|
A sweatshop is a factory or workshop that has attributes in common with the workplaces of the pejoratively-named sweating system of the 1840s. Sweatshops arose at a time when workers did not have the protections afforded by trade unions or labor laws, and sweatshops are synonymous with working conditions that violate human rights sensibilities and sometimes public policies. Sweatshops exist in developing, industrial, and post-industrial economies alike, but most modern controversies have followed the sweatshops themselves as production jobs have shifted to the developing world of wages or workplace safety, or employers that prevent workers from unionizing or advocating for themselves in other ways. It is also used to suggest a workplace that is physically or mentally abusive, or that crowds, confines, or compels workers, or forces them to work long and unreasonable hours, as would be the case with penal labor or slave labor. History of sweatshops
Causes and defenses of sweatshops, from a laissez-faire capitalist perspective Jeffrey Sachs, an adviser to developing nations and an economist, says "My concern is not that there are too many sweatshops, but that there are too few," in Allen R. Meyerson's "In Principle, A Case for More 'Sweatshops'", The New York Times, June 22, *. Some defenders cite the theory of comparative advantage, which claims that outsourcing and trade can make most parties better off. The theory suggests that developing countries improve their condition by doing something they do "better" (in this case, charging less to do the same work). In so doing, they get factories and jobs that they would not otherwise have had. The theory also asserts that developed countries will be better off because they can buy goods more cheaply. Most controversially, the theory also assumes that the developed country workers who lose their jobs can shift to "higher value" tasks. As for the quality of sweatshop jobs themselves, the defense usually runs along these lines: although wages and working conditions may appear inferior by developed-country standards, they are actually improvements over what life in developing countries had been like before sweatshops were opened. The proof of this, say free-market advocates, is that if sweatshop jobs did not improve their workers' standard of living, those workers would not have taken the jobs. Defenders often point out that the choice isn't between high-paid and low-paid work (as it might be in a developed country), but between sweatshop work and subsistence farming, or even prostitution * or trash-picking * or no work at all. This occurs because most developing countries lack (or have insufficient) unemployment insurance, and any lack of work can quickly lead to malnourishment or starvation. Wages in third world sweatshops typically carry nominal rates that are clearly below nominal wage rates in other countries. For example, in 2003, Honduran factory workers were paid $0.15 to make a Sean John-brand t-shirt that cost its U.S. bulk importer $3.65 and sells at retail for $40.00• Critics would cite the irony that sweatshop workers don't earn enough money to buy the products that they make, which are often commonplace items such as t-shirts, shoes, or toys. Defenders would cite purchasing power parity studies in defense of sweatshop wage levels. For example, the $0.15 that a Honduran worker might be paid to produce a designer-brand shirt, is comparable, in terms of purchasing power, to $3.00 in the United States. One sweatshop proponent, laissez-faire writer Johan Norberg, points out the irony that "Sweatshop opponents are saying: 'Look, you are too poor to trade. These countries won’t get rich without being able to export goods." On whether low-paid and dangerous sweatshop work can alleviate suffering and improve living standards, sweatshop defenders cite a 1997 UNICEF study. The study• estimated that 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese children turned to prostitution after the US banned that country's carpet exports in the 1990s, and that after the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Bangladesh, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution." The UNICEF study found these alternative jobs "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production." Anti-sweatshop forces: From abolitionism to anti-globalization Various groups and historical movements have been associated with what today constitutes the anti-sweatshop movement. Some of the earliest sweatshop critics were found in the 19th century abolitionist movement that had originally coalesced in opposition to chattel slavery. Many abolitionists saw similarities between slavery and sweatshop work. As slavery was successively outlawed in industrial countries between 1794 (in France) and 1865 (in the United States), some abolitionists sought to broaden the anti-slavery consensus to include other forms of harsh labor, including sweatshops. As it happened, the first significant law to address sweatshops (the Factory Act of 1833) was passed in the United Kingdom at about the same time that slavery was outlawed there (1834), and the anti-sweatshop movement drew from much the same reservior of supporters and social thinkers. Similarly, once the United States had ended slavery during the American Civil War, the reconstruction period saw social reformers turn their attention to the plight of the urban workforce. Ultimately, the abolitionist movement split apart. Some advocates focused on working conditions and found common cause with trade unions and such political groups as the Marxists and socialists in the 19th century or the muckrakers and progressive movement in 20th century America. Others focused on the slave trade and involuntary servitude in the colonial world. For those groups that remained focused on slavery per se, sweatshops became one of the primary objects of a long definitional controversy. Workplaces categorized as 'sweatshops' encompassed a wide range of practices and contexts. Moreover, there were fundamental philosophical disagreements about what constituted slavery. Unable to agree on the status of sweatshops, the abolitionists working with the League of Nations and the United Nations utimately backed away from efforts to define slavery, and focused instead on a common precursor of slavery, human trafficking.