Whitehouse 1

Kaitlyn Whitehouse

Mrs. Granville

Period 5

11 November 2016

Sweatshops Should be Nonexistent

Sweatshops are terrible places where physical and emotional abuse happen. The people

who own the sweatshops treat their employees very badly. Sweatshops pay their workers very

low minimum wages. This topic should be talked about because sweatshops should not be a

place for people to work when the conditions are very poor. Sweatshops should be banned

because employers give their employees awful treatment, like beating them to death. The owners

of the sweatshop do not give their workers any days off and the owners of the sweatshop only

gives them one day off once a year if they are lucky and they do not get paid very much and

work very long hours. The argument of this essay is sweatshops should be banned because they

are awful places to work in and it is a shame that these people have to endure danger everyday

just to make a living.

Abuse is the main problem of sweatshops. People are getting hurt and some may even

face death depending on how badly they are beaten. If the employees ask whoever is in charge a

question, they get beaten. The abuse should be stopped. A sweatshop is place where workers are

subject to extreme exploitation like very discriminating working conditions, abuse, and poor

payment (Embar 1). This is the true definition of a sweatshop.

Children are getting abused in sweatshops all over the world. At one of the Reebok

factories, they gathered evidence showing children getting abused (Tierney 16). They should
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keep getting evidence from every sweatshop and shut it down because no one should get treated

like this. Getting abused has a big impact on childrens lives and anyone should not get abused

like they do. Children are easy to manipulate so the managers would beat them senseless until

the child listens to their command.

People are working in horrid conditions that could be life threatening. Workers suffer

from dangerous equipment and safety procedures are few or nonexistent (Yesilevsky 10). They

do not keep their workers in a safe working environment and they do not fix the equipment that

the workers are using. The managers only care about how much production has been made and if

their workers made the quota. They do not care about the workers lives being in danger.

Sweatshops sometimes operate using force and have conditions so dire as to be capable

of causing lasting physical and emotional harm (Yesilevsky 10). They use abuse as a tactic to

make more products to meet the quota. If the workers stop working and try to go to the restroom

or ask for a break, they get beaten to death. Men, women, and children are getting the same

treatment and they should not be treated like this after the hard work they do.

Mazharul Islam described being physically attacked and threatened with death when his

wife asked for maternity leave (Lazre 8). This quote shows an example of an employee asking

for his wifes maternity leave and getting beaten. It shows that abuse is the number one thing in

sweatshops and it should be stopped. Abuse is getting so bad for these people that work in

sweatshops. Mostly all sweatshops are abusing their employees. On the outskirts of Dhaka,

where physical punishments-including slapping and beating-are routine,... (Lazare 2). People

endure beatings everyday they come into work. They do not look forward coming into work
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because they get abused all the time. A sweatshop is place where workers are subject to extreme

exploitation like very discriminating working conditions, abuse, poor payment (Embar 1).

Women that work in these sweatshops need the maternity leave because they need time to

take care of themselves as well as their unborn child. In the United States, women get maternity

leave and women in poor countries can not because they work in sweatshops and have to work to

support their families. A woman told a reporter that she lost her baby during her seventh month

of being pregnant. She lost her unborn child by being forced to work 100 plus hours (Lazare

1). It is a shame that this woman never get to experience holding her child or raising her child

because of working very vigorous hours. Women should get maternity leave because if this

woman would have gotten maternity leave, her child would have been alive. This is an example

of a woman getting denied for maternity leave, Zesmin Khatun, who was six months pregnant

when management at New Collections illegally terminated her, denied her maternity leave,

severance, and other benefits (Lazare 4). Management denies women maternity leave in all

sweatshops because the managers want production to keep going. The managers want to make

more money than to care for their employees health.

At the Nike factory, women have limited time to take off from work, as well as

working thirteen plus hours per day, six days a week (World Heritage Encyclopedia 5). The

women who work in these disgraceful places can not take anytime off because the managers who

give it to them. The managers need as many people there as possible so they meet their quota. If

the manager gives out maternity leave for women, they will not meet their quota for the product.

