Nowadays there are a lot of laws around the world that protect employees from employers, however in some countries those laws are less regulated than other countries. While I was reading the Bangladesh case, the garment factories in Bangladesh have issues when it comes to enforce their laws. The ethical and social responsibility issue in this case is mostly relate with the cheap labor. Since Bangladesh garment industries depends on the export of textile products to generate income as a result necessity makes them sell their products at a lower cost which later these products are sold through different retailers like Gap, H&M, Nordstrom at a higher price. The firm that imports products from Bangladesh, paid them a little for producing their …show more content…
Primary stakeholders are employees are the most affected because of the low wages they receive from employers. Furthermore textile employees work 7 days a week and a 12 hour shift, and the minimum wage in Bangladesh is $38 a month which is less than the rate of China. It could be devastating if the employee gets sick, he or she would not have enough money to pay for his or her treatment. For a suppliers to gain some profit they would make the product at a cheaper cost in order to get customers to buy their product. One way they operate is by exploiting textile workers and paying them a little for their …show more content…
On the case it mentions that before the collapse the firm “the Gap” announced a $22 million fire and building safety plan with its suppliers without identifying which factory it was used there and how many factories would be improved under the plan. Also “wal-mart” pledged $1.8 million to train 2,000 bangladesh factory managers about fire safety. Other brands agreed to sign a lawful binding agreement designed to improve safety conditions, an agreement which requires not to hire manufacturers whose factories fail to meet the required safety standards. On the other hand, some corporations tried to avoid signing the contract because of the safety inspection that will cost each company $2.5 million over a 5 year period. After all the firms would have to give up something in order to continuing buying their goods from Bangladesh
Sweatshops started around the 1830’s when industrialization started growing in urban areas. Most people who worked in them at the time were immigrants who didn't have their papers. They took jobs where they thought they'd have the most economic stability. It’s changed a bit since then, companies just want the cheapest labor they can get and to be able to sell the product in order to make a big profit. It’s hard to find these types of workers in developed areas so they look toward 3rd world countries. “sweatshops exist wherever there is an opportunity to exploit workers who lack the knowledge and resources to stand up for themselves.” (Morey) In third world countries many people are very poor and are unable to afford food and water so the kids are pulled out of school and forced to work so they can try to better their lives. This results in n immense amount of uneducated people unaware they can have better jobs and that the sweatshops are basically slavery. With a large amounts uneducated they continue the cycle of economic instability. There becomes no hope for a brighter future so people just carry on not fighting for their basic rights. Times have changed. 5 Years ago companies would pay a much larger amount for a product to be made but now if they’re lucky they’ll pay half, if a manufacturer doesn't like that another company will happily take it (Barnes). Companies have gotten greedier and greedier in what they’ll pay to have a product manufactured. Companies have taken advantage of the fact that people in developing countries will do just about anything to feed their families, they know that if the sweatshop in Cambodia don't like getting paid 2 dollars per garment the one in Indonesia will. This means that there is less money being paid to the workers which mean more will starve and live in very unsafe environments. Life is
In his article “Sweatshops, Choice, and Exploitation” Matt Zwolinski attempts to tackle the problem of the morality of sweatshops, and whether or not third parties or even the actors who create the conditions, should attempt to intervene on behalf of the workers. Zwolinski’s argument is that it is not right for people to take away the option of working in a sweatshop, and that in doing so they are impeding on an individual’s free choice, and maybe even harming them. The main distinction that Zwolinski makes is that choice is something that is sacred, and should not be impeded upon by outside actors. This is showcased Zwolinski writes, “Nevertheless, the fact that they choose to work in sweatshops is morally significant. Taken seriously, workers' consent to the conditions of their labor should lead us to abandon certain moral objections to sweatshops, and perhaps even to view them as, on net, a good thing.” (Zwolinski, 689). He supports his argument of the importance of free choice by using a number of different tactics including hypothetical thought exercises and various quotes from other articles which spoke about the effects of regulation business. Throughout the article there were multiple points which helped illuminate Zwolinski’s argument as well as multiple points which muddle the argument a bit.
...e their product. Sweatshops are found usually all over the world and need to make a better decision as in more labor laws, fair wages, and safety standards to better the workers' conditions. It should benefit the mutually experiences by both the employers and the employees. Most important is the need to be educated about their rights and including local labor laws.
