The Industrial Era: Sweatshops Exploitation

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Introduction In the industrial era, sweatshops exploitation is a serious issues that happening in developing countries such as India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and China. Contemporary, global labor practices raising public awareness to debate about it regarding globalization. Sweatshops exist in a variety of industries most of that are apparel, footwear, electronics and toy making. Sweatshops are much practicing by apparel and footwear manufacturers such as Nike and Gap Inc. Apparel retailers mostly contracting out their production to the contractor apparel industries in developing countries and so companies just concentrated on product design and marketing then rely on contractors to deliver quality products thus less concentrate on labor issues in factories. Companies are pursuing cheap labors around the globe and aiming to lowest the cost of production hence manufacturers and their contractors exploiting the workers in the developing countries. Sweatshops exploit the workers in various ways such as paying them fairly low wages for long working hours per day in unsafe conditions, restricted for toilet break, coercion, deception, etc. Pros and Cons of Sweatshops Some economists debate that the existence of sweatshops in developing countries is critical for their economic development. Multinational countries (MNCs) employ cheap labors in developing countries is usually beneficial because the wages is much higher than the local works and sweatshops improve their standard of living. Some other economists have another view and argue that sweatshops in developing nations should not be tolerated and should enforce law to restrict the use of sweatshops and set a minimum of wages standards for the local workers to improve their living. MNC... ... middle of paper ... ... Against Sweatshop Labor: A Critical Assessment. Journal of Business Ethics, Vol.107, No.4, pp.449-472. Harrison, A. and Scorse, J. (May 2004), Moving Up or Moving Out? Anti-Sweatshop Activists and Labor Market Outcomes. Harrison, A. and Scorse,J. (2010). Multinationals and anti-sweatshop activism. The American Economic Review, pp. 247-273. Henion, K. E., & Wilson, W. H. (1976). The ecologically concerned consumer and locus of control. In K. E. Henion, & T. C. Kinnear (Eds.), Ecological Marketing (pp. 131-144). Austin, TX: American Marketing Association Series. Smith, N. Craig (1990), Morality and the Market: Consumer Pressure for Corporate Accountability, London: Routledge. Creyer, E.H. and Ross, W.T. (1997) The influence of firm behaviour on purchase intention: do consumers really care about business ethics? Journal of Consumer Marketing, 14(6) pp 421-433.

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