Sweatshop Research Paper

Sweatshop: Sweat Not!

“It’s [cheap labor] the fastest-growing criminal market in the world,” (Edmondson 149) Gail Edmondson writes in an article discussing cheap labor. Economic growth has always been a large interest for most countries. Due to many high unemployment rates, corporations take advantage of the lower classes by enforcing cheap labor. Cheap labor is the employment of people with very low wages, under poor or unsafe conditions. Since people in the lower class do not have much money, they are unable to get an education that allows them to gain a safe and well-paying career. Therefore, they turn to the cheap labor organizations that will hire thousands of untrained people at minimal costs. This practice is extremely harmful, often

illegal, and unfair to the employees. Cheap labor should be made entirely illegal globally because it is ethically wrong and illegalizing it would benefit the lives of the employees that suffer in sweatshop conditions.
The first step in trying to benefit workers who are employed in sweatshops is to first understand what cheap labor actually is. To be able to argue or understand cheap labor, one must understand how to measure it or what qualifies it to be “cheap.” There are five appropriate ways to measure cheap labor: “(1) labor costs as a proportion of total input costs; (2) labor costs as a proportion of total revenue; (3) wages paid for labor relative to the cost of labor in similar local industries; (4) wages paid to (any country) labor compared to, say, (any other country) labor in the same industry; and (5) wages paid to (any country) labor compared to legal minimum wages” (Cawthorne 459). These five guidelines can be used to help one understand and study the aspects of cheap labor. This is beneficial because it is impossible to ever change the conditions and standards in sweatshops if there is no understanding of what cheap labor is and how to measure it.
Along with specific guidelines to measure cheap labor, the reasons for cheap labor on a global scale must also be understood. Cheap labor is an illegal way for businesses and companies to save a dime. This world has so much economic competition, making companies desperate to lower their costs, by any possible means. Employers around the world cut labor costs to nearly zero by lowering workers’ wages. In Europe, labor market regulations are strict, and labor costs are high for employers. Due to this, the demand for illegal workers and a number of sweatshop factories has increased. Now, sweatshops that used to only flourish on the outside borders of the European Union are becoming very common throughout much of Europe. Large businesses and companies often outsource to such sweatshops to match global competition on low prices because that form of cheap labor costs the companies much less in terms of labor and production (Edmondson 150). The global competition for economic growth is one of the primary reasons that large businesses resort to cheap labor. Employers can save tremendous amounts of money by forcing their workers into long work hours for very low pay. Employers will also spend very little money on keeping their factories up to code on health regulations, making for dangerous work environments for the employees.
Along with dangerous work environments and little pay, sweatshops are known for getting work done extremely quick with few resources. Cheap labor institutions can provide a demanded item in as short as twelve to twenty-four hours from the moment of demand. These types of scenarios usually deal with cheap clothing. For example, when a certain jacket or shirt has a large demand, clothing manufacturers will deliver something as simple as patterns to the cheap subcontractors and expect the finished product within a few hours. An employee of cheap labor has little rights and cannot access a union or any legal papers. Due to the limitations placed on these employees, they may be paid as little as sixty-five cents per article of clothing and much less if his/her pay is being docked for whatever reason. Shirts that cost around twenty-five dollars can easily be made at a cheap subcontractor for only one-five dollars. The employees who work at theses subcontracting companies usually see less than a dollar of that profit (Edmondson 155). The fast and cheap production that comes from sweatshops is intriguing and desirable to large-company employers. They view it as an easy way to produce as much as possible for the most minimal costs.
While it is well-known that employers around the world spend minimal costs to produce large quantities of items, forms of hidden human trafficking brought on by cheap labor are also a huge problem. Gangs who control and make money from trafficking bring hundreds of thousands of immigrants to sweatshops in Europe, knowing that they will work for the low wages under the poor conditions. Illegal immigration to the European Union has gone from an estimated forty-thousand workers in 1993 to five hundred thousand workers in 2016. The method that is used to trap and transfer these immigrants is the same around the world. Gang members smuggle workers that will be forced to work in sweatshops because they have no other way to support themselves and their families. Many of the immigrants that are taken under the wing of cheap labor employers are poor and ill-educated, hoping that they will find a better life in their new jobs. They are promised this better life if they only work for a little while to pay off the cost of immigration. They do not, however, find their happy, wealthy ending. These immigrants are forced to work in sweatshops with horrifying conditions and little pay. If they try to fight back or speak up about the unfair treatment, they may be beaten by a fighter hired by the leader of the sweatshop (Edmondson 152). This shows one of the biggest problems with cheap labor: employees have no rights and cannot stick up for themselves to demand fair rights.
