They eat simple food, live in a cold room, but they have to work for a long time in dark lighting. They are the sweatshops workers. Tracing the earliest history of sweatshops from 117 years ago, the sweatshops started in America and Europe in the 19th century. Back then, factories in the U.S. did not pay attention to their worker safety (Golodner 1; “Sweatshops” 1; “Working” 1). The same issues still currently happen in a lot of Asian countries. The number of sweatshops and sweatshops workers are undefinable, but tremendous due to most of them denied admitting the horrific facts. Researched by the Indian government, their “national textile industry is worth 35 Bruneian Dollars”, around 26.56 U.S. Dollars, per year and “employs 35 million people”. The garment exports brought twenty-one Bruneian dollar, around sixteenth U.S. Dollars, to the country. Sweatshops seem to be the tool of profit. Many international fashion brands like H&M and Gap were judged by the public because they use sweatshops to produce their products (Chamberlain 2). Even a lot of Non-Governmental Organizations, NGOs are trying to help, there is no effective government regulation made by any country that could change the situation (Golodner 3). Some economists even believe the sweatshops benefit society because they provide more job opportunities to the residents (“Sweatshops” 2;1). However, the long hours working, terrible working conditions, and a high amount demand requirement on production cause workers get sick all the time (Chamberlain 2). Sweatshops have been a hot topic that people would discuss when they pay attention to global issues. Its adverse effect on the supply and production chain has influenced the uncountable amount of people’s life and experience.
Every consumer is the cause of sweatshops. Whether they are shopping online, buying clothes from a shopping center, or getting small supplies from the grocery store. Therefore, they are choosing to become the last stop of the sweatshops production chain. And becoming the reason why sweatshops cannot stop. They always expect higher quality and cheaper prices on the products (Golodner 1; “Sweatshops” 3). Also, they want the brands to change their fashion style in short amount of time (“Human” 1). The sweatshops workers achieve those impossible needs, experience enormous pressure because the companies are forced to set more extended working hours and higher targets on their suppliers (Golodner 5). Labors were physically abused for fulfilling the fashion desire from the market.
On the other side, companies are competitive on price and trying lower their cost at the maximum. “Low wages continue to be one of the fashion industry’s biggest problems” (“Leading” 2). They have to advertise the lowest price in order to earn more market share from other competitors (Golodner 5). However, the price and cost are tightly related and do not easily adjust as they wish, or they can not finish the production by the deadline. Their special strategy is “paying the poverty wages to people who make their clothes” (Chamberlain 2). Ignoring the issues caused by these low wages, the companies and suppliers continue not to pay enough, just as from the beginning of the sweatshops’ history until now. In some of the countries, like China, the government is trying to change the sweatshops to standard factories by raising the minimum wages. Required by Chinese government regulation, the minimum wages are rising twenty to thirty percent every year. Nevertheless, the companies think that it will only add more “wage pressure” on them, and still refuse to pay a higher fee to workers, which would increase their cost of production. Instead, many factories chose to move away from coastal cities, where they have to pay higher minimum wages due to more expensive living standards. Most of them chose middle-west of China as their new factory locations because there are plenty of cheaper worker resources. In the city of Chongqing, the wages is only around $135 per month for factory workers, almost equal to the lowest weekly wage in the coastal cities (“Cheap” 1). The workers are the least noticeable victims in every brutal price war in business.
Lack of communication is another vital reason why sweatshops issues cannot be solved. Usually, after the fashion brands designed their latest production plan, the companies are not willing to take the responsibility of the production, but to automatically shift the heavy production pressure to their supplier——sweatshops. The production often begins without the companies and suppliers rigorously “investigat[ing] and remediat[ing]” their supply chain (Golodner 9). Some of the managers do not even know their employees’ names or wages (Blattman 2). Due to extensive population base, each job has a lot of applicants. Though, that cannot stop most of the companies still prefer to hire immigrants for their sweatshops. The illegal immigrants give the factory more opportunities to reduce their wages, due to the fact almost none of them would like to protest, especially if they are illegal (“Sweatshops” 1). No worker can speak for themselves in these situations. According to Ashok Kumar Singh, a 29-year-old man who worked for a supplier of Gap, in India, they cannot complain but lie about their working conditions to anyone, especially to the government officials and press. One of his colleagues was dismissed after expressed the “long hours” working, “poor health and safety conditions” to auditors. (Chamberlain 2). The employer threatened their freedom of speech.