Women should have the right to maternity leave.

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Children are pressured to work into sweatshops. Children should not be allowed to work

in these awful places. Children are taken advantage of because of their tiny hands. They use their

small hands to weave small rugs and similar products. They get abused just like the adults do.

Children do not receive an education and can not have a decent childhood like a regular

kid (Embar 2). These kids should be able to have a childhood and not be stuck in a sweatshop for

their whole life. They do not get to experience the things like normal children do. The children

suffering because they are not getting an education that they need and its going to affect them.

The education is going to get through life and when they are done working in the sweatshop,

they will not know how the world works. Children can never go home to their families and are

forced to stay there. Some are even taken away from their families (Embar 2). Children have the

right to go home to their families and the managers should not keep kids at the sweatshops

working very long hours. Children need to go home and not basically live at the sweatshop.

Sweatshops should not even hire kids because some are just too young to go to work, some kids

are four years old and are working in sweatshops.

The elimination of exploitative child labor has recently become a worldwide priority

(Tierney 36). This quote explains that child abuse and child labor is a major problem and people

are actually starting to notice it as a problem. People are trying to get these kids out of these

sweatshops and into a better life. People are stopping the abuse of children by putting a stop to

sweatshops. Countries are considering to cancel trades with any sweatshops that have kids

working there. In this case, the United States threatened to ban all goods coming from

Bangladesh garment makers who employed children, promoting the factory owners to fire all
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employees under 14 (Tierney 34). It is good that the U.S. made a threat because if they did not

more and more children would be working in sweatshops. Young children of ages three through

thirteen should not be able to work to work in sweatshops.

In European countries, workers are sewing a call for help in tags of clothing. I was really

shocked when I saw the label saying it was degrading sweatshops conditions, said Porthcawl

mom-to-be Rebecca Jones, 21, to Wales Online. I used to shop a lot at Primark but not so much

now. The label has made me think about how my clothes are made, she added (Morgan 5). It

proves this statement right because it made people realize about sweatshops after seeing the SOS

describing sweatshops. They realized it was wrong to wear these clothes after someone slaved

away making it. Another piece from this article says, Meanwhile in Belfast, Karen Winsinska,

28, was stunned to find an SOS letter from a Chinese prisoner-alongside his jail ID card-inside

the pocket of her jeans bought from the store. The note claimed he was working his fingers to the

bone and being fed worse than pigs and dogs (Morgan 8). The workers barely get fed and work

to death. The man in this situation was sending help through clothing to get him out of the

sweatshop. He put his ID card in the jean pocket so it is easy to identify him when they go

searching for him. Shoppers in Britain discovered a call for help in the tags of clothing that the

workers sew inside dresses that they bought from a very popular clothing store (Morgan 1).

Customers are devastated to find this call for help in their clothing. The people that are stuck in

an eternal Hell are calling for help from people who can possibly help. They want to get out and

that was the only way to get into contact with someone.

The employees work long, treacherous hours and they get very terrible pay. Next

Collection workers are forced to toils 14-to-17-plus-hour shifts, seven days a week, routinely
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putting in workweeks of over 100 hours, the executive summary reads. Workers are visibly

sick and exhausted from the grueling and excessive hours (Lazare 6). They work to death and

they will never get better because they work around the clock and never get breaks. The

managers reward their workers with suffering working long hours, they never get to go home.

The workers are being treated like garbage. People should not be treated like garbage because

they work so hard to make their managers happy with the quota they try to produce and the

managers are never satisfied.

The immigrants that come to the U.S. and work in sweatshops that make garments are

mostly women. They work 60-80 hours a week, usually without minimum wage (Embar 4).

