Why Are Sweatshops Better Than Third World Countries

In his New York Times opinion column, “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream”, writer Nicholas D. Kristof uses his experience living in East Asia to argue his positive outlook on sweatshops. Kristof wants to persuade his audience, Obama and his team, along with others who are for “labor standards”, that the best way to help people in poor countries is to promote manufacturing there, not campaign against them. He uses Phnom Penh as an example to show why working in the sweatshops is a dream for the families there. They would rather work at a sweatshop than stay in the dangerous garbage dump, searching for something to recycle for change. The writer establishes credibility through his experience

They often use child labor, lack workers’ benefits, and use intimidation as means of controlling workers (Boal, Mark). Typically, sweatshops are found in developing countries, however, they are also a prevalent problem in many first world countries including the United States. Many manufacturers claim that sweatshops exist in order to keep prices down for consumers, while allowing profit. On the contrary, there is also substantial evidence that goes against these beliefs. For instance, a study showed that while doubling the wage of sweatshop workers would increase consumer price by 1.8%, consumers are willing to pay 15% more with the assurance that the product was made with fair labor (11 Facts About). This, however, is a hard argument seeing as the circumstance was hypothetical and if prices were actually raised, there is no way to assure that consumers would react the same way. Either way, both sides of the argument can agree that the conditions are not good, it is just a matter of analysing the cost vs. the benefit to determine their necessity. This leads to several questions: Are sweatshops a necessary evil, how could they be abolished, and what realistic goals regarding the bettering of worker conditions can be met? Through the answering of these questions, it is easy to see that despite claims of sweatshops bringing opportunities to

Second, sweatshops help people to earn income so that they can support their family and has the ability to fulfill their own personal needs. Even though the income is not highly paid but some people are willing to take this job because in their opinion earning something is better than nothing .For example, based on the case titled

“My concern isn’t that there are too many sweatshops, but that there are too few” (Stossel, 586). This theory holds that developing countries improve their condition by charging less but do the same work. Also developed countries will be better off, because their workers can shift to jobs that they can do better at (561). These are the jobs that some economists say usually show a certain level of education and training that can be difficult to obtain in the developing world (579). Consequently, developing countries get factories that provide multiple jobs that they would not otherwise; therefore improving the technology and capital. With this situation occurring, developing countries try to keep low constant wages, because sweatshops tend to just get moved on to another location that is more willing, for fear of losing investments and boosting gross domestic product (GDP). This only means average wages will increase at a steady rate around the world; a nation gets left behind if it demands wages are higher than the current market price asked for (Ross, 566).

Firstly, if sweatshops were not as low paid and the working conditions were not as pleasant compared to first world countries, then companies might as well employ citizens of first world countries, who would probably be healthier. This would not benefit the people in the third world countries, who would slip into poverty and starvation.

I. Claim 1: Sweatshops increase the standards of living for the workers and their communities

The author makes two claims to support the idea that cheap labor is needed. In the first claim, the author argues that "sweatshops lead to success". He/she supports the claim by stating that "every prosperous country" has to under go a "cheap labor" temporary period but in the end they turn into a good rich economy, like China. Adding on, the author states that, "a country must be able to afford to ban child labor before child labor is pulled out from under it". In the second claim he supports it by saying that "Third world countries meed the advantage of cheap labor" by claiming that all of these prosperous countries started with child and cheap labor. Both claims support the argument that cheap labor is needed in order to

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.

Sweatshops and developing countries go hand in hand. Cheap and plentiful labor along with little to no taxation allows big businesses to build factories countries that are on the low end of the economic spectrum. We can see why--if a country is stable enough (i.e. no civil war, civil unrest or corrupt government) and the populace is generally poor, it would be beneficial for a company like Adidas to build factories in such countries in order to maximize their production via cheap labor. Conditions in such factories are often despicable. Dreary work, harsh supervision, difficult and hazardous jobs and frequent accidents along with extremely low pay and very long working hours make the lives of sweatshop workers miserable. However, sweatshops

Recently many people have been losing lives to to working conditions. On one occasion there has been about 675 laborers killed in work-related injuries.Th enviroment in which all of these wortkers are kept is very unsanitary. Some work for 12 hours, 7 days a week. Most aren’t allowed vacation or anytime off during work durations. Even in the case of labor injuries. Many kids are working also. Most sweatshops often time pay as little as 27 cents for a child’s 14 hour day of labor. In 1908, Lewis Hine quit his job and dedicated himself to revealing horrible working conditions. Not only is the work place unsanitary, but it is also very dangerous in cases. For example at meat packing industries there is acid pits. This is where workers discarded

Did you know that the conditions inside of a factory in Shenzhen have caused 18 employees to kill themselves (according to Rob Cooper)? Sweatshops are a growing problem in the world. The definition of a sweatshop is a workplace that breaks two or more labor laws every year. To make it worse they are extremely difficult to catch in the act of breaking laws because they figure out ahead of time that inspectors are coming so the factory owners change pay just for that one day. Therefore the inspectors can not catch them. These deplorable factories rarely change if not forced to by the government. Also employees are to worried about being fired too complain and strikers get attacked and shot in the streets. Sweatshops using unfair labor that is

Have you ever wondered if sweatshops are good or bad? Well because of child labor, unreasonable working hours, and very poor working conditions, sweatshops are a terrible place for poor people to work in modern society. We should try to eliminate them immediately.

You might think zippers are an ordinary material, but zippers have much importance in our life that we have no thought about. For example zippers are mostly used for clothing, luggage, bags, purses, sport materials, and camping gear. According to Global Industry Analysts, the market for zipper is around $8.2 billion in 2013 and is expected to hit $11.7 billion by 2018. Zipper company’s make zippers in 9,500 colors and in 20 shades of black! Manufactures make billions of zippers every year, but zippers weren’t always a great success. In the early stages of making the zippers, zippers went through design revisions, unsuccessful marketing  and a few name changes. Zippers are popular today due to the patience of investors, an engineer who gave

Even with companies that follow the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA), we hear of numerous cases where employees are severely injured or lose their lives at their workplaces each and every year. Therefore, it is unfair to say that sweatshops’ working conditions are the reason why these workers are losing their lives. If these sweatshop workers are using the machinery as they’re supposed to, then there is no reason for them to get severe injuries or lose their

Sweatshops are work environments that possess three major characteristics—long hours, low pay, and unsafe or unhealthy working conditions (Sweatshops). Sweatshops do not only employ men and women but they also employ children, children who get their childhood robbed from to start working at an early age. Many of the clothing companies that you wear day to day may participate in these sweatshops .