Sweatshops and Unethical Labor Practices

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Sweatshops and Unethical labor Practices

Imagine only seeing your family for one day once a year. Having to compete for a ticket home with millions of other workers in order to see your family that you haven’t seen in a year. This is the life of 130 million migrant workers in china. These workers make most of the things we own. Most of us don’t think about the people who make our clothes, our phones, our computers; items that we use everyday. Our way of life revolves on mass consumerism, where we value the article more than the person or persons who made it. Mass media and multi million dollar industries keep the conditions on how these people work as a total mystery. Some brands have been exposed for sweatshop and unethical labor practices, yet nothing has been done against these companies.
The US Department of Labor defines a sweatshop as any factory that violates two or more labor laws. UNITE, the US garment workers union, defines a “sweatshop” as any factory that does not respect workers’ right to organize an independent union. Global Exchange and other anti-sweatshop movements would add that a sweatshop is any work place that does not pay its workers a Living Wage. Sweatshops violate basic human rights, as stated in The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “ Article 1 – “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” Article 5 – “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Article 23 – (2) “Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work,” and (4) “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his/her interests.” Article 24 – “Everyone has the...

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.../background-sweatshops (accessed May 1, 2014).
• Poulton, Lindsay, Francesca Panetta, Jason Burke, and David Levene. "The shirt on your back: the human cost of the Bangladeshi garment industry." theguardian.com. http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2014/apr/bangladesh-shirt-on-your-back (accessed May 1, 2014).
• Laya, Patricia. "Do You Pay Enough For Advertising? One Big Corporation Spent A Jaw-Dropping $4.2 Billion Last Year." Business Insider. http://www.businessinsider.com/corporations-ad-spending-2011-6?op=1 (accessed May 1, 2014).

• Stock, Kyle. "Is Nike Spending Too Much on Superstars?." Bloomberg Business Week. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-03-20/is-nike-spending-too-much-on-superstars (accessed May 1, 2014).

• "End Modern Slavery." End Modern Slavery. http://www.endmoderndayslavery.ca/facts-about-sweatshops/ (accessed May 1, 2014).

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