History Of The Garment Industry

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The Garment industry also referred to as the clothing or textile industry traces its inception early before the invention of the sewing machine that happened in the 19th century, but its peak occurred in the first half of the 20th century (Arnesen, 2007). The manufacturing of ready-to wear attire augmented the growth of the industry, which entailed acquiring the garment, designing the outfit, cutting the fabric and finally the actual sewing.
Most of the workforce in the America’s garment industry involved the invasion of immigrates in places such as New York, who had prior knowledge of sewing the garment from their native nations. Most of the employees comprised of women especially the Jew women immigrate who flew from Germany after the emergence of the civil war although poor American children would be employed (Bose, 2010).
Workers in the garment industry during the first half of the 20th century experienced intensive exploitation and worked under extremely dangerous conditions. Their fate was coupled by the emerging social conflict that was perpetuated by various factors such as the large numbers of immigrates, the growing development of urban centers and the demands placed by the growing levels of industrialization (Kessler-Haris, 2007). The lot of immigrates that found a placement in the textile industry faced hostility from the Native Americans because of the competition of resources they brought to the nation.
The pressures of industrialization led many underage children to work in the industries including the garment industry where they faced poor treatment in the working environment. Children were subjected to low wages than the adults thus allowing many employers to seek the services of the underage. The services of ...

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...force is among the lowest paid employees in the world today (Robinson & Acemoglu, 2012). Bangladesh garment workforce is prone to accidents in the garment manufacturing facilities especially the recent collapse of a building that claimed the lives of more than a thousand workers and the occasional horrific fires.
The Chinese garment workforce has not been spared in the recent times as they are faced with multiple poor conditions in the textile industry. Garment industry in China constitutes of many internal migrates from the rural parts who face extreme working conditions such as low wage income, extended working hours, uncoordinated labor unions. In addition, the Chinese workforce in the garment industries is threatened by occupational ailments especially from the fabric treatment technique such as sandblasting that may lead to a condition referred to as silicosis.

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