These savings are passed on to the customer, meaning that high street fashion is available at increasingly low prices, and much of it is regarded as disposable. However, Ethical Fashionistas would argue that all this has a cost that we are not able to see on the price tag. Some of the issues around Ethical Fashion Ethical Fashion aims to address the problems it sees with the way the fashion industry currently operates, such as exploitative labour, environmental damage, and the use of hazardous chemicals, waste, and animal cruelty. Serious concerns are often raised about exploitative working conditions in the factories that make cheap clothes for the high street. Child workers, alongside exploited adults, can be subjected to violence and abuse such as forced overtime, as well as cramped and unhygienic surroundings, bad food, and very poor pay.
Women were another vulnerable group because they were always paid at a lower rate than men. There was no safety net for people who fell into poverty other than resorting to the ‘workhouse’ which had been established to deal with cases of extreme poverty in Trade unions had little power as the Taff Vale Incident of 1901 showed and Friendly Societies could only provide a limited amount of help. Attitudes to poverty in the early 20th century were quite unsympathetic many politicians from both the Liberal and Conservative party felt that poverty came from personal laziness. Both parties had an attitude of “laissez-faire” i.e. non interference from the government.
They are paid very low wages, sometimes as little as three cents an hour, and children as young as four and five years old are forced to work (Guarini 1). In 1996, the U.S. Department of Labor estimated that out of 22,000 U.S. garment shops, at least half were in serious violation of wage and safety laws (Liebhold 1). Since the U.S. market has become so competitive, companies have resorted to using sweatshops because they are all fighting to produce their products at the lowest prices. To avoid the strict labor laws in the United States, companies fire their workers in America and go overseas to third world countries where the minimum wage is set very low and labor laws barely exist. U.S. companies take advantage of these workers because of their willingness to work under conditions that American workers would not.
Employers had no compassion or empathy for their workers who slaved away in their factories. Because immigrant labor was cheap, it was often exploited by the employer. Workers tried to better the situation by unionizing and have a show of strength with the numbers of workers. The big businesses, used government support to suppress the organization of strikes or work revolts. However, when unions rised up and demanded fair wages, employers would have to consider these demands and negotiations would have to take place.
These to document however do not represent the majority of the working class since they only include a little town and a village with small population. With the positive, there are also the negative including the exploitation of workers, mainly in children as testified in document 1 an 2. Testimonies of British workers portray the miserable condition in factories where they are subjected to work for as long as sixteen hours. Also safety regulation in the factories are neglected which often led to the death of the worker by accident or by infection. Doc 3 contradict doc 1 and 2.
And in some factories the workers were forced to work all seven days of the week. They were also paid below the minimum and were also punished if they refused to work overtime. They wanted to reconstruct the signals being given out so that they could be sustainable as well as profitable. Discuss the meaning and implications of the statement by a Nike representative that “Consumers are not rewarding us for investments in improved social performance in supply chains.” The statement means that NIKE has spent lot of money to improve the welfare of its workers and to improve the working conditions in their factories. However, doing so has cost them a lot of money.
Working conditions and treatment in the work place at this time were harsh, poor and inadequate. Reforms that had been introduced were frequently ignored by employers. The hours were extensive and they worked for little pay. Yet the workers did not complain in fear of being sacked. Even though unions had moved to improve the rights, justice and conditions of the workplace, it was not surprising that many workers were sacked for simply joining the unions.
Work conditions were horrible for the few people who happened to have jobs in the 1930’s. They worked long hours for very little pay and they were treated badly by their bosses. The Fair Labor Standards Act helped workers by establishing a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour and a standard work week of fourty four hours for businesses engaged in interstate commerce. The Fair Labor Standards Act placed regulations and limits on how long a person could work and also ensured that a person would be paid a certain amount of money. Even though work places now were under regulation, many workers still had little or no contribution to rules, or determining whats right or wrong.
Within these two novels both the authors portray to the readers how the lower class struggles to support themselves. In the novel The House of the Spirits, in order to make a living the people of Tres Marias were forced into working in bad conditions with limited workers and a great amount to fix. This shoes that in order for the people of just have a place to live; they all have to abide by the rules that are placed upon them by Estaban Trueba. They do this so that they can gain enough money to just be able to support themselves. This shows all the torment the people of the working class were put through just so they could live.
Sweatshops Can Never Be Good! Sweatshops as a word can mean many different things. As you look at the word, it might be hard to understand what it truly means. Although, having so many different meanings, at the end, it means only one thing. According to Webster dictionary sweatshop means, "a shop or factory in which employees work for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions."