Outsourcing In Mexico

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 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.

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.

Outsourcing emerged on the financial arena during the 1980s and has since then been spreading. Outsourcing production was furthered with the process of globalization which provided a new component leading to the strengthening of resources, skill and labor specializations across the world. The process of outsourcing is using the skill and abilities of a third-party to accommodate society on the foundation of labor. As stated earlier, it was during the 1980s that the process kicked off mainly due to the efforts of corporations when they began to hire labor forces across the world. Even though outsourcing has come out from its developing stages, there are still following effects on the US economy.

As the world has gotten “smaller” in terms of trade, outsourcing has become a hot topic in much political and economic debate in the United States.

Many people may compare outsourcing to hashtags or selfies, a waste of time and pointless. Also, people may say that outsourcing hit America in a huge tidal wave that is now uncontrollable. Ehrenreich exemplifies this when she writes,”I should’ve seen it coming. In the eighties, US companies began outsourcing the manufacturing of everything from garments to steel, leaving whole cities to die” (609). Basically, Ehrenreich is saying that if outsourcing ruined us then, it will ruin us now; but clearly outsourcing has not ruined us that much because, of all of the jobs that we have outsourced in the last decade, we’re still standing strong. Zakaria contradicts this by saying,”Over the past twenty years, as globalization and outsourcing have accelerated dramatically, America’s growth rate has averaged just over 3 percent” (619). We’ve outsourced all of these jobs and yet our population has grown. The fact that we’re giving opportunities to other countries has not taken

As many laborers with a minimal skills lose jobs, the market loses a household with income that is disposable, which in turn leads to fewer consumers in the market. This can be extremely detrimental to many economies as when fewer, and fewer households can spend income freely the market that those households are a part of begins to thrives less. As a study by the U.S. Census Department shows as many multinational companies outsourced over 2.4 million jobs, and cut 2.9 million domestically (washington post, pg.1). The dramatic impact that this has on the consumer as well as the market is devastating. Moreover, outsourcing of the jobs offered to the middle class, which is the main market of consumers in many first world countries. This fact is alarming as corporations who don’t turn a profit can’t trickle down jobs, creating a self sustaining system where a corporation will begin to outsource more jobs to keep costs low and prices attractive to the average consumer. By killing domestic jobs corporations are ,marginalizing their profits which in turn will give them less money to hire potential employees and help their job market

A significant byproduct of the industrial revolution is the development of sweatshops, which has become a problematic issue within society. Most sweatshops serve the purpose of manufacturing clothes for cheap in order for corporations to make a profit. Corporations thrive using this money-making scheme at the cost of the lives of many sweatshop workers, who barely makes enough money to support their families, let alone themselves. Corporations who outsource to developing countries to manufacture goods in sweatshops are overlooked by the host country’s government, in fear of losing the economic benefits these corporations bring with them. The United States government can stop the use of sweatshops by implementing legislation that restricts

In this article, journalist Nicholas Kristof gives his readers a look at what people from South and Eastern Asia think about the jobs working/living inside of a garbage dump compared to what they think of sweatshops. Also, Kristof explains how he actually encourages the production of more sweatshops. Since he has lived in in East Asia, his wife’s living standards have increased due to sweatshop jobs. Kristof continues to talk about how he does understand how Americans want to help out other countries and think that there should be labor standards, but he makes a good point about how labor standards and “living standards are the two biggest impacts on the cost of textiles, and companies are trying find a balance between these two. This makes

The policy of outsourcing as institutionalized through the maquiladora program has been central to Mexico’s plan for national economic development. This essay will evaluate Mexico’s central outsourcing policy the prominent maquiladora program in order to determine if outsourcing has been a curse of a blessing to national development. In order to determine the success of the maquiladora program, this paper investigates the rhetoric of the Mexican government, for example the promises under presidents like Vincente Fox that under NAFTA and the policy of outsourcing “he would lead the economy into six years of 7 percent annual growth”. The government of Mexico continues to place outsourcing, and particularity the maquiladora program, central to

Nike, Victoria’s Secret, GAP, Levis, Nordstrom, Calvin Klein. Other than their status as large fashion retailers, they all have one thing in common: the International Textile Garment and Leather Workers’ Federation condemns their use of overseas sweatshops. Goods manufactured in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and many other Asian and African countries are often made in less-than-ideal conditions for low wages. While opponents of overseas labor champion stricter trading laws, this form of supply-and-demand economics remains a vital part of the global economy, as it enables prices to remain low in developed countries and employs many individuals in distant, poorer areas.

Printed on clothing tags or the back of most packaging are the commonly found words: “Made in China”. Large corporations such as Apple or Microsoft continue to outsource more of their production overseas to subcontractors in China. There have been various stories and rumors of Chinese workers being exploited by their wealthy factory owners and supervisors. Working conditions may appear to be improving in China, but most people are not able to view what is happening overseas. There are hazardous conditions as well as death and suicide in sweatshops that produce goods for these large corporations, particularly Apple, Microsoft, Dell, and Nike. These multinational corporations are motivated to obtain large profits by taking advantage of

Before this assignment I knew sweatshops existed, but I always thought they were not that prevalent in today's society. I was shocked to see that so many countries had sweatshops, like Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and even Mexico. One of the most interesting things I learned with this assignment was that Victoria Secret, where I get my undergarments from, made their bras in China and their underwear in Sri Lanka. I thought that was interesting because it means companies will do whatever is possible to get the lowest production cost, even if that means opening up two factories in two separate countries. Hearing about these horrible conditions in the sweatshops makes me feel as an individual there is not much you can do to change such a large

In our daily life, we can always notice the “Made in China” label on shirts or shoes. However, I believe that many people are still confused about the reason why so many things come from China and the people that make those products for us. According to the report from China government, 95% of these products come from the “Sweatshops”. The US Department of Labor defines sweatshop as the factory that offers poor working condition and low wages to the employees in the third world. Accordingly, sweatshops are the developing trend of globalization and there are many famous companies, such as H&M, Gap, and Nike, relying on sweatshops to make more profits. From the surveys of public opinion, there were more than millions of sweatshops and

The American Outsourcing Case is a compilation of factual information for the purpose of provoking debates. The authors present both the pros and cons of outsourcing, and avoid inserting their personal bias. The case clearly defines outsourcing and then focuses on outlining its existence in China, Mexico, and India. The evolution and U.S. involvement in the Maquiladoras of Mexico is described first. The implementation of NAFTA and the creation of Maquiladoras were major catalysts in the growth of free trade between the U.S. and Mexico. China, in an attempt to attract foreign investors, created Special Economic Areas, which designated geographic zones that were enabled to operate under their own laws. With great tax benefits