Meagre social and economic conditions in developing China resulted in a great amount of people willing to accept any wage and management systems that neglected the workers. Multinational textile firms soon grew to rely on foreign subcontractors for their production needs. (Pugatch 1998) The system estranged corporations from the production process, and in turn resulted in the estrangement of the consumers from the production process, which encouraged and continues to encourage the ignorance that fuels the sweatshop system. The relationship between corporation and producer was only further separated as agents arranged subcontracting for companies, allowing these companies to have the goods they were selling produced in factories they had never seen. The subcontractors were met with severe corporate deadlines and targets in order to stay in business, leaving workers as the sacrificial

We often question how our food and clothes can be sold so cheap, this all comes down to where it is made or grown. Our clothes are made overseas in factories by women and in some cases even children in unsuitable conditions. They work long hours and don’t get paid much in return, it is said to be less than what they can afford to live on and made to work extra hours. This is why large stores like Primark and Asda can sell their clothes at such little cost. Some of the workers are said to be working 60 to 90 hours every week for as little as £17 per month. (Making social lives pg.88) The workers in the factories are grateful for their small wage and would struggle if the factories were to close and business was took elsewhere.

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.

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