The Controversy On Whether Sweatshops Should Be Banned

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 are a result of the struggle over resources. In this case, it is more often money than any other resource. Corporations who turn to sweatshops do this in order to increase profit. The less they pay their workers, the more money goes into their own pockets. Whether a company treats their employees with dignity and respect or with greed and insolence shows the true values of a company.

The earliest use of sweatshops labor can be traced back to the time of Spanish conquistadors and the colonization of South America. In Ecuador, the native people were forced to work under terrible conditions in mills that produced garments, cloth, and various other textile goods. Moving forward on the historical timeline to Europe’s Industrial Revolution, sweatshops became increasingly more common. In 1889 the British government launched the first investigation into the terrible conditions under which sweatshop workers, namely women and children,

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?

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.

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.

            Between 1880-1940 tenement houses became the ideal place to produce garments. The term “Sweatshop” was beginning to come into existence as the sweating system was commonly used during this time.   In the lower east side of New York, tenement houses reached an outrageous number of 35,000, which resulted in a million and a half people working in these establishments (Hapke, 2001).  The working conditions in these houses were horrendous as they were terribly overcrowded to the point where it was uncomfortable and unhealthy to work in the small, poorly ventilated rooms.  The facilities were also

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.

Sweatshops first came into existence in the 18th century in Great Britain. It later came to the United States in the late 19th century, due to a huge increase of immigration in the country. Sweatshops were commonly known in more urban areas. Usually the owners of these factories were people that were rich and were getting richer, while the poor stayed poor. With them staying poor, they could not climb the corporate ladder.(encyclopedia.com) Immigrants were usually employed in sweatshops because coming into this country they would take any job at any wage, it did not matter how low. Due to

A sweatshop is a work place, often a factory, in which employees work long hours at low wages under poor conditions. Although sweatshops virtually disappeared after World War II because of increased governement regulations and the rise of unions, they have reappeared, and are steadily increasing in number throughout the world. This is due, in large part, to economic globalization. Multinational corporations have been moving production facilities out of democratic, industrial nations into impoverished, developing countries in order to take advantage of cheap labor and to avoid scrutiny from governments and human rights organizations. MNC 's are concerned with the production of goods for world markets at lowest possible costs

One of the primal examples of sweatshops was in the vile cloth mills of Ecuador. The native population was put to work in horrendous conditions by Spanish conquerors to assist the production of various items. Cloth, rough garments and other assorted textile goods are only a few of the many items the native community manufactured. It took only a short time for the trend of sweatshops to expand into other countries. In many cities, recent immigrants converted their modest apartments into workplaces that doubled as living spaces. Fiery competition among contractors and immigrants’ desperate need for work kept wages low and working hours high. For manufacturers who paid low wages and provided poor working conditions, Southern and eastern

In today’s world, people tend to shop for products in any kind of stores for his or her needs, such as Wal-Mart, Sears, and Home Depot. These products include clothing, appliances, toys, etc. However, these were made progressively through sweatshops. Almost every product in stock has a label from the location was made. A few of the known countries that made these products before manufacturing to stores overseas are China, Mexico, and Bangladesh. Sweatshops are created during the Industrial Revolution period of the 19th century, mainly in both the United States and Great Britain. The three things to learn about sweatshops are the definition, its advantages, and disadvantages.

Insalubrious yet hard working people surrounded by high end brands is what comes to the minds of most when hearing the term sweatshop. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, a sweatshop is any factory that violates two or more fundamental U.S. labor laws, which include paying a minimum wage, providing benefits, and supplying appropriate pay for the amount of hours worked to an employee. The first example of sweatshops appeared in textile mills in Ecuador. The Spanish conquerors would put the native people to work in horrific conditions while manufacturing cloth and assorted textile. It was not until many years later that the term sweating system came to be. The “sweating system” is a system of employing labor (seen in sweatshops) in unsafe