The lack of fair rights and the whole process of cheap labor is not necessarily a ‘new’ subject.

Sweatshops have history and origins. Upon hearing the word “sweatshop,” one may conjure images or thoughts of conditions in an industry with laborers that are worn down and defeated. This is generally true for sweatshops. A sweatshop is defined as a factory or workshop, especially in the clothing industry, where laborers are employed to do manual work at very low wages for long hours and in poor conditions under the standards set by the United States labor departments. Sweatshops have been known to be in just about every wealthy country in the world at one point or another. Dating as far back as late eighteenth century England, sweatshops and forms of cheap labor have been affecting the lives of workers for quite some time. Sweatshops originated and first appeared in Great Britain. Speaking for historical sweatshops, workdays were extremely long, pay was beyond low, and the working conditions were unhealthy and unsafe for the workers. In the late nineteenth century, as masses of Europeans migrated to the United States, the tactics and practices of sweatshops came along with them. Since cheap labor arrived to the United States and spread all over the world, some forms of it have not yet gone away (D’Mello 27). The migrations that have taken place throughout history have contributed to the spread of cheap labor; cheap labor is now a common practice throughout the

world.
As cheap labor has become more common and widespread, people around the world have begun to gain interest in the problems brought on by cheap labor. Students, church activists, and community organizers worldwide have been gaining interest in cheap labor since the early 2000s and with good reason. The conditions and problems found in sweatshops have been documented as well as possible and found to be absolutely horrible. In the U.S. alone, 60% of stitching and cutting clothing shops do not pay minimum wage or extra for overtime. From the mid-nineties to the early 2000s, the number of apparel workers in sweatshops dropped from 440,000 to 250,000; however, this number did not go down because conditions had improved. Instead, it was because unemployment had risen, and jobs were forced to be cut (Ross 51). The employees who are the first ones to get cut are those in sweatshops. This is because workers employed as cheap labor do not have many rights or justices, and they know better than to speak out for help. Calling out for help or speaking to an employer about wanting better rights could result in a number of punishments: loss of job, beat, harmed, threatened, forced to work extra, and many other penalties.
Cheap labor employees that endure the punishments and unfair treatments in sweatshops live daily in suffrage. This type of suffrage has been seen in the workforce throughout much of history. Human living standards and conditions in the workforce have been harsh and poor throughout most of human history. For example, slaves owned by farmers have endured long, painful work hours for centuries to make just enough to get by, if any at all. It is well-known that slaves working in fields were strong examples of cheap labor. Viewing this type of sweatshop as one of the past, more modern-day sweatshops began emerging during the Industrial Revolution. Before the Revolution, textiles were primarily produced in the houses of families using spinning wheels. Since the clothing was all homemade, output production was limited. Towards the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the flying shuttle was invented, which increased the rate of production of textiles. This caused the demand for yarn to boost. Soon after came the spinning jenny and water power. These new inventions led to large, fast-producing textile factories, which are very similar to today's sweatshops (Powell 110). Within these factories are abundant supplies of workers and harmful equipment. In textile factories, like all cheap labor organizations, employees are treated poorly and paid very little.
After gaining an understanding of what cheap labor is and how the employees are treated poorly, one must next have knowledge of real examples of sweatshops in the world. In some cases, sweatshops are found by complaints of citizens who hear loud machinery all night and complain to police about it. In a case in Rome, officer Di Maggio led eighteen raids in sweatshops and illegal warehouses. Di Maggio and his team found sixty captive workers, and forty of them were employed under slavelike conditions and lived in extremely dirty, unpleasant quarters. Di Maggio claimed that the smell in one of the warehouses was so bad that he referred to it as a slap in the face. An interpreter talked with the victims of the illegal labor institution to get some facts on how they were treated and what they did. The workers told Di Maggio and his team that they had been locked inside the sweatshop for all hours of the day and worked for twelve to fourteen of those hours. Each worker only made fifty cents per pair of trousers individually made, which sums to about $250 a month. In terms of food, the workers were fed once a day with broth and nothing else. These same kinds of sweatshops are being found in other parts of the world as well. In poorer quarters of Paris, abandoned buildings and factories have been found and transformed into similar workshops. These sweatshops have revealed hidden cellars, trapdoors, and underground escape routes in case police find them (Edmondson 156). Di Maggio’s experience in Rome and the similar sweatshops that have been found in other parts of the world, including the Paris workshops, are common practices found in cheap labor.
