Article # 1- Is a story coming from the perspective of Paty Leyva who works in a sweatshop in Mexico. Paty say's " with maquiladora wages, we can't afford milk, meat, chicken, fruit, or new clothes, and building a house with more than two rooms is luxury" she added. There are close to 1 million maquiladora workers in Mexico. A big percent of the workers are girls and young women from the ages of 14- 20 years old. They work 10- hour shifts six days a week and very few breaks. They work in harsh conditions and industrial accidents and toxic exposures are by no means uncommon. On average workers make between $0.80 to $1.25 an hour and are unaware of their right under Mexico's labor code.
I think that reading about this is sad because sometimes as just teenagers without having to support anybody and have to buy food we sometimes think that minimum wage ($5.50) is not enough per hour. Then you read these stories about adults who make at the most $1.25 per hour and do harder work then anyone in this world and have families to support. I just wish I could help them. .
Article # 2- This article is about how 7 workers filed a lawsuit on Bebe because of the conditions that the people in their factories have to work in. Bebe has been using these factories for more than 10 years. These people who work in the factories for Bebe have to work 6 days a week and have 10- 12- hour days. The owners change the workers time cards, they do not pay minimum wage, don't pay overtime, do not give their workers rest or meal breaks, they verbally abuse, humiliate, harass and threaten their workers. They ignore the workers injuries and force them to keep working, they fire workers for speaking up, and when workers get fired they blacklist them so they can never get another job.
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I think this is terrible they don't let them take at least one eating break. I know how much I get hungry if I haven't eaten in 4 hours if I had to wait 10- 12 hours everyday to eat I would die.
