Sweatshop is a negative term often used to describe a manufacturing facility that is physically or mentally abusive, or that crowds, limits, or requires workers, or forces them to work long and unreasonable hours, as would be the case with slave labor. To stay competitive, large companies (For example, Nike, Gap, Levis, and etc.) bargain out to manufacturers all over the world to buy at the lowest possible costs. This race to find the lowest prices often ends in horrible working conditions for factory workers who make our clothing, both in other countries, and even right here in the United States. Many people are suffering from sweatshop labor all around the world.
Now, you would wonder if the government/people have done anything to prevent sweatshop labor. In fact, they did. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 officially prohibits sweatshops. However, because of understaffing at the Department of Labor and corporations' strategies for distancing themselves from the production of their goods by contracting production out to many different manufacturers, enforcement is slacking. President Clinton has also created an Apparel Industry Task Force of both labor rights and corporate interests to address the issue of sweatshops. The problem with that was there were many loopholes. The Task Force doesn't require member-corporations to pay their workers a living wage, but the minimum wage set by the government of a corporation's host country. (
http://www.feminist.org/other/sweatshops/sweatfaq.html) People on the other hand, don't have much power as the government to stop sweatshop labor, but in fact they are still trying. Many people have set up online petitions for people all over to sign and ways to go anti-sweatshop.
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