Globe Trotting Trainers Article on Exploitation of Workers in Lesser Economically Developed Countries The article 'Globe Trotting Trainers' is intended to persuade readers to complain about the exploitation of workers in lesser economically developed countries. The writer tries to persuade the reader to do something about it. The piece is written for teenagers or young adults. I know this because the title of the magazine is 'Young People Magazine.' Alternatively the article uses fashionable makes which are mostly associated with teenagers or younger people. Also it talks about friends, adults work lives are generally too hectic for them to have a significant social life. The article is probably written for Christian teenagers as the article is written by Christian Aid and therefore probably sold through churches. I think the writer is trying to argue that the workers of these L.E.D.C's are being exploited "A pair of trainers sells for £50 in Britain… But the forty or so factory workers in the Philippines who make the trainers will share just over £1 between them." I think the writer is getting consumers to use their consumer power to not buy the products being advertised, by appealing to the consumers conscience, bringing to their attention the plight of the workers in L.E.D.C's. "Christian Aid charges the sports shoes companies with short changing the workers in Asia. It has calculated how long it would take a young production worker to earn the annual salary of Nike boss Phil Knight." Christian Aid have spent a lot of time finding out the facts to back up what they say they are bringing you information straight from the bosses and the workers and showing the reader the pain the workers are going through. Also I think the writer is trying to get the consumer to write to the companies and tell them, to remind them, what their subcontractors is not right or fair. "The workers are lucky - One senior Nike employee told researchers: I don't think the workers in our factories are treated badly… Working conditions are
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.
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
This article is real case of a particular factory in Indonesia which produces shoe, primarily for Reebok. It reveals how one of the world’s most powerful companies is influencing lives and working conditions in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Everyone loves his or her new set of Nike apparel. In fact, Nike can be found on the bodies of many athletic team members. Why would such a prosperous and well-known company rely on the exploitation of child slave labor? It all started when CEO Philip Knight came up with a "brilliant idea": put shoe factories in Asia, paying the workers pennies on the dollar, and raking in immense profits. Nike can easily afford to pay workers a fair amount. One can see that this is the antithesis of Nike's philosophy: doing what's fair. Workers in Nike sweatshops are denied human rights, pressured into working long and hard hours, and worst of all can't provide for themselves or their families. It's ironic how an American company, which enjoys the rights given to it by the American government, takes away human rights in other countries.
First, we want Nike to play a role in effecting positive, systemic change in working conditions within our industries. If our efforts lead to a workplace oasis -- one solitary and shining example in a desert of poor conditions -- then we’ve not succeeded. Even if that single shining example were to exist (and we’re not claiming it does), we’ve learned that positive changes won’t last unless the landscape changes. Our challenge is to work with the industry and our contract manufacturers to collectively address these systemic non-compliance issues that our data so highlight. This is one of the key reasons we made the decision to disclose our supply base; we believe this could encourage other companies to do the same. Our belief is that in disclosing, the industry will find ways to better share knowledge and learnings. This, in turn, will facilitate the building of further partnership approaches that are built on best practice and gradually lead us to standard codes, standard approaches to monitoring, standard reporting and standard parameters for transparency. It’s our belief that for market forces to enable responsible competitiveness, consumers must be able to reward brands and suppliers using fact-based information. Compliance efforts need to be optimized, made affordable and demonstrate real return if better working conditions are to become widespread. Disclosure of our supply chain is done in an effort to jump-start disclosure and collaboration throughout the industry and support efforts towards that final goal of market forces, providing the tipping point for the mainstreaming of best practice.
Many global companies like Nike, Inc. are seen as role models both in the market place as well as in society in large. That is why they are expected to act responsibly in their dealings with humanity and the natural world. Nike benefits from the global sourcing opportunities, therefore areas such as production and logistics have been outsourced to partner companies in low-wage countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. As a result the company is limited nowadays to its core competencies of Design and Marketing.