Sweatshops may not has labor who is sweating all the time, but the workers are paid less than a living wage, which has a significant impact on workers’ health, family and living condition. According to Fair Labor Association (FLA), the factory should provide living and discretionary income to workers, so they “might be able to save for their family and perhaps buy a better home, provide for their children’s education, or in some other cases, buy a bike to get to work.” (Golodner 5). In India, most of the workers of sweatshops can not even afford one single product they produced, because the monthly wages are so low. Sakamma is a Bengali factory worker and the mother of two children. Her factory is the supplier of Gap in Bengaluru. After working an hour, she can only get 22 Philippine Piso (around 0.426 U.S. Dollar). The wage cannot support her to buy “nutrition food” or pay the medical bill for neither herself or her family members. “They sell one piece of clothing for more than I get paid in a month,” she said. To solve the financial problems of her family, She chose to take another job after finishing the work in the factory (Chamberlain 1). Most of the workers work longer than ten hours per day and only have one day off per week. (“Working” 1). Some of the workers were even in debt because the wages were not enough to “cover the basic needs” Salaheya Khatun, a 25 years old woman who works in a garment factory in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. She was only one of the 5 million people who takes producing clothes as the job, but not the only one who was not financially able support to themselves. $113 was her monthly wages, and she has to wire half of them to her parents who were helping her to “raising her daughter.” She had expressed her wishes to feed herself and her family by her income. However, the daily supplies and food put her in a monthly debt of 1000 Taka, around 16 dollars (“Silent” 2). Though it is illegal, the suppliers still would like to sacrifice their workers’ right and living quality to exchange more profit for the companies.
Long working hours and adverse working condition extremely threatened workers’ health and life. Overwork leads to mental and physical exhaustion. Suppliers require them to work overtime even they were paid lower than the legal wage (Chamberlain 3). Most of the workers have to work around 12 hours per day, and only have one day off in a week (“Working” 1). China, the country that produces most of the high-tech equipment in all over the world. In last forty years, Chinese GDP has raised dramatically from 200 million to 11 trillion, manufacture made a great contribution. Shenzhen, a city located near Hong Kong, where used to be a small town full of fishman. Now it has 18 million population and produced 90% electronic products in all over the world. (“Why” 1). Foxconn is an company located in Shenzhen, it has been famous for their tremendous productivity on the high-tech components and sophisticated machines for more than twenty years. Within their factory base spread all over China, at least 150 million iPhones and 20 million iPads were produced every year. More than 800,000 workers are living and working on the factory campus. Around 85 percent of them are younger than 30 years old or even were born on the 90s. In 2010, a series of suicide suffered the company and gave a big warning to the global production network. Within six months, ten Foxconn workers chose to end their life on the factory base by jumping off the building (“Sweatshops” 2). Throughout the further research on Foxconn after the tragedy, journalists revealed some facts to the public. Employees have set forth their anxiousness of life crisis and high working standard. Overcoming obstacles and impediments had put heavy pressure on their shoulders. After struggling, there was they can no psychological support they can find to help them. They are facing the difficulties by themselves. According to a New York Times Article published on Jan 26, 2012, Employees work over sixty hours per week. In an open letter to the press and public, Foxconn showed their great skill on crisis management in public relations; they denied that any underage worker has ever been hired. Also stated that the suicided employees were not mistreated before death, the suicide amount in Foxconn did not surpass the national suicide rates (“Sweatshops” 3; 2). Due to low safety concern and poor working environment, fire is another harmful effect what suffered many sweatshops workers in the world. As a result of the global production system, dominated by the concerns of fast fashion, just-in-time inventory management, and low prices. On November 24, 2012, more than 100 people sacrificed their lives in the Tazreen Fashion factory they worked As a report by the fire department the factory does not even have an approved emergency exit, even the Tazreen management team refuse to admit it. Two years later, a warehouse located in Manila, was swept through by another fire. Eight workers died while staying in an electronic warehouse. The rest of them escaped by climbing to the roof because the only exit was “padlocked by the warehouse’s owner.” A couple of female workers complained that their lives were controlled by the manager, no cell phone, no internet, no rest. Leaving the room was prohibited since the executives always locked the door. And only three days off were provided every year. Same in 2015, a fire killed seventy-two people in a shoe factory because there were not enough exits. The metal bars caused the windows were too hard for workers to break and escape (“Sweatshops” 3).
