Sweat Shops Essay

THESIS ESSAY ASSIGNMENT

What is a sweatshop really? Well the American Heritage Dictionary defines a
sweatshop as a shop or factory in which employees work long hours at low wages under
poor conditions. If someone had heard this definition of sweatshops they would go
straight to the assumption that sweatshops are not good. But they do have some good in
them. They keep workers away from bad things such as prostitution and crimes. They
also boost the countries economy and give them a means of survival. That"s what
sweatshop defenders would say which is not completely true. Not only do sweatshop
workers not get enough money to feed themselves and their families, they are subjected
to exploitation, and horrible working conditions.

Firstly Sweatshops are bad because pay isn"t even enough to feed themselves and

their families. They are paid less than their daily expenses and are never able to save any

money to improve their lives. They are trapped in an awful cycle of exploitation. There

are hundreds of stories of sweatshop workers not receiving enough money to support

themselves and their families.   For example in China, workers at Wellco Factory making

shoes for Nike are paid 16 cents/hour(living wage for a small family is about 87 cents),

11-12 hour shifts, 7 days a week, 77-84 hours per week; workers are fined if they refuse

overtime, and they"re not paid an extra rate for overtime hours. Also in a village in the

Mekong delta in Vietnam women and children sit all day in the burning scorching sun

from five in the morning until five in the evening making straw beach mats. For their

labour they receive $1 a day.  

Secondly sweatshops are bad because they treat employees badly. These

Bangladeshi women will further prove the horrible treatment sweatshop workers face in a

daily bases. Women in Bangladeshi factories labour 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a

week with just one or two days off a...