According to the US department of
Labor, the term Sweatshop means any factory that violates some of the basic
labor laws by providing poor working conditions, unfair payments, and low wage
rates, long working hours, child labor, and no any extra benefit to workers. About
child labor, many studies conducted showed that the causes are economic deviation,
unethical behaviors in employment decisions and high poverty level in
developing countries. Related to such studies, an estimated figure of over 250
million children between the age of 5 and 14 falls into forced labor.100
million form these children are exposed to risky working conditions with lower wages
rate. As stated by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the rise in
poverty index particularly in developing nations like Asia, India, North Korea,
South Korea, Jamaica and most parts of Africa is a result of factors such as
poor resource distribution, money embezzlement, rise in forced labor, low
salaries and poor production strategies.
Even though employment issue is a
global concern, products such as shoes, rugs, chocolate, toys, bananas and many
others contributed toward Sweatshops issue since the people involved in such working
conditions only work for food and family survival. In 2012, the report by
National Labor Committee (NLC) shown that women involved in sewing NBA jersey
are only capable of making up to 24 cents for every garment that will be
sell at minimum price of 145 $.
In other words, the report by NLC is illustration of the low wages the sweatshops
employees get, which is common in most Sweatshops. In 2000, the report released
by the US Labor Department shown a number of 11000 Sweatshops violating minimum
wage laws and regulations. All these issues are vital to mention when the
government is fully committed to developing policies that will help minimize
poverty levels in our societies.
As already mentioned, the rise in
Sweatshops and its complications can only be viewed unethical when there are life
opportunities and employment alternatives. As long as there are economic
imbalances and unemployment, Sweatshops remain the only alternative source of
employment. Some of the ethical issues mentioned in this case such as rise in
poverty levels, less concern by the government to establish equal employment
within the existing industries and the rise in labor supply are only considered
violations. Many of ethical issues such as long working hours, poor working
conditions, job insecurity, lower wages rates, and favoritism are some of the reasons
that make Sweatshops be an alternative employment decision. If these conditions
can be improved, then Sweatshops would become an important employment decision
to mention in our societies.
On issues of long working hours,
employees in Sweatshops urged to work for long hours in order to increase the
payment they receive at the end of the day. The long working hours, overnight
shifts and doing more than one job are considered infringement towards
employee’s free will. The Sweatshops nature of the work is intended to extend
outside the normal working hours with little or no compensations. Obviously,
employers in Sweatshops take advantage of the needs of their workers and
subject them to never-ending tasks. Other than long working hours, employees
are subjected to poor working conditions and high environmental risks. Most
Sweatshops are built in either suburbs or countryside. However employment terms
compel employers to ensure safer and secure working conditions for their
employees, owners of Sweatshops have never showed the interest to provide the
needed environmental protection and employees’ health insurance. The need to
protect workers against environmental infections in Sweatshops is necessary and
putting such into practice has high costs, which managers need to skip.
In addition to the mentioned ethical issues,
employees in Sweatshops have always complained of job insecurity. In this case,
the rate at which employees lose their jobs is very high in Sweatshops. The general
argument here is that the number of people seeking for jobs rises each day and
any form of confrontation would cause immediate replacement. Therefore, the employees
are afraid and cannot fight for their employment rights as stated in most Labor
Acts. Finally, employees within Sweatshops have limited control over the amount
of payment they receive at the end of their service. In most cases, employers have
exploited their workers with an aim of improving the businesses and making
greater profits. Using employees’ effort as a stepping-stone and denying such
employees their payment rights is big violation to the stated employment
policies.
Following the mentioned ethical
issues, one would argue that the rise in Sweatshops is an alternative for
global unemployment situations and the rise in human population. As observed,
there seems to be an inverse relationship between human population growth and
establishment of industries and this factor compels people for alternative
employment decisions. In My opinion the only proposal that would help in
solving ethical issues in Sweatshops is all governments across the world have
to create high demand for labor by establishing more industries, businesses and
other employment opportunity. With such a plan, Sweatshops would be forced to
adjust their employment terms and create friendly working conditions in order
to remain competitive in the labor market.
In general, from the perspectives
of economic imbalances, we expect terms of employment to be different to a
particular nation. For example, a person would be earning more for a particular
job in USA while an individual using even more input for the same job
description in Asia will be earning less. The diversities in compensation are
due to unleveled economic development, which again is the main cause of rise in
Sweatshops. Just as already mentioned working in Sweatshops is therefore an
alternative to unemployment and is considered better than staying idle and
unproductive. The emergence of Sweatshops is important as a plan to solve
unemployment problem in different nations and since big companies are more
concerned with improving their production standards than diversifying through
employment, employee’s exploitation within Sweatshops is justifiable. The only
concern is the extent to which the exploitation occurs and the implication it
has on the entire working population.
