Globalization: Only Desperation Has Been Globalised Essay

In The myth of the ethical shopper, Hobbes (2015) states that although boycotts may have been successful in 1990, they are failing in 2105. He asserts that the way in which our clothes are now made has changed and so advocacy campaigns just don't work. One of the problems is that retailers don't have direct contact with their factories. Production is outsourced to the lowest bidders. Chains of sub contractors are set up and production is being split between thousands of factories. Labels from JC Penny, Wal-Mart and Joe Fresh were all found in the rubble of Rana plaza (O'Connor 2014), but none of them directly contracted those factories. With multitudes of middlemen accountability is difficult.

When it comes to globalization, everyone may have a different vision of it’s outcome. For Marcelo Gleiser, the author of “Globalization: Two visions of the Future of Humanity”, a completely globalized world may result in a dystopia. In contrast, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, the author of “A Mickey Mouse Approach to Globalization” and Tanveer Ali, the creator of “The Subway Falafel Sandwich and the Americanization of Ethnic Food” may think of globalization as other cultures sharing each other’s components to interact on a new level and spurring a more “open-minded” (Ali 27) individual.

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.

On April 24, 2013, NewYorkTimes journalist Jim Yardley reported on the collapse of Rana Plaza, an eight-story factory complex in the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, which claimed the lives of 1,100 people. A 400-page report of the incident places the blame squarely on the shoulders of the building's owner, Sohel Rana, along with the owners of the building's five garment factories, who now face possible charges of murder, along with accusations of “ignoring safety warnings and locking exit doors,” while the Bangladeshi government continues to receive harsh criticism for its lax enforcement of labor safety standards in the country's billion-dollar clothing manufacturing industry (“Sweatshop Labor”). The garment industry in Bangladesh is one of the world's leading exporters of clothing, second only to China, with more than 5,000 garment factories employing an excess of 3 million workers, producing merchandise for top brand retailers in the United States and Europe (Yardley; “Sweatshop Labor”). Workers in these factories endure long hours and unsafe working conditions for wages so low parents must send their children to work instead of school so that they have enough to eat. The tragedy of Rana Plaza brings to the forefront the true cost of things; is it worth 1,100 lives to save a few dollars on a shirt or a pair of jeans?

The fire, the largest in recent years, killed more than 100 garment workers. This tragedy although rare in size is by no means uncommon to factory workers in Asia. This is because just as in previous generations major businesses demand the largest possible profit margin

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was a perfect example of the average sweatshop in the early twentieth century. It had long hours, low pay, hired young immigrant women, and most importantly, had a dangerous work environment. On March 25, 1911, a fire started in the 8th floor on a rag tub and it spread throughout the factory. The fire department did come, but it’s ladder and hoses were too short and couldn’t reach the 8th floor so not many people were saved. The workers were neglected of safety measures and too overcrowded that not everyone survived. The Fire brought high casualties. There were over 500 workers at the factory, and it was a little space while much too overcrowded. There weren’t that many safety exits in the factory that actually worked, so they were crowded and it led girls to jumping out the window, though some survived because of life nets. Unfortunately, the life net ripped because 3 girls jumped at the same time. 146 people were killed

Karen Coates really exploits the relationship between corporations and garment manufactures in her article. It really opens people’s eyes, it shows people who may not know, they could be wearing clothes that was made with the hands of a struggling worker. In her essay she shows us the values of the four social actors. One of them being the workers. The workers are the most abused. They have little to no say in what they do, they are controlled and tormented every single day for a little days pay. The workers struggle to stay up long hours, they work in hard conditions and when they finally get to go home they are not living in the best of situations. Most workers pay can’t support a large family who has kids and medical expenses. The workers

Question 5- Jeffcott proposes that rather than simply making more conscious consumption choices, consumers should advocate for the exploited sweatshop workers by demanding school boards, governments, and universities to constitute policies for clothing companies to provide information regarding their factories and to demonstrate whether or not they are attempting to mitigate the work conditions of these factories.

Within developing countries, it’s estimated that over 250 million children aged 5-14 are forced to work in sweatshop working conditions (Gaille, 2017). Sweatshops are working environments that are characterized by three major negative flaws: long hours, low pay, and most importantly, unsafe or unhealthy working conditions. Additionally, sweatshops have strict policies in place that restrict workers’ rights, such as limitations on conversation between employees and shortened break times that are usually enforced through violence. According to Gaille (2017), the Department of Labor indicates that 50% of garment factories in the U.S. violate two or more basic labor laws, establishing themselves as sweatshops. This type of labor condition is not limited to the United States, as many Multinational Companies (MNCs) have globalized their supply chain to take advantage of lower labor costs abroad. The existence of sweatshop working conditions has received increased attention from the media, as well as the United States government, with specific emphasis on the apparel industry. Companies such as Nike, Apple, and recently, Forever 21, have come under fire from consumers when the press revealed poor working conditions present in their suppliers’ warehouses overseas. The Apparel Industry Partnership, Fair Labor Association (FLA), and Social Accountability International Advisory Board (SAI) were efforts created by governments in order to mitigate the negative effects of MCN globalizing and utilizing sweatshop type labor. Companies interested in globalization are increasingly pressured to to extend their quality control to not only their company, but also the companies that they do business with, in order to remain strong in the public eye. That being said, research has been done to understand the positive impact of sweatshops on developing country populations. Studies have shown that sweatshops, although looked down upon in developed countries, are the best option for individuals in developing nations. Although poor working conditions are present, it’s been shown that sweatshops help to increase gender equality and unemployment rates. As unfavorable press has surrounded companies that source from low-quality

Doug Saunders’ article, “Are garment workers’ deaths on our hands? No” is about the sufferings that the Bangladesh garment workers have to experience in the hopes of meeting consumer needs in Europe and North America. According to the tone of the writer, this article presents an argument on ethical concern about the existing business relationship between the developed and the developing countries. Developed countries such as Europe and North America go for cheap markets in countries like Bangladesh but in the process they affect the welfare of these countries. Saunders uses the fire outbreak and a collapsed eight-storey building, as evidence for the suffering of Bangladesh workers. Conversely, Saunders claims that clothing agreements by developed

In Thomas L. Friedman’s “Globalization: The Super-Story”, he examines the features of globalization from various aspects and how it helps people better understand 9/11 events. He claims that globalization is the new improved system formed in place of the old “cold war system”(102), and through the patterns of which, people observe today’s world in an integrated way. Simple short phrases, organized structure, colloquial language, and punctuation are techniques Friedman uses to create a reader-friendly, convincing essay. To begin with, Friedman uses simple short phrases to emphasize his points. He starts with an enthusiastic term “big believer” (102), which establishes the colloquial

To what extent is our understanding of economic globalisation challenged or expanded by analysing the lived experience of global processes.

Factories in Bangladesh have some of the worst working environments for workers to operate in. There is no comparison between American factories, and factories in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh alone some of the most catastrophic work hazards happen in the factories. In

There are a large amount of social and environmental problems within the global apparel industry.

Aspects of Globalisation The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) defined globalisation as, 'The geographical dispersion of industrial and service activities (for example, research and development, sourcing of inputs, production and distribution and the cross border networking of companies (for example through joint ventures and the sharing of assets) Economic activity is becoming organised on a global scale giving a new international division of labour, with production, investment patterns and movements and technology transfers all becoming global. In this strategy, activities are established in many sites spread over the world, based on a country's comparative