Hours that employees are pressurised into working are often appallingly long and in Saipan, a US territory in the Pacific Ocean, Asian women make Gap clothes for up to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Often, there is forced overtime for up to two hours each day. Unquestionably, these people must be constantly fatigued to the point of exhaustion. I feel that these hours are far too long for any human being to work and the workers must become ill and consequently suffer.
Many of these factories employ children who are ineligible to work in these places. About 250 million children between the ages five and fourteen work in sweatshops. Half of these children are working full time and one third of them are working in extremely dangerous conditions. To an employer the purpose of employing a child is not to train them, but to make their profits higher from the child’s work. Child labour is the abuse and misuse of young children at work. Child labour is exploiting children by giving them low wages, allowing them to work excessive hours and in unsafe, unhealthy work environments. Child labour costs less, but it causes severe problems for the children later on in life. Since the children are smaller, they are often forced to crawl between and under machines, which is very dangerous. The companies should think about the child’s safety before money.
Conditions in factories and housing are terrible and employers treat the workers appallingly. A sweatshop factory brings visions of dangerous, filthy and cramped conditions. Many of the women live in overcrowded, unsanitary housing surrounded by barbed wire. Is this really necessary? Why should the workers be treated like criminals, locked up in jail, when they have committed no offences whatsoever? The factories are not kept clean, so many workers contract diseases. The chemicals used in some factories give off many fumes, which make people sick. There are rarely any windows in factories for the fumes to escape.
Understandably, many workers who are treated like this have decided to protest, but Gap workers in Indonesia have been sacked for organizing trade unions and striking Gap workers in Cambodia have even been shot at. In Macao, Gap workers complained of abusive treatment by factory managers who forced them to work excessive overtime and cheated them out of their wages. This shows that the factory workers do care about their treatment and think that conditions are unreasonable. Should the workers not have the right to free speech? Would you not object if you were treated terribly, paid extremely low wages and pressurised into working long hours?
Gap claims to have a code of conduct that makes sure abuses do not occur and it includes statements such as no use of forced labour, payment of a living wage and provision of adequate and safe working conditions. However, the people working in Gap’s factories have never heard of this. The television documentary series Panorama has conducted several investigations into the use of slave labour and has found out many devastating details. It was discovered that both Gap and Nike have been using factories in Cambodia, which break their own strict codes of conduct and anti-sweatshop rules. A twelve-year-old girl, who had lied about her age to get a job, was found working there. She explains, “I did not want to come here. But we are very poor so I had to come.” Children like this work as long as seven days a week for up to sixteen hours each day and the conditions are terrible. What kind of life must this girl lead, with no education and no social life?
The companies claim to have inspected their factories in third world countries, but these inspections were not carried out thoroughly and effectively. During inspections, employees are told to work slowly and are allowed to work for reasonable hours. Underage employees are either told not to work or to hide in the toilets. Gap said that they were satisfied with what they found. I find this disgraceful and suggest that proper, thorough inspections should be carried out as this is one of the only possible ways to stop the dreadful conditions in garment factories.
In the year 2000, consumers throughout the world spent over £5 billion on clothing alone. However, many of these expensive items cost just a few pence to make and similar, cheaper alternatives could have been purchased. Why are many people willing to spend so much money on designer clothes when they are not necessary? I think that designer clothes are definitely not a basic need and that consumers pay a ludicrous sum of money for the privilege of wearing a ‘label.’ I think that it is one of the largest frauds of the century. Do people really wish to become walking advertisements for these brands and pay the companies a lot of money for the privilege? Are we all so gullible that we are duped in this way? Those who think that the quality of designer clothes is better are very often mistaken, as the quality of high street clothes is usually similar or even better.
Today there are so many marketing pressures on youths, which consequently result in countless people feeling that they have to possess the newest clothes. Failure to conform can result in bullying. Furthermore, designer clothes form a barrier between those who can and cannot purchase them. Some people think that they need the latest, trendiest clothes because without them they do not feel good about themselves. This should not be happening as such materialism is divisive.
It could be argued, however, that these garment factories are at least giving jobs to many people in less economically developed countries. Without these employment opportunities, the people would be even worse off and have no income. Workers seem to think that a little money is better than none. Many girls in these countries could even be sold and forced to work in the sex trade and suffer severe physical and sexual abuse without the security of a regular factory job.
In fairness to multinational companies it could, of course, be argued that some firms provide a clean, safe working environment and satisfactory wages. Some companies adopt an altruistic approach and are committed to improving standards of living and education for their workers. Although the rates per hour paid in sweatshops do seem appallingly low, they are often in line with local rates and can provide a subsistence wage. For example, Bienestar International is a company with a social conscience. It is developing a casual clothes brand called ‘No Sweat’ which will be made by independent trade union members in the US, Canada, EU and the developing world. Bienestar will market , relying primarily on catalogue sales for distribution. Their savings in advertising will offset their higher labour costs, enabling them to provide a competitive product and a
We do, after all, live in a capitalist society and in such a free market economy there exists a need for profit to be made. It is always possible to debate the level of profits, but the world economy depends upon supply and demand.
It is tempting to take my banner and leaflets down to Gap in our shiny new shopping mall and proclaim the merits of my argument to startled shoppers. I know it is a just cause. Exploitation is wrong. We are one world. At least I have free speech. Even I can see that such worthy idealism may not be a practical solution to this problem. Changing the pattern of world economies and halting rampant consumerism may be beyond me but the rigorous enforcement of existing legislation and lobbying of MPs could start to create change. Fair trade organisations are already in existence for food products and are being extended to all goods. As I slump on the sofa watching overpaid footballers promoting overpriced sportswear, I look down at my £5.99 tracksuit more with smug pride than envy.
Bibliography
* The Internet proved a very useful source of information. The websites that I used included:
* Newspaper articles contained useful information that I used to help me with this project. In particular I used articles from The Times and Birmingham Post.
* There were few books with information that was relevant to my chosen topic and there was little useful information in the factual packs provided.
* I used a factual postcard that I received, which explained the basic problems relating to slave labour.
