GOVERNMENT PROJECT

2007-03-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

A sweatshop is basically any factory where workers’ basic human rights are violated. The employees are forced to work long hours at low wages and suffer from health and safety hazards due to the poor environment that they are forced to work in. Also the workers are not allowed to form independent unions and lack of benefits is an obvious. Sweatshops came about in America in the 19th century during the time the United States started to industrialize. Many immigrants that arrived in the U.S. at this time period worked in sweatshops along side with their families. With few government policies that dealt with working conditions, hours, or pay at this time (19th century) the manufacturers were allowed to place enormous demands on their workers. There are still sweatshops in the United States but many started to disappear after the 20th century when the federal government started to pass laws protecting workers rights. Some sweatshops still operate illegally in the states today. Many of the sweatshops in this country are located in major cities. Cities such as California, New York, Dallas, Miami, and Atlanta. Most likely there are sweatshops in every country but a good majority of them are located in poorer nations. Nations where they can find people so poor that it is easy to exploit them.
http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/sweatshops/backgroundandresources.html

NOT SO INNOCENT

2007-03-12T06:16:00.000-07:00

Walt Disney isn't all innocent as it looks or seems. Behind the scenes of this "glamorous" company, there are human rights violations committed daily around the world. In one of their factories in a small Caribbean Island of Haiti, workers are paid 28 cents to stitch an Aladdin t-shirt. After taxes, workers at this sweatshop earn around 15-20 dollars a month. In Vietnam, Walt Disney runs a sweatshop that produces the plastic toys for happy meals. These workers make only 17 cents an hour. Three years ago, 200 women from this factory were hospitalized due to being exposed to acetone, and a toxic substance. Yet, the factory refused to make any changes in ventilation system or health code. (http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=67)

Besides poor conditions, the workforce is composed of almost entirely women and children. Most workers are between the ages of 10 and 30. Women are encouraged not to get pregnant because they usually get fired. There are also numerous accounts of supervisor's selecting mistresses out of their workforce. The worker is left to choose between complying and losing her job, devastating when she is living in dire poverty. These conditions are found frequently throughout most of the Asian sweatshops.

Recently, people have begun to encourage Disney to take responsibility for the quality of their overseas factories. Shirley Slesinger Lasswell, husband of the late Stephen Slesinger who acquired the rights to Winnie the Pooh in the 1930's, has taken a stand. When, she found out about beatings, 14 hour days, and poor wages at Disney's Dhaka sweatshop, she began to argue for better conditions. The National Labor Committee has taken her side in the fight to improve Disney production facilities worldwide. (http://ihscslnews.org/view_article.php?id=67)
image source: http://www.skewsme.com/nazi.html

Lawsuit against fashion designer

2007-03-10T09:57:00.000-08:00

A group of immigrant workers has filed for a suit against a well known New York fashion house charging it with having clothing sweatshops that forced employees to work long hours and cheated them out of overtime.The suit was filed in a New York federal court by the Asian American on behalf of five workers,most of the Chinese.“Donna Karan has been treating workers like slaves,” charged Sau Kwan Yu of the Chinese Staff and Workers' Association, an organization that helped to bring this matter to the spotlight. This made the workers voices be heard and this is what they suggested “We want to see a 40-hour workweek and a living wage.”
The way that they proved that the worker were bein treated unfair was that they had representatives making daily visits to the two fatories lookin at the contracts and they had them working 11 hours a day Monday through Friday, 10 hours on Saturdays and 8 hours on Sundays.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jun2000/garm-j13.shtml