Sweatshops Essay

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Recommended: How industrialization and globalization—including technological innovation—contribute to the existence of sweatshops

The General Accountability Office defines a sweatshop as a “multiple labor law violator.” A sweatshop violates laws pertaining to benefits, working hours, and wages (“Toxic Uniforms”). To make more money, companies move their sweatshop factories to different locations and try to find the cheapest locations with the least regulations (“Sweatshops”). There are not as many sweatshop factories in the United States because the industries have been transferred overseas where the labor is cheaper and there are weaker regulations. In the United States, sweatshops are hidden from the public, with poor immigrant workers who are unable to speak out against the injustices (“Subsidizing Sweatshops”). Workers in sweatshops are forced to work overtime, earn below a living wage, do not earn benefits, and encounter verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Macy’s, JCPenney, Kohl’s, The …show more content…

A family health insurance plan can cost up to 80% of a worker’s monthly earnings. Sweatshops also do not pay for sick days, so most employees work while they are sick, not to lose pay (“Toxic Uniforms”). Workers inscribed in the Institute of Guatemalan Social Security (IGSS) have the right to a pension of 60% of their average income at 62 years old and after finishing seventeen years of work. The Alianza Fashion factory never inscribed more than 65 workers in a month in the government’s required healthcare programs. To cover the costs of health care, pension and disability the IGSS taxes workers and employers. Employers must deduct 4.83% from their employees’ salaries to cover the workers’ portion and the company must pay 10.67% of the workers’ salaries, which is 15.5% of payroll each month. Medical care under IGSS is very poor and it can take years to receive a surgery. Medicines are usually unavailable and families would then have to purchase them at private pharmacies (“Corruption and

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