A sweatshop is a working environment with very difficult or dangerous conditions, usually where the workers have few rights or ways to address their situation. Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. This can include exposure to harmful materials, hazardous situations, extreme temperatures, or abuse from employers. Sweatshop workers are often forced to work long hours for little or no pay, regardless of any laws mandating overtime pay or a minimum wage. Child labour laws may also be violated. Sweatshops may be compared to the factories of the early industrial revolution in countries such as the UK and US, where regulations were few and far between.

Though often associated with third-world countries, sweatshops can exist in any country. Sweatshops have existed in several cultures, including Early American culture beginning in the 1850's. Sweatshops can produce many different goods, from clothing to furniture.

Meanwhile, defenders of sweatshops, such as Paul Krugman^[1] and Johan Norberg^[2], claim that people choose to work in sweatshops because the sweatshops offer them substantially higher wages and better working conditions compared to their previous jobs of manual farm labour, and that sweatshops are an early step in the process of technological and economic development whereby a poor country turns itself into a rich country. Paul Robin Krugman ( born February 28 1953 is an American Economist, Columnist, Author, and Intellectual. Johan Norberg (born 27 August, 1973) is a Swedish writer devoted to promoting economic Globalization and Libertarian positions In addition, sometimes when anti-sweatshop activists were successful in getting sweatshops to close, some of the employees who had been working in the sweatshops ended up starving to death, while others ended up turning to prostitution. ^[3]

Contents 1 History 2 Positions on Sweatshops 2.1 Pro-sweatshop 2.2 Anti-sweatshop movement 3 Gender and sweatshops 4 Current status of sweatshops 5 Related terms 6 Organizations working on the issue 7 Related topics 8 References 8.1 Notes 9 External links 9.1 Activism 9.2 Shopping 9.3 Papers and publications

History

Prior to 1830, fine clothing had been custom-made, primarily by male members of the organized tailor's guild [2]. Between 1830 and 1850, as the Industrial Revolution gave way to the Second Industrial Revolution, sweatshop production of inexpensive clothing displaced members of the tailors' guild, and replaced them with lower-skilled workers performing piece work at lower wages and in inferior conditions. The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture manufacturing and transportation had a profound effect on the The Second Industrial Revolution, typically dated between 1870 and 1914 was a second phase of the Industrial Revolution, involving several developments within the chemical Piece work or piecework describes types of Employment in which a Worker is paid a fixed "piece rate" for each unit produced or The trend away from tailors was accelerated by the advent of a practical, foot-powered sewing machine in 1846. A sewing machine is a textile machine used to stitch Fabric or other material together with Thread. Sweatshops were the end of the artisan system that had existed.

The terms sweater for the middleman and sweating system for the process of subcontracting piecework were used in early critiques like Charles Kingsley's Cheap Clothes and Nasty, written in 1850. Sweating system was a term used to describe an iniquitous system of subcontracting in the tailoring trade which came into prominence around 1848 Charles Kingsley ( June 12 1819 &ndash January 23 1875) was an English Novelist, particularly associated with the The workplaces created for the sweating system were called sweatshops, and variously comprised workplaces of only a few workers, or as many as 100 or more.

In the sweatshop of 1850, the role of the sweater as middleman and subcontractor (or sub-subcontractor) was considered key, because he served to keep workers isolated in small workshops. This isolation made workers unsure of their supply of work, and unable to organize against their true employer through collective bargaining. Instead, tailors or other clothing retailers would subcontract tasks to the sweater, who in turn might subcontract to another sweater, who would ultimately engage workers at a piece rate for each article of clothing or seam produced. Piece work or piecework describes types of Employment in which a Worker is paid a fixed "piece rate" for each unit produced or Many critics asserted that the middleman made his profit by finding the most desperate workers, often women and children, who could be paid an absolute minimum. While workers who produced many pieces could earn more, less productive workers earned so little that critics termed their pay starvation wages. Employment was risky: injured or sick workers would be quickly replaced by others.