Other than poor working conditions and high stress working, the risks of injuries and disabilities keep raising for those who work in the factory. The “chemical fume” and repetitive strain injury damaged their health (Blattman 2). In a supplier of Gap, a worker has evidence that one of his colleagues got an electric shock to death by “bare wire.” Those who did not finish the daily requirement would be punished “verbally and physically”. “Respected human right is missed” in the sweatshops (Chamberlain 1-3). The executive paid no attention to anything other than productivity and profit. They concern more on middle and higher class desire of fashion than lower class basic need.
To expand the productivity and distribute the missions into more factories, Foxconn has built a new plan to produce their product globally. A $12 billion new investment would located in Brazil and $5 billion in India. In 2017, they have promised thousands of jobs in Wisconsin for their latest operation (“Business” 1). However, people has complained the decision is useless to fix the problem, that would only add pressure to more people on the earth. Moving is not the effective solution since the demand will keep increasing.
To solve the problems of the sweatshops and help sweatshops' workers life, many organization and individuals have been established to promote workers’ health and safety. Also speaking in the worldwide public to negotiate the issues including child labor, low wages, and poor working conditions between the companies and factories. Most of the actions started in last twenty to thirty years. Built in 1997, Social Accountability International (SAI) was a non-profit organization purposed to “advance the human rights of workers around the world.” Now they paid more attention to “training” the management team after realizing the importance of communication in the supply chains (Goldner 4;3). In America, the country where sweatshops began. American Council on Consumer Interests (ACCI) holds a national competition that opens to all middle and high school students. Teenagers can draw a poster to introduce the actual child labor or sweatshops problems to the public through their creative design. Schwab Social Entrepreneur Award is found for the people who were“ correcting market failures with tools of capitalism” by Schwab Foundation. Nina Smith, the executive director of GoodWeave International, an international organization against child labor, was helped to build by Nobel prize for Peace winner Kailash Satyarthi. She won the award in 2016 for her leading behaviors as a role model in solving underage hiring and “trafficking in the global supply chains” (Golodner 2;3). Back to the beginning of 20th century, journalists used to reveal the terrible situation in sweatshops by publishing stories on newspapers and public reading material. The voice of the public became their weapons “ to put pressure on factory workers.” As the feedback, a Central Committee on Safety was created by U.S. Steel with $750,000 funds provided. Later in 1913, the National Safety Council started a series of activities to develop the safety of working machines and decreasing the chance of injuries. Companies and suppliers were encouraged to join and “prevent accidents in the workplace” (“Working” 2). Speaking up for the sweatshops workers’ rights in public could efficiently promoting their working safety and life quality.
Another solution to take the pressure off from the worker’s shoulders is to hire more workers, use robots to do the toilsome jobs and using well management. Responding to all of the scandals and imperfect news, Foxconn declared that they would hire around four hundred thousand new workers to avoid overworks while not remaining the productivity (“Sweatshops” 3). Furthermore, to face the increased payroll costs, they would also purchase a million robots to replace hands. Jobs are now higher-paid and more opened to the skilled employees who were educated. Through Apple’s field visit to Shenzhen, and the research they have done on the labors and factory campus, no more evidence shows Foxconn disobeyed rules set by Apple (“Cheap” 1; “Sweatshops” 3). The production system is continually growing and updating through the communication and technology.
To sum everything up, sweatshops have been a problem since the last century, and some of the issues are keep growing in the darkness, where people can not see. From one point of view, people think that shoppers chose to ignore the torture when they are satisfied with the sales they got, companies decided to sacrifice their suppliers to make their financial statements look perfect, and the workers were forced to hand over their time and freedom for the higher classes fashionable desire. The government and public should focus the labors who have suffered from low incomes, long working hours and high injuries risks. News should be less concerned about the gossip news of movie star but those real human struggles. Human rights are essential to everyone same as to those sweatshops workers. On the other side, the government is listening to the voice from the public. Through legislation, working with NGOs, and providing technical support, they are trying to prevent further damage that against people and society. For making the sweatshops disappear, there is still a long way to go, but progress would make gradually.