Example research essay topic: Minimum Wage Laws Turn Of The Century - 1,932 words

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Sweatshops In recent years the debate over sweatshops has become a forefront issue for a wide range of players in a globalizing world, including governments, multinational corporations, multilateral development organizations, civil society and concerned individuals. Often heated and always complex, the debate over whether sweatshops should be banned as unethical or embraced as a means to economic growth must be carefully unpacked and examined. While the Western public has long considered sweatshops anathema, the accounts published by certain experts provide powerful and counterintuitive evidence that sweatshops may be a lesser evil than poverty. Indeed, by looking at the economic, empirical, historic and ethical dimensions of the sweatshop debate, this paper argues that globalization facilitates an overall process of economic growth that stands to benefit developing countries and their populations, especially the poor. The movement to abolish sweatshops is therefore misguided. The dictionary defines a sweatshop as a shop or a factory in which workers are employed for long hours at low wages and under unhealthy conditions. (Held and McGrew 79) Sweatshops also often employ child labor, forbid unionization and overlook sexual abuse of employees.

It is a sad truth that some sweatshops force people to work involuntarily; any sweatshop employing slave labor is indefensible. On the other hand, sweatshops where people come to work voluntarily cannot be so readily dismissed because workers choose to be there, indicating that these jobs may provide better opportunities than the alternatives available, what economist Paul Krugman has called visible rural poverty. (Langille 61) Understanding how people could prefer such a choice requires understanding what globalization means for the developing world and the people who live there. For more than two decades globalization has been a powerful force of change, facilitating the the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life. (Langille 90) One of the most prominent features of globalization has been deepening worldwide economic integration through international trade and investment liberalization, including the rapid growth and expansion of foreign direct investment. Beginning in the 1980 s, improvements in production, transportation and communication reduced costs and made it easier for multinational corporations to locate production abroad.

For many developing countries, this created increased opportunities for access to trade and capital, critical elements in achieving economic and social progress at a pace and to an extent beyond imaginable prior to the onset of globalization. As such, countries primarily in East Asia, South Asia and Latin America advertised the cost advantage of locating production in their countries. With abundant cheap labor, higher unemployment rates, lax labor and minimum wage laws and lower environmental standards, these countries courted FDI, seeking to maximize this cost advantage as their comparative advantage. As countries convert FDI into rising productivity and more skills-based production, they begin to produce higher-value-added goods, which in turn reinforce the links between export growth and rising living standards. This process generates a better trained and more experienced workforce, which pushes wages higher still. The emphasis on productivity also means that if workers experience chronic fatigue, boredom or poor health as a result of poor working conditions, employers will be compelled to make improvements to working conditions to increase productivity.

All in all, a countrys ability to improve its standard of living over time depends almost entirely on its ability to raise output per worker. (Held and McGrew 112) Therefore, the best way to improve living conditions in developing countries is to let markets manage themselves. But how can we be sure that economic theory means real world improvement? Abundant empirical evidence exists to show that this process can bear out in practice. It is probably no small coincidence that the researchers find support for sweatshops from workers in Asia. (Langille 125) More than any other region, Asia provides a good example of what can be accomplished through globalization and the processes of economic growth described above. Beginning in the 1970 s, countries such as Taiwan, Korea, China and Indonesia pursued export-oriented growth strategies, using cheap labor costs and other incentives to attract FDI.

Invariably, many of these countries first relied on sweatshop labor in textiles and manufacturing to keep production costs low, along with a host of other legal incentives. Economic growth in Asia was remarkably rapid and evenly distributed. In the mid 1970 s, six out of every 10 people in Asia lived in extreme poverty. Today, fewer than two in 10 are in this position. (Langille 144) Whereas it took Britain half a century to double average per capita income after the first industrial revolution, average income throughout much of Asia grew at more than 5 percent during the 1980 s and 1990 s, translating into a doubling of average per capita income every 14 years. (Langille 155) In Indonesia between the mid- 1960 s and 1990 s, the average income of workers doubled as GNP grew about 6. 8 percent annually.

During this same period, Indonesia's infant mortality fell by almost 60 percent. (Held and McGrew 140) Moreover, several countries in Asia prioritized social and political stability and linked economic growth to major government investment in education, increasing the sustainability of economic growth and the overall welfare of the population. Contrast this experience to what has taken place in Africa since the 1980 s. For a variety of reasons, Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a dramatic reduction in its world market share, at present exporting only one-third of the goods and services it contributed in the 1980 s. If Africa had retained the share of world exports it enjoyed in the 1980 s, the foreign exchange equivalent in per capita terms indicates that average income would be almost double what it actually is now. (Held and McGrew 146) While looking at the experience of different world regions with globalization demonstrates how vital economic growth can be achieved, an important lesson about sweatshops can be learned from the Wests own encounter with this stage of economic development. A garment factory worker describes the sweatshop in which she worked: dangerously broken stairways windows few and so dirty The wooden floors that were swept once a year the filthy, malodorous lavatory No fresh drinking waterline and roaches. In these disease breeding holes we, the youngsters, together with the men and women toiled from 70 to 80 hours a week! (Zinn 109) These words come not from a worker in a Chinese or Honduran sweatshop today, but from a sweatshop worker in turn-of-the-century New York, a city with more than 500 garment factories that helped galvanize Americas own industrial revolution.

Indeed, todays anti-sweatshop movement could claim its origin in the movement against sweatshops during this painful stage of the Wests own economic development less than 100 years ago. In 1914 alone 35, 000 workers had been killed and 700, 000 injured in industrial accidents. (Zinn 132) Workers in Britain, France, Germany and many other now-developed countries endured similar wretched experiences, but propelled the economic development of their countries forward in the process. The purpose of recounting these facts is to draw parallels between the dynamics at work then and to emphasize the important role sweatshops can play in economic development. The economic conditions that produced sweatshops in urban centers in the United States and Western Europe less than 100 years ago are much the same offered by the developing world today. (Zinn 180) In the United States, for instance, industrialization concentrated in the urban northeast to take advantage of ample cheap labor and easy access to transportation. Many workers accepted such employment voluntarily because few other alternatives existed, especially for women, immigrants and the poor.

For instance, in 1890 four million women worked in factories, by 1910 over eight million women had entered the workforce. (Zinn 204) These sweatshops and factories undeniably propelled forward economic growth in numerous countries in the West, not to mention social movements such as womens suffrage, making standards of living previously unthinkable available to increasing numbers of people in only a few generations. One important characteristic of the developing West at the turn of the century is that the sweatshop phase of the industrial revolution lasted only a few generations as well. The reasons for this have much to do with having strong democratic and legal foundations, including political parties advocating worker rights, free association and unionization and the passage and enforcement of labor legislation. While agitation for improved working conditions frequently encountered brutal resistance from government authorities, the pressure applied by labor rights movements prevailed for the majority of workers. (Held and McGrew 163) Significantly, many developing countries employing sweatshop labor today do not have similar democratic and legal traditions, indicating that pressure leading to improvements in labor standards may need to be exogenous. Taking a closer look at what this means for ethics and for maximizing the benefits associated with partaking of international economic