Sweatshop Side Effect: The Cost of Outsourcing

Sweatshop Side Effect: The Cost of Outsourcing

Kenneth G. Mobley

Western International University

COM 110 Effective Persuasive Writing

LD35

Benny Lane

May 15, 2006

Sweatshop Side Effect: The Cost of Outsourcing

The moral, ethical and economic debate surrounding sweatshop labor has raged for decades. When the average person hears the word sweatshop, an image of oppression and exploitation almost invariably comes to mind comes to mind. The growing popularity of outsourcing manufacturing and blue-collar jobs to “low-wage” countries has inspired an unprecedented increase in sweatshops. Would anyone be comfortable knowing that his or her daughter or son worked in a sweatshop? How would a husband deal with his wife working under sub-human conditions? What emotions would be stirred by a 60-year-old grandmother working in a garment factory 12-16 hours a day for 15cents an hour? This is a major issue and one which affects millions, even billions of people worldwide.

In countries that are prime targets for outsourcing, workers rights are either too new a concept or do not effectively protect the workers. Without protection these workers are often viewed, used and treated as though they were a mere commodity. China has only fairly recently, since around 1978(Encyclopedia Britannica, 2006), enacted reforms to give workers any real rights and these changes have not significantly affected the lives of those who live under the international poverty line. In India, with no laws in place to regulate minimum wage, factories often pay workers-based on the almost unending supply of unskilled labor. This contributes to the top heavy income distribution in India, where the upper 20% are being paid 46.1% of the national income while the lower 20% are receiving only 8.1% (India human rights report, 2006). India and China are just the stand out examples of countries that have suffered from the high demand for cheap unskilled labor that has been a result of the global outsourcing trend; the fact is that many countries world wide feel the effects.

Sweatshops exist in all countries, including the United States. However, strict labor laws, effective labor unions, and the growth of employee mobility and opportunity have attempted to eliminate sweatshops in developed countries. The vast majority of sweatshops currently are found in economically underdeveloped countries, especially those with large labor pools of unskilled labor, high unemployment, and few regulatory constraints. (Hartman, L. P., Shaw, B & Stevenson, R., 2003, p. 195)

Since their creation the primary purpose of sweatshops has been to produce maximum output at the cheapest cost. When making the consideration of what and where cost can be reduced the areas of wages, comfort and employee rights and benefits are more often then not the areas that are neglected. As the global push towards cheaper manufacturing grows the rush to fill that need with sweatshop grows equally.

Some proponents of the sweatshop insist the quality of sweatshop employees lives improves significantly after the sweatshop is opened. These proponents point to the free-market defense and the fact that in countries like China and India were there is a large pool of unskilled labor the choice that workers have is between being exploited or being unemployed. They also insist that low cost of living explains the extremely low wage that workers are paid. The average worker barely makes enough money to support themselves and so low of a wage is not near enough to support a family.

The income gap between the fifth of the world's people living in the richest countries and the fifth in the poorest was 74 to 1 in 1997, up from 60 to 1 in 1990 and 30 to 1 in 1960. Earlier the income gap between the top and bottom countries increased from 3 to 1 in 1820 to 7 to 1 in 1870 to 11 to 1 in 1913.(Institute of Governmental Studies 2001)

The International Labor Organization reports that of the 2.8 billion people around the world who are employed some 1.4 billion do not make enough to meet the 2 US dollar a day poverty line and of those 520 million do not even make 1 US dollar a day (2006). With the head of the household not earning enough money, it becomes necessary for the mother and often the children to work full-time. “In developing countries children begin to work at ages as low as three years old” (Hartman, L. P., Shaw, B & Stevenson, R., 2003, p.195). With a full time job away from home and often an equal load of labor at home the children that work in sweatshops do not have the