Travels Of A T-Shirt In The Global Economy Summary

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.

What I found most interesting was the story of Nelson Reinsch and his ability to keep an open mind in order to benefit from an ever-changing system of comparative advantage. Nelson worked his entire life as a cotton farmer, most of which was in the “cottonest city in the world,” Lubbock Texas. It was fascinating to hear first-hand accounts of how the cotton industry changed throughout Nelson’s life. Nelson adapted to the changing industry where farmers stuck in their traditional ways were eventually left behind. Nelson and other farmers in the region benefited from their relationships with

The book Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli is about the journey of a plain cotton shirt internationally through the economy. This book consists of a plain, cheap t-shirt bought at Wal-Mart, is split into four important parts. The first part is about the source of the t-shirt: cotton. The second part is about the creation process the t-shirt goes through while being created in China. The third part is consists of explaining what happens after the t-shirt goes to the United States and faces the American protectionist policies. Lastly, the fourth essential part of this t-shirt is what happens to the shirt when it is finished in America (or other developed nations).

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?

Bob Jeffcott supports the effort of workers of the global supply chains in order to win improved wages and good working conditions and a better quality of life of those who work on sweatshops. He mentions and describes in detail how the conditions of the sweatshops are and how the people working in them are forced to long working hours for little money. He makes the question, “we think we can end sweatshops abuses by just changing our

• Its crushing of intellect in energy and intelligence led to their tragedy. They never felt the need for a change and maintained their production.

You will use the critical thinking skills you have been developing to identify violations of the Universal Intellectual Standards and Logical Fallacies in the essay, “Sweatshirts from Sweatshops” on pages 406-408 of your textbook.

PURPOSE: (relate topic to this audience and establish credibility): The purpose of this topic is to inform the audience about the history of the sweatshops, companies impacted because of allegations, and what improvements and changes have been made to end sweatshops in the U.S. and especially in

In her book “The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy,” Pietra Rivoli explores the journey that a T-shirt makes while being produced and the effects it has on the global economy. She begins by explaining that the US continues to dominate in the cotton industry, even after 200 years. She introduces the reader to Lubbock, Texas the “cottenest city” in the US (5). The author explains that US domination in the cotton industry is due to a variety of reasons which she spends the rest of the chapter exploring and explaining. The first reason, she explains, is due to the subsidies that farmers in the US receive.

1) “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream” is a short article in favor of sweatshops. The author talks about how the living standards rose due to sweatshops when he was a kid (Kristof). This article has a personal story from the author about improving conditions. This makes for a good pathos argument.

The next part of the story was about globalization, which aims to protect the influence of trade barriers outside the country. Therefore, the metaphorical T-short briefly captured a glimpse of El Salvador, Bolivia, the United States, China, Cambodia, and other countries. Although for the reasons of fairness, the author really just wanted to introduce in more depth the economic and trade realities brought about by the globalization of the textile industry. After all, Rivoli is an economist; data, statistical data, and other large researches that have support the story from paragraph to paragraph, and being some of the most surprising conclusion. Among them, the first and most important point is that, as for as the new clothing industry is concerned, this kind of trade is not as least completely free. However, the most enjoyable thing is the T-shirts have taken a step further, and the story of second-hand clothing was brought to

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

A stunning Ralph Lauren Belt, a crisp neck tie and a suave attitude might seem to be the perfect attributes of a condescending hedonist, however what seems to be missing in the mere exterior of such a hedonist is the unequivocal violation of the “have nots”. The term “have nots” has often been circumscribed as “economically disadvantaged people”. The protagonists of this article are “Sweat Shop Workers” who work under a tyrannical set up in various third world nations such as Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, El Salvador, Mexico. North America and Europe have contributed tremendously to development of the “Sweatshop” culture in the ever growing “Fashion Industry”. Though the sweatshops are being used across varied industries, the special

The Sweatshop Watch, established in the year 1995 in Los Angeles, is a syndicate dedicated to advocating for the rights of sweatshop workers. In an article released by the Sweatshop Watch entitled, “Supporting Mexican Garment Workers at the Tarrant Ajalpan Factory,” they delineate the repeatedly ignored endeavors of the sweatshop workers to resist the relentless abuse they endure from the Ajalpan factory in Tarrant, Mexico. The Ajalpan factory, began operation in 1999 and distributes products to numerous brand name clothing companies including Polo Ralph Lauren. On June 10, 2003, as an attempt to ensure that the factory would mitigate the abysmal conditions that they experience everyday, 800 workers stood in protest and refused to work (Sweatshop