Between 1850 and 1900, sweatshops attracted the rural poor to rapidly-growing cities, and attracted immigrants to places like East London, England and New York City's garment district, located near the tenements of New York's Lower East Side. East London is the name commonly given to the north eastern part of London, England on the north side of the River Thames. The City of New York The Lower East Side is a Neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. Wherever they were located, sweatshops also attracted critics and labor leaders who cited them as crowded, poorly ventilated, and prone to fires and rat infestations, since much of the work was done by many people crowded into small tenement rooms. Rats are various medium sized long-tailed Rodents of the superfamily Muroidea

In 1900, the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was founded in an effort to improve the condition of these workers. The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U

Criticism of garment sweatshops became a major force behind workplace safety regulation and labor laws. Labour law (also known as employment or labor law is the body of Laws administrative rulings and precedents which address the legal rights of and restrictions As some journalists strove to change working conditions, the term sweatshop came to describe a broader set of workplaces whose conditions were considered inferior. In the United States, investigative journalists, known as Muckrakers, wrote exposés of business practices, and progressive politicians campaigned for new laws. Investigative journalism is a type of reporting in which reporters deeply investigate a topic of interest often involving crime Political corruption, or some other Scandal For other meanings see Muckraker (disambiguation The term muckraker most associated with a group of American investigative reporters In US history the term Progressivism refers to a broadly based reform movement that reached its height early in the 20th century Notable exposés of sweatshop conditions include Jacob Riis' photo documentary How the Other Half Lives and Upton Sinclair's book,The Jungle about the meat packing industry. Jacob August Riis (May 3 1849 - May 26 1914 a Danish -American Muckraker Journalist, Photographer, and social reformer was born in Photojournalism is a particular form of Journalism (the collecting editing and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast that creates images in order to tell How the Other Half Lives Studies Among the Tenements of New York (1890 was a pioneering work of Photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting the squalid Upton Beall Sinclair Jr ( September 20, 1878 &ndash November 25, 1968) was a Pulitzer The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by Author and socialist Journalist Upton Sinclair. The meat packing industry is an Industry that handles the slaughtering, Processing and distribution of animals such as Cattle

In 1911, negative public perceptions of sweatshops were galvanized by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the largest Industrial disaster in the history of the city of New The pivotal role of this time and place is chronicled at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, part of the Lower East Side Tenement National Historic Site.

While trade unions, minimum wage laws, fire safety codes, and labor laws have made sweatshops (in the original sense) rarer in the developed world, they did not eliminate them, and the term came to be increasingly associated with factories in the developing world. A minimum wage is the lowest hourly daily or monthly Wage that employers may legally pay to employees or workers Fire safety refers to precautions that are taken to prevent or reduce the likelihood of a Fire that may result in death injury or property damage alert those in a structure The term developed country, or advanced country, is used to categorize countries with developed Economies in which the tertiary and quaternary sectors Developing countries are countries that haven't reached Western-style standards of democratic government free market economy industrialization social programs and human rights guaranties

In a report issued in 1994, the United States Government Accountability Office found that there were still thousands of sweatshops in the United States, using a definition of a sweatshop as any "employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers’ compensation, or industry registration" [3]. The Government Accountability Office ( GAO) is the Audit, Evaluation, and investigative arm of the United States Congress. Homeworkers or home workers are defined by the International Labour Organization as people working from their homes or from other premises of their choosing other This recent definition eliminates any historical distinction about the role of a middleman or the items produced, and focuses on the legal standards of developed country workplaces. An area of controversy between supporters of outsourcing production to the Third World and the anti-sweatshop movement is whether such standards can or should be applied to the workplaces of the developing world. Outsourcing is Subcontracting a process such as product design or Manufacturing, to a Third-party company Third World is a name given to nations that are generally considered to be underdeveloped economically

Sweatshops are also sometimes implicated in human trafficking when workers have been tricked into starting work without informed consent, or when workers are kept at work through debt bondage or mental duress, all of which are more likely in cases where the workforce is drawn from children or the uneducated rural poor. Human trafficking is the recruitment transportation harbouring or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery forced labor (including bonded labor or debt bondage and servitude Informed consent is a legal condition whereby a person can be said to have given Consent based upon an appreciation and understanding of the facts implications Debt bondage or bonded labor is a means of paying off loans with direct labor instead of currency or goods Because they often exist in places without effective workplace safety or environmental laws, sweatshops sometimes injure their workers or the environment at greater rates than would be acceptable in developed countries. Sometimes penal labor facilities (employing prisoners) are grouped under the sweatshop label. Penal labour or penal servitude is a form of Unfree labour. The term may refer to two different notions labour as a form of punishment and labour as a form of occupation

