Sweatshops

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Sweatshops
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Overview of Topics

• General Questions about Sweatshops
• Case Study
• Companies involved with Sweatshops
• Fighting Back Anti Sweatshop Organizations
• Relating to Labour Studies

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What is a Sweatshop?

• Employer that violates more than one labour law
• Factory where workers are subject to extreme
  exploitation, including low wages, no benefits,
  filthy and/or dangerous working conditions,
  denial of their worker and human rights.

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Where Do They Exist?

• All over the world
• Most found in severely undeveloped countries

• Some found in Underground operations right here
  in Canada and the US.

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Why Do They Exist?

• Corporate greed.
• Global competition to produce goods at lowest
  price.
• Its cost effective for corporations to
  subcontract their manufacturing to suppliers.

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Who Works There?

• Mostly young women ages 14 30
• Women make up more than 90 of factory job in
  poor countries
• Children are often hired as well (as young as 8
  years old).

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A sweatshop in Bangladesh
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Conditions Workers Face

• Routinely abused
• 14 hour days, 7 days a week
• Mandatory 19 hour all night shifts at least once
  a week
• Payment usually 2 weeks late
• Legal maternity benefits denied
• Forced to work 35 to 42 hours of overtime in a
  week.
• No place to eat, drinking water is filthy
• Up to 100 hours in a week

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Abusive Conditions

• Workers pay is docked 2 days if supervisors
  authority is challenged
• Women denied maternity benefits
• No health insurance, sick days, minimal aid
• No speaking during work
• Attempt to exercise legal right mass beatings
  and firings

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Living Conditions for a Disney Worker

• Can only afford to rent a tiny one room hut with
  4 other workers
• One outhouse and water pump is shared between 60
  other people
• Live off of rice, 3 times a day
• Only 4 to 5 hours of sleep before work begins
  again

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Niagra Textiles Ltd.

• A seven floor factory
• A Company Disney subcontracts to make their
  merchandise.
• Why? To avoid direct connection to the sweatshop
• Approximately 60 women workers
• Approximately 85 of workers are aged 16-25

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Worker Wages

• Sewers earn 11 to 20 cents / hour
• Helpers earn 7-8 cents / hour
• Workers usually are cheated of their pay
• Routinely paid late

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Typical Shift for a Worker

• 800am to 100pm (work for 5 hours)
• 100 pm to 200pm (lunch break)
• 200pm to 500pm (work for 3 hours)
• 500pm to 1000pm (work 5 hours overtime)

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Other Companies

• Nike, Adidas, Puma
• Reebok, Fila
• Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic,
• Wal-Mart, JC Penny
• Levi Strauss
• Dell, Apple, Hewlett - Packard

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Fighting Back

• International Labour Organization (ILO)
• UN agency
• seeks social justice and internationally
  recognized human and labour rights.
• Sweatshop Watch
• coalition committed to eliminating the
  exploitation that occurs and the illegal and
  inhumane conditions that characterize sweatshops.

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Tying in With Labour Studies

• Classes and Divisions of the Workforce
• The severe challenges of Unionizing
• Post Fordism
• Labour Equality
• Globalization

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