Along with the sweatshops found by Di Maggio, other ways that sweatshops are found are by undercover inspectors. A particular undercover sweatshop inspector, T.A. Frank, wrote about a sweatshop factory he discovered in China. The sweatshop produced outdoor tables, parasols, and gazebos. Frank described the factory as messy and cluttered. The working grounds were so crowded with production materials that one was unable to even make way from one end to the other. The factory had steaming pools where metals were given chemical treatments, and workers were found squatting at the edges of these deathly pools as if contemplating jumping into the pools. All of the rooms in the sweatshop were absolutely filthy. Orange peels and tea leaves were just a couple of specific garbage items found all over the floors of hallways. If a worker wanted to bathe, his/her only option was to fill up a bucket of cold water and use it to wash. Workers in China usually do not complain about their workplace because there is a good chance of getting fired; however, the workers at this specific sweatshop could not resist talking to Frank about their struggles. A middle-aged woman explained to him that they (the workers) make such little wages, despite their hard work. It was not even possible to tell how long the workdays were because the factory kept no record of time cards (Frank 34). These conditions are all common aspects that are found within sweatshops and cheap labor factories. Messy and cluttered workspaces, unorganized production materials, unsafe chemicals, poor records, and fear of employers are some of the best ways to describe the characteristics of sweatshops.
Of the several ways to best categorize sweatshops, one that is practiced well among cheap labor employers is the poor keeping of records. In his sweatshop inspection confessions, Frank wrote about how it can be very difficult to monitor certain aspects within a factory. Cheap labor employers would spend whole workdays teaching their employees how to lie to and fool inspectors during interviews. One of the main problems is trying to track time cards and payroll records. Frank wrote about his experience inspecting the payroll and hours worked by employees in a sweatshop factory in China. Frank found that many employees who told him their recollection of how many hours they had worked in a given time period were noticeably different from what their time cards actually said. His findings also showed that each employee arriving at the factory had clock-in times within seconds of each other. This indicated almost undoubtedly that one single worker had taken all the time cards and punched them in by him/herself at a certain time (Frank 35). Mistakes made in clock-in times and overtime pay are easy ways to tell whether employers are being honest about the hours that their employees are working each week. Cheap labor employers lie about their workers’ hours because the employers save money by making their employees work extra hours that are not clocked in for. These types of discoveries are often found by undercover sweatshop inspectors.
The discoveries made by undercover sweatshop inspectors go further than just dishonest time cards. A Los Angeles Times photographer, Don Bartletti, uncovered a plant farm in Mexico that he found to have illegal workers and working conditions. Bartletti followed the workers around for several weeks to watch them and experience their work. He and his partner, Marosi, worked together on some of the trips, but Bartletti often had to work alone to keep a low profile. Bartletti mentioned that he and his partner were not welcome by the farm owners. For each different field, Bartletti would use the same strategy. He approached the field and introduced himself to whoever was the field boss. Bartletti emphasized that he and his partner never lied about who they were when meeting the member (Bartletti 13). Although Bartletti and Marosi had difficulties getting into and around the farm, they did whatever they could to dig up the truth about the labor on the plant farm.
One of the goals of Bartletti’s trip to the farms in Mexico was to dig up the truth on exports being sent to the United States. Bartletti wanted to find out if the products being sent to the United States were from Mexican farms that paid reasonable wages, used no children for labor, and treated the workers well. Instead, they found the exact opposite for all of these. Bartletti and Marosi discovered that these farms producing goods for the United States were run under illegal conditions. His biggest challenge was trying to get his camera through the farm gates, so he and Marosi began speaking with the workers outside of the workplace. Bartletti mentioned that workers open up to those who try to understand how their lives really are. Early in his studies, Bartletti met a group of around fifty different workers, twenty-five of which were children. This large proportion of children working in the fields immediately upset the plan of proving part of their goal that exports sent to America were made/grown in farms not using child labor. These workers had been picking chili peppers like slaves in a Mexican state. One particular twelve-year-old girl, Alejandrina Castillo, told her story to Bartletti. Alejandrina was forced to work in the fields so that her two brothers and single mom could live. Bartletti noted that she was the swiftest pepper picker in the crew of children. Alejandrina shared with Bartletti that she was the cook, laundry girl, babysitter, and housekeeper at home (Bartletti 13). Young girls like Alejandrina are common examples of the children involved in cheap labor. Young children from poor families often have to work extra hard to help take care of their families instead of getting a proper education.
