Sweatshops In America

The clothes you are wearing right now were likely made in a sweatshop. Whether expensive athletic wear or cheap and trendy fashion, much of what constitutes America’s retail fashion industry is produced in sweatshops. America relies on sweatshop labor to sustain its business model revolving around consumerism. By outsourcing clothing production overseas, American companies are able to increase profits by saving money. Capitalizing on cheap labor allows for companies to constantly sell clothes avoiding the expenditures of using factories regulated with labor rights. Major corporations use sweatshop labor because sweatshops allow companies to benefit off of cheap labor and low production costs unlike regulated factories in America. However, …show more content…
Factories labeled as sweatshops are categorized as those failing to comply with labor laws and worker’s rights. This includes factories having dangerous workplaces, forcing long hours, and having no minimum wage, among other conditions. Sweatshops are also always in constant competition with each other, pressuring workers to produce in a way most beneficial to the company and harmful to the worker. In this paper, I will be focused on the argument against sweatshop usage by major corporations. Specifically, my argument will focus on sweatshops in Indonesia and Bangladesh. Although currently over eighteen countries are known to use sweatshop labor, my topic centers around these two countries because of sweatshop labor’s effects on their workers particularly. Bangladesh and Indonesia have received the most recognition in terms of the victims of sweatshop labor. Sweatshop regulation is needed in countries such as Bangladesh and Indonesia where their usage is capitalized on by major corporations in …show more content…
The first world’s reliance on Indonesia and Bangladesh add to their economy by supplementing jobs in a constantly growing field. America’s consistent consumer demand specifically in the clothing market relies on international producers. The previously mentioned Anti-Sweatshop campaigns, fighting for the closure of sweatshops, inevitably harm the garment workers. Westerners deciding what is best for overseas workers becomes hurtful when not considering the other conditions. Anti-Sweatshop campaigns advocate the boycotting or end for sweatshops, promoting fair labor. The basis of my thesis faults the companies using international labor should be fighting for it to be safe and fair. Antagonizing the sweatshops and the workers themselves leads to the unemployment of workers. Placing the responsibility of sweatshop regulation is too costly to be sustained by sweatshops. Sweatshops too expensive to be profitable are not useful to American companies, which leads companies to turn to other sweatshops. Therefore, sweatshops not supported in their regulation by the company they are producing for have to close, causing hundreds of workers’ unemployment.
This suggests that sweatshops are not the problem, but the Western companies are. The affected unemployed workers, mostly women and children, must make an income, which is why Indonesia’s human trafficking levels are inordinately high.