These women sacrifice their lives to work and support their families. They get paid below

minimum wage or nothing at all. They always feel like they are letting their family down and

themselves down. Another customer in Belfast, Northern Ireland, also claims to have

discovered a note from a Chinese prisoner claiming inmates were working 15 hours per day

making garments (Morgan 3). The call for help opened the persons eyes and made them realize

that someone made their clothing in a sweatshop. They realize that the sweatshop workers work

very long hours and working in very poor conditions.

Basically saying that the money is enough for supporting their families but they stay for

very long hours (Yesilevsky 12). The money only gets them by but it is not enough to support

their family. They sacrifice spending time with their families to sacrificing their time working

very long hours. They make money but it is not enough to buy food for their families or to

improve their housing, Workers live in miserable poverty (Lazare 7). The salary that their

making can barely get them by and they live in very poor housing. They work for nothing in
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return. The workers should be payed minimum wage because then they could get by and still

have a little money left for food or supplies they may need.

Some factories closed and would move around to find cheaper work in different

countries (World Heritage Encyclopedia 2). Families would suffer because no one has a job to

support the family. The factory moved because they workers were demanding a higher wage so

the factory packed up and left to find cheaper labor. In some factories around the world are

changing how they pay their workers. Nike factory workers are allowing workers to obtain

higher wages, improve the working conditions of the factories enable them to organization, and

gain the respect of their employees (World Heritage Encyclopedia 9). Some factories are

willing to make a difference for their employees well-being.

There are people forming groups or asking the government to stop sweatshops.

Anti-sweatshop groups want to stop sweatshops and get rid of them completely.

Anti-globalization proponents cite high savings, increased capital investment in developing

nations, diversification of their exports and their status as trade ports as the reason for their

economic success rather than sweatshops and cite the numerous cases in the East Asian Tiger

Economies where sweatshops have reduced living standards and wages (World Heritage

Encyclopedia 6). This globalization is independent and they dont need sweatshops in this

organization. They want to stop sweatshops. They keep track on every sweatshop in the Tiger

Economies (World Heritage Encyclopedia 6). Anti-globalization organizations argue that

minor gains made by employees of some of the institutions are outweighed by the negative costs

such as lowered wages to increase profit margins and that the institutions pay less than the daily

expenses of their workers (World Public Library 8). This organization helps the employees
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speak up about the sweatshop and try to stop it. They try to get the workers out of the

sweatshops.

Some of the earliest sweatshop critics were found in the 19th century abolitionists

movement that originally coalesced to chattel slavery (World Heritage Encyclopedia 2). These

abolitionists were considering of taking away slavery in the 19th century. People today, are

stopping sweatshops from abusing and mistreating the workers. This quote reflects off of todays

issue because sweatshops are modern slavery. Slaves in the 19th century were treated the same

way as these people are today.

Organizations for children are created too. Save the Children is one organization and it

protects the right of children working (Tierney 33). They do not want to get rid of the work

ethic itself, they just want to stop the abuse that goes on there. The organization protects the right

of the child if he/she would still continue working there. Until recently, child labor was not

until 1993 that the U.S. Department of Labor, under congressional mandate, began researching

and documenting the issue (Tierney 11). The Department of Labor is finally doing something to

help put an end to sweatshops. They got permission from Congress to do some researching on

sweatshops.

The news and the National Labor Committee brought sweatshops to the media to expose

sweatshops and child labor making clothes for Kathie Lee Giffords Wal-Mart clothing line

(World Heritage Encyclopedia 5). They exposed sweatshops for what they really are and got it to

the publics attention. When people saw this, they realized that sweatshops were terrible places

for people to work in. We are investigating the origins of an additional label which has been

found in one of our dresses and whether there are issues which need to be looked into (Morgan
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10). The media is trying to figure out where this sweatshop is located and to get these poor,

unfortunate people out of there. The workers sent out a call for help through clothing and the

person that bought some of the clothing reported it to the police about it. That SOS is the key to

possibly finding the sweatshop and to shut it down.

