Sweatshops Research Paper

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.

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?

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 .

Sweatshops date back to as far as the 16th century, but were first exposed in Britain in 1889. Around the 1830s-1840s, immigrants started coming to the United States and organized sweatshops in tenement buildings. Despite poor health problems and disease from the harsh conditions, immigrants needed the work and were appreciative. Today sweatshops are often found in slow, developing countries, but many are found around the world. Majority of the workers are commonly women and children, who are usually uneducated. By classifying what a sweatshop is, it is a workplace that violates more than one federal and state labor law and their employees work for long

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.

Sweatshops. The image the word provokes isn’t a pleasant one. A factory where people work long hours for only a small amount of money isn’t something we like to think about. The article published by The New York Times in 2009 entitled “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream” however, proposes a different view of these grueling working conditions. The article seeks to transform the view of most Americans from disgust to support for so called sweatshops. When the article was first published in 2009, the Obama administration was considering labor standards, something the author Nicholas Kristof believes is detrimental to undeveloped countries. As he argues, “Sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty… and banning them closes off one route out of

Rubi Garyfalakis in her article “No sweat?” supports her point of view that sweatshop can be considered as a good solution for women in the third world to live by their own, and that sweatshop sets them free from early arranged marriage (Garyfalakis, 2016). However, those are only the visual surface of an iceberg. What about 91% of the iceberg below the surface of the water of the terminology: sweatshop? A sweatshop is defined as “a shop or factory in which employees work for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). Therefore, it is not strongly recommended to fight for things that consequences are overweighed benefits it would bring back to a part of the society including child labor, violation of law, and increasing rate of unemployment.

Sweatshop Labor is a term for a workplace that has poor and unacceptable working conditions. The work may be underpaid, difficult or dangerous. This is the type of labor where pay is almost non-existent, and is running the potential of many young children worldwide. It has been defined by the United States department of Labor as "a factory that violates two or more labor laws." Disregarding the conditions and age requirements that we find acceptable, people who live and work there don’t always think of sweatshops as negatively. Their other choices of employment are: prostitution, farming, and crime. It’s a controversial issue to whether or not sweatshops should remain open and for what reasons. In my opinion although sweatshops are very common

Throughout history, globalisation has played a significant role in numerous countries and their development. While, there are countries who have faced negative impacts of Globalisation. These negative aspects are unrestrained in the 3rd World countries, in a forum of sweatshops. Sweatshop is a factory or workshop, particularly in the shoes and clothing industry, where manual workers are employed at very low wages for long hours and under poor conditions. Since the vast implication of sweatshops to the workers as well as their living environment. There are three significant points which highlights the role that Globalisation played to increase sweatshop work in 3rd world countries, these points are firstly, Sweatshop workers are paid very low

Today's sweatshops violate our notions of justice, yet they continue to flourish. This is so because we have not settled on criteria that would allow us to condemn and do away with them and because the poor working conditions in certain places are preferable to the alternative of no job at all. Sweatshops also persist

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.

It is unethical for the American consumer to purchase clothing from companies who use sweatshops as means to mass produce clothing lines. This is due to the fact that people have to willingly work in unbearable work conditions, in order to obtain a job which is essential to survival. Workers are given no leverage for negotiations, and they are forced to accept the sweatshop lifestyle or suffer through degrading poverty. Acknowledged through multiple witnesses, “work conditions are

A sweatshop is a factory where workers receive low wages while being forced to work in poor environments. In general, these workshops produce an abundant amount of the clothing that we wear everyday. However, few acknowledge the act of sweatshop labor, since it is rarely shown to the public eye. Ironically, many popular fashion brands that we buy from all recieve clothes that are made in sweatshops. While sweatshop workers are treated unfairly in the workplace, fast fashion provides them with jobs and it provides us with the clothing that we constantly demand for. To understand the topic of sweatshop labor, we must recognize the effects of this controversial working system.

Some form of textiles is needed in our day to day lives, for example; cushions, shirts and sweaters. But the textiles company has a dark side. Almost everyone has heard about sweatshops, about how they're workers are treated poorly and how they have less than honest pay. But rarely does anyone think about the benefits of sweatshops for both poor and rich.