Sweatshop Products
Contents
Sweatshop
A sweatshop is a factory or workshop where manual workers are employed for long hours at poverty-level wages, and usually with poor working conditions. The work is typically arduous, dangerous, and underpaid, regardless of laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage; child labor laws may also be violated. The U.S. Department of Labor's "2015 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor" found that "18 countries did not meet the International Labor Organization's recommendation for an adequate number of inspectors." [1] Though sweatshops exist everywhere, they are most likely to occur in poor countries, where cheap labor is most available. Working conditions are typically deplorable, and pose numerous health risks to workers. The International Labour Organization (ILO), established in 1919, develops international labor standards in an effort to improve working conditions throughout the world. [2]
History
Anti-Sweatshop Movement
Sweatshops have been heavily criticized as being exploitative and cruel by paying workers unconscionable wages. Some have attempted to outright abolish them. Anti-sweatshop sentiments stretch as far back as the early 19th century, and the first significant law to address sweatshops (the Factory Act of 1833) was passed in the United Kingdom, and redused the maximum amount of working hours and the use of child labor. Later, the International Labour Organization, initially under the League of Nations and currently the United Nations, was established in 1919 with the goal to to address the plight of workers around the world. It wasn't until 1938 that the United States passed it's first labor law, the Fair Labor Standards Act, that creates the right to a minimum wage, and "time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits the employment of most minors.[3]
Defense of Sweatshop Products
There exists are growing number of people who do not seek the abolition of sweatshops. Arguments put forth on the defense of sweatshops highlight the more pernicious alternatives available to people in poor countries.
Fairer Pay & Better Conditions
The reduction or abolition of sweat shops could lead to greater levels of unemployment in poor areas and in increase in even riskier jobs such as prostitution or subsistence farming. The International Labour Organisation estimates that agricultural workers suffer 250 million accidents every year, and say that in some countries the fatal accident rate is twice as common in agriculture as in other industries. [4] Purchasing sweatshop goods is also putting money into the pockets of those who need it most. Despite the small wages, sweatshop workers in developing countries typically earn more then their national average income, particularly in the apparel industry. In Bangladesh and several African nations, sweatshop workers earn more than three times the national average. [5]
Safer for Women
In Bangladesh villages close to sweatshops, girls are substantially less likely to get pregnant or be married off, 28% and 29% respectively, and this affect is strongest amongst 12-18 year olds. [6] Girls who work these jobs are also more likely to attend school.
