The True Cost Summary

In the essay, “Sweatshop Oppression,” written by Rajeev Ravisankar, portrays how consumers seem to live in a “low-cost driven consumerism” (para. 2) based society, which unfortunately allows many companies such as Nike, Adidas, Gap, and many more to take advantage of their employees. In addition, Ravisankar uses many both pathos and logo appeals throughout his argument in order to persuade the audience. For example, in paragraph 3 due to the vigorous amounts of labor each employee may work in a sweatshop, “70-80 hours per week making pennies per hour”, (para. 3) the compensation that’s earned at the end of the day does not equate to the intense amount of hours that have been executed. By deliberately offering an extremely low wage to their

Bob Jeffcott’s article, “Sweat, Fire and Ethics” examines the problems surrounding the clothing industry and examines the world of sweatshops and the exploitation of women and girls around the world. Jeffcott writes regarding the harsh working conditions workers inhabit and what consumers can achieve to try and make a difference. His central focus is to educate consumers on the rampant problem of unsafe working conditions that goes on behind the scenes of major brands in today’s society. While Jeffcott successfully gets his point across by using historical examples to educate readers, emotionally drawing readers in, and presenting sensible solutions that consumers can do in order to support.

Pietra Rivoli, the author of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, utilized her personal investigation of how the t-shirt was created (Rivoli, X). By her putting herself in the different locations where the shirt process is made, truly provides an eye-opening view on the situation. Rivoli saw how researches would simply collect statistical data but not have personal observations on what was happening. There are many people who are looking at sweatshops from afar and assuming only negative aspects about them.

When I first heard the title Where am I Wearing, I wasn’t too excited about reading it. I thought it would be another boring school book that I was required to study. However, after reading a few chapters, I became intrigued and started to enjoy reading it. Kelsey Timmerman isn’t just another activist who is trying to convince you to stop buying clothes from big companies who use sweat shops and chid laborers. He is giving you a perspective into the lives of those who work in these factories and how they function in their everyday lives. It was interesting to hear the different encounters that he had with these people. Timmerman presents us with the ongoing concern of are sweatshops and globalization good for the people who live in these countries or do they do more harm then good?

The article starts with the situation in Bangladesh where hundreds of workers were killed by a fire in a factory. Now of days companies don’t seem to get ethically made clothes and neither does consumers care about them. Although companies try to make sure to watch over the conditions in the factories, they cannot monitor everything. Through the accidents at Bangladesh, people are starting to be more aware of the problem but that isn’t enough to stop big companies from manufacturing

As readers judge the article by its title, they see significance of it and see the author trying to convince the audience that sweatshops are ineffective. Bob Jeffcott, wrote and published “Sweat, Fire and Ethics,” in which he argues that citizenship is more likely to get rid of rather than shopping. Jeffcott’s purpose is to convey the poor working conditions of factories that ends in death of hundreds in which, no one is doing much to end them. Moreover, he describes what is really taking place in the manufacturing industries as well as what it actually mean to us consumers. In “Sweat, Fire and Ethics,” Bob Jeffcott effectively argues his opinions as to what should be done to protect unethical working conditions.

     Near closing time on Saturday afternoon, March 25, 1911, in New York City a fire broke out on the top floors of the Asch Building in the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. One of the worst tragedies in American history it is known as the “Triangle Shirtwaist Fire”. It was a disaster that took the lives of 146 workers, most of which were women. This tragedy pointed out the negatives of sweatshop conditions of the industrialization era. It emphasized the worst part of its times the low wages, long hours, and unsanitary working conditions were what symbolized what sweatshops were all about. These conditions were appalling, and no person should ever be made to work in these conditions.

The True Cost, by Andrew Morgan, was a truly eye opening documentary on what price workers who make our clothes have to pay in regards to their health, finances, and sacrifices they have to make. Most of us purchase clothes and do not think twice about where they came from, who made them, and impact it is having on our society. Stores such as H&M and Forever 21 sales clothes for very cheap prices; however, the more the prices are reduced, the more the environmental costs are raised. Our society revolves are materialism and most believe our clothing portrays who a person is, to a certain extent. If this is the case, our clothes may be saying more about ourselves than we think, if we are wearing clothes that workers in other countries are paying a price for.

Karen Coates really exploits the relationship between corporations and garment manufactures in her article. It really opens people’s eyes, it shows people who may not know, they could be wearing clothes that was made with the hands of a struggling worker. In her essay she shows us the values of the four social actors. One of them being the workers. The workers are the most abused. They have little to no say in what they do, they are controlled and tormented every single day for a little days pay. The workers struggle to stay up long hours, they work in hard conditions and when they finally get to go home they are not living in the best of situations. Most workers pay can’t support a large family who has kids and medical expenses. The workers

The populist governments, seen in the 1950’s and 1960’s in South America, spurred industrial growth and a sense of “consciousness” amongst the inhabitants of the Latin American countries. The industrial growth greatly benefited the middle-class and the working-class; however, the poor were driven into shantytowns and rural areas. To illustrate the great poverty of this time in Latin America, people living in “shantytowns” resided in vast settlements built of cardboard and other available materials such as metal and sheets of plastic. These “towns” frequently lacked proper sanitation. One could imagine how living in these shantytowns would degrade the human spirit and foster a sense of worthlessness. The abrupt shift in the social classes

Nicholas D Kristof begins his essay by exploring the ideas that factory jobs in poor countries are actually a means of reduce poverty. As noted in his article, “sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty, not a cause” (paragraph 8, pge 110). Although sweatshop may be harsh, present a better alternative for workers for in poor countries than what is already available to them. The problem he identifies in his article is the fact that many families would rather work at a sweatshop than stay in a dangerous garbage dumps, searching for something to recycle for a change (Kristof). He assumes that his readers know little about sweatshops; furthermore, how difficult and awful the living conditions are. He goes on to say that some of those workers have

At the expense of someone else, it cost blood, sweat, and tears. The documentary The True Cost examines the struggles faced by sweatshop workers in the fast fashion industry. This cheap fashion does not come without price. We, the consumers are the problem, but we are also the solution. By examining Immanuel Kant’s

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.

Clothing companies like H&M and Forever21 all use their brand to push “fast fashion” to the public on a global scale in order to increase their capital. As Sklair argues, “national boundaries are growing increasingly meaningless as the main actors strive for total control in the production, delivery, and marking of what we can all the culture-ideology of good of the capitalist global system” (Lechner & Boli, 2015, pg. 68). Therefore, the only goal of the transnational corporations is to create a consumerist cycle of spending on their products and will use any means necessary to achieve their goal of cost reductions, including exploiting workers and resources in periphery nation states. As shown in the film, social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, as well as T.V. commercials, “Black Friday” sales, newspaper ads, YouTube, and all these other platforms are shown that all summarize one point; these corporations dominate the consumer market and mass media is the ticket to get them

There are a large amount of social and environmental problems within the global apparel industry.