English Essay- Sweatshop work culture

This essay discusses the working conditions, wages, and working hours of sweatshops in developing countries. It highlights the exploitation of workers and the need for ethical practices in sweatshops.

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English Essay- Sweatshop work culture
Student Name and ID-
University-

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Introduction
This research essay will be based on the writing by Rubi Garyfalakis, “No Sweat?” (Garyfalakis,
n.d) and will highlight three introductory strategies and three point thesis statement of some
current issues related to sweatshop of developing countries. The three introductory strategies
are:
1) To understand the working condition of sweatshop;
2) To understand the wages pattern of sweatshop;
3) To understand the working hours of sweatshop.
Three thesis statements are:
1) The workshop working conditions are worst for the employees;
2) The wage pattern of sweatshop workers are not as per the regulations set by authorities;
3) Sweatshops normally exercise extended working hours to exploit the workers.
It is observed that often the sweatshop workers are not provided with standard wages, are bound
to work in poor working conditions with extended working hours; and due to their helplessness
for living life, they have to accept these criteria for working. Due to global awareness on these
issues, the buyers of first world try to raise their voice with the working conditions of third world
community to ensure better living standard for them by restricted approach to the products of
sweatshops available in the market.
Long Quotation

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“Hours are long. Wages are pitiful. But sweatshops are the symptom, not the cause, of
shocking global poverty. Workers go there voluntarily, which means—hard as it is to believe—
that whatever their alternatives are, they are worse. They stay there, too; turnover rates of
multinational-owned factories are low, because conditions and pay, while bad, are better than
those in factories run by local firms. And even a local company is likely to pay better than trying
to earn money without a job: running an illegal street stall, working as a prostitute, or combing
reeking landfills in cities like Manila to find recyclable goods.”- Tim Harford- the undercover
economist.
Main Supporting Point 1-Working conditions
It is often found that sweatshop concept is mainly prevalent in third world countries. Different
apparel manufacturers of first world countries place their orders to manufacturers of those
countries for cost effectiveness. The working conditions of these sweatshops are horrible with
non-maintenance of basic working conditions. The workers are forced to work in those working
environments, which are not endorsed by the standard working conditions as set in global
perspective. In the article, Working Conditions, Work Outcomes and Policy in Asian Developing
Countries published in ADB Economics Working Paper Series of September 2016, the authors
emphasized in this aspect. In this article, the reference of Harrison and Scores(2010) was
highlighted to the fact that the South Asian sweatshop workers are not working in the ideal
working conditions with lower wages to produce the outcomes in lesser costs. This problem had
attracted serious concern for the government, the corporations and the buyers of the first world.
It is evident that mostly women work in those sweatshops to better their life style. Hence the

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working condition constraints are compromised by them for non-availability of other option.
(Robertson, Di, Brown, & Dehejia, 2016)
Main Supporting Point 2-Wages Imparity
In the article Sweatshops and Third World Living Standards: Are the Jobs Worth the Sweat? by
Benjamin Powell and David B. Skarbek published in Independent Institute website in 2004, it is
emphasized that although the payments made by MNCs are higher than domestic rates, the
money was not passed on to the workers, as they work under domestic sub-contractors. The basic
concept of economics related sweatshops is generated from the exchange concept of gain for
both employers and the workers. The workers enter into a labor-contract with non-disclosure of
wages to third-part observers. Main economical observations are based on the concept of wages
passed on to the sub-contractors by the original manufacturers, which defies the concept of
passing on those wages to the workers. This is sheer exploitation of the poverty of workers and
the situation pushes the workers to accept the wages as offered by sub-contractors through their
labor-contract, without knowing the actual wages passed on to the sub-contractors for the allotted
jobs. (Powell & Skarbek, 2004)
Given below the average wage-rate of apparel worker for different third world countries to
assess:

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Main Supporting Point 3-Working hours
The concept of standard working hours is well accepted in the global market. But the same
concept is not respected by the sub-contractors of sweatshops of third world countries. It is often
observed that child labor is utilized for long hours without any specific time limit to work along
with other male and female workers. This situation happens due to pressure of labor-contractor
to get maximum out from the labor force. (Fagerstorm, 2016) This is unethical from the
viewpoint of workers’ physical and mental health. They are bound to work in such condition for
poverty, and the sub-contractors take the advantage of the situation by exploiting their efforts by
non-respect of their human rights.
Conclusion
As sweatshop is under scanned from different viewpoints related to working conditions, wages
and working hours, it is evident from different scholarly articles of the critiques that the tendency
of making more profit by exploiting the human resource is evident in this work practice. The
products of sweatshops may be boycotted, but that will give rise to more complexity regarding
the products or the brand. Hence the ethical part of this work culture should be practiced in third

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world countries related to sweatshop to honor the human being as their own status, and not
treating them as slaves for delivering the coveted level of output for individual profit making
machinery. Honor human being and don’t exploit them for personal benefit is the catch line of
this essay.

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R3ferences:
Fagerstorm, M. (2016). Sweatshops, Child Labor, and the Global Economy. U S: Medium Corporation.
Garyfalakis, R. (n.d). No Sweat. 286-288.
Powell, B., & Skarbek, D. B. (2004). Sweatshops and Third World Living Standards: Are the Jobs Worth
the Sweat? Independent Indtitute.
Robertson, R., Di, H., Brown, D., & Dehejia, R. (2016). Working Conditions, Work Outcomes and Policy in
Asian Developing Countries. ADB Economics Working Paper Series , 8-12.

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