“Every exploitative relationship begins with an initial inequality that makes the taking advantage possible. In exploitative relationship the rich get richer and the poor fall further behind. “- Robert Mayer Cheap labor is a term used to describe the low wages given to people living in developing countries that work through harsh conditions. Companies like Walmart and Apple expect these workers overseas to manufacture clothing and other goods, even though the buildings and materials given aren't enough for an efficient workforce. As companies begin to think less about the people working overseas and more about how much of a product is made, the businesses are only helping themselves while these workers suffer. Cheap labor …show more content…
Having to work in a building that could possibly collapse unexpectedly is not worth risking for the pay received by the children, women, and men working in these factories. The article “ No one is making them stop”: Why corporations outsource catastrophe — and workers pay the price” by Erik Loomis discusses many topics concerning cheap labor, businesses that are involved with providing cheap labor, and how we view this issue. According to Loomis, “...organizations helping out the world’s poor with the gift of a job in a sweatshop is ridiculous. A corporation can still save money on labor costs and workers don’t have to die on the job...They don’t have to allow their products to be produced in factories that collapse” (Salon). What Loomis is telling the audience is that companies don't spend time to think about the safety of their workers overseas, but to rather pay them and hope that everything is fine. The author also mentions how “A corporation can still save money on labor costs and workers don’t have to die on the job”, talking about how the condition of the factory will provide the worker with a safe area so they can work more efficiently (Salon). If the staff of these factories were given newer machines to work with, then death tolls would begin to start dropping instead of rising every year. The way Loomis …show more content…
In the paper “The Disadvantages of China’s Cheap Labor in Its Foreign Trade”, JI Zuwei states, “In three factories, workers were employed for 80-90 hours overtime per month during the peak season. In one factory producing for Apple, up to 120 hours overtime was worked; a gross violation of Chinese labor law that limits overtime to 36 hours per month” (Zuwei, 2). Zuwei`s focus on the hours of the workers shows the uneasy struggle these laborers go through to hopefully earn enough to live and sustain a normal life. What Zuwei also points out is the labor limit for overtime, stating that 120 hours was gross and overall unbelievable, breaking the law`s 36 hour limit. Then again, the choice of overtime is that of the worker, as they clocked in as many hours as the wanted to, but it is not a business practice that should be kept. Even though these workers are working long hours, their dedication dramatically changes the economies of their countries.
What is found at sweatshops though, is quite the opposite. The highest wage within a sweatshop goes to the senior operators. The already low salary of a sweatshop worker, is actually decreasing, as the median wage for a senior operator at a sweatshop decreased by 29 percent from 1994 to 2010. These senior operators are of the highest rank, and according to Niagara Textiles, located in Bangladesh, now earn only 20 cents an hour, or 488 dollars per year. In fact, the same sweatshop have reports of workers being beaten for asking to receive their pay on time. They are also forced to work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, with one day off at most. These workers have the longest hours, worst treatment, and most tedious conditions and still barely get paid enough to sustain themselves, let alone families. Sweatshops are completely immoral, and are under complete violation of the codes of
This report analyses how American Companies started offshoring or moving white collar and blue collar positions to other countries with low pay since the 1960’s. Also, the purpose of this report is to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of offshoring jobs to countries with low pay. This report will analyze how the consumers, communities, and corporations are beneficiated and/or affected.
Today we see the labor reforms put in place along with organizations that hold business to safety precautions like OSHA, Occupational Safety and Health Association. Today, worker’s fight for higher minimum wage but outside of America, there are worker’s fighting for the same rights we did back in the 1900’s. Back in 2013, in Bangladesh, a series of fires occurred. This raised questions about safety and treatment of workers. Within a few months, the government allowed the garment workers to form trade unions along with a plan to raise the minimum wage. And soon after, the United States pushed for Bangladesh to improve their labor standards. All of this happened within half a year, where back in the 1900’s it took over 50 years, starting with the coal miners. Without the workers as a sturdy base for the business, the company with crumble and fall. And without those businesses to help the economy grow, the government will cease to
Now first there is Child Labor, child labor is where you have children and you have them work a full time job and usually it is an inhumane job. So what companies would do is that they would have these kids working in the factories with no shoes no protection horrible conditions and payed them $1 - $3 dollars a week. Many kids would die in the factories and the and the families didn’t
When the Fair Labor Association completed its audit they found the following problematic issues. For example, during peak production periods, operated by the Taiwanese firm Foxconn, had exceeded 60 hours per week, and many employees were also required to work more than seven consecutive days before having a day off. According to Apple’s code of conduct, an employee is only required to work 40 hours a week, and should receive a day off after working 5 days. In addition Apple noted, 14% of workers that worked overtime were not receiving fair pay for overtime. The Chinese factor...