Sweatshops have proved a difficult issue to resolve because their roots lie in the conceptual foundations of the world economy. Developing countries like India, China, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Honduras encourage the outsourcing of work from the developed world to factories within their borders in order to provide employment for their people and profits to their employers. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Vietnam (ˌviːɛtˈnɑːm Việt Nam) officially ( Bengali: বাংলাদেশ inc-Latn Bangladesh) officially Honduras in Spanish, República de Honduras) is a democratic republic in Central America. Outsourcing is Subcontracting a process such as product design or Manufacturing, to a Third-party company The shift of production to developing countries is part of the process known as globalization, but may also be described as neoliberal globalization to emphasize the role that free market economics plays in outsourcing. Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones Originally coined by its critics and opponents " neoliberalism " is a label referring to the recent reemergence of Economic liberalism or Classical liberalism Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones A free market is a Market in which property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged completely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Many brand name stores use sweatshops to this day (Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, American Eagle, etc. )

Positions on Sweatshops

Pro-sweatshop

As of 1997, Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs said, "My concern is not that there are too many sweatshops, but that there are too few. Economics is the social science that studies the production distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Jeffrey David Sachs (born November 5, 1954, in Detroit Michigan) is an American Economist and Director of the Earth Institute "^[4] Sachs and other proponents of sweatshops cite the economic theory of comparative advantage, which states that international trade will, in the long run, make some parties better off. In international trade the principle of comparative advantage refers to the fact that although one country may have an absolute disadvantage with another value can be created for both International trade is exchange of Capital, Goods, and Services across International borders or Territories. The theory holds that developing countries improve their condition by doing something that they do "better" than industrialized nations (in this case, they charge less but do the same work). Developed countries will also be better off because their workers can shift to jobs that they do better. These are jobs that some economists say usually entail a level of education and training that is exceptionally difficult to obtain in the developing world. Thus, economists like Sachs say, developing countries get factories and jobs that they would not otherwise . The catch with this occurs when developing countries try to increase wages because sweatshops tend to just get moved on to a new state that is welcoming. This leads to a situation where states often will not try and get increased wages for sweatshop workers for fear of losing investment and boosted GDP.

When asked about the working condition in sweatshops, proponents say that although wages and working conditions may appear inferior by the standards of developed nations, they are actually improvements over what the people in developing countries had before. It is said that if jobs in such factories did not improve their workers' standard of living, those workers would not have taken the jobs when they appeared. The standard of living refers to the quality and quantity of goods and services available to people and the way these goods and services are distributed within a population It is also often pointed out that, unlike in the industrialized world, the sweatshops are not replacing high-paying jobs. Rather, sweatshops offer an improvement over subsistence farming and other back-breaking tasks, or even prostitution, trash picking, or starvation by unemployment. Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficient farming in which farmers grow only enough food to feed the family and to pay taxes or feudal dues Prostitution is the act of performing Sexual activity in exchange for Money. Starvation (also called inanition) is a severe reduction in Vitamin, Nutrient, and Energy intake and is the most extreme form of Unemployment occurs when a person is available to work and currently seeking work but the person is without work. ^[4][5] This is the case since most under-developed countries have weak labor markets and little (if any) economic growth

The absence of the work opportunities provided by sweatshops can quickly lead to malnourishment or starvation. Labour economics seeks to understand the functioning of the Market and dynamics for labour. After the Child Labor Deterrence Act was introduced in the US, an estimated 50,000 children were dismissed from their garment industry jobs in Asia, leaving many to resort to jobs such as "stone-crushing, street hustling, and prostitution. The Child Labor Deterrence Act was created by Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, and was first proposed in the United States Congress in 1992 with " UNICEF's 1997 State of the World's Children study found these alternative jobs "more hazardous and exploitative than garment production. The United Nations Children's Fund (or UNICEF) was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946 "^[6]

Critics point out that sweatshop workers don't earn enough money to buy the products that they make, even though such items are often commonplace goods such as t-shirts, shoes, and toys. However, defenders of such practices respond that critics of sweatshops are comparing wages paid in one country to prices set in another. In 2003, Honduran garment factory workers were paid US$0. The United States dollar ( sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of Currency of the United States; it has also been 24 for each $50 Sean John sweatshirt, $0. Sean John is a clothing and fragrance line founded by hip-hop mogul Sean John Combs, in 1998 15 for each long-sleeved t-shirt, and only five cents for each short-sleeved shirt – less than one-half of one percent of the retail price. ^[7] Although the wages paid to workers in Honduras would hardly be enough to live in the United States, it could very well be enough to live in Honduras, where prices are much lower. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The $0. 15 that a Honduran worker earned for the long-sleeved t-shirt was equal in purchasing power to $3. Purchasing power is the amount of value of a good/services compared to the amount paid with a Currency. 00 in the United States.

