The Troubles of Sweatshops

The United States has had a long and prosperous relationship with China in trade and economics. However one aspect of the Chinese economy that have human rights activists screaming is the sweatshops in China. Chinese sweatshops are usually American companies such as the GAP or Nike who have set up factories that are low paying and dangerous to workers. China must do something to make these shops safer and better for workers.

There are several hundred sweatshops in China where clothing, toys, electronics, or various other good are being produced. Chinese laws are not being enforced in China and has led companies in China to get away with human rights violations. Part of the reason has to do with the enormous Chinese labor surplus. China’s population is around 1 billion people are there are plenty of people who need any type of work they can get.

So they work at sweatshop factories which are underpaid heavily. The factories sometimes pay workers as little as 13 cents an hour. Plus workers usually have to work most hours of a day, in the early morning and night just to make ends meet. And even when some workers want to leave and go home, they are prevented from doing so by the factory. There are laws in China for wages but they aren’t even close to being enforced in the country.

Furthermore, the sweatshops employ very young children, ages twelve or sometimes even younger for dangerous jobs. Women also work at tasks in the factories because they need the money from working, the little that they are paid. This also leads to more injuries and even death in factories. The inexperienced women and children who work in the factories are not taught properly how to operate heavy machinery and sometime the machines explode or fall apart and badly injure the workers.

On top of this, there is no worker’s compensation or injury pay in these sweatshops/. Workers who get injured and are unable to work have no means of supporting themselves. The long hours that workers have to work also leads to more injuries because of the repetitious tasks that the workers have to do. One worker may just pull a lever several hundred times a day and could fall asleep on the job from boredom or being tired.

In addition to the dangerous machinery, the conditions in the factories are even worse. The rooms are all crowded and filled with people. The air is stuffy, with little ventilation and the factories are filled with rats, vermin, and the machines give out lung cancer from the smoke that workers inhale.

Another point is that unions are not allowed in China and are not protected by law. People who try to form unions are fired by their employers and blacklisted, techniques that are all against the law in the U.S. Sometimes when the police are called in to help the workers, they instead beat up the workers or take bribes.

The sweatshops are extremely dangerous places for workers who have no choice in China but to work there to put food on the table. China needs to enforce labor laws in China and help its people in the country’s growing economy.