The young children that Bartletti spoke with were often honest about their work and home conditions. Until he started the study, Bartletti was unaware that there were closed, illegal labor camps inside the Mexican farms. He began to hear about the filthy and disgusting living conditions, and how the workers were unable to quit because their labor contractors withheld their wages. A particular family invited Bartletti to their home (a 12 x 12 foot cube) for a visit. Using tomatoes and cucumbers scrounged up from the farm, the family was working together to make dinner. The house had concrete bunk beds to sleep on. Bartletti mentioned that the home was extremely uncomfortable and almost unlivable, but the family had no other housing options because their wages were being withheld. This house was all that the family could afford (Bartletti 14). It is not uncommon at all for cheap labor employees to live in horrible housing shacks that are on the campus of wherever they are working. Employees living on the Mexican working farms make it easier for the employers to force longer hours with less pay.
Farms are a popular place for sweatshops to thrive, and there are more than the ones described in Mexico. Cocoa farms found in West Africa that act as suppliers to companies in the chocolate industry have been accused of forced child labor for quite some time. The issue has been brought to public attention through news articles, which claim that some parents sell their own children to work on the cocoa farms. The children work extremely hard; many get sick, and some even die. The International Labor Office (ILO) had investigations done on 1500 West African cocoa farms. The ILO found that 66% of the children working on the cocoa plantations were under fourteen years old, and only a few of them actually attended some sort of school. These children had been working twelve-hour days and were using machetes as work tools, which lead to exposure to injuries (Kaeb 350). Cheap labor employers are famous for having children working on farm grounds because children are efficient and do not demand high wages.
While some sweatshops are found on plantation farms that are not famous or well-known, there are also sweatshops involved in big-name companies. The famous footwear organization, Nike, has been known to have subcontracting factories that are run under illegal, sweatshop-like conditions. The subcontractors swear that they pay their workers legal minimum wages, but the wages given are below living wage levels. Because of this, the employees do not have money to pay for basic needs for them and their families. These same Nike subcontractors have also been caught for how overtime work is handled. It is illegal to force overtime on the workers, so the employees instead were intimidated, harassed, and/or threatened to be fired if they did not agree to work extra hours. The workers in these subcontracting factories did not feel safe enough to create a union or go on strike for fear of being punished. Along with these issues, the subcontracting factories were not held up to health and safety standards put forth by law. A couple problems were insufficient protective equipment in dangerous environments and too high levels of exposure to toxic substances and chemicals. These issues are extremely threatening to the health, safety, and lives of the workers (Kaeb 345). Subcontractors of large companies are common places for sweatshops to be found because the large businesses can find many easy ways to save money, whether it is paying low wages or spending little money on safety regulations.
Textile sweatshops often conjure up from the subcontracting businesses of large companies like Nike. In many other similar cases, rooms used for weaving and sewing in cheap labor environments are very hazardous. Common by-products from working in these textile mills are life threatening accidents and long term health issues. Dust from the cotton production cause several different lung and respiratory diseases. Dim lighting makes it hard for workers to see, and loud noises from the machinery deafens workers. Textile employees work long, excruciating hours under terrible conditions for very little reward (Powell 113). Sweatshops that produce clothing are the most common type of sweatshop, despite their poor conditions and unfair employee treatment.
Some textile sweatshops have been uncovered and acknowledged by magazines and reporters.

A story shared with and published in Scholastic Scope tells about a fourteen-year-old Bangladeshi girl, Kalpona Akter. As of 2015, Kalpona was an employee of a sewing factory that payed illegal wages, hired kids under the legal working age, and had unsafe and illegal working conditions. Kalpona often struggled in her working station to keep her eyes open because she was so tired from working so many hours, and she could not catch a break. She worked with fabric that she would turn into cute clothing for children her age, but they were never clothing items that she would have the privilege of wearing. Kalpona wore just what was available to her, usually a tunic and pants with a long scarf draped over her hair. As Kalpona sewed tops and skirts, she would imagine them being worn by a teenage American girl. Kalpona was observed to have sewn eighty-three shirts in one working hour. While she was often exhausted from her hard, long hours of work, she tried to remain focused as to keep the needles from slicing her. If she were to cry out from pain, her boss would punish her (Lewis 6). Kalpona’s story and worklife are common aspects of children who work in clothing

sweatshops.
Thousands of clothing sweatshops employ more than just young children. Places all over the world, such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, have sweatshop factories with millions of men, women, and children that are sewing garments in dangerous conditions that provide clothes for people all around the world. The workers in these factories are crowded as tightly as possible into hot and sweaty warehouses. Populous cities and countries are famous for having thousands of sweatshops. The employees spend long, painful hours stitching the clothes worn by men and women around the world more privileged than them. Most people just think of stores like Forever21 and Target when wondering where their clothes come from, however, most of the clothing bought in these chain stores are from several thousand miles away. In some distant areas, humans spent time sewing the clothes by hand. The harsh reality is that the life for these working humans is brutally hard (Lewis 6). Most privileged people around the world do not understand or experience what it is like to be a worker in a sweatshop. The products made in cheap labor companies by hard and painful work are taken advantage of by others with more privileges.
