Have you ever wondered where the shirt you are wearing right now was made?. It was probably made in a foreign country where workers are paid much less than your shirt is worth. Companies place sweatshops in foreign countries and pay workers less than what they would in other countries, in order to save and make more money. Foreign countries don't have minimum wage and many people need work. Multinational companies takes advantages of this and give these people work. However, companies also exploits workers in the process by giving them poor working conditions. Sweatshops exists because there is a high demand for inexpensive products, and as a result of sweatshops many companies are facing a dramatic increase in profits.
The term “sweatshop” was first used in the late 19th century to describe aspects of the tailoring trade, but sweatshop conditions exist in other industries as well. A sweatshop is defined as a factory or workshop, especially in the clothing line industry, where manual workers are employed at very low wages for long hours and under poor conditions. Some sweatshops are known to be abusive to workers including child labor, sexual abuse, and forced labor in different countries. These are just few examples of the abusiveness of sweatshops in different companies. Other examples include very few or no rest days, as it is in China where workers work for 10 days and one day to rest. In developing countries, an estimated 250 million children in foreign countries ages 5 to 14 years old are forced to work. That is child labor, which is defined as work preformed by children under 18 years old, who work long hours on a regular or full time basis. They go through abusive treatment by their employer and have no or poor access to education. A study shows that doubling the salary of sweatshop workers would only increase the consumer cost of an item by 1.8%, while most consumers would be willing to pay 15% more to know that a product did not come from a sweatshop. As a prove of some sweatshop abusiveness, a sweatshop worker tells her story. Arifa who was 10 years old, and had to find a job when her father could no longer work. She started working in Bangladesh's garment factories, and worked in the sector for 20 years. When she first started working, Arifa was a helper and earned only 100 taka a month, that is 1.178 US dollar. She has gradually worked her way up to sewing machine operator, and now earns 2200 taka a month, that equals 25.92 US dollar, working an average of 13-14 hours per day. After 20 years as a garment worker she earns more than Bangladesh's minimum wage, but still less than a living wage. Arifa would like to leave her job. She said that, the work is exhausting and hard on her body, causing frequent pain, especially in the back. She does work while sitting down. However, the chair provided is very unsupportive. Arifa also claims that, she does not feel safe in the factory because of the poor working conditions.
Records of sweatshops date back to the 1800’s. Sweatshops have not been associated with one country but many different countries. Where labor is cheap, and workers protections are few. One of the first sweatshops was in Ecuador. Spanish dictators put the native population to work in sweatshops where they made clothing, and different textile goods. As sweatshops began to spread around the world, children became workers in these places. These children worked the same long hours as adults, performing simple tasks such as, threading needles and cutting loose threads. Many workers died of tuberculosis and other job-related diseases within a few years. Most factories wanted to make as much profits as possible, and that would not happen if they had to purchase costly machines. After many years of being mistreated in sweatshops, many factory workers started to form unions to protect their rights. This brought about social change, by the 1850’s most factories finally improved the safety in the workplace. A claim for “ Just Treatment” happened in 1886 by immigrant workers. The reason behind that is the working conditions in the factories. Moreover, in 1900’s children in the age of 12 and under had to attend school, and their education was free. After the second world war, sweatshops started to vanish because many governments made rules and regulations for the factories. However, in the late 1980’s and the 1990’s sweatshops had returned. The issue with the modern sweatshop is that many people are not aware that they currently exist.
Sweatshops exist until this day around the world. Thought they have evolved, most are still as cruel and medieval as they were in the past, such as those in China and Bangladesh. However, The number of children working in sweatshops decreased by 16% between 2000 and 2004. Present day sweatshops have a “formula for success”. Which create a positive brand image to attract customers, while making clothing as cheaply as possible around the world. Large chain stores, participants in sweatshops. Some of the workers who make their clothes work long hours and are paid poverty wages. Smaller retailers, usually don't own their own sweatshops, because it is cheaper for them to buy clothing from factories around the world. The evolved sweatshops of today are the perfect example on the famous idiom “appearances can be deceiving”. American Apparel (AA), for example, pays the average wage and provides health insurance, which to many seem like decent advantages, but has an indecent conception about sexual abuse in work.
Despite the rapid growth of the Chinese economy in the last decade, more than 482 million people in China live on less than $2 a day. There are about 150 Chinese migrants who do not receive any governmental benefits or protection. Some workers have to bear poor working conditions such as excessive and forced overtime, denial of social security rights and failure to provide employment contracts, as well as severe health risks, because of their status. Trying to escape from extreme poverty, workers find themselves trapped in appalling working conditions. Most of these workers are women earning extremely low wages, the average monthly salary including overtime is CNY 1,690 which is 255 US dollar. the level of occupational disease and injuries is alarmingly high. In 2009 alone, approximately one million workers were injured at work and about 20,000 suffered from diseases due to their occupation. One of the biggest risks to the health of workers is sandblasting, a technique used to treat denim so that the fabric has a worn look. Although sandblasting was banned in 1966, it continued to be used in China despite the serious danger and risk sandblasting cause to workers. Moreover, the official state trade union has failed to take action on behalf of workers who fall ill and corporations are rarely compelled to pay sickness compensation. Worker Empowerment (WE) and Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM), established in 2003, a labor organization that seeks to empower Chinese migrant workers to defend their rights by raising workers awareness of their entitlements, and equipping them with the skills and knowledge to challenge abuses committed by employers. In order to empower migrant workers and improve working conditions.