The documentary strived to show us how factories were corrupt that they couldn’t provide good working conditions for the workers until we lost people. This documentary is about the tragic fire that took place on March 25, 1911 in the Triangle factory. We can clearly see through this documentary that these people didn’t matter to the factory owners because their needs were not met. The documentary shows that the year before the fire took place the workers led a strike asking for better working conditions, but obviously their voices were not heard. After the fire took place this is when factories started improving working conditions. It is sad to learn that it took 146 lives of innocent people in order for factory owners to be convinced that they need to improve the poor working
Accidents and problems engendered in sweatshops have caught people’s attention and more people are trying to efface them. The Real Cost of Cheap Fashion states, “After the accident, many big brands pledged to improve garment factory conditions…. trained about 2 million workers in safety procedures…. hired engineers to inspect their factories.” This claim supports that enhancing garment factory conditions can give people some time off of work, can give people better tools, to make things go faster and easier, and could also, make sure people get paid more. Also, training people in safety procedures can make sure that things like the Triangle fire never happens again. Finally, having people inspect the factories can insure that people are safe, and procedures are set in place to make sure that if anything bad happens, people know what to do. Lastly, major companies are starting to realize the dangers of cobalt mining, and therefore, they are looking into how to fix, get rid of the dangers. New York Times Upfront says, “Some tech companies promised to reexamine their cobalt suppliers. Earlier this year, Apple announced that it had stopped buying cobalt mined by hand in the DRC until could verify that the element was being collected safely” This also shows that , by limiting their products using hand mined cobalt, they are limiting the cobalt mining jobs, which limits the dangers, and health concerns. As you can see, although many people’s lives lives are put in danger, many people have started to recognize it and are taking very serious action to try and fix
Sweatshops, while seemingly helpful, are filled with inexperienced workers, ranging from children ages twelve or younger to grown adult women. These workers are not how to properly operate the heavy machinery. In some moments, the machines will actually fall apart and/or explode, greatly exposing horrible injury on the workers. On top of that, workers have no access to compensation for their injuries while working in sweatshops. Thes...
The poor gets poorer, and the rich gets richer. Economically speaking, this is the truth about Capitalism. Numerous people agree that this inequality shows the greedy nature of humankind. The author of the source displays a capitalist perspective that encompasses an individualist approach towards an “un-ideal” economic system. The source articulates a prominent idea that capitalism is far from perfect. The reality is, as long as capitalism exists, there are always those people who are too poor or too rich in the system. We do not need elitists in our society but that is exactly what capitalists are. In this society, people are in clash with those who “have” and those who “have not”, which creates conflict and competition. Throughout
Doubling the salary of sweatshop workers would only increase the consumer cost of an item by 1.8%, while consumers would be willing to pay 15% more to know a product did not come from a sweatshop. Cheap labor has become a staple of society even though the drawbacks of the abuse and overuse of low-wage workers has lasting negative effects towards the economic state of a country. The effects of using cheap labor as an alternative extend greatly and are prevalent in copious amounts of industry. The abuse of cheap labor should be reformed because of the detriments it generates.
Apple is a company facing a lot of ethical dilemmas. Since it is such a large and rapidly growing company, they face a lot of scrutiny from the media. Apple also faces a lot of pressure to be competitive in the technology market. As a result of this, companies tend to cut costs in as many ways as possible, some of which aren’t always ethical. One of the most typical ways businesses cut costs is by lowering production costs, which entails outsourcing for cheap labor. However, in order for labor to be made cheaper many sacrifices have to be made, which tend to be forced upon the workers by lowering wages, making working conditions unfavorable, and often by employing child labor.
These concerns typically include the rights of the children, the responsibility of the parents and employers, and the well-being and safety of the children. In Stefan Spath’s “The Virtues of Sweatshops,” it is made very clear that he, like many others, feel that the general public is highly misinformed on what sweatshops are and what they actually contribute to their respective communities. In the eyes of someone from a developed country, sweatshops and child labor that takes place in them seem primitive and are interpreted as simply a means by which companies can spend less money on employers. He states that when labor unions claim that companies which establish operations in developing nations create unemployment in America, they aren’t really explaining the whole story. The author claims that those who are adamantly protest sweatshops are only telling half the story with a claim like this. He points out in this part that the American people can rest assured that high skilled jobs will not be taken over to developing countries because “– high-skilled jobs require a level of worker education and skills that poorer countries cannot
With all these factors, the wages of the workers compared to how long they work still baffles me. For a meatpacking worker, their workday is over 10 hours long, and their pay amounts to under $500 a year, which is barely, if not even, a living wage. To earn this wage, they work in a place where everyone is wielding knives and sharp objects, and everything is unclean and uncared for. If ill, a person does their best to continue working, as they desperately need the pay. This can quickly make everyone else fall ill, as they seldom wear gloves while working, and the managers and bosses couldn’t care less about health issues. The same goes if working in other industries, such as textile, where machine related accidents and an average workday occurrence are one in the same. To me, the most outrageous prospect of this lifestyle is child labor. When investigating textile mills, I observed many children being forced to work the same hours as adults, and in even more dangerous conditions. They are made to replace spools and threads, which can result in the loss of a finger, and in turn the company could fire them, as the child is useless to them. When given the rare opportunity to speak to one of these children, he told me that he and many others working in the factory were under 12 years of age, and because of this, they earn less than adults. It was hard for me to ignore the fact that many
U.S.《 Forbes》 on January 17 published an article ,and its original question : the end of cheap labor in China , jobs are gone ? Globalization makes Apple , GM and other large companies have chosen to set up factories in countries with lower labor costs the most . In the past , China has always been their first choice . But now , the Central Kingdom is losing dominance , because labor costs can not be as cheap as before . Since 2010 , China's manufacturing costs rose an average of about 16% annually , more than any country in the world . Rapidly aging population , higher worker productivity is the main reason for rising .
... labour standards in developing and underdeveloped countries and yet, the economy of these countries is better than that of countries that exploit workers into cheap labour (Fact Sheet #17I: Blue-Collar Workers and the Part 541 Exemptions Under the 2008). The minimum wage in the USA is $7.25 per hour and in Australia it is $16.88 per hour. Cheap labour is being used in China and the minimum wage of a worker there is $0.80 per hour and $0.28 per hour in India (Matthews 2013). This shows clear proof that in today’s world it is not cheap labour that helps with the growth of a country’s economy. In the earlier times, cheap labour helped a country in terms of economy after the industrial revolution, however, it is not the case now as different methods and techniques of executing a task has been discovered and skilled and knowledgeable workers are needed to perform them.