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From Sweatshops.org:
At the Tianjin Yuhua Garment Factory in China a young woman earns 23 cents an hour. For over 60 hours a week she sews clothing to be sold in Wal-Mart stores across the U.S. She works in a sweatshop, but the profit margins from her sweat are not enough for some. Soon she may be laid off, as Wal-Mart moves its contract to a privately owned factory in the south of China with less regulations and even lower wages. There, Wal-Mart’s contractors can pay workers as low as 13 cents an hour to sew the same garments. Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world. They control almost 15 percent of the US retail market. And selling goods made in sweatshops helped their 1998 revenue rise to $119 billion—$4 billion more than Canada’s 1998 revenue.
Those who are accused of exploiting workers to maximize profits often respond by calling sweatshops an unfortunate, but necessary evil of economic growth and free markets. Claims are made that sweatshops are the only way to meet consumers demand for low-cost goods and that they provide jobs that otherwise would not exist.
And yet, sweatshops are not inevitable. They are not a necessary by-product of economic growth or the intended outcome of some insidious force in the economic cosmos. They are the result of corporations single-mindedly seeking the fattest bottom line. This race to the bottom line squeezes out savings and profits at every level, but ultimately, from the sweat of the workers squeezed at the bottom of the cycle.
These factors drive demand for sweatshops: Corporate greed U.S. and multi-national manufacturers have found that they no longer need to operate their own factories. In a world virtually free of borders, they look for subcontractors in countries where regulations are weak and labor and operating costs are lowest.
International policies
Governments, international trade regulatory agencies like
the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and
other foreign lenders create international trade laws and
lending policies requiring developing nations to bolster
their economies by creating export industries regardless
of implications for social justice and environmental
sustainability. And Third World countries desperately need
the foreign money. But these policies have created a glut
of manufacturing plants and plantations (often in
countries with poorly developed labor and environmental
laws), which allows U.S. corporations to dictate their
purchase prices.
The hunt for the lowest price
Corporations flood stores with a staggering variety of
goods made in every corner of the world. Retail giants put
pressure on their suppliers to keep the cost down, while
encouraging consumers to buy more at discounted prices.
Where and how these products are made, and why they are so
cheap, is often a dirty secret kept from consumers.
The muddle in the middle
As the playing field has shifted overseas, the number of
middle merchants has increased. Contractors, importers,
agents and others are each trying to make a profit from
those directly below them on the supply chain.
Consequently, factories may not know where their goods are
headed, just as U.S. manufacturers and merchandisers often
don’t know the product’s source.
Squeezed at the bottom
All these factors pressure factory owners to cut costs.
And where does the price squeeze end? At the bottom, with
the laborers, who are pushed to produce goods as quickly
as possible. This is where forced overtime, low wages,
punishments and fines for slow work and mistakes, child
labor, and other abuses come in.
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