Nike has plenty of critics, but some believe the company has done nothing wrong with the treatment of their workers. William Stepp, from Libertarian Mises Institute, believes that the benefits the workers are given at the factories improve their lives (Nike sweatshops, 2017). William backs his opinion by the fact the workers agreed to the wage and work hours before deciding to take the job (Nike sweatshops, 2017). The workers are supplied with benefits like free physicals, clinic and health services, uniforms, food, transportation, and entertainment; if the other part of the factory work is not as glamorous, the workers still receive better treatment from the factories than other jobs (Nike sweatshops, 2017). In addition, studies were conducted by the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities, and they discovered that 70% of Nike workers in Thailand would rate their supervisors as good, and that 72% thought they were paid fair wages (Nike sweatshops, 2017). If the workers believe they are being treated fairly, and that the factory job is more stable than farm work, is there really a problem. Many factory workers will migrate towards factories because the work is steady than farmland, and they can send money back to their families. The factories supply jobs to people who normally would not be able to find jobs that pay a decent and consistent wage (Nike sweatshops,
“Only 4 out of the top 10 nations that have the highest number of suspected sweatshops have an hourly wage that exceeds $1 per hour.” (“Calculating Profitability Index Examples.”) Sweatshop workers hardly make a livable wage even though they work for hours everyday. They also have to deal with working in terrible physical conditions. The treatment these workers are receiving is atrocious and there should be more things done to stop it.
When a customer purchases Nike equipment they are supporting child labor, long work hours, forced overtime, and abusive work environments (Russell). Millions of people know about Nike because it is the largest supplier and manufacturer of sports apparel, but not many people think about how Nike employees are being treated in factories (Sanders, Kaptur). The inhumane working conditions that workers face in Nike can be analyzed through its background/history, the current issue, and the solution.
“I was 18 years old when I first went with the Consumers’ League into sweatshops in New York City. For the first time in my life I saw conditions I would not have believed existed, women and children working in dark, crowded quarters, toiling, I was told, all day long and way into the night to earn a few pennies. I can never forget these conditions” (Meltzer 63). In 1902, Eleanor Roosevelt got a small taste of how the United States was exploiting workers through sweatshops. Even though time has passed, the problem has not. Sweatshops are still in operation. Some United States companies even support them by taking advantage of lower trade barriers, failing transportation, and communication costs to relocate production of goods to poor countries
We are often unaware or pick to disregard the problem of child labor in sweatshops. However, even though most people are not conscious of this, it is a reality that many children are deprived of their childhood and are enforced to work. It has been estimated by the International Labor Organization (2013) that 250 million children between the ages of five and fourteen work in emerging countries. More than half of these child laborers are hired in Asia, others work in Africa and Latin America mostly.
Spar, D.L., 2002. Hitting the Wall: Nike and International Labor Practices. Available from: http://www.homeworkmarket.com/sites/default/files/q/17/11/700047-pdf-eng.pdf [Accessed 24 April 2014].
All around the world, people of all ages are working in harsh and unsafe conditions. They are becoming ill and some are even dying. Sweatshops are defined as factories that typically produce apparel (Powell 109). This is why sweatshops have to be stopped.
According to the text The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey “In 1905 in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Alabama alone, it was estimated that there were 62,000 children under fourteen working in mills. Only thirty percent of the workforce was over twenty-one, the other seventy percent were under fourteen” (“The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey”). Child labor dominated factories and mills during the late 18th and early 19th century, increasing the abuse and barbaric treatment of children. Child labor, the harmful use of children in factories, is one of the worst parts of United States’ history due to the fact children worked longer and harder than most adults, but were paid less, children were treated
In June of 1996, Life magazine published a article about Nike’s child labor that was occurring in Pakistan. The article showed a little boy who was surrounded by pieces of Nike sports gear. The articles were shoes and soccer balls. Nike then knew then that they had to make some major changes in the way they were producing their items.