Sweatshops Collapse Essay

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.

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

Sweatshops are an impact on our environment. Things like chemicals and pesticides can cause cancer, mental illness and much more. Clothes that are made in sweatshops may contain pesticides due to the horrible conditions of where they are made. Bacteria isn’t not removed from the clothes once they are thrown out which is another environmental impact. Sweatshops are not environmentally friendly

Many companies and schools in the United States buy their products from factories that have their workers working in horrible conditions. "That is employing over 50,000 workers to work in these conditions" (Jensen, Davidson 279). They have the workers work from 5 A.M. until nighttime inhaling dangerous chemicals and working in temperatures that get as high as 130 degrees. These high temperatures cause heat stress, burns, and injuries to workers. Many of the factories that the United States buys from are in another countries. In these countries they have horrible working conditions. Working in these places called sweatshops should be banned. Sweatshops are "a shop or factory in which employees work long hours at low wages

Sweatshops are characterized by such things as: “physical working conditions that may have detrimental health and safety consequences for the worker, an intensity of work that is higher than would be found in similar facilities in the developed world, long hours of work with mandatory overtime, low rates of remuneration and uncertainty that the

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.

I’m not sure how many sweatshops are in these awful conditions but it seems a like a large number. In that lager number of sweatshops are filled with a number of people with jobs. As someone said in the video we watched about Nike they dont want to get ride of the job, they like the job just not the conditions and still for some the

Sweatshops have been a popular and serviceable “business,” although there are a lot of controversy on whether sweatshops should be banned and hows pay wages should be higher. Many people believe that sweatshops are unfair, cruel and unlawful, whereas others think that sweatshops are a second chance for many people living in developing countries. The dictionary definition of a sweatshop is factory or workshop, especially in the clothing industry, where manual workers are employed at very low wages for long hours and under poor conditions, it is defined by the US Department of Labor as a factory that violates 2 or more labor laws. Sweatshops are a frequent ordeal in many countries, all over the globe, with a variety of perspectives.

Most people believe that if they’re employed it provides them with a way of living life. When talking about sweatshops as a job the story completely changes. People don't have the knowledge of what goes on daily in a sweatshop. Think of the workers who get fined and punished for mistakes they made. Also those who complain about the conditions are beaten and abused. Cases of physical, sexual, and verbal abuse are common to be reported. Sweatshop workers should not be allowed to continue to work under the current conditions of earning low wages , interference with children's education also including the improper training given.

Researching whether ‘sweatshops’ are morally permissible has been an eye opening experience. One has to fully understand what a sweatshop actually is before developing an opinion whether it is morally right or wrong. The definition of a sweatshop is broad, it describes any type factory with dangerous and unhealthy working conditions, all while low pay and long hours are notorious. After digging deeper into this, it turns out that most if not all of the workers employed there would rather work in these type of factories than the alternative. Understanding what actually consists of an unhealthy work environment, and low wages are not as cut and dry as you may think. You have to keep in mind, most of these factories are located in foreign countries where the normal everyday conditions would be appalling to some Americans.

Thomas Carson 's article criticize Ian Maitland 's arguments in defense of sweatshops, based on Ian 's view of "the Classical Liberal Standard" published in 1997, in the Brithish Academy of Managment Annual Conference Proceedings.

Activists say that global clothing brands like Tommy Hilfiger and the Gap and those sold by Walmart need to take responsibility for the working conditions in Bangladeshi factories that produce their clothes."