Blood, Sweat, and Shears: A Closer Look at Sweatshops.
How can you tell if the product you are about to purchase was made by a child, by teenaged girls forced to work until midnight seven days a week, or in a sweatshop by workers paid 9
• an hour? The sad fact is.You cannot. The companies do not want you to know, so they hide their production behind locked factory gates, barbed wire and armed guards. Many multinationals refuse to release to the American people even the list and addresses of the factories they use around the world to make the goods we purchase. The corporations say we have no right to this information. Even the President of the United States could not find out where these companies manufacture their goods. Yet, to shop with our conscience, it is our right to know in which countries and factories, under what human rights conditions, and at what wages the products we purchase are made. This paper will be a behind the scenes look at what really happens behind the closed door of sweatshops.
The terms "sweatshop- and "sweating- were first used in the 19th century to describe a subcontracting system where the middlemen earned their profit from the margin between the amount they received from a contract and the amount they paid workers. This margin was "sweated- from the workers because they received minimal wages for excessive hours worked under unsanitary conditions (Mason, 33). .
This concept of sweating comes alive again in today's garment industry which is best described as a pyramid where big-name retailers and brand-name manufacturers contract with sewing shops, who in turn hire garment workers to make the finished product. Retailers and manufacturers at the top of the pyramid dictate how much workers earn in wages by controlling the contract price given to the contractor. With these prices declining each year by as much as 25%, contractors are forced to "sweat- a profit from garment workers by working them long hours at low wages (Mason, 34).
Although some gains have been made, retailers have responded with public relations campaigns to ignore the reality of sweat shop crisis. A shift in the terms of the debate over sweat shop workers rights occurred in 1996. ...
There were the central business districts, where banks, shops, theatres, firms, and businesses were found. ... Small slums and ghettos were scattered around the inner city generally close to industrial activities like factories and sweat shops. ...
A teenager's first instinct is to race through a shopping center on a self indulging shopping binge, but with the financial assistance I had promised my family, I was unable to do so. ... Expecting to lose such a significant portion of your money that was earned with your sweat teaches the first like skill thrust upon me: fiscal maturity. ...
She worked in a Cigar shop in Cleveland, Ohio for nominal pay. The conditions in this were terrible and can easily be referred to as a "sweat-shop." The children working in the shop were worked long hours with occasionally defective materials but were driven to produce more at a faster rate. The owner of the shop was very greedy and unfair. ... As the owner became wealthier, he increased the size of his operation from a shop to a full-fledged factory. ...
Development is separated into two parts, social and economic development. It involves measures of productivity, incomes, purchasing power, and consumption. The development occurs in wealthy countries but has a huge effect on the poor countries. They affect them by multinational corporations and p...
I wake up just early enough to throw on a pair of ratty old sweat pants and my favorite sweater, tattered from years of abuse. ... I must get to the corner coffee shop. ... I see the shop! ... My heart beats faster and faster, and my palms begin to sweat. ...
Some consequences of the experiment were recognized, as some participants became conditioned to the sweat and exercise habits. ... Some even reported that arousal to sweating without the exercise, such as returning from grocery shopping, became a conditioned stimulus that elicited the arousal response. ...
Symptoms of withdrawal generally include but are not limited to anxiety, irritability, intense cravings for the substance, nausea, hallucinations, headaches, cold sweats, and tremors.... The abuser is sometimes not able to handle all that comes with the withdrawal, such as sweating, trembling, hallucinations and constipation. ... Activity abuse addictions such as sex, gambling and shopping are not as prominent or noticeable as substance abuse addictions. ...
Finally, in the first century BC sweating rooms (laconicum) and windows were added. ... The baths were enlarged one last time, when the circular sweating room was added, around 80 BC. ... In addition to the baths, sweat rooms, sports grounds, latrine and dressing rooms; they were equipped with swimming pool, running track, gardens, tanning areas, shops and even libraries. ... Ingenuous solutions were also found to regulate the temperature level in the sweating room. A hole in the dome of the sweating room at the Stabian baths was fitted with a bronze disc that could be raised or lowe...