Linda Lim, a professor at the University of Michigan Business School, visited Vietnam and Indonesia in the summer of 2000 to obtain first-hand research on the impact of foreign-owned export factories (sweatshops) on the local economies. Lim found that in general, sweatshops pay above-average wages and conditions are no worse than the general alternatives: subsistence farming, domestic services, casual manual labor, prostitution, or unemployment. In the case of Vietnam in 1999, the minimum annual salary was 134 U.S. dollars while Nike workers in that country earned 670 U.S. dollars, the case is also the similar in Indonesia. Many times people in these countries are very surprised when they hear that American's boycott buying clothes that they make in the sweatshops. The simplest way to help many of these poor people that have to work in the sweatshops to support themselves and their families, would be to buy more products produced in the very sweatshops they detest.
The General Accountability Office defines a sweatshop as a “multiple labor law violator.” A sweatshop violates laws pertaining to benefits, working hours, and wages (“Toxic Uniforms”). To make more money, companies move their sweatshop factories to different locations and try to find the cheapest locations with the least regulations (“Sweatshops”). There are not as many sweatshop factories in the United States because the industries have been transferred overseas where the labor is cheaper and there are weaker regulations. In the United States, sweatshops are hidden from the public, with poor immigrant workers who are unable to speak out against the injustices (“Subsidizing Sweatshops”). Workers in sweatshops are forced to work overtime, earn below a living wage, do not earn benefits, and encounter verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Macy’s, JCPenney, Kohl’s, The
...ontinues to drive global capitalism, as capitalist continue to expand and accumulate more capital. However, the cost cuts to the clothes we wear come at a high price for garment workers of Bangladesh. The exploitation the vulnerable workers from a country plagued with structural problems and the unsatisfied global expansion of capitalists’, results in the catastrophes like Rana Plaza. The globalization of the capitalist system was written about by Marx and Engels. The flaws in the capitalist systems that would bring its eventual downfall seem to be true at post Rana Plaza. The resentment of those who profit from their suffering; the government, the factory owners and the western retail chains, have brought on riots and demands of compensation. However, until the system is overturned as a whole, the dire work conditions of the Bangladesh garment worker will remain.
Some companies have made strides in abolishing sweatshops in their business. Fruit of the Loom is one of those companies taking the strides. They are “the fourth college-logo apparel company to sign the Bangladesh Safety Accord, an agreement between unions and brands that will transform the Bangladesh garment industry from deathtraps to safe work places” (Fruit of the Loom). Adidas is another company who signed the same deal. Even though Fruit of the Loom is no Gucci or Prada, hopefully people will start to realize that some companies are taking the extra step to help people while others are merely taking advantage of those less fortunate.
Sweatshops are factories that violate two or more human rights. Sweatshops are known in the media and politically as dangerous places for workers to work in and are infamous for paying minimum wages for long hours of labour. The first source is a quote that states that Nike has helped improve Vietnamese’s’ workers lives by helping them be able to afford luxuries they did not have access to before such as scooters, bicycles and even cars. The source is showing sweatshops in a positive light stating how before sweatshops were established in developing countries, Vietnamese citizens were very poor and underprivileged. The source continues to say that the moment when sweatshops came to Vietnam, workers started to get more profit and their lives eventually went uphill from their due to being able to afford more necessities and luxuries; one of them being a vehicle, which makes their commute to work much faster which in turn increases their quality of life. The source demonstrates this point by mentioning that this is all due to globalization. Because of globalization, multinationals are able to make investments in developing countries which in turn offers the sweatshops and the employees better technology, better working skills and an improvement in their education which overall helps raise the sweatshops’ productivity which results in an increase
Americans do not realize the amount of clothing we wear on a daily basis is actually made in Cambodia, such as Adidas and even the Gap. The women that work for these sweatshops in Cambodia sew for 50 cents an hour, which is what allows stores in America, such as H&M to sell inexpensive clothing (Winn, 2015). The conditions these Cambodian workers face are a noisy, loud, and extremely hot environment where people are known for having huge fainting attacks. When workers were on strike a year ago, authorities actually shot multiple people just because they were trying to raise their pay. There is plenty of evidence of abuse captured through many interviews of workers from different factories, and is not just a rarity these places see often or hear of. Factories hire children, fire pregnant women because they are slow and use the bathroom to much, scream at regular workers if they use the toilet more than two times a day, scam hard working employees with not paying them their money they worked for and more, and workers are sent home and replaced if 2,000 shirts are not stitched in one day. Expectations are unrealistic and not suitable for employees to be working each day for more than ten
On April 24 2013, a building housing several garment factories collapsed in the capital of Bangladesh, leading to the deaths of more than 1,100 textile workers. These factories supplied clothing for many western retailers, such as Walmart, H&M, Gap and others. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest garment exporter, depending on low wages. "Sweatshop" sometimes is not enough to describe the working conditions of labor in less developed areas. In Bangladesh, clothing enterprises are as frightening as ruins and fires.
