Sweatshops Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Sweatshops - Essay Example Nike violated laws about working conditions, working hours, and forced overtime. They have been labeled as employing ‘sweatshop’ conditions in their manufacturing units. Due to globalization markets expanded and the market discipline intensified. This discipline penetrated into the spheres of lives of people previously untouched. The global garment industry offers the western consumers a wide variety of styles and fashion at affordable prices. Competition in the industry gave rise to sweatshops. To survive amidst competition, market restructuring had to be done in the form of buyer-driven commodity chains and lean retailing (Micheletti, 2006). They had to respond to the changing consumer demands for fashion and quality at reasonable prices. They had to invest to create and satisfy the fluctuating demands of the consumers. To deliver fashion and quality they had to rely on the individual garment workers and not the machinery. People started clamoring for branded products and brand culture was what became the decisive factor. Sweatshops are not new to America and since the industrial revolution many generations have toiled in sweatshops. Usually women, children or unskilled workers are used in sweatshops from the poverty-stricken families, who have no other option to earn a livelihood. Their pay is sub-standard and the working conditions are unsafe and unhygienic. Although it essentially started in the garment industry, but it exists in other industries as well. Sweat shops are the result of greed and opportunism; they may also stem from competitive pressures. These have come into existence due to globalization, government regulations, immigration, business practices, racial, ethnic and gender discrimination. The people are underpaid and overworked while the working conditions are unsanitary and far from reasonable. It violates safety, heath, wage and child labor laws. People have gone to the extent of saying that they would