Sweatshop

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.

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.

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?

Bob Jeffcott supports the effort of workers of the global supply chains in order to win improved wages and good working conditions and a better quality of life of those who work on sweatshops. He mentions and describes in detail how the conditions of the sweatshops are and how the people working in them are forced to long working hours for little money. He makes the question, “we think we can end sweatshops abuses by just changing our

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 .

They often use child labor, lack workers’ benefits, and use intimidation as means of controlling workers (Boal, Mark). Typically, sweatshops are found in developing countries, however, they are also a prevalent problem in many first world countries including the United States. Many manufacturers claim that sweatshops exist in order to keep prices down for consumers, while allowing profit. On the contrary, there is also substantial evidence that goes against these beliefs. For instance, a study showed that while doubling the wage of sweatshop workers would increase consumer price by 1.8%, consumers are willing to pay 15% more with the assurance that the product was made with fair labor (11 Facts About). This, however, is a hard argument seeing as the circumstance was hypothetical and if prices were actually raised, there is no way to assure that consumers would react the same way. Either way, both sides of the argument can agree that the conditions are not good, it is just a matter of analysing the cost vs. the benefit to determine their necessity. This leads to several questions: Are sweatshops a necessary evil, how could they be abolished, and what realistic goals regarding the bettering of worker conditions can be met? Through the answering of these questions, it is easy to see that despite claims of sweatshops bringing opportunities to

Sweatshops are a workplace where workers are subject to extreme exploitation, including the absence of a living wage, poor benefits, health and safety hazards, and random discipline (AMM 245, Kim). According to the department of labor, a sweatshop is a factory that violates two or more labor laws (http://www.dol.gov/). There is much controversy over the definition but sweatshops are manufacturers that don’t pay living wages, have low safety standards, don’t pay overtime, make employees work an abnormal amount of hours, have physical and mental abuse, among other issues. Sweatshops started in America during the industrialization period of the nineteenth period. People from Europe came to the United States in the attempt to create a better life for themselves and when they arrived most of them

In the essay “Sweatshop Oppression”, the writer, Rajeev Ravisankar begins his essay by building a connection with the audience by establishing common ground when he states, “being the “poor” college students that we all are” (Ravisankar, 2006). The problem he identifies is the significantly poor working conditions and slave labor wages that are often the price for cheaper goods from large renowned companies. Ravisankar assumes his readers are college students, and unaware of the reality of and often destitute conditions of these sweatshops. His goal is to not only bring awareness to the reality of sweatshop oppression, but how others, such as USAS have stepped up to bring change, and what

This assignment is going to mainly discuss the existing of sweatshops and the related ethical issues about it. Ethical theory will be applied in the study about the topic and personal reflection is also going to displayed in the assignment. An understanding of it may be not interesting but can be helpful to do research or run firms or organizations related in the future.

Ben Powell’s “In Defense of ‘Sweatshops’” article offers an uncommon point of view regarding the necessity of sweatshops. Powell knows that people know about sweatshops, but he offers another angle to the topic. The point he tries to get across is how sweatshops can actually be beneficial to the people in the third world countries, rather than them being a terrible thing. Throughout the article, he brought up some relatively good points, but not all he had to say was backed up with evidence. Therefore, Powell’s article was semi-effective.

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.

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

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the vast range of goods produced overseas and the often horrifying conditions under which workers labored to produce them. College students, activists, and certain scholars were quick to condemn “Sweatshops” and the multinational companies (MNC’s) that used them. However, this initial moral condemnation was based more on a natural sense of horror than moral reasoning, and critics often demonstrated a lack of sensitivity to both the underlying economic conditions that gave rise to the sweatshop phenomenon and to the beneficial consequences of sweatshops for both their employees and the broader economies in which they functioned. As a result, many economists quickly leapt to the