• Those focused on working conditions included Friedrich Engels, whose book The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 would inspire the Marxist movement named for his collaborator Karl Marx. In the United Kingdom the Factory Act was revised six further times between 1844 and 1878 to help improve the condition of workers by limiting work hours and the use of child labor. The formation of the International Labour Organization in 1919 under the League of Nations and then becoming a branch of the United Nations sought to address the plight of workers the world over. Concern over the conditions of workers as described by the muckrakers during the Progressive Era in the United States saw the passage of new workers rights laws and ultimately resulted in the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 during the New Deal. More recently, the anti-globalization movement has arisen in opposition to corporate globalization, a process in which multinational corporations move business overseas in order to lower costs and raise profits. The anti-sweatshop movement has much in common with the anti-globalization movement. Both consider sweatshops to be clearly harmful, and both have accused many companies (such as the Walt Disney Company, The Gap, and Nike) of using sweatshops. The movement charges that the process of neoliberal globalization is similar to the sweating system. They assert that outsourcing and subcontracting of manufacturing has made abuses of sweatshop workers more likely, and that the companies show the same disregard that was shown by past clothing retailers. Furthermore, they argue that there tends to be a race to the bottom as multinationals leap from one low-wage country to another searching for lower production costs, in the same way that sweaters would have steered production to the lowest cost sub-contractor. Anti-globalization activists and environmentalists also deplore transfer of heavy industrial manufacturing (such as chemical production) to the developing world. Although chemical factories have little in common with sweatshops in the original sense, detractors describe them as such and claim negative environmental and health impacts (such as pollution and birth defects, respectively) on workers and the local community. Various groups support or embody the anti-sweatshop movement. The National Labor Committee brought sweatshops into the mainstream media in the 1990's when it exposed the use of sweatshop and child labor to sew Kathie Lee Gifford's Wal-Mart label. United Students Against Sweatshops is active on college campuses. Labor unions, such as the AFL-CIO, have helped support the anti-sweatshop movement both out of a genuine concern for the welfare of people in the developing world and out of self-interest. Since the labor costs of products produced overseas are often cheaper relative to products produced by American or European workers, unions worry about the cheaper products that potentially put their members out of work through plant closings and, carried to an extreme, the end of manufacturing in the developed world. For example, the American labor union UNITE HERE, which represents garment workers, has only approximately 3,000 garment workers remaining in its base, because larger garment making operations have already been transferred overseas, and the US garment production facilities that remain are small, disconnected workplaces, similar to those of 100 or more years ago. Current status of sweatshops Some companies have acceded to public pressure to reduce or end their use of sweatshops. Such firms often publicize the fact that their products are not made with sweatshop labour; a number of organizations publish lists of companies that pay their workers a living wage. In the United States, shoemaker New Balance is notable for changing its policies after intense pressure from campus anti-sweatshop groups. Clothing retailer Gap Inc. – which includes Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Forth & Towne brands – has significantly changed its policies. Gap Inc. has developed a Code of Vendor Conduct * which applies across all of its brands based on internationally accepted labor standards. Walmart and Nike are two of the largest corporate sponsors of sweatshop labor, but believe that they have safeguards in place to avoid using the worst sweatshops. The World Bank estimates that today, 1/5th of human beings live under the international poverty line.• Few would deny that consumers in several historical eras have purchased cheap sweatshop-produced goods as a way of raising their own living standards. Some would object that this came at the expense of others. Few would deny that Great Britain and the United States used sweatshops as part of the Second Industrial Revolution that raised living standards in both places. Some would advocate a similar path for India and China today, while others claim that rapid industrialization and liberal international trade impose too high a price on some, and advocate less or "fairer" trade between the developed and developing worlds instead. Some recent political action has been taken against sweatshops by U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND), who introduced a bill to ban the import and sale of sweatshop made goods in the U.S., but as of summer 2006, the bill has not received co-sponsors and is awaiting review.* But whether sweatshops ultimately exacerbate inequalities or are an appropriate tool for raising in living standards remains a hotly-contested question. See also Notes | |||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
 |
|
| |