China and India are the biggest producers of fast fashion in the world. The workers in these factories are being paid roughly about $76 a month. Imagine here in the US we get paid $10 an hour for minimum wage jobs, and even that is not enough for most expenses, but money is not the only problem. Workers are made to work in buildings that are barely standing with poor ventilation, harsh chemicals, and barely working water. In 2013 a building collapsed (Rana Plaza) killing more than 1,100 people. This incident actually made headlines, and showed a glimpse into the fast fashion industry. People in these countries work for 13 to 14 hours daily in these conditions, and sometimes they even need to take their kids because they have no one to take care of them. In the end “the whole system begins to feel like a perfectly engineered nightmare where the workers are trapped inside”(Morgan). The workers also are left with the environmental residue left
In a 1996 congressional testimony, National Labor Committee executive, Charles Kernaghan, led an expose on Kathie Lee Gifford when he revealed “that child laborers in Honduras were making the Gifford clothing line sold at Wal-Mart” (Duke). This realization caused Gifford to dissolve into tears and, over time, use her brand in the fight against corporate practices. For a while, these protestors were able to make a difference as many corporations were began to specify which companies were making their clothes, adopted codes of conduct, and “relied on monitors who visited factories once every three months and conducted random inspections” (Colliver). However, these socially conscious changes aren’t structured “to make factories take better care of their workers. They’re designed to make factories look like they are” (Hobbes). In reality, the factory inspections and audits are essentially, as Hobbes describes it, a “paperwork exercise”, as inspectors usually spend two days maximum at each factory, mostly checking time sheets for shift lengths, birth certificates for child labor, and pay stubs for wages. In addition to this, most manufacturers, particularly those in China and Southeast Asia, are experts in bypassing regulations “by keeping multiple sets of books, hiding cramped
The Article supporting the argument that “sweatshops do not violate human rights” included points about how sweatshops have actually helped increase the living conditions in third world countries and how students at many universities have protested and boycotted the companies that use sweatshops. On the other hand, the article written by Anna Yesilevsky opposing the given argument included points about how boycotting the companies that have alleged sweatshops is not the best solution to the problem. The article also features methods that we can use to force companies to make the conditions in their sweatshops better. I believe that the article opposing the claim the sweatshops do not violate human rights has a stronger argument and was presented better.
Bangladesh, a country situated in southern Asia, is home to approximately 168 million people, 4 million of whom currently face the gruesome challenge of working within the country’s garment industry [2]. In an attempt to survive and evade the line of poverty, workers within this industry, whom are often women and children, are exposed to daily labor exploitation and unsafe environments. The article, “Bangladeshi Garment Workers Fight Back”, by James North, examines the country’s successful market internally in an attempt to reveal the negative impact the industry has on the lives of these laborers. North argues that the poor infrastructure of the industry, in combination with the want for quick, cheap work amongst mega-corporations, has resulted
Globalization is basically about attempting to make things global and expanding products and companies over seas to countries all around the world. It can also be classified as the process of creating languages, services, and products that apply not just to an individual neighborhood or city or country, but to the whole world. Canadians have experienced many benefits that globalization has brought to their lives including the availability to products and services from all around the world. However, at the same time on the other side of the world it has had many pessimistic or negative effects on workers in developing countries. As Globalization began to boom, the number of sweatshops also increased greatly and its effects were most definitely harming in many ways to the individuals employed by them; mainly women and children. Out of all the industries that have become globalized, the textile and garment industries are amongst the most. Mutually the textile and garment industries make up one of the largest sources of industrial employment in the world. In virtually every country around the world clothing is being produced but being sold somewhere else. Around 30 million people are making clothes and textiles around the globe and out of those thirty million, most of them are women. Around the world women and children are suffering because of the introduction of sweatshops, low wages, unsafe working environments, free trade zones, foreign control, sub contracting and abuses of human and worker rights.