A mayor in Ohio named Mayor Ed Boyle made a legislation prohibiting the government

of purchasing any goods made in sweatshops conditions World Heritage Encyclopedia 3). The

legislation states that the government can not have anything to with owning or buying any

products from the sweatshops. He made the law because his wife was so offended by the

Giffords clothing line and he did something about it. Other states in the U.S. decided to follow

with Boyles plan.

People are trying to get the government to ban sweatshops. They look up to the

government as lawmakers and they want a law stating that sweatshops should be banned.

Sweatshops are a serious global human rights issue and must be dealt with by government

authorities (Yesilevsky 1). The people want the government want to protect the rights of the

people working in theses terrible places. The issue must be dealt with immediately and under

control by the government. The U.S. government should deal with manufacturers that abuse

labor standards by preventing the importation of their goods into the United States, thus forcing

manufacturers to improve labor standards in order to remain competitive in the global market

(Yesilevsky 3). The government should get rid of sweatshops because it is nothing but a

nightmare to these people that have to slave their lives way.

The main government focus is to improve sweatshops all over the country (World

Heritage Encyclopedia 11). They try to improve the working conditions and to raise minimum
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wage. The government tries to stop child labor at sweatshops and make sure the workers get

breaks. The government will also give women the right to have maternity leave. The government

will have limited time so the sweatshop workers do not work very long hours. The government

are working on improving factories because they want to make it a positive working place and

making sure the workers are treated well.

The government organized a boycott to call out Abercrombie & Fitch because they had

clothing made from sweatshops. The boycott was successful and the company made an apology

to the public (Yesilevsky 15). The public was astonished that the company used sweatshops and

became offend. The company apologized for their actions and closed the sweatshop down.

Usually boycotts are not successful but in this case it was. The U.S. government is trying to pass

laws stating that companies that sold products from sweatshops in American markets are

violating the workers rights (Yesilevsky 17). The people that work sleepless nights and very long

days are getting violated. The products they make are being profited and they are not making a

cent from it.

Sweatshops should be banned because employers treat their employees badly. They do

not give out any breaks and they only have one day off once a year. Women that work there, do

not get maternity leave. The workers barely get payed. This essay is about sweatshops being a

very horrific place and why they should be banned. Sweatshops are very unforgiving places and

that is why a lot of innocent people get fired or die trying to make ends meet.
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Works Cited

Embar, Wanda. Sweatshops and Child Labor. Vegan Peace,www.veganpeace.com/

sweatshops/sweatshops_and_child_labor.htm, Accessed, 19 Oct. 2016.

Lazare, Sarah. Gap, Old Navy, and the Living Hell of a Bangladeshi Sweatshop. Common

Dreams.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2013/10/04/gap-old-navy-and-living-hell-banglade

shi-sweatshop , Acessed, 4 Oct. 2016.

Morgan, Lee. British shoppers find call for help messages from sweatshop workers in

clothing. New York Daily News. 26 Jun. 2013.

www.nydailynews.com/life-style/shoppers-find-notes-swearshop-workers-clothes-article

1.9844730. Accessed, 10 Oct. 2016.

Nike Sweatshop. World Heritage Encyclopedia. no.WHEBN0025184832, World Public Library.

Accessed, 17 Oct. 2016.

Tierney, John. J. Abusive Child Labor is a Problem in Developing Nations. Developing

Nations, 2003. Gale Opposing Viewpoints.

http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/ovic/ViewpointsDetailsPage/ViewpointsDetailsWindow?disabl

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Sweatshop. World Heritage Encyclopedia. no.WHEB0000102075, World Public Library.

http://www.worldheritage.org/article/WHEBN0000102075/Sweatshop, Accessed, 17 Oct.

2016.

Yesilevsky, Anna. Sweatshops violate Human Rights. Greenhaven Press, 2006. Gale Opposing

Viewpoints.

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