Sweatshop

We talk to leading experts and folk in the street about whether the issue of sweatshops is front of mind when it comes to buying apparel

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• sweatshop
• cobrandit
• psfk
• fashion
• ogilvy
• renegade
• trip
• trends

[Zraythe]

Prove it. I live in China and am not seeing it. BTW, I hear everyone in America is a money loving bastard who has no soul. I even saw a video on the internet about it. It must be true.

[jb21uk]

In other news, if offered the alternative, life is better than death. Wages are a fraction of a percent of retail price, and the profit margin is at least 50%. Wages could be five or ten times what they are without having any effect on profit. Then these people could move out of grinding poverty. Why aren't they?

Ultimately, these companies are using subcontractors so as to maintain deniability. The only way forward is to blacklist those who (probably deliberately) don't check up.

[chizzy555]

@Zraythe not really, we just get treated like people and are allowed to live like people should, only like 1% of americans are rich pigs, and many are living in poverty too.

[DarrelfromZeeland]

@curriedmussels I t doesn't bother me. That's capitalism and free enterprise. Some people will always lose in capitalism. Anyone who applies themself and shows some enterprise, initiate, moxie, hustle, and just plain "go go go go" can make it in capitalism. If you don't move up, it's because you choose not to.

[IHateDrumMachines]

To be honest, I think about them every time I see a stitch on a garment. Somebody had to put it there. Did they get paid enough?

Everyone who thinks sweatshops are not a huge problem should go sit in a dark room for 16 hours and work with tiny threads, then get paid a few cents and see how they feel about themselves.

I would not wish this job, or this life, on anyone. I hope in the future, sweatshops can be eliminated so we can have peace.

[RtothaYtothaAtothaN]

That is exactly the problem, there is no other option for these people and big corporations prey on their desperation.

[VestriDeusEstMortuus]

I would damn well work 16 hours for 2 dollars a day then beg in the slums.

even more so for a woman who would rather do that than prostitution, lest you have no dignity.

[EyesOfTheSouth101]

Sweatshops. Kids working 20 hours a day for hardly any money at all. I don't mind, but i think the workmanship of the product suffers.

[jb21uk]

That should be 'Why isn't this done?'

[mbs029]

seriously liberals, take ECON 101. People wouldn't work at sweatshops if it didn't offern them an improvment over the alternatives, i.e. substinence farming, prostitution, street work. People take these jobs because they make much more than they ever could otherwise- ask anyone whos ever visited a sweatshop what the biggest complaint of a worker is- they constantly push for factory expansion so more of their relatives and friends can work there.

[xjesusjonesx]

the problem is that the people working for the lower wages have to pay similar prices for the goods. If the cost of living in a country alway coincided with the wages then living in a poor country would be ideal. The jobs offer them no hope of escaping poverty, it simply exploits their economic position.