Essay The Mexican Maquiladoras

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.

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?

Mexican, Filipino, and Thai these are just a few of the diverse cultures in this group. To begin with, some interesting aspects of the Mexican culture is that the primary language of the culture is Spanish, the primary religion is Catholicism, and in Mexico one of the popular celebrations are The Day of the Dead. To begin with the primary language of the Mexican culture is Spanish. Approximately 92.7 percent of the Mexican population Speaks spanish. The lesser used dialects in Mexico include such as Mayan, and Nahuatl. Another interesting aspect of the Mexican culture is the primary religion is Catholicism. 82% of the Mexican population identifies as Catholic. There are also very few Muslims, Jews, and Buddhists. Last but not least, Day of the dead is celebrated in Mexico. It is celebrated on November 2. This day is set aside to remember and honor those who died.

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 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

Mexico is a populous country with more than 120 million people ("Mexico Guide"). 60 percent of the population is mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish), 30 percent is Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian, and 10 percent is white and other ("Mexico Guide"). According to the article, "Mexican Culture: Customs & Traditions," Spanish is spoken by the majority, with 92.7 percent of the Mexican population (Zimmermann). This is the result of Spain colonized Mexico during the 16th and 17th centuries. Before that, Mexicans used the Maya and Aztec languages, which explains why some small Mexican groups today still speak indigenous languages, such as Mayan, Nahuatl and other regional languages (Zimmermann).

In 1521, the fall of Tenochtitlan proved to be an integral piece in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. After months of devastating warfare between the Aztecs and the Spanish as well as the infection of smallpox into the Aztec population, the Spanish conquered New Spain (Mexico) as their own, resulting in the Spanish occupation and rebuilding of Tenochtitlan. The reshaping of the city was an arduous and complex feat to say the least, as Hernan Cortés faced many challenges following the satisfying victory of the conquest. In order to determine these various challenges involved in post-conquest Mexico, one must assess the various feats Cortés struggled through as well as Carlos I’s attempts to deal with the chaos in Mexico. The most decisive endeavours that the Spaniards faced included: fixing a city of ruins, incorporating the indigenous peoples into society, and creating a Christian basis throughout the land. Thus, post-conquest Mexico faced a magnitude of challenges based on the socio-political, religious, and economic values necessary to conceive their perfect image

On this week’s topic of global violence against women, Elvia R. Arriola authored the peer-reviewed article, “Accountability for Murder in the Mquiladoras: Linking Corporate Indifference to Gender Violence at the U.S. Mexico Border” (2007). Arriola depicts the treatment of girls and women on the Mexican border who are employed in the maquiladora are due to corporations that move over to the Mexican boarders because of the salary which is higher in this area due to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Mexico, the United States, and Canada (1993). In fact, the frequency of domestic violence and femicide occurs more frequently regardless of policies and laws. Additionally, the maquiladora murders are a severe indication of Mexico’s

Being a neighbor to the maquiladoras industry for a very large portion of my life, never stopped to wonder what was the purpose of the maquiladoras? How do maquiladoras relate to cheap labor and low economic opportunities? Can the pros and cons of the maquiladora industry affect the global economies? Could our health be affected by the maquilas? Also, regarding the placement of these industries- does it affect the infrastructure of our border cities? Some of the reasons why I choose this topic was to let the reader have a general understanding of the maquiladora industry.

In Mexico, the maquiladoras are a great and beneficial source for the economy, rising up their earnings and wasting little money on their employees. Maquiladoras are own by large corporations, which they only seek for more earnings by establishing these maquiladoras in profitable locations. These corporations know exactly where to locate their maquiladoras, within near poor communities, where families are in need of jobs to put food on the table. The majority of the maquiladoras mainly hire women that are willing to work under harsh conditions. These women obtain unfair treatment and low quality of work conditions, and the reason some of these women continue to work for the maquiladoras is because they need the job to support their

In Mexico, the maquiladoras are a great and beneficial source for the economy, rising up their earnings and wasting little money on their employees. Maquiladoras are own by large corporations, which they only seek for more earnings by establishing these maquiladoras in profitable locations. These corporations know exactly where to locate their maquiladoras, within near poor communities, where families are in need of jobs to put food on the table. The majority of the maquiladoras mainly hire women that are willing to work under harsh conditions. These women obtain unfair treatment and low quality of work conditions, and the reason some of these women continue to work for the maquiladoras is because they need the job to support their families. Also, maquiladoras are known for paying slightly higher wages than common jobs in which women had worked before. Though, these conditions for working in maquiladoras does violates these women’s human rights and the mistreatment they received from working long tough hours can cause serious problems to their health. The maquiladoras in Mexico are always looking for cheap labor in order to “pay less and make more”, creating a social injustice on women working for maquiladoras. Numerous women working for maquiladoras are view as objects of labor and nothing more, these corporations take advantage by putting the women’s body under extreme corrupt working conditions. Maquiladoras owned by these large corporations that are from countries in

In the article Defense of Sweatshops written by Benjamin Powell, Powell right away points out that most sweatshop workers are being paid above the normal pay. In the forth paragraph he states that “quarter of Hondurans earn less than $1 per day and nearly half earn less than $2 per day.” Powell shows that sweatshop jobs are one of the best jobs to have in most of the counties he talks about. Powell tries to persuade us to think that sweatshops are wonderful because it is paying them well. Anti-sweatshop proposals is another thing Powell discusses.

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

In the mid 1960’s the National Border Industrialization program began, helping the maquiladoras industry and the development of infrastructure of its northern border. Creating job opportunities and means of products into the country. According to Mexico Maquiladoras and NAFTA, Patrick Kelly describes that the maquiladora program “allowed foreign manufacturers to temporarily import duty free machinery, tools, equipment, replacement parts and raw of plentiful and comparatively cheap labor and low transportation costs, materials necessary to assemble and manufacture for export outside the country, which had become an advantage for U.S manufacturers. When the maquiladora industry first began they did not want foreign equipment or raw material to be sold in Mexico without being subject to duty. The Mexican government had its own regulations, within those regulations the maquilas were not allowed to sell completed products in Mexican markets with the risk of losing their registration and continuance of importing goods free of duty. This regulation began to lose its standards in the 1970s. According to Hanson, once the rules weren’t practiced like before its import changed and allowed the use of maquiladoras as part of its Border Industrialization Program. Hanson claims that “the program permitted firms to import free of duty the inputs, machinery, and parts they would need for export assembly operations”. Maquiladoras or factories as they are known today, were required to