Sweatshop Labor A Global Horror By: Dèyadra Nicole Straughter

What Will We Learn Today?  What a sweatshop is  What sweatshops are intended for  The pros and cons of sweatshop labor  Acts to stop them  Ratio of men to women in sweatshops  Conditions working in sweatshops  Wages  And much more!

What Is A Sweatshop  Sweatshop- a factory or workshop in the clothing industry (usually made up of illegal immigrants) where manual workers are employed at low wages for long hours under poor working environments.  Mexican Maquiladora- the term for sweatshops in Mexico generally with harsher conditions than most

The Sweatshop  They’ve existed since the 16 th century and still exist in the present  Where intended to give jobs to immigrants to make cheap clothing, shoes and other apparel  Although they have been existent since the 16 th century sweatshops weren’t exposed until 1889 by the British government  Exposure stated poor factories manufacturing clothing for low wages harsh hours and extremely poor working conditions  Now they are opposite of initial intentions

Conditions  Low wages (pay as low as $0.13 and hour)  Long hours (some work as much 15 hour days while others do not get to leave at all)  High health risks (fumes from machinery, overheated areas, unsanitary environments, etc.)  Filthy rat infested environments  Crowded (especially women’s living quarters)  Barbed wire fences monitored by armed guards to prevent escape

Conditions Continued…  Since women cannot have visitors or can rarely leave they have no chance of getting help from the outside to escape the madness  Brutal management (beat and rape the women in Mexican Maquiladoras)  Children ages 5 and up work in these sweatshops  Woman are treated worse of all being beaten, raped, paid lower wages than the normal and brutal punishments

Women in Maquiladoras  Sweatshops are 90% female age  Women in the sweatshop world are treated worse than the grounds walked upon  The worse that has happened would be murder of those who try to escape the conditions  Rape, sexual harassment and being threatened are more common  They are given a Depo-Provera shot to prevent pregnancies and menstruation. This also reduces vacation time (which they don’t get anyway) and increases productivity.  In addition sweatshops also fail to pay employees if they even pay them at all!

Workers Rights  Most sweatshop laborers are unaware of their human rights.  With no choice but to work, they get threatened or punished for insubordination (defiance of authority)  Many people including President Roosevelt have brought awareness of the topic and have created ways to show the workers that they have right such as the Fair Labor Standards Act  This act prohibited child labor, overtime requirements, and made minimum wage to be $0.25

Wages  Sweatshops are the lowest paying jobs and the people that work within them can barely feed themselves or their children  Third world countries have the lowest wages like Bangladesh with an hourly wage of $0.13  Immigrants make up majority of sweatshops and in exchange for their life they work 15 hours days with wages such as this

Wages Chart Here is a chart of hourly wages earned in 2004

Ratio  The ratio of men and women in the sweatshop industry is usually 2 less me for every three women  Even without an actual set ratio there are way more women than men in the sweatshop industry  In Japan women earned less than 48% of what men earned  That’s almost half of what they don’t make!

Ratio Chart

Pros and Cons  Pros of the sweatshop industry would be:  The economic gain in which they have giving jobs to millions of people  Serving the buy/consume chain  Cons are they bring global shame to women and rights of workers  Sweatshops are a health topic, civil rights right’s topic, women’s rights topic, child labor law violation and much more

Stop The Madness!  Sweatshops can be bettered or even stopped!  It always starts with problem however this one ends with a solution!  Nike has already begun to help the cause by increasing wages and giving their employees food and benefits as well as shelter.  Petitions and protests are the root of problems solved  Its up to the world to make this issue either cease or improve altogether

We don’t want this

We Want This!

Thank for your time questions? Comments?