Are Sweatshops Good or Bad?
Small manufacturing establishments that hire people under unsanitary and unfair conditions are known as sweatshops. The sweatshops are characterized by very discouraging conditions: overcrowded employees to maximize profits, unguarded machinery, naked electrical wires, unhygienic bathrooms, impassable walkways, insufficient lighting, absence of temperature control systems, and minimal ventilation. Employees that work in sweatshops face a lot of challenges, such as working for long hours with minimal wages. This discussion will explain why sweatshops are harmful to the people that work in them.
While some may argue that sweatshops provide employment opportunities, especially in developing countries, these shops do more harm than good to the people that they employ. For instance, the sweatshops subject workers to long hours of work with very little pay. Some of them work for about 100 hours in a week under extreme heat and poor air quality. The wages that the sweat workers get are not even enough to cater to their needs, which is illegal. Their employers use them to make more profits, yet they do not care about their own welfare.
Another disadvantage of working in sweatshops is that they violate human laws and rights. They do not allow their employees to control their lives and make their own decisions. For instance, employees in workshops do not have a right to decide how long they want to work also violated are safety and health laws because most sweatshops are not safe. They are not only dirty and congested, but they are also poorly ventilated. Employees are not allowed to move freely as they want, and they may not even have permission to go to the toilet or quit their jobs. These poor working conditions and the suppression of human rights end up affecting employees psychologically.
Besides low wages and violation of human rights, sweatshops also employ children, a practice that is considered illegal in many countries. Most of the children that work in sweatshops are poorly paid and overworked because they cannot fight or defend themselves. Child labor denies children the right to an education because they spend much of their time working in the sweatshops instead of attending school. Besides denying them an education, sweatshops are also harmful to the safety and health of the children. Many cases have been reported to young children being sexually abused in sweatshops. Because these children cannot defend themselves, and they do not know where to turn to, most of them never get justice for the wrongs done to them. Children are innocent beings, and they need to be protected.
From the above, it is evident that sweatshops do bad things than good. Some people will argue that they provide employment opportunities, which is true to some extent. But what is the meaning of employment if wages are not proportional to services rendered? What is the essence of working under stringent conditions when the wages are not even enough to cater for basic needs? Sweatshops exploit their employees and god against all the employment rights. They not only subject their workers to poor working conditions, but they also suppress their rights, such as freedom of choice and freedom of association. Workers are not allowed to move freely, and they may not have the right to quit their jobs. All these conditions are very inhuman. However, if working conditions in sweatshops could be improved and wages increased to reasonable amounts, then they could go a long way in raising the living standards of poor people, especially in developing countries such as Africa and Asia.