Sweatshops: Exposing the Secrets between the Stitches

Trapped in an awful cycle of exploitation

The US Department of Labour describes a sweatshop as a factory that violates two or more labour laws, concerning things such as wages and benefits, child labour or working hours. A sweatshop can be described as a workplace where workers are subject to extreme exploitation, including the absence of a living wage or benefits, poor working conditions,  verbal and physical abuse. Because sweatshop workers are paid less than their daily expenses, they are never able to save any money to improve their lives. They are trapped in an awful cycle of exploitation.

Those who defend sweatshops often bring up the fact that even though sweatshops are unethical they at least give people jobs they wouldn’t have had otherwise. Fashion brands don’t see sweatshops as a problem; they’re an integral part of their business strategy. Every step forward that’s been made for workers’ rights has been made by workers themselves.

Campaigns have been created to support workers and their rights. War on Want is an organisation that provides direct support and funding to women’s worker collectives and unions mobilising in communities and factory floors across Asia. They also support partners like SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour) in Hong Kong to conduct undercover investigations into sweatshop conditions and expose them to the public.

War on Want, Press Officer , Marienna Pope-Weidermann, Said: “Fashion companies will use sweatshops for as long as they can get away with it simply because it’s cheaper. Corporations compete with each other to cut costs and it’s the workers who lose out.”

Some efforts have been made by government to make the production of goods more ethical. The Ethical Trading Initiative was created by the UK government in 1998 to improve the lives of hapless sweatshop workers and their families. The group is sponsored by the Department for International Development and is made up of 39 of the UK’s major selling companies (including Gap, Marks and Spencer and Tesco) and 16 campaign groups and Trades Unions.

The vital part to the ETI’s effort is its Base Code, which is a list of nine ethical trading values which contain the outlawing of child labour, the payment of a living wage and the right of workers to join free trade unions.By uniting with the ETI businesses agree that they’ll take voluntary measures to guarantee that their contractors will meet each of these nine moral values, however significantly the ETI has no controls over investigations or prosecution.

Activists  also campaigned relentlessly to encourage the world’s top sportswear producers  to take responsibility  for the environments in which their goods are produced abroad. As soon as Nike, Adidas, Puma and the rest unwillingly came around to the idea, it was welcomed as a turning-point in the association of such corporations to their sub-contractors in developing countries.

It was hailed “the ethical revolution sweeping through the world’s sweatshops”. It now appears that many spoke very prematurely. Through investigation it has been exposed that there are factories operating in unacceptable and inexcusable conditions, even those that are run by well known sports brands. None of the corporations have devoted to paying overseas workers a living wage. The majority of employees are not even paid the local minimum wage.

Marienna also added: “The voluntary system left corporations to assess themselves, even the agreements that got signed were worthless. That model has failed utterly to improve the situation facing workers in garment factories across the world. That’s why we campaign for a Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights that turns empty promises into law.”

The idea of a binding treaty is to add teeth to international law to the UN guiding principles for business and human rights which would make it impossible for companies to avoid.

Some sweatshops  still continue to use prison and child labour. Women employed in others are subjected to obligatory pregnancy tests; if they are positive, they are immediately dismissed.  The  conditions for garment workers – overwhelmingly women of colour – are medieval. They endure excessive working hours, unpaid overtime, bullying and harassment,dangerous working environments where bullying and sexual harassment are rife, and are denied the right to form a union to support each other and fight for their rights.

Appalling truths were revealed by an investigation of the information submitted by the companies themselves – but as Puma light-heartedly confessed – the truth is unquestionably far poorer than reported due to the fact the sub-contractors lie about their employees’ working environment and about the quantity of overtime they work. To that extend that special software has been established to forge the archives of working hours.

The dissimilarity of these discoveries when compared to the codes of conduct the firms have supposedly have  in place is astounding. Adidas declares their “Vision is for everyone in our supply chain to share a common set of values. Nike’s code of conduct suggests that “high ethics means success”. The company’s moto is to encourage its workforces “to lead balanced personal and professional lives” and claims that “Nike will strive to pay fair compensation”.

In the context of the horrific shop floor truth, these fine words are shameful. Rather than trying to dazzle Western customers with worthless promises, these businesses should be obliged to avert some of their immense economic power into carrying out real developments and change to the gloom of the sweatshops. The manufacturing’s pledge to change remains vividly unfulfilled.

Jessie Colligan