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Disaster in Bangladesh : the collapse of the Rana Plaza building
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The world set the spotlight on Bangladesh and strongly questioned the integrity of the garment industry after one of the country’s most shocking tragedies on April 24. The Rana Plaza Collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh killed 1,129 locals and left over 2000 injured. The garment industry is one of the largest successful industries around the world. As this industry copes with the demands of the West, it receives several implications and many negative comments from the public. Although, who are to blame for all the tragedies that has taken place in this industry. Opponents of the garment industry argue that factory owners do not ensure health and safety regulations in these factories. Most of the garment factories are not built suitably, and workers are forced to work in harsh conditions. However, some writers argue that workers seem to prefer working in a factory over working in their previous jobs on the farm or construction sites where they would work in the sun for 14 hours a day. Low levels of work safety pose a massive problem. Between 2000 and 2013, more than 1,500 lives perished in garment industrial disasters caused by fire, building collapses or stampedes. Fire exits must be available and basic training should be obliged. The current average wage rate in the sector is one of the lowest in the world. Cheap labour is abundant, some of them working at a wage rate of $0.20 an hour. Workers are paid unbelievably low wages, and are forced to work long hours, manufacturing clothes to fulfill customer demands. As the demand increases, so must the production. The factory owners pay less as they need to cut costs to be able to make profit. However, there are other ways to cut costs such as not having too much stock or buying on cre... ... middle of paper ... ...se factories invite job opportunities to the poor and increase the employment levels in developed countries. Also many sweatshops do offer benefits to workers, such as free meals and training. This provides the basic needs of the workers. Moreover, I feel that these factories are an excellent way to provide locals a job opportunity and help developing countries progress. Generally, working conditions aren’t as harsh as people think it to be. For many locals, its better than working in their older jobs, so this creates job satisfaction. However, the factories could improve on their health and safety regulations by enforcing norms, building enhanced machinery and sustaining maintenance. Cost may be expensive for factory owners to provide, so government should impose a law for the big companies such as ‘Gap’ to fund for health and safety regulations in their factory.
The controversial issue of sweatshops is one often over looked by The United States. In the Social Issues Encyclopedia, entry # 167, Matt Zwolinski tackles the issues of sweatshops. In this article Matt raises a question I have not been able to get out of my head since I have begun researching this topic, “ are companies who contract with sweatshops doing anything wrong?” this article goes on to argue that the people who work in the sweatshops willingly choose to work there, despite the poor environment. Many people in third world countries depend on the sweatshops to earn what they can to have any hopes of surviving. If the sweatshops were to shut down many people would lose their jobs, and therefore have no source of income. This may lead people to steal and prostitution as well. this article is suggesting that sweatshops will better the economy by giving people a better job than what they may have had. Due to this the companies contracting with sweatshops are not acting wrong in any way. This was a deductive article it had a lot of good examples to show how sweatshops are beneficial to third world countries. Radly Balko seemed to have the same view point as Matt Zwolinski. Many people believe the richer countries should not support the sweatshops Balko believes if people stopped buying products made in sweatshops the companies will have to shut down and relocate, firing all of the present workers. Rasing the fact that again the worker will have no source of income, the workers need the sweatshop to survive. Balko also uses the argument that the workers willingly work in the current environments.
Look down at the clothes you're wearing right now, chances are almost every single thing you are currently wearing was made in a sweatshop. It is estimated that between 50-75% of all garments are made under sweatshop like conditions. Designers and companies get 2nd party contractors to hire people to work in these factories, this is a tool to make them not responsible for the horrendous conditions. They get away with it by saying they are providing jobs for people in 3rd world countries so its okay, but in reality they are making their lives even worse. These companies and designers only care about their bank accounts so if they can exploit poor, young people from poverty stricken countries they surely will, and they do. A sweatshop is a factory
Scholarly intrigue and a hunger for knowledge led Kelsey Timmerman to write the book "Where Am I Wearing". "Where Am I Wearing" is a compilation of both Timmerman's thought-provoking questions: questions about wear the clothes we wear come from, about who makes our clothes, about the working conditions of the people who make our clothes, and the stories that he gathered during the many journeys that he went on while writing the book. Through his tales of travel Timmerman introduces his readers to the harsh realities of globalization, poverty, child labor, and sweatshops.
