Sweatshops

Sweatshops are work environments that possess three major characteristics—long hours, low pay, and unsafe or unhealthy working conditions. Sweatshops may also have policies that severely restrict workers' freedoms, including limiting bathroom breaks and even conversations with fellow workers. At its worst, violence is used

against sweatshop workers. Sweatshops have been a factor in the production of goods around the world for centuries, but the globalization of business has led increasing numbers of major corporations to take advantage of low-cost sweatshop labor in developing countries. Recent examples of sweatshop conditions in the garment industry have caused an international outcry by labor leaders, activists, and government officials. Although manufacturers tend to deny it, sweatshops still exist, even in the United States.

THE HISTORY OF SWEATSHOPS

One of the earliest examples of a sweatshop was in the crude textile mills of Ecuador. Spanish conquerors put the native population to work in sweatshop conditions in the manufacture of cloth, rough garments, and assorted textile goods. The use of the term is more recently traced to working conditions in England's emerging manufacturing industries, where women and children sweated in jobs performed under horrid conditions: the work being monotonous, the hours long, and the pay miserably low. The British government established a Select Committee of the House of Lords on the Sweating System in 1889, thus publicly exposing the conditions for the first time. With massive immigration into the United States, especially beginning in the late 1880s, sweatshops became common in American cities on the east coast.

Southern and eastern European immigrants were easy prey for manufacturers who paid low wages and provided poor working conditions in factories. In many instances, the newly arrived immigrants were glad to have these sweating jobs at any wage, no matter how low. The situation in many of the new industries was ripe for sweatshops to develop. Social and economic conditions in most cities produced a large population from which to find workers willing to accept any wage and management systems that neglected the workers, thus removing any consideration of the human factor in manufacturing. Generally, workers lacked access to the kind of knowledge and resources that would enable them to overcome the impossible working conditions, while governments (both local and national), were unwilling to intervene on their behalf. Other characteristics of sweatshops included overcrowding, lack of sanitary conditions, no worker breaks or relief, demands to complete a task within a limited period of time, and—as important to the continuance of the sweatshop—a total lack of job security.

EFFORTS TO IMPROVE SWEATSHOPS

Initial efforts to correct or improve sweatshops in the United States began in 1884 with legislation in the state of New York to eliminate the production of tobacco products in homes—a practice common in the cigar industry. Similar state labor laws proved generally ineffective before trade unions were able to bring about slight relief. But it took federal minimum wage and maximum-hours legislation in 1938 before sweatshops began to disappear.

Making matters worse for the workers, there were few if any advocates for improving sweatshop conditions. The immigrants had virtually no voice in management or government. Many could not read or write—much less read and write in English—and were essentially pawns of often unscrupulous, profit-driven manufacturers. Educational opportunities were seldom available, and moving up the corporate ladder was not an option.

Though sweatshops have a long history in the United States, so do attempts to draw attention to them. Famously, Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel, The Jungle, was intended to draw attention to working conditions. However, the novel also drew attention to impurities in foods and instead inspired legislation about quality of foods. In the eighth edition of their classic study on the United States working class, Labor Problems: A Text Book, published in 1912, Thomas S. Adams and Helen Sumner outlined the three conditions in sweatshops and added a disturbing fourth: danger to the consumer's health from using goods manufactured in sweatshops. Few American consumers took notice, but union involvement in improving working conditions was quite evident beginning in the 1910s, especially in the garment industry.

The most infamous sweatshop incident in the United States occurred at the Triangle Waist Company, a garment company in New York City. On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the factory, resulting in the deaths of 146 workers, most of whom were young women. The fact that the owners had locked the factory's exits deeply contributed to the tragedy. This fire drew public outrage and attention to poor working and safety conditions in such factories; however, the factory's owners were acquitted of wrongdoing.

Another industry where sweatshop conditions often exist (and still do) is the agricultural industry, which employs a great many immigrants (both legal and illegal) for harvesting or picking fruits and vegetables. The working conditions include long daylight hours under a hot California or Florida sun with few or no breaks. Wages are quite low (often illegally so), but these workers seldom have the means or education to improve their plight, and all desperately need the money.

SWEATSHOPS IN MODERN INDUSTRY

Sweatshops have not been abolished to this day, as is evident in numerous recent examples in the apparel

industry that have brought national attention and government reaction to the issue. Garment manufacturers found new ways to finish goods in factories outside the United States, where labor costs were miniscule, and in these locations sweatshops flourished. In countries in South and Central America and Asia, such companies found a ready labor supply where wage expectations were low and the sweatshop thrived. Companies like Gap, Liz Claiborne, Kathie Lee Gifford, Nike, and Wal-Mart all came under criticism for marketing goods produced in sweatshops.

