Sweatshops, the Good, Bad, and the Ugly

           

Sweatshops are a rather controversial aspect of globalization. There are those who argue that it stimulates the economies of developing countries and provides people who desperately need jobs with jobs. Whilst others argue that basic human rights are violated in sweatshops and that workers are treated less than poorly. I would argue that there is truth to both points of view and that they both deserve to be analyzed further.

So first off what even are sweatshops? Well, I took to the web to find that definition. The Oxford dictionary defined sweatshops as: “A factory or workshop, especially in the clothing industry, where manual workers are employed at very low wages for long hours and under poor conditions”. This definition obviously does not have a positive connotation to it and brings to mind a factory where basic human rights are violated. Interestingly, when I looked at other definitions from other sources such as the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Wikipedia, and Google, I found that the definitions of “sweatshop” from those sources too had negative connotations to them, and used words such as “poor”, “unhealthy”, “inhumane”, etc in their definitions. What this means to me is that it’s accepted that sweatshops are cruel and generally inhumane and that the issue of sweatshops being cruel and inhumane isn’t exactly where the controversy lies. Instead, it seems to me that the reason for all the controversy behind sweatshops is because people are aware of all the pain and suffering going on in sweatshops and dismiss it, or justify it as being part of an economic process.  

           

As the world globalizes there is undoubtedly a great deal of inequality in the global system. Many developing countries, especially in the global south, are not as economically or socially developed as other countries in the global system and are therefore highly disadvantaged. These countries are usually in need of some sort of economic development to help them catch up with the rest of the world so to speak. Many large western corporations are aware of this and are more than willing to “help”. They do this by bringing their manufacturing to those countries, this is especially

convenient for them as they can manufacture products cheaper in developing countries than in western ones, as developing countries have laxer workers’ rights laws and, and the western corporations can get away with paying significantly lower wages because of the high value of western currencies in the global south. Now, to me, this in itself, seems to be questionable, but from the mainstream economic viewpoint, it doesn’t seem that bad. In their article on why sweatshops aren’t bad Benjamin Powell and David Skarbek of San Jose State University, argue that “the apparel industry has been widely criticized for ‘exploiting’ Third World workers in sweatshops, but the data show that these workers are better off than most of their countrymen” (Powell, Skarbek, 9). What these economists argue is that the conditions in those developing countries are usually so bad that sweatshop jobs, as terrible as they may be, provide people with at least some money and job security, and that is better than none. Of course, that is a very good point, and it is true. Sweatshop jobs do provide impoverished families with an income, which is something they would struggle to find without the jobs. This kind of economic perspective views this situation from an “absolute gains” point of view wherein corporations gain more in operating sweatshops than if they didn’t operate sweatshops, and developing countries gain more from having sweatshops than if they didn’t have sweatshops. According to this perspective, it’s a win-win situation. This is all good and true but this perspective doesn’t focus on the humanitarian aspect of sweatshops.

The conditions in sweatshops are terrible. Workers, mostly women, are overworked, sexually harassed, abused, underplayed, and fired for being too old. The film we watched in class The Hidden Face of Globalization brought light to these abuses. Footage from the film showed the unhealthy conditions workers were forced to work in. Workers were crammed into small unventilated rooms, were beaten for being too slow, had a mere 5 minutes to eat their only meal of the day, etc. Some of the workers were interviewed and asked about what it was like to work in a sweatshop, and none of them had anything positive to say, and to top off all those abuses, the wages were so low, that workers couldn’t even afford necessities, yet alone have enough money to stimulate the economy. In one instance during the film, it was argued by a labor rights activist in Bangladesh, that merely a few cent increases would be enough to help lift many of the workers out of extreme poverty, yet when a group of workers at a Disney sweatshop unionized for the very purpose of asking for better pay and slightly better labor practices, Disney closed the sweatshop, and left all its employees jobless, just like that. So why would corporations be so bent on saving every penny? There are many that would argue that the corporations simply cannot afford to pay workers more because that would increase the production costs and thus increase the selling cost in the West and result in lower sales. However, this is not necessarily true. According to John Miller, who writes for Challenge an Economics and Business Journal, economists Robert Pollin, James Heintz, and Justine Burns examined the impact that a 100% increase in the wages of apparel workers in Mexico would have on the retail prices of garments in America. In their study, they found that doubling the wage of workers in sweatshops would only add about 50 cents to the price of a men’s shirt sold for $32 (Miller, 108). That increase in price is extremely minimal and well within the range of the average American consumer.

           

This issue of corporations not wanting to pay its workers enough is motivated by greed, but I would also argue that it is motivated by a sort of fear. The corporations are paying workers just enough so that they will come back for more, whilst not paying workers enough to actually stimulate the development of any sorts. Because what happens when countries develop? Countries become more independent, they become better at sustaining themselves, more jobs become available, and social rights start becoming more of a concern, all of which make it more difficult and expensive for corporations trying to manufacture abroad. This would explain why in The Hidden Face of Globalization, Disney closed its factory as soon as there was unionization. Unionization empowers people to fight for their rights, if Disney were to allow that behavior, they would be normalizing workers’ rights, which could have adverse consequences for them in the future, such as workers asking for even more rights, or the undeveloped country becoming too developed. It’s a classic example of exploitation by purposely maintaining a status quo. Of course, these future “adverse consequences” wouldn’t be nearly as adverse as the CEO’s would seem to think, and it wouldn’t have a drastic consequence on the retail price of goods in the west, but it would undermine a corporation’s power and influence.

             All in all, I think that sweatshops are an aspect of globalization that is problematic. In theory, they can be extremely beneficial to the development of a country and can help bring people out of extreme poverty, but that is only in theory, and they don’t seem to be doing that.  I think that sweatshops do have the potential to help people and to stimulate development, but for that to happen corporations need to improve working conditions and pay. They are more than capable of doing this, but they don’t because, in a world where corporations are constantly competing against each other, you must do what it takes to stay ahead, even if it means abusing the rights of a countless number of individuals and contributing to their suffering.  That is a problematic viewpoint, and it requires a fundamental shift in how we view competition in our society.

I will admit that I am not an economist and more biased towards a humanitarian perspective. There are things about the issue of sweatshops that I do not understand and I would be more interested in learning about some more pro-sweatshop arguments. But even so, I do think that as humankind progresses, it is our responsibility to do what we can to make our civilization a better place. Some may argue that getting rid of sweatshops will destabilize the world economy, and that may be true to a certain degree, but when did humankind ever get anywhere by accepting the status quo? We can eliminate unjust labor practices, we can make sweatshops beneficial to the development of the global south, it may be difficult, there may be a few negative consequences, but it is possible to change. All it requires is the kind of unique and creative thinking that has helped us move forward thus far. 

Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. “Hidden Face of Globalization.” 3 Apr. 2007. Web.

Miller, John. “Why Economists Are Wrong About Sweatshops and the Antisweatshop Movement.” Challenge, vol. 46, no. 1, 2003, pp. 93–122. www.jstor.org/stable/40722184.

Powell, Benjamin, and David Skarbek. "Sweatshops and third world living standards: Are the jobs worth the sweat?" Journal of Labor Research 27.2 (2006): 263-74. Web. <http://www.independent.org/publications/working_papers/article.asp?id=1369>.