I.

Introduction

A. Extreme sweatshop morality advocates propose the elimination of sweatshops

everywhere

1. Why eliminate them? Think of all the benefits you will be losing.
Would it not be more beneficial to compromise by improving working
conditions while still allowing the shops to stay open?

2. “There is a large gulf between concluding that

the activities of sweatshops are morally evil and concluding that
sweatshop labor ought to be legally prohibited, boycotted,
regulated, or prohibited by moral norms.”

B. Extreme sweatshop economic advocates propose that nothing be changed in

the current system

1. The economic benefits are too good to ignore and outweigh the moral
questions

a) “Economists…point to the voluntary nature of sweatshop

employment as evidence for the claim that Western governments
ought not to restrict the importation of goods made by sweatshops”

b) “Kenya's June Arunga, who studies trade policy, doesn't think

so. She said nobody in her country thinks about companies
exploiting them. ‘When there's a new company opening a factory
people are excited about it,’ she said.”

c) “Most economists agree that

‘sweatshops’ are what allowed people
in now-thriving places like South Korea, Taiwan, Hong
Kong, and Singapore to work their way out
of poverty.”

d) “The economic way of thinking views sweatshops from an

exchange perspective in which both workers and employers
gain when they voluntarily enter into a labor contract– no matter
how low the wages may seem to external observers.”
II. The Wages in Sweatshops

A. Often, those who work at sweatshops earn more than the national average or
at local factories

1. “Budd, Konings, and Slaughter (2001) find that as

multinational profits go up, multinational firms share gains
with Third World workers.”

2. “In 9 of 10 nations, average apparel industry income exceeds the

national average at only 50 hours per week. Apparel workers in the
Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua earn 3 to 7
times the national average.”

3. “Figure 2 shows that despite this bias, average apparel industry wages
equal or exceed average income per worker in 8 of 10 countries. At
70 hours of work per week, apparel worker earnings in six countries
exceed 150 percent of average income per worker, and they more
than double the average in three countries.”

III. Skill Development

A. Sweatshops develop a business mindset in its workers and gives them the
basic skills to eventually move on and provide for themselves

1. “Arunga said, ‘People get jobs in these places, their generation lives
better than their parents lived. Most of them work for these companies for
a while, go off and start their own businesses, it's a win-win situation for
everyone,’ she said.”

IV. Working Environment

A. Common misconception that all sweatshops are filthy and dangerous work
places

1. “Companies that establish factories with appalling work environments

don’t stand a chance competing for workers in a free market. This
is why arguments about poor working conditions don’t stand up to
scrutiny.”

2. “An agent's choice, or consent, is transformative insofar as it "alters the

normative relations in which others stand with respect to what they may
do" (Kleinig, 2001:300). This transformation can affect both the
moral and the legal claims and obligations of both the parties involved,
and of third parties.” (sexual relations analogy)

V. More Jobs
 A. Sweatshops open more jobs for people and better opportunities to make a
living

1. “Labor unions also obfuscate the issue by claiming that companies

which establish operations in developing nations create
unemployment in America. Such a claim is only half the story.”

2. “Over the past generation, for every job in the textile or auto industry
that was lost in the United States, two or more have been created in
high- technology or other advanced industries.”

3. “They want jobs and are willing to work for a wage commensurate
with their productivity in their economies.”

Conclusion:

A. Sweatshops have many benefits for local economies

B. Wages and working conditions are not as bad as people perceive them to be

C. Let’s reach a compromise and improve working conditions while still

maintaining “sweatshops”, not eliminating them

1. “Yanasak said, "We're not trying to close down sweatshops, we're

trying to change sweatshops.”