The Issue With Sweatshops Essay Example

Sweatshops are a very easily manipulated system to be used to maximize profit and induce abuse to the people that work in them. More often than not, there are common, and casual, inhumanities found in them. Although they provide valuable, stable jobs, foundate economies, and increase the productivity of a country, Sweatshops have strong tendencies to, by nature, easily exploit and abuse their workers.

Throughout many third-world countries, sweatshop workers continue to struggle simply by trying to survive day-by-day. Due to their easily manipulated wages, this can, most of the time, be credited to the place they work. Such an example can be seen in the Bangladeshi garment industry. In this competitive industry, the minimum wage of an average sweatshop worker is $68 USD a month, and the average Bangladeshi family requires $134 USD to survive on. Hence, as a result of this, the wages are not sufficient for a worker with a family. This also cascades into factory workers becoming almost entirely dependent upon the owner of the factory. A form of obligation is developed and nurtured by reliance of the worker on the owner, leading to an environment that can be easily taken advantage of. Sweatshop workers are also commonly taken advantage of due to the “desperate plight of Bangladeshi citizens”. Because of the country’s rapid industrialization, development, and growing population, competition for jobs, houses, and livelihoods are constantly increasing. This causes a domino effect, leading to people, men and women alike, who want to escape their poverty, jumping at the chance to accept jobs with horrendous working conditions in sweatshops, so that they may have some form of wage to keep them and their families barely afloat in the changing dynamic of the country. 

Women workers however, tend to be significantly more disadvantaged in the sweatshop environment. In East Asia, employment rates for women have been steadily rising, yet, female sweatshop workers are found in only a few “select industries”. This can be credited to the patriarchal norms found in the region, such as the family patriarch. In a brief description, the family patriarch is where women are expected to solely be the caretakers of the family, and have all their efforts focused on raising and tending to children and the home. Since women are seen as “cheaper, secondary workers” for their labor, sweatshops easily abuse the family patriarch for their own benefits leading to clear “wage differentials” and some overwhelmingly female dominated industries.

Even in the United States, sweatshop abuse is seen and practiced. Many migrants arrive in the United States looking for work, and not aware of the predatory nature of sweatshop work. In their urgentness to acquire work in order to support them and their families in a completely new country, they are subsequently reduced to labor machines where they are expected to work long hours and meet near-impossible quotas for the week. Such an example happened to a couple who worked in a factory located in an L.A suburb called El Monte, Emilia Hernandez and Cristobal Perez. The 30-ish couple recently migrated to the United States, and were desperate to receive work as fast as possible to support their children. The couple worked for the factory for five years, and the accounts of their experience includes having their wages mismanaged by the owner of the factory, Roberto, and being blackmailed into paying him money back for unmet quotas. Workers earning minimum wage in the factory were reportedly earning about $200 a week according to Roberto’s accounting records, however, his former workers report they were receiving only around $120 a week, and if they believed they were going to be unable to meet the set quotas in the allocated times, they had to work on break hours and even in their own homes. However, if in the end these quotas were not met, the workers were made to pay the “lost profit” back to Roberto. Corporations also help in the beginning of sweatshop worker abuse. Take Disney, for example. “Charles Kernaghan, an executive director of the National Labor Committee”, found that Disney hired a sweatshop in Haiti to create sweatshirt-sweatpants pieces in bulk. Upon receiving the manufactured product, Disney sold it in the United States for $19.99, yet, for each piece, the Haitian sweatshop workers were only paid 6 cents for making each individual product

Yet, the criticism of sweatshops cannot be discussed about, without acknowledging what they do for the world. Sweatshops for developing countries are a source of domestic industry and a way for the country to advance itself to becoming a developed country. South Korea and Japan both used to heavily rely on exporting their products back in the 20th century, yet now, they are ultra-tech societies who’s quality of life rivals those that they exported to. Sweatshops are also an important source of income year round for developing countries. “A recent study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed the effects of Ethiopian industrial labor (working in sweatshops) on the lives and income of Ethiopians.” In this study, it was found that sweatshop workers and subsistence farmers had around the same wages. However, there is one thing that factory work provides over subsistence farming, and that is stability. Stability is an incredibly important factor of a job, and is especially sought after in developing countries. These countries have ever-changing dynamics in their advancements, and also may possibly have political, and economic conflicts. Due to this, job stability is as, if not more, important than a high wage. Sweatshops are also a huge reason as to why our current form of globalization even exists today. Cheap labor in developing countries can contract to large corporations to make their products, allowing for prices of products to be kept much lower in the country they are being sold in. Hence the reason why you can go to your local store, and get some pants, a shirt, and maybe some socks, for around $30.00.

Sweatshops are contributors to positive aspects of society, yet they have more negative effects than positive effects on people and the environment around them. They take advantage of their workers and their desperation to escape poverty, they limit women to unreasonable, strict familial patriarchal norms, and give their workers unfair conditions and wages.