National attention was directed at these and other companies in the apparel industry through media outlets, and consumers were sometimes advised not to purchase certain brand names. Advocacy groups, particularly vibrant among college students (who got their start by refusing to buy college or university logo merchandise produced in sweatshops), organize consumer awareness of sweatshop conditions and attempt to pressure companies into ceasing their sweatshop-labor practices. A site was mounted on the Internet by Sweatshop Watch—a coalition of labor, community, civil rights, immigrant, and women's organizations (www.sweatshopwatch.org)—to further spread awareness and coalesce activist projects. Corpwatch (www.corpwatch.org) is another organization that monitors corporate practices, including the use of sweatshop labor.

Though most modern sweatshops exist in poorer and developing countries, it is important to note that sweat-shop conditions can exist anywhere there is a vulnerable population, including inside the United States. In this case, immigrants and undocumented workers can be especially susceptible to sweatshop labor and practices. In 2006, a factory in Massachusetts was raided by authorities. The factory's workers included over 300 undocumented workers. Newspaper reports of the event repeatedly described the factory as a sweatshop.

Though garment and agricultural sweatshops are the most infamous examples, it is important to note that sweatshop conditions can exist in other industries as well. For instance, in 2006 Apple faced allegations that its iPod product was being produced in China under sweatshop conditions. Apple was quick to respond to these charges, launching its own investigation; however, the Apple example also points out how difficult combating sweat-shops can be. Apple's official policy sets conditions against sweatshops.

The Apple incident illustrates how sweatshops can thrive with such practices as outsourcing. BusinessWeek has reported that although many multinational companies have specific policies against sweatshop practices, outsourced suppliers in countries such as China still operate such facilities and can be savvy in terms of hiding these practices, even to corporate clients.

Unfortunately, the problem of sweatshops is likely to deepen. Structural adjustment programs, which are often imposed on developing countries by major financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, are among the hallmarks of the global economy. These programs, which derive from liberal capitalist economic theories, can act indirectly as barriers against labor laws and labor organization (under the logic that these constitute threats to free trade) while deregulating the flow of foreign investment. Hence, the prevailing social and economic climate makes sweatshop labor not only possible, but attractive (and for some industries, almost necessary).

The geographer Mona Domosh has also observed that sweatshops are heavily populated by women. She notes that women are often used in labor in what are termed “Export Processing Zones,” also highlighting how globalization has compounded the problem of sweatshops.

In addition, the governments of many developing nations are reluctant to enforce strong worker-protection laws. They view cheap labor as one of the major assets they can offer to attract investment by multinational companies, which creates jobs and provides capital for development. These governments argue that all of the major developed nations limited worker rights early in their economic histories, and that they should be allowed to do so as well, with the goal of eventually achieving the prosperity that would enable them to eliminate sweat-shops. They also claim that sweatshops often provide the best wages and working conditions available to workers in the developing world, who might otherwise be condemned to prostitution, begging, or subsistence farming.

Meanwhile, popular organizing against sweatshop labor is also gaining momentum. These groups try to capitalize on the knowledge that, if the general public were aware of the conditions in which certain consumer items were produced, they would refrain from buying them. Improved global communications, using such tools as satellite and the Internet, make it easy to disseminate information about the business activities of multinational corporations in developing nations. Activists hope that consumer pressure will force companies to become more socially responsible or face devastating negative publicity, like that experienced by Nike and Gap.

Gap provides a recent example of bad publicity because of sweatshops. In late 2007, it was revealed that some of the company's clothes were being produced by young children in India. Though Gap had policies and procedures to prevent the use of sweatshops and children in the production process, it was a subcontractor that was operating the facility. The company responded to this bad publicity by announcing plans for a “Sweatshop Free” label for its clothing. Gap also pledged to increase its monitoring of subcon-tractors and overseas factories.

Co-op America, sponsor of the “No Sweat!” program to end sweatshop labor, recommends that individuals and businesses take the following steps to aid the cause: organize local community groups to support a sweatshop-free purchasing law in local or state government; investigate companies with which you do business and insist they maintain good records on labor issues; use your clout as a shareholder to encourage companies to treat employees fairly; and purchase union-made, local, and fair-trade approved goods. Businesses can submit to workplace monitoring under programs run by the Fair Labor Association, Social Accountability International, or Worldwide Responsible Apparel Production.

SEE ALSO Ethics; Globalization; International Management; Multinational Corporations

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