Timmerman suggests that “We share little with the people who make our clothes nowadays. We’re divided by oceans, politics, language, culture, and a complex web of economic relationships. It doesn’t affect our daily lives if they are overworked and underpaid as it did during the turn of the twentieth century,” thus demonstrating the inadequacy of outsourcing and the relationships between the corporation, factory workers, and the consumer (180). The dynamic between the corporations, factory workers, factory owners, and middle-men is complicated and tense due to the interactions, communication, and duties differentiating between each group. For the factory workers, they suffer working in hard conditions, though the workers are happy to have a job, they would rather endure the harsh stipulations for the means of production to make money to send to their families than to protest against their factory owners (Timmerman 7).
The documentary effectively utilizes a logos and pathos approach to highlight the unsafe working conditions of the Bangladeshi garment workers. The positive aspect of this documentary is the firsthand accounts of the hazardous conditions and the focus on what has been done to better the situation, and where the large retailers are still lacking in their ethical responsibility to ensure safe workspace. Thus, CBC’s documentary is an educational piece that brings forth the current state of the Bangladesh garment factory after Rana Plaza, and implores for heightened responsibility from the government and the retailers in
What are sweatshops? The Miriam-Webster dictionary defines sweatshops as: A shop or factory in which employees work for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions. These factories are mainly located in Third-World countries, although there are still a few in the United States. Many popular, name brand companies like Nike, use sweatshops around the world. Today there is much controversy about sweatshops and whether they should be banned and closed. In reality, the conditions of these factories are terrible. The employees are paid very little, even after working long, hard hours. The supervisors of these shops are often cruel, malicious, and brutal. Sadly, these factories are often the only source of income for Third-World workers. As bad as these sweatshops might be, they have pulled many countries and individuals out of poverty. So, are sweatshops beneficial?
In China, Kelsey Timmerman spent time with a couple who worked at the Teva factory, traveled to the countryside to meet the couple’s son, insert name, who hasn’t seen his parents in three years due to his parents working long hours and it being expensive to take a train ride. In the US, the author visited one of a few clothing factories in the US to talk to the workers about his shorts, and the decrease of American garment factories. Timmerman wants the consumer to be more engaged and more thoughtful when mindlessly buying clothes. By researching how well the brands you want to buy from monitor their factories and what their code of ethics details, you can make a sound decision on if this is where you would want to buy your clothes. The author writes about brands that improve employers lives like SoleRebels, a shoe company who employs workers and gives them health insurance, school funds for their children, and six months of maternity leave. Brands like soleRebels that give workers benefits most factory workers have never even heard of help improve the lives of garment workers and future generations. From reading this book, Timmerman wants us to be more educated about the lives of garment workers, bridge the gap between consumers and manufacturers, and be a more engaged and mindful consumer when purchasing our
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.
...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.
“Sweatshops Are the Norm in the Global Apparel Industry. We’re Standing up to Change That.” International Labor Rights Forum. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. .
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
Sweatshops, when left to operate without government intervention, are the most efficient way out of poverty especially in developing countries. This argument may feel far fetched, but when examined in the context of those working at sweatshops and the locations sweatshops are most often constructed in, the reason why this is true is apparent. The benefits of sweatshops can be found by examining how they increase living conditions, examining the locations where sweatshops are constructed, and looking at how government regulations on factories don’t help anyone.
Textile production and consumption is an increasingly global affair as production continues to shift to developing countries. Developing countries have seen an explosion in the growth of their textile exports, and for many countries textiles are a significant portion of their total exports. In response to increasing competition from low-value imports from developing countries, industry leaders in developed countries have made significant capital investments in order to increase productivity and move into advanced market sectors.
An example would be the incident that happened in Bangladesh on April 24,2013 where the building collapsed, and left a lot of people injured. The incident could have been prevented if they would have listened to the inspector when he told them that there was a crack in the wall, but they didn’t listen, and when back inside to work. This later caused a riot against the owner of the building. Around the same year several factories where shutdown in Bangladesh, for safety reasons, and in another part of the capital a fire broke out which killed eight people in a fire including its owner. Even though Bangladesh is one of the largest garment country in the retail business it is also one of the poorest there is. Even though most sweatshops are on the eastern side of the world most of them make the clothing, for the western side of the world, for example like the united states, and also
But what is the true cost of that cheap $15 denim shirt really worth? Well, in Bangladesh, a major exporter of clothing can make it for $3.75 whereas the same shirt would cost $13.22 to make in the United States. Bangladesh workers have low wages and work in dangerous working conditions known as “sweatshops”. These sweatshops have lead to thousands of deaths in third word countries.