The Negatives Of Fast Fashion

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 can be found throughout our history and not just the modern age, and most often associated with the clothing

Sweatshops a big issue in today’s society, even though their existence can sometimes stay hidden from the public’s eye. A famous author named Berry states, “ most of us get all the things we need by buying them and most of us know only vaguely, if at all, where those things came from; and most of us know not at all what damage is involved in their production. We are almost entirely dependent on an economy of which we are almost entirely ignorant.” The majority of people in the US have no idea where the clothes they are purchasing are actually coming from. Most people would not support the exploitation of their own race of people. If they were able to see and come to realization about what is actually happening they would have a much different change of heart.

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.

How fast fashion is affecting the environment is a very serious topic since this type of consumerism in the United States is heavy on supply and demand, and because of that shoppers want it all and want it now which is basically fast fashions motto. The way to make these pieces of clothing heavily rely on cheap materials that can be made quickly, so that is polyester and cotton being made in big factories that emit out toxins into our earth. Cotton being one of the most used fabrics takes a lot to be made into a single garment. Uzbekistan which is the 6th biggest producer of cotton had faced many conflicts during production since cotton uses so much water to be made it has dried up the 4th largest lake the Aral Sea because of how much we need to produce cotton fashion. (Prospectjournalucsd) Buying these cheap garments that become unwearable after 5 times (Forbes) of wearing it usually gets thrown out after and producing more waste that gets put into our waterways since theses garments shed easy and through washing them can “find their way into oceans and on the shores everywhere.” (Sweeny) So with the help of shoppers, being able to cut down on the purchase of fast fashion can help aid in keeping the ecosystem in order.

Sweatshops are a major issue in the world relating to human rights breaches, greed, consumerism, feminism issues and environmental ethics.

Sweatshops greatly impact the lives of people all across the world; people are forced into incredibly tough labor along with unbearable working conditions. According to the writer of English Blog, “22 million children die annually due to the hazardous conditions in the sweatshops.” (English Blog RSS) Besides the low pay and awfully long working hours, the

Global poverty is known to be decreased due to sweatshops. It is said that 83 cases of exploiting sweatshop wages reported in sources and compared those earnings to the living standards in the countries where they were found. In every country where the sweatshops were

"Teens in Sweatshops." Junior Scholastic, vol. 106, no. 8, 24 Nov. 2003, p. 8. EBSCOhost,cucproxy.cuchicago.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,cpid&custid=s8419239&db=prh&AN=11430419&site=ehost-live. This article focuses on teenagers that work in sweatshops, specifically in the United States. The article contains personal interviews and examples from real teens that were most likely immigrant workers working in sweatshops. The article describes events of a variety of different people working in different sweatshops and the effect it had on them. There are direct quotes from not only workers from sweatshops but also from workers in corporate companies speaking about their side on sweatshops. With statistics and facts being used in the article important information can easily be read through and understood. The article is important because it easily sums up sweatshops from what they are to what they do and how it affects others. With the article being so small and easy to read people with varying reading levels can read the information being presented and know about the abuse that is happening. Moving accounts from people and specific names of popular clothing stores serve as important details that impact a reader’s opinion on

This shows that although the Maquiladora industries are able to provide employment to those in poverty, the end result does not help these men and women prepare for a future outside of their alienated tasks at these factories and they are also subject to unethical practices, making it clear the poverty affects the work of Hondurans. Another academic source The Economist published an article in 1997 which was during the uproar of the clothing manufacturing industries and had this to say about what they found out on the Maquiladora industries: “In the worst sweatshops, women work 16-hour days with a single half-hour break. Some work 80 hours a week without overtime pay or take

Around the world are factories that take advantage of the less fortunate and those desperate for a job. These places, called sweatshops, did not come into existence recently, but they had existed in the past as well. A sweatshop is “a work place, often a factory, in which employees work long hours at low wages under poor conditions”. In sweatshops, workers are not given employee benefits or a living wage. However, sweatshops were most common in the United States during the Industrial Revolution, throughout the years 1880 through 1920.

Sweatshop is defined as a factory or workshop, especially in the clothing industry, where manual workers are employed at very low wages for long hours and under poor conditions. Sweatshops also referred to as the “sweat factory”, creates a hazardous and unhealthy working environment for employees such as the exposure to harmful materials, dangerous situations, extreme temperatures and abuse from employers. Sweatshop workers work for long hours, sometimes without taking any breaks, and these workers are not paid for any overtime hours or the minimum wage, although it is mandatory by law. These conditions are considered risky for any person, but the worst part is that in many countries, children are being forced to work in these sweatshops.

A significant byproduct of the industrial revolution is the development of sweatshops, which has become a problematic issue within society. Most sweatshops serve the purpose of manufacturing clothes for cheap in order for corporations to make a profit. Corporations thrive using this money-making scheme at the cost of the lives of many sweatshop workers, who barely makes enough money to support their families, let alone themselves. Corporations who outsource to developing countries to manufacture goods in sweatshops are overlooked by the host country’s government, in fear of losing the economic benefits these corporations bring with them. The United States government can stop the use of sweatshops by implementing legislation that restricts

The article speaks of why sweatshops aren't the worst jobs poor people can take in developing countries. It even says that women are positively impacted by working in sweatshops as they are less likely to become pregnant or married off. School enrollment rates are also supposedly higher amongst young women between the ages of 12-18. The article is right, without the pay families wouldn't be able to support themselves. Children would starve and desperation drives people to new limits of survival. Still, there’s no justification for the exploitation that's allowed to continue against people in developing countries. The fashion industry is a multi-trillion dollar operation and while workers can work upwards of 70 hour weeks their pay is

Sweatshops have always been a problem in the Unites States, especially during the past century. Unfair working conditions and pay prompted the formation of the Garment Worker