Saturday, January 3, 2009

Sweatshop factories




What is a sweatshop factories is the question i had. Is it something like the factories i seen in New York. Sweatshop factories are nothing that we could image. "What is a sweatshop? A sweatshop is a factory where workers are subject to extreme exploitation, including super-low wages, no benefits, filthy or dangerous working conditions, denial of their worker and human rights. Workers in sweatshops typically work long hours for around .25-.60 cents an hour. They are frequently not paid for overtime. When they try to organize unions to demand better conditions, they are often threatened, beaten, and fired instantly. Sweatshops also frequently include other worker abuses such as child labor, dangerous or toxic working conditions, unreasonably long working hours, sexual abuse, beatings and humiliation for mistakes. Most of the clothing and footwear --- and a significant portion of many other products --- that we buy are made in sweatshops in the United States or in other countries." That is labor abuses, the factories are made not to fix the everyday need of the workers. The conditions could be better, they conditions should be better. Around the world, sweatshop workers spend dozens upon dozens of hours a day and week at their sewing machines to make the clothes and shoes hat eventually end up in the stores. The long hours are not the only thing face in the sweatshops Verbal, physical, and sexual abuse are common in sweatshops. Verbal workes have reported to being harassed and bullied by shop managers. workers who they thought are not working fast are targets. Most workers in sweatshops are women which led to the sexual abuse endemic. There is a vast majority of young women in their teens or twenties how are alone because they had to leave home to work in the sweatshops. Sweatshop are the worst work places in the world i like to call them my worst nightmare.
-http://iwhome.com/sasua/faqsweat.html
-http://www.goodmoney.com/directry_sweat.htm
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Stop to sweatshop















Sweatshop have been around for a long time, is it not time to put an in to them. Is it possible to put a end to sweatshops? Sweatshops are a part of our economey, they keep prices low. Sweatshops give a little money to developing countries. To put an end to sweatshop people have to think about the people who make the products we buy, and the conditions they do it in. The wages the factory works are in. Their are unions and committee that have organized to put an end to sweatshops. AFL-CIO's Union Label & Service Trades Department, National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice,Campaign for Sweatfree Schools,Sweatshop Watch , these are just a few organization that have been made to end or keed sweatshop away. They help guide shoppers to the products and services they buy. These committee try and put an end to Holiday sweatshops. Sweatshop Watch try and keep Globe sweatshop under control.They offer information on compaigns around the globe.http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/stop-supporting-sweatshops this website is an petition that could help put an end to sweatshops, or help put out an greater awareness. Sweatshop Campaign is led by the consumer who want their products made under better conditions."The Stop Sweatshops Campaign is about consumers holding U.S. retailers and brand name manufacturers responsible for their behavior both at home and overseas. People like you are saying "no" to sweatshops -- whether the goods come from China or Honduras, Los Angeles or New York City."More than 50 organizations have joinded the campaign since it began in January 1996. They represent more than 50million consumers. They believe that consumers can put an end to sweatshops.

Friday, January 2, 2009

History of sweatshops

Sweatshops have been around since people start to work for other people. They have just become more when demand for metrial things have increase. "One of the earliest examples of a sweatshop was in the crude textile mills of Ecuador. Spanish conquerors put the native population to work in sweatshop conditions in the manufacture of cloth, rough garments, and assorted textile goods. The use of the term is more recently traced to working conditions in England's emerging manufacturing industries, where women and children sweated in jobs performed under horrid conditions-the work being monotonous, the hours long, and the pay miserably low. The British government established a Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System in 1889, thus publicly exposing the conditions for the first time. With massive immigration into the United States, especially beginning in the late 1880s, sweatshops became common in American cities on the east coast." This quote made me ask the question if sweatshops date back to the 1880s could they be an end to them? It seems like sweatshops are part of every history to developing countries. So by looking at the history of sweatshops it seems like they may be beened to help countries. Thing issues is when is the country develop. When the Government is able to get ride of the factories, or when the workers could form a union. What if thats never happens, what happen then do sweats shop last forever. Looking back at the history of sweatshops we could see some efforts to improve the conditions of sweatshops. "Initial efforts to correct or improve sweatshops in the United States began in 1884 with legislation in the state of New York to eliminate the production of tobacco products in homes-a practice common in the cigar industry. Similar state labor laws proved generally ineffective before trade unions were able to bring about slight relief. But it took federal minimum wage and maximum-hours legislation in 1938 before sweat-shops began to disappear." Its seems like when legislation is made on sweatshops they disappear. However is that a good thing? In my research I learn that it could be a bad thing for sweatshops to just dissappear. They could leave a country that had little with nothing.
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/Str-Ti/Sweatshops.html

