Many people are familiar with the term "sweatshop" and what it is. Often times it comes with a familiar interpretation of foreign countries, with many people, including children working all day to make certain products. Some of the most common items that come from sweatshops are shoes, rugs, coffee, tables, toys, chocolate, and even bananas. Among these things, clothing is the biggest product to come from a sweatshop. The garment industry is very big in production between that fact that fashion is always evolving, and because clothes are considered an essential to life. Clothing may be an essential material to have in life, but using sweatshops to get it involves extremely unethical and morally
unjust issues.
A sweatshop is defined as a work environment or employer that violates two or more federal or state labor laws. This means sweatshops often violate laws governing minimum wage, overtime hours, child labor laws, as well as lacking benefits to the workers.
Low Pay
Sweatshop workers can earn as little $0.01 per hour, often over 100 hours a week.
Conditions
Working conditions of sweatshops are known to be inadequate. They are often unsanitary, overcrowded, and dangerous. Some of the worst cases known include workers working up to 72 hours straight, without sleep.
Verbal, physical, and sexual abuse are extremely common.
- An estimated 250 million children in underdeveloped countries between ages 5-14 are forced to work in sweatshops
- Women make up 80-90% of sweatshop workplaces and because of this, are often forced to take birth control & routine pregnancy tests for employers to avoid supporting maternity leave or providing proper health benefits
- Often only get one break; minimum working day lasts 12-16 hours
Hazardous working conditions have caused multiple sweatshop accidents that resulted in death.
1. The Satanic Mills, 1832
Sweatshops first began evolving in the 19th century. In 1832, a child died in the Satanic Mills sweatshop in Leeds England after being locked in a room without being able to so much as go to the bathroom.
2. Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, 1911
Similarly, this behavior resulted in another disaster of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911, in New York City, when a fire killed 146 workers because a locked door prevented them from being able to escape the building.
3. Rana Plaza, 2013
The most recent accident, and possibly
the worst of history happened in 2013. On April 24, 2013 the Rana Plaza, a concrete
building in Bangladesh, collapsed atop garment workers in the factory. It
killed over 1,100 people and left 2,500 injured.
These incidents all prove how working in a sweatshop is not only dangerous to an individual's health, but to their life.
Though sweatshops are more common in underdeveloped countries because America has stronger labor laws, many still get past the U.S. Department of Labor.
As late as the year 2000, an estimated 255,000 sweatshop workers could be found in America. Over 11,000 sweatshops violated minimum wage and overtime laws, while over 16,000 violated health and safety laws.
Here are some big name brands that have all been found in associating with sweatshops:
How To Help
There are few organizations that work towards improving the conditions and benefits of laborers within sweatshops. As a result, these organizations are spread thin, meaning they do not have the opportunities to provide inspections of factories as often as needed.
One study showed that doubling the salary of sweatshop workers would only increase the consumer cost of an item by 1.8%, while consumers would be willing to pay 15% more to know a product did not come from a sweatshop.
Here's a social experiment by a non profit was recently done that proves this fact, and helped to raise awareness and money in oder to help this cause.
This was done to help inform the public of the common conditions found in sweatshops and to consider where your clothes are coming from. By also seeing if your clothing is coming from fair trade labels can help. Fair trade labels ensure higher salaries to those who made the product, which also include better working conditions and environments.
The working environments of sweatshops need to be improved. Creating clothes does not have to involve doing so in such immoral ways. The idea that people are suffering to survive, and compromising their lives and health over producing the garments we use today is unethical. Sweatshops promote immoral and unethical behavior that goes against much of humanity.
