1. Labour as Slavery

4. “Liu [a worker] also found that Chun Si's [the factory] 900 workers were locked in the walled factory compound for all but a total of 60 minutes a day for meals. Guards regularly punched and hit workers for talking back to managers or even for walking too fast, he says. And they fined them up to $1 for infractions such as taking too long in the bathroom. Liu left the factory for good in December, after he and about 60 other workers descended on the local labor office to protest Chun Si's latest offenses: requiring cash payments for dinner and a phony factory it set up to dupe Wal-Mart's auditors. In his pocket was a total of $6 for three months of 90-hour weeks--an average of about one-half cent an hour. ''Workers there face a life of fines and beating,'' says Liu.”
- Excerpt from: Dexter Roberts & Aaron Bernstein, Bloomberg Businessweek, [

5. “In his New York Times Magazine article titled Two Cheers for Sweatshops, columnist Nicholas Kristof endorsed sweatshops by explaining that when he first moved to Asia he, “like most Westerners,” was outraged at the sweatshops, but eventually came to appreciate them as “a clear sign of the industrial revolution that is beginning to reshape Asia.” He pointed out that “Asian workers would be aghast at the idea of American consumers boycotting certain toys or clothing in protest. The simplest way to help the poorest Asians would be to buy more from sweatshops, not less.”
- Excerpt from: Jason Hickel, The Epoch Times, [

6. Sweatshops Check your tag - where was your shirt made?
More than likely produced in a “sweat shop”
Should these workers be considered to be winners or losers from globalization?
Consider sweatshop labor conditions in Bangladesh 
Do developed countries have a responsibility to prevent exploitation by sweatshops in developing countries?
What can we do to address poor labor conditions elsewhere?
Are sweatshops the cause of poverty or a symptom of it? 

7. Brief History of Sweatshop Labor

9. It is estimated that 2.5 million people worldwide are in forced labour as a result of trafficking
1.4M (56%) in Asia and South Pacific
270,000 (10.8%)in industrialized countries
250,000 (10%) in Latin America and Caribbean
230,000 (9.2%) in Middle East and Northeastern Africa
200,000 (8%) in transition countries
130,000 (5.2%) in sub-Saharan countries
Estimated $31.6B made from trafficking each year

10. “Our wages are not enough for us to eat well
“Our wages are not enough for us to eat well. We eat only enough to sustain us. We cannot afford to buy fruit, milk, eggs or other nutritious things with our basic pay. We cannot save money, and even if you work 30 or 40 years, you cannot buy a house. It is very sad.” Mega, Indonesian garment worker employed at a Gap plant
“The factory is very dusty. We can’t escape breathing in the fibers and particles from the air. When we cough, if the t-shirt we were working on was made of blue fabric, then our mucous would be full of blue fibers.” Tebello, Lesotho garment worker who has watched family members become seriously ill as a result of working in a Gap plant

11. “If we make simple mistakes, they beat us up and they don’t pay us for our work.” Nanti, Bangladesh garment worker
“We organized a union because conditions were so bad in our factory. But then we lost our jobs when the Gap pulled its orders and our factory was closed down.” Deisy, ex-Gap worker in El Salvador

12. A look at costs: The cost of a pair of Gap blue jeans at retail: $39
Amount workers are paid for each pair of jeans: $0.27
Added cost to a pair of jeans if workers’ wages are doubled: $0.27
Would you be willing to pay $0.27 more so the worker who sewed your jeans is paid a fair wage?
Why do you think corporations buy from sweatshops? (higher profits)
Are there sweatshops in the US? (yes, especially in US territories like Saipan)

13. Do you think we should close sweatshops? Why or why not?

14. Child Labour

15. “Child labour perpetuates poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, population growth and other social problems.” -Kailash Satyarthi “Child labour and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labour of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labour to the end of time.” -Grace Abbott

16. Why might children be forced to work?
Lack of decent jobs for adults.
Large families require a variety of incomes to feed their members.
Some jobs require small hands and bodies (sewing, crawling in small spaces).
Agriculture jobs pay by the amount of produce picked. This system encourages families to bring more children into the field to help collect farmed goods.
Poor families can't afford to send their children to school.
It is cheaper to pay small children because they are less likely to complain than adults.
Many families around the world are unfamiliar with the rights of their children and deem it acceptable to send children to work.
Girls are often kept at home to look after younger children and do household chores.
Families think that school won't help their children survive. Therefore, they send children to work where they can make money to feed themselves and family members.
Migrant children don't live in one place long enough to attend school; instead they work in the fields with their parents.

17. Do any of the above reasons justify child labour?
Should children work to help feed their families?
What if a parent is disabled or incapable of providing food for the family, should the child forego school and work instead?

18. Are there any jobs that children, under any circumstance, should not be permitted to do?
Any jobs that are considered “hazardous work”.
Manufacturing or storing explosives
Driving a motor vehicle and being an outside helper on a motor vehicle.
Coal mining.
Logging and sawmilling.
Power-driven wood-working machines.
Exposure to radioactive substances and ionizing radiants.
Power-driven metal forming, punching, and shearing metal.
Mining, other than coal mining.
Meat-packing or processing (including power-driven meat slicing machines).
Operation of bakery machines.
Operation of paper product machines.
Manufacturing brick, tile and related products.
Power driven circular saw, band saws and guillotine shears.
Wrecking, demolition and ship breaking operations.
Roofing operations.
Excavation operations.

19. What’s Going On? Child Labour in Brazil 

20. What is the difference between a sweatshop and slavery?
The difference between slavery and extremely exploitative labor can be a thin line.
Sweatshop workers are exploited by being paid very little, forced to work long hours and often abused at their workplace.
Slaves are subjected to all these conditions, but additionally they have lost their free will — they cannot walk away. Most slaves are paid nothing at all, and the physical and psychological violence used against them is so complete that they cannot escape their slavery. 

21. Features of a Sweatshop
Workplace Conditions
Low wages
Long work hours
Health and/or safety hazards
Arbitrary discipline by managers or owners
No job security
Physical abuse, threats and intimidation
Workers have no voice in government
Child labor
(Note: These conditions result in a sweatshop when they occur in combination, are taken to an extreme and last a long time.)

22. Contributing Factors Dense populations Limited education
High unemployment
Few job alternatives
Extreme poverty
Workers with low productivity
No social safety net
Corrupt, weak or undemocratic government
Secrecy and lack of workplace transparency, often in places without a free press
No system of justice to protect basic rights
Consumer ignorance about or neglect of the plight of sweatshop workers

23. “The superior person understands what is moral
“The superior person understands what is moral. The small person understands what is profitable.”
- Confucius