Writer Johan Norberg, a proponent of market economics, points out an irony:^[8]

“

(sweatshop critics) say that we shouldn't buy from countries like Vietnam because of its labor standards, they've got it all wrong. Johan Norberg (born 27 August, 1973) is a Swedish writer devoted to promoting economic Globalization and Libertarian positions A market economy is a realized Social system based on the Division of labour in which the prices of Goods and Services are determined in a They're saying: "Look, you are too poor to trade with us. And that means that we won't trade with you. We won't buy your goods until you're as rich as we are. " That's totally backwards. These countries won't get rich without being able to export goods.

”

Penn & Teller in their Wal-Mart episode interview Benajmin Powell, a Professor of Economics from San Jose State University, who argues out that sweatshop-type jobs in a developing country are often a significant improvement over other employment options (e. Penn & Teller ( Penn Fraser Jillette and Teller) are Las Vegas headliners whose act is an amalgam of illusion and Comedy. Wal-Mart Stores Inc (or Walmart as written in its new logo is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large discount department stores San José State University, commonly shortened to San José State and SJSU, is the founding campus of what became the California State University system Developing countries are countries that haven't reached Western-style standards of democratic government free market economy industrialization social programs and human rights guaranties g. subsistence farming) and points out that the United States went through its own period of sweatshop labor during its development. Subsistence agriculture is self-sufficient farming in which farmers grow only enough food to feed the family and to pay taxes or feudal dues The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ^[9]

In an article about a Nike sweatshop in Vietnam, Johan Norberg wrote, "But when I talk to a young Vietnamese woman, Tsi-Chi, at the factory, it is not the wages she is most happy about. Sure, she makes five times more than she did, she earns more than her husband, and she can now afford to build an extension to her house. But the most important thing, she says, is that she doesn't have to work outdoors on a farm any more. . . Farming means 10 to 14 hours a day in the burning sun or the intensive rain. . . The most persistent demand Nike hears from the workers is for an expansion of the factories so that their relatives can be offered a job as well. "^[10]

According to a November 2001 BBC article, in the previous two months, 100,000 sweatshop workers in Bangladesh had lost their sweatshop jobs. The sweatshop workers wanted their jobs back, and the Bangladeshi government was planning to lobby the U. S. government to repeal its trade barriers so the sweatshop workers could have their jobs back. ^[11]

A 2005 article in the Christian Science Monitor states, "For example, in Honduras, the site of the infamous Kathy Lee Gifford sweatshop scandal, the average apparel worker earns $13. The Christian Science Monitor (CSM is an international Newspaper published daily Monday through Friday Honduras in Spanish, República de Honduras) is a democratic republic in Central America. Kathie Lee Gifford (born Kathryn Lee Epstein; August 16 1953 is an American Television hostess Singer, actress, noted for her 10 per day, yet 44 percent of the country's population lives on less than $2 per day. . . In Cambodia, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Honduras, the average wage paid by a firm accused of being a sweatshop is more than double the average income in that country's economy. The Kingdom of Cambodia ( formerly known as Kampuchea (, transliterated: Preăh Réachéanachâkr Kâmpŭchea) is a country in South East Haiti ( English: ˈheɪ·tiː or haɪ·ˈjiː·tiː French Haïti a·i·ti Haitian Creole: Nicaragua (ˌnɪkəˈrɑgwə officially the Republic of Nicaragua () is a representative democratic republic and the largest nation in Central America "^[12]

On three documented occasions, there were increases in childhood prostitution. In the early 1990s, there was a closure of several sweatshops in Vietnam, and as a result, several thousand Vietnamese children who had been working in those sweatshops ended up working as prostitutes, turning to crime, or starving to death. In the mid-1990s, an Nepalese carpet manufacturing sweatshops to close, which resulted in thousands of Nepalese girls turning to prostitution. A anti-sweatshop protest in the 1990s also resulted in the closure of several Pakistani sweatshops, which caused those Pakistani children to turn to prostitution. ^[13]