Cheap labor and the painful work it brings have been around for quite some time, and there have been attempts before to end it. In 1909, a worker in a New York sweatshop factory, twenty-five year old Clara Lemlich, exclaimed to a Union crowd that it was time they go on strike. Many of her fellow workers were just in their teens, and they were all treated poorly in the factory. Clara’s speech for a strike started the era for rebellions against sweatshops. Following Clara’s strike came several other attempts around the U.S. to fight back against illegal work and harsh punishment. Clara’s strike was one of the first and most important examples in history to prove that sweatshops do exist, and several attempts to cut them off have been unsuccessful (Ross 50). Clara’s brave strike and the ones to follow are proven unsuccessful when viewing the poor conditions that are still seen in workplaces.
Strikes are not the only attempts made to end cheap labor. There have also been policies put in place to try to end poor/illegal conditions in workplaces. An example of a case where human rights have been violated in the work force is found within the global shoe company, Reebok. The company claimed to implement a “Human Rights Production Standards” policy. This policy was expected to make for decent working conditions and quality standards in Reebok factories, however, there were several violations found at their key subcontracting plant. The evidence for these facts also shows that Reebok knew about these violations against their policy but continued to allow manufacturing under those circumstances at that plant for quite some time (D’Mello 26).
Unsuccessful strikes and poorly followed policies are only a couple contributions to attempts made to put a stop to cheap labor. Wade M. Cole wrote an essay discussing some of the problems with a treaty created by the United Nation that studies economic and social rights, the ICESCR. To help understand what the ICESCR can actually do, Cole writes, “The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the only United Nations treaty dedicated to socioeconomic rights, recognizes (among other things) the rights of individuals to fair wages, safe working conditions, and social security (articles 7 and 9); to unionize and strike (article 8); and to access “adequate” housing, medical treatment, and food (article 11)” (Cole 165). While all of these seem helpful to people who may be in jeopardy of employment under cheap labor, the problem is that the ICESCR is often overlooked and understudied.
One of the reasons that the ICESCR is overlooked or ignored is that it is difficult to study. It has been found to be difficult to enforce the treaty because many of the socioeconomic rights claims are nonjusticiable and cannot be heard by a federal court. Some of the obligations that the ICESCR tries to enforce are not able to be implemented because they cannot be studied by the court, so they are not studied at all (Cole 168). This proves that conditions of sweatshops have not been improved because the ICESCR is overlooked and sometimes too difficult to understand or interpret.
Studies done by Cole have shown that being a member in the ICESCR has improved the practices of labor rights, but labor rights laws have not improved. This outcome is common among countries in the world who are a part of the ICESCR. Through his research, Cole also recognized ICESCR membership has improved the chances of developing countries to gain basic social and economic rights, such as: “...rights to unionize, to strike, and to access healthcare and non-employment-related welfare programs…” (Cole 166). The problem arises in the sense of socioeconomic rights, which through his studies have not improved, even in countries that are members of the ICESCR.
Socioeconomic controversies in the workforce can be argued by either saying that cheap labor is harmful and wrong, or cheap labor can be beneficial to countries’ economies. An essay written by Pamela Cawthorne and Gavin Kitching argues against another essay written by Paul Krugman, who defends cheap labor. Krugman states that even though cheap labor can be appalling, it is a huge improvement in the manufacturing of goods because it is so efficient, and allowing employers to enforce cheap labor leads to industrial growth (Cawthorne 456). Cawthorne and Kitching respond to this claim by pointing out that Krugman’s argument that cheap labor allows industrial and economic growth is invalid. The counterargument states, “...they equally do not tell us how much economic “room” there may be for raising real wages and improving working conditions for Indian textile workers without raising supply prices to foreign buyers of those textiles” (Cawthorne 458). Cawthorne and Kitching are saying that Krugman is wrong about cheap labor helping industries and economies because the increased cost of exported goods makes it harder for the country that is buying the expensive exports to have money to increase wages or improve working conditions.
Krugman also claims, “... if wages were to rise, this would automatically affect supply prices and make South Indian production less attractive for foreign buyers” (Cawthorne 460). Cawthorne and Kitching reply to this claim by pointing out the fact that foreign buyers are not attracted to the wages in India, but the cheap prices instead (Cawthorne 461). Being able to sell products at cheap prices can be achieved through ways different than lowering wages and s