Disadvantages of sweatshops

Most of use would agree that sweatshops are not a good thing. Eventhough they may have some advantages overall they are a disadvantage to humans. To have to work like the workers in the sweatshops is something i wish no one would have to do. Its something like your worst nightmare. The disadvantage of sweatshops are "Well-known companies like Walt Disney, The Gap, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Levi’s have purchased from or manufactured products in sweatshops. Like all businesses, sweatshops like to keep their costs low. However, they fail to comply with minimum wage laws. The Department of Labor estimates that over half of the sewing factories in the United States are paying below the minimum wage (Contact 4 News, 1996, WWW). Wages in some U.S. sweatshops are estimated to be 60 cents per hour, in comparison to Haiti’s 30 cents per hour (People’s Weekly, 1996, WWW). Both of these pay rates can be considered starvation wages." It is just not right. Also childlabor is a major disadvantage of sweatshops, the child are expected to do work that most adults dont due.
"The Department of Labor has found the following violations in sweatshops:
-factories are not ventilated
-employees are abused
-there are no toilets
-there are no emergency exits
-doors/exits are locked
-there is do not have running water
-companies violate minimum wage laws
-child labor is involved."
Sweatshops are a disadvantage to human rights, they do not care for the people who work in them. life in a sweatshops is unpleasant and unsafe. Sweatshops are only an advantage to the owners who make a profit. The works in the factories are look at like an expenice to the owners not like people. So to keep thier expenices low they pay them little and if they works even think of standing up for them selves the sweapshop owners leave. Is that the biggest disadvantages of a sweatshops. The workers most put up with everything because it could easy be taken away without care for them. The workers most settle for low wages and bad conditions and just bad set.
http://www.globaled.org.nz/schools/documents/Sweatshops.pdf

Advantages of Sweatshops

In a way sweatshops are an advantage, they keep the cost of goods low. The owners of factories get thier thing done cheap so we pay a lower cost. Sweatshop offer some good advantages to feign countries. Not the best advantage, but sometimes something is better than nothing."In Malaysia, women have an opportunity to work at Motorola instead of working in the rice fields. The average pay in Malaysia is $108 per month. However, if you work for Motorola, you are paid $300 per month." This gives people an opportunity to make some money instead of not making anything at all. Most people in developing countries do not have to many choices. They most money money anyway they can, to surport their families. "Consumers in the United States also benefit from sweatshops because companies are able to keep their prices low." Think about when you buy anything at any store. The price you pay for what you buy is determine buy how much it takes to make it, any when is used to make it. So in a sweatshop the owerns buy alot of materials and have people make it for a low wage than they would need to pay. So when you by Something for $5.00 its because its was made by someone with was paid maybe .33cents or pennis. Imagen buy that same product if it was not made in a sweatshop it would be made by someone making maybe $7.25, the price of that product would go from $5.00 to maybe $13.00 or more." Companies would pay employees the current minimum wage and meet the standardized regulations relating to the work environment. Some American companies have already taken the first step in improving work conditions across the globe. With the help of the public, we can make sweatshops a thing of the past."
http://books.google.com/books?id=Xm2rhPCjPrAC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=mini+wage+in+sweatshops&source=web&ots=CsTVn9EZuF&sig=8r1AuEyTOnK0TXb72BdT5EdEhvs&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Sweatshop "miniwage wage"


The amount of money workers at these factories make is exteremly low. It is almost the same as a cup of coffee we pay in the morning. The factories want hard workers and want them to work long hours for little to almost no pay. I say no pay because what could these works do with .33 cents an hour. What could these workers do with a $5.00 pay check. This is the reality to what is going on in the sweatshops. American people pay $40.00, $50.00, or $100.00 for things like sneakers when the people makeing them get pennies for making them. It is unbelivable, to think that people could care more for the profit then the interest in human life. They disregard the feelings or neccessity of humans. They treat the works almost like slaves. Slaves because the work is exhasting and the hours are long and the pay is low. Everything except the low pay makes the workers in sweatshops Slaves. They need the little money earn in the factories but they should in be put in those positions. The people who owe the factories should care more for the people working in the factories, We are all equal. In America the miniwage and hours a work can work is made by the Government or better enforced by the U.S. Government. However in most developing countries the government is to weak or unconcern to enforced their wages, or to set them high enough that the owner of sweatshop would not want to pay. To make sure that they dont leave. It seem like have low wages and no represtation is better than nothing. "The United States had no federal legislation regulating wages and hours until 1938 with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act(establishing $.25 as a minimum wage for workers)."

Monday, December 29, 2008

Sweatshops in china







China is where most Ameican metrial things are made, china holds lots of sweatshops. The factory in have 12,and 13 hours work hours and .33 cents pay per hour. This most be the worst condition in a sweatshop. Its like the chinese government does not care for their people. It doesnt matter to them the wrong in what they due. China has been observed alot by labor watchers. "On December 15, 2005 China Labor Watch and the National Labor Committee released two reports on Wal-Mart factories in Southern China. One factory manufactures stationary, such as notebooks and holiday cards. The other produces toys, such as battery-operated trucks (see picture above). In both factories workers receive dismal wages, are cramped into hot dormitories and work exhausting hours at an unbelievably fast pace. Workers are working up to thirteen hours a day, six to seven days a week." The workers work exhausting hour without respentation. They do not have a union or a group whom speakers out for their needs,the works do not have any insuarce, or benefits. The worst thing in my opinion is thats no one seems to care for thier needs. Its is another expenice for the factory owners, and of course the number one thing on thier minds is max. profit. "China has a single trade union system organized through the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). It is well-known that China does not comply with ILO Convention No.87 (Freedom of Association and protection of the Right to Organize), nor Convention No.98 (Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining). It has not ratified those Conventions, mainly because China does not enable independent unions to be formed."