Defenders of sweatshops argue that every country starts out poor, and that the emergence of sweatshops in a country is a sign that the country has started to climb up the ladder of economic growth. These defenders of sweatshops cite Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan as recent examples of countries that benefited from having sweatshops. ^[14][15][16]

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, and many abolitionists saw similarities between slavery and sweatshop work. Abolitionism was a political movement of the 18th and 19th century which sought to make Slavery illegal particularly in the United States and British West Indies As a social-economic system slavery is a legal institution under which a Person (called "a slave" is compelled to work for another 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 the slave trade (1807) and ownership of slaves (1833) were made illegal, and the anti-sweatshop movement drew from much the same reservoir of supporters and social thinkers. The Factory Acts were a series of Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to limit the number of hours worked by women and children first in the textile The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located 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. Causes of the war See also Origins of the American Civil War, Timeline of events leading to the American Civil War The coexistence of a slave-owning South

Ultimately, the abolitionist movement split apart. Some advocates focused on working conditions and found common cause with trade unions and Marxists and socialist political groups, or progressive movement and the muckrakers. Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Socialism refers to a broad set of economic theories of social organization advocating state or collective ownership and administration of the Means of production and distribution Progressivism is a term that refers to a broad school of international social and political philosophies. For other meanings see Muckraker (disambiguation The term muckraker most associated with a group of American investigative reporters Others focused on the continued slave trade and involuntary servitude in the colonial world. Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and Constitutional term for a person laboring against that person's will to benefit another under some form For those groups that remained focused on slavery per se, sweatshops became one of the primary objects of controversy. Workplaces across multiple sectors of the economy were categorized as "sweatshops. " However, 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 ultimately backed away from efforts to define slavery, and focused instead on a common precursor of slavery — human trafficking. The League of Nations was an International organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920 The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security Human trafficking is the recruitment transportation harbouring or receipt of people for the purposes of slavery forced labor (including bonded labor or debt bondage and servitude ^[17]

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. Friedrich Engels (28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895 was a German social scientist and philosopher, who The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 is one of the best-known works of Friedrich Engels. 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 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The formation of the International Labour Organization in 1919 under the League of Nations and then the United Nations sought to address the plight of workers the world over. The International Labour Organization The League of Nations was an International organization founded as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919–1920 The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security Concern over working conditions as described by muckraker journalists 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 of 1938, passed during the New Deal. The Progressive Era in the United States was a period of reform which lasted from the 1890s to the 1920s The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 ( FLSA, ch 676, June 25, 1938,) also called the Wages and Hours Bill, is United States federal The New Deal was the name that United States President Franklin D ^[18]

More recently, the anti-globalization movement has arisen in opposition to corporate globalization, a process by which multinational corporations move their operations overseas in order to lower their costs and increase profits. " Anti-globalization " is a term that encompasses a number of related ideas Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones Multinational corporation ( MNC) or transnational corporation ( TNC) is a Corporation or enterprise that manages Production or delivers The anti-sweatshop movement has much in common with the anti-globalization movement. " Anti-globalization " is a term that encompasses a number of related ideas Both consider sweatshops harmful, and both have accused many companies (such as the Walt Disney Company, The Gap, and Nike) of using sweatshops. The Gap Incorporated ( is an American clothing and accessories retailer based in San Francisco California, and founded in 1969 by Donald Fisher Nike Inc ('naɪki ( is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The movement charges that neoliberal globalization is similar to the sweating system. Originally coined by its critics and opponents " neoliberalism " is a label referring to the recent reemergence of Economic liberalism or Classical liberalism Globalization (or globalisation) in its literal sense is the process of transformation of local or regional phenomena into global ones Sweating system was a term used to describe an iniquitous system of subcontracting in the tailoring trade which came into prominence around 1848 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. In Government regulation, a race to the bottom is a phenomenon that is said to occur when competition between nations or states (over Investment capital for example

Anti-globalization activists and environmentalists also deplore transfer of heavy industrial manufacturing (such as chemical production) to the developing world. Environmentalism is a broad philosophy and Social movement centered on a concern for the conservation and improvement of the environment. Although chemical factories have little in common with sweatshops in the original sense, detractors describe them as such and claim that there are negative environmental and health impacts (such as pollution and birth defects, respectively) on workers and the local community. See also Nature The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a terminology that is comprised of all living and Health is a state of complete physical mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity

Various groups support or embody the anti-sweatshop movement today. The National Labor Committee brought sweatshops into the mainstream media in the 1990s when it exposed the use of sweatshop and child labor to sew Kathie Lee Gifford's Wal-Mart label. The National Labor Committee in Support of Human and Worker Rights, commonly known as the National Labor Committee or the NLC, is a non-profit Non-governmental United Students Against Sweatshops is active on college campuses. United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS is a student organization with chapters at over 200 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit^[19] on behalf of workers in China, Nicaragua, Swaziland, Indonesia, and Bangladesh against Wal-Mart charging the company with knowingly developing purchasing policies particularly relating to price and delivery time that are impossible to meet while following the Wal-Mart code of conduct. The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF is a nonprofit advocacy organization headquartered in Washington DC that describes itself as "an Labor unions, such as the AFL-CIO, have helped support the anti-sweatshop movement out of concern both for the welfare of people in the developing world and that companies will move jobs from the United States elsewhere in order to capitalize on lower costs. American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, commonly AFL-CIO, is a National trade union center, the largest federation of The United States of America —commonly referred to as the 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. TemplateInfobox Union for usage --> UNITE HERE is a labor union with more than 465000 active members in the The only garment production facilities that remain in the US are small, disconnected workplaces.

Gender and sweatshops

Arguments that sweatshops provide skills and a boost to the economy are sometimes criticized for not taking into account the gendered nature of sweatshop employees. Because of the relatively higher value placed on male education, young women are often encouraged by their families to leave school and migrate to urban areas or Export Processing Zones (EPZ) to work in the garment industry. As outsiders in a new community, these young women lack the legal or family support they might receive in their own community and therefore, have to spend a larger amount of income on supporting themselves. Consequently, these young women who are no longer receiving an education often find it hard to earn enough money to send back to their family. ^[20]

The division of labour in sweatshops is gendered because the vast majority of workers are young women. The problems faced by many workers are also gendered because gender-based notions of what is acceptable inform working conditions. Thus medical or maternity leave, employer / employee relations and the right to organize can all become gender biased. Consequently, the negative aspects of sweatshops have a disproportionate impact on women. Because of this, some argue that efforts to combat the poor working conditions in sweatshops should focus more on empowering women. Although company-led attempts to improve the working conditions in sweatshops such as the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) have had some successes, others criticize the ETI as ‘gender-blind’. The modern anti-sweatshop movement combines notions of a living wage, trade unions, and feminism, which some argue makes these grassroots approaches more sustainable. ^[21]

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. A 1998 report by the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development says a third of all clothes on sale in the UK's high street stores have been made in sweatshops in Asia. Year 1998 ( MCMXCVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar) ^[22]

In the United States, shoemaker New Balance is notable for changing its policies after intense pressure from campus anti-sweatshop groups. New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc ( NBAS) is a Footwear manufacturer based in Boston Massachusetts. Clothing retailer Gap Inc. , which includes Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Forth & Towne brands, has significantly changed its policies. Old Navy is a Brand of clothing and chain of stores owned by Gap Inc Banana Republic is a chain of mainly United States based clothing stores founded by Mel and Patricia Ziegler in 1978 as a travel-themed Gap Inc. has developed a Code of Vendor Conduct [4] 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 claim that they have safeguards in place to avoid using the worst sweatshops. Wal-Mart Stores Inc (or Walmart as written in its new logo is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large discount department stores Nike Inc ('naɪki ( is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. Disney has also employed sweatshops to produce much of their clothing and toys, but their use has not been as well publicized as the cases of Nike, Walmart, or Kathie Lee Gifford. In the book "Disney; the Mouse Betrayed"; a chapter shows dealings with China, Vietnam, Haiti, but especially targets Disney's relationship with the military junta of Burma, of which it works hard to keep quiet given Burma's huge unpopularity in the international community. "Dozens of American clothes makers, such as Old Navy, Gap, Guess, Donna Karan, Victoria's Secret, have all signed pledges with the U. S. Department of Labor stating their conditions are closely monitored and that no child labor is being used. Disney has not. " ^[23]

The World Bank estimates that today, 1/5th of human beings live under the international poverty line. The World Bank is an internationally supported Bank that provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries for development programs (e The poverty threshold, or poverty line, is the minimum level of Income deemed necessary to achieve an adequate Standard of living in a given country ^[24] World poverty has become better due in a large part to the economic success of China and India, the two countries with the largest number of workers in sweatshops. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Against this progress in the developing world, one should also note that economic inequality between the richest and poorest has never been so large.

