Working Condition Of Sweatshops

While shopping at a clothing store and purchasing name-brand clothing, consumers are often heedless toward the harrowing and terrible conditions their clothing was produced in. Perhaps they are misinformed about the blood, sweat, and tears the price of fashion truly costs. Or maybe they choose to politely ignore one of the nation’s most problematic issues- child labor and sweatshops. There are numerous factors that contributed to the horrible working conditions of sweatshops, both in the past and present day.

Sweatshops have been around since the mid-1800s, when waves of immigrants flooded the coast of Ellis Island, desperately seeking jobs to support their poor families. They were willing to undergo any appalling conditions and low wages

One of these elements includes the fact that most sweatshops are established in third world nations- India, Africa, Vietnam, just to name a few. Today, “3,000 sweatshops employing perhaps 50,000 workers or more exist in New York. Another 1,500 to 2,000 sweatshops, according to Mr. von Nostitz, exist in Los Angeles, several hundred in Chicago, and more in other cities, particularly cities in the Sun Belt with large immigrant populations.” (Serrin, William) Due to the poverty, sweatshops were created for manufacturers to receive “easy money”, and for the population of these countries to get paid any source of income. Most family members were faced with the same problem - too many mouths to feed, too little money. Many parents/guardians sold their children into labor in order to fend for themselves and also support themselves. This problem correlates to the factor that focused on economic pressures. Children needed to support their poor families and to get food on the table. According to the article titled, “Child Laborers Working over 60 hours Week in Slums of Bangladesh”, the author described, “Children cited the economic pressures facing their family as the main reason for entering the world of work.” The final factor is that most managers of sweatshop factories did not believe that their child labor and harsh working conditions were harmful or illegal. If they were unaware of how really malicious their tactics truly were, how could they have fixed their ways and improve their conditions? As a matter of fact, in an interview, a manager of a garment remarked that “while he was aware children aged 11-14 should not be working, he did not regard their employment as illegal.” There are numerous factors adding up to horrifying conditions of today’s