sweatshops in china Essays - Labor, Anti-corporate Activism

Sweatshops in China and Across the World Sweatshops are work environments that possess three major characteristics; long hours, low pay and unsafe or unhealthy working conditions. Sweatshops have been a factor in the production of goods across the world for centuries, but globalization of major corporations has led many businesses to take advantage of low paying sweatshop labor in developing countries. Sweatshops exist everywhere there is an opportunity to exploit workers who lack the knowledge and resources to stand up for themselves. Typical sweatshop employees are young and uneducated. Workers around the world are subject to horrible working conditions and innumerable injustices because corporations, many which are U.S. owned, can get away with it. The resurgence of the sweatshop can be directly linked to the expansion of corporate globalization. The sweatshop is both metaphor for and proof of the lawlessness and inequities of the new global economy. Every new sweatshop expos? raises new doubts about who corporate globalization is really benefiting. e Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) will drastically accelerate corporate globalization in the Americas, giving more power to multinational corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens. This will likely spread sweatshop-style production to more countries. As dog-eat-dog competition among countries increases, workers will likely see their already-low wages drop even further and their already-assaulted rights face even more threats. The United States has had a long and prosperous relationship with China in trade and economics. However one aspect of the Chinese economy that has human rights activists screaming is the sweatshops in China. Most Chinese sweatshops are American companies such as GAP or Nike who have set up factories that are low paying and dangerous to workers. There are several hundred sweatshops in China where clothing, toys, electronics or various other goods are being produced. Chinese laws are not being enforced and have led companies to get away with human rights violations. Part of the reason is the labor surplus. China?s population is over 1 billion people and they are all looking for work, so they turn to factories which are heavily underpaid. The factories are crowed, filthy and rat-infested. Factory conditions are dangerous and basic health and safety protections are rarely provided to workers. The air is stuffy, with little ventilation from the smoke the machines give out. At the end of 2005, China recorded 665,043 cases of disease or illness, such as silicosis- a lung cancer disease, caused by workplace conditions. Most factories are located behind barbed wire fences monitored by armed guards. Many of these factories often pay less than 13 cents per hour, require their workers to work long hours and sometimes prevent workers to leave. On average laborers work 12 hour days, 26 days a month and earn $85 for the month. Factories sometimes do not pay their workers on time if at all. The workers have no choice to continue to work because sweatshops managers threaten and punish them for insubordination. Sweatshops often employ young children under the age of twelve. Women are primarily employed in sweatshops. Common abuses are sexual assault and under the threat of corporal punishment. They are verbally abused, spat on and beaten. Women are not allowed to leave their line for bathroom breaks. In some Indonesian sweatshops, women are forced to pull down their pants and reveal to factory doctors they are menstruating in order to claim their legal right to menstrual-leave. The inexperienced women and children who works in the factories are not taught properly how to operate heavy m achinery and sometimes explode or fall apart and badly injury the workers. Many U.S. retailers have ties to sweatshops, which are usually foreign owned and operated. Nike moved production out of the United States to Taiwan and South Korea when workers demanded better wages. When democracy took hold in those regions, Nike moved its factories to Indonesia, Vietnam and China. Continuous violations of human rights and health and safety standards are an issue. Workers are paid $2.00 per day and are forced to work with toxic glue and chemicals without adequate training, masks and gloves. The Gap produces clothing in six factories in Saipan. Indentured servitude, physical abuse and threats, unsafe working conditions are among the violations in those