"The income gap between the fifth of the world's people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 74 to 1 in 1997, up from 60 to 1 in 1990 and 30 to 1 in 1960. Earlier the income gap between the top and bottom countries increased from 3 to 1 in 1820 to 7 to 1 in 1870 to 11 to 1 in 1913. "^[24]

Some recent political action has been taken against sweatshops. On January 24, 2007, Byron Dorgan (D, N. Byron Leslie Dorgan (born May 14 1942) is the junior United States Senator from North Dakota. D. ), Lindsey Graham (R, S. Lindsey Olin Graham (born July 9, 1955) is an American Politician from South Carolina. C. ) and Sherrod Brown (D, Ohio) introduced the "Decent Working Conditions and Fair Competition Act" with the objective of cracking down on products made in factories overseas where "workers are abused in violation of that country's labor laws. Sherrod Campbell Brown (born November 9 1952) is the junior United States Senator from the state of Ohio, and a member " The bill would direct the Federal Trade Commission to conduct an investigation, based on complaints, to determine whether a foreign factory was abusing employees producing apparel and other products in violation of core International Labor Organization standards. If such a ruling were made, the FTC would issue an order prohibiting products from the factory from being imported into the U. S. Each violation of that order would carry a civil penalty of $10,000 in addition to other duties, fines and penalties imposed by the FTC. Customs & Border Protection, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, would be required to enforce the penalties. He added the bill would give American companies the right to sue their competitors in U. S. courts if those competitors were selling merchandise produced in sweatshops. ^[25]

Related terms

• Assembly line
• Body Shops
• Child labor
• Contingent work
• Corporate abuse
• Exploitation
• Export processing zone
• Game sweatshop
• Globalisation
• Maquiladora
• Precarity
• Race to the bottom
• SA8000 — Social Accountability Certification Scheme for Manufacturing Industry
• Slavery
• Sweating system
• Trafficking in human beings
• Union Organizer

Organizations working on the issue

• International Labor Rights Fund
• United Students Against Sweatshops
• National Labor Committee
• Co-op America
• Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior

Related topics

References

Notes

External links

Activism

• SweatFree Communities– Local Action Against Sweatshops
• United Students Against Sweatshops
• National Labor Committee
• Clean Clothes Campaign
• Labour Behind the Label
• Play Fair at the Olympics
• National Mobilization Against Sweatshops (NMASS)
• Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM)

Shopping

• Responsible Shopper Company Profiles
• "Shop with a Conscience" Consumer Guide

Papers and publications

• Fair Labor Standards Act
• National Bureau for Economic Research paper: The Effects of Multinational Production on Wages and Working Conditions in Developing Countries
• Matt Zwolinski on the definition, history, and morality of sweatshops
• Academic Paper: "Sweatshops, Choice, and Exploitation"
• Two Cheers for Sweatshops - New York Times, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
• The Campus Sweatshop Movement - American Prospect
• "Foreign owned businesses in Vietnam aren't sweatshops"
• Triangle Fire: Photographs from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
• Immaculata High School Child Slave Labor News
• Article on worker takeover of sweatshop in El Salvador
• Common Sense in Sweatshop Cents
• Economist John Miller on sweatshops in Dollars & Sense
• Paradise Lost: sweatshop labor on the U.S. island of Saipan - Ms. magazine
• Rackets, muggings hit social networking sites: Online currency opens channels for money laundering - ComputerWorld

Nicholas Donabet Kristof (born April 27, 1959 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American Journalist, Author, op-ed Sheryl WuDunn ( born 1959) is a Chinese American private wealth advisor with Goldman Sachs and was previously a Journalist and editor The American Prospect is a monthly American political Magazine dedicated to liberalism. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the largest Industrial disaster in the history of the city of New Dollars & Sense is a Magazine dedicated to providing Left-wing perspectives on Economics. Ms is an American feminist magazine co-founded by American feminist and activist Gloria Steinem and founding Computerworld is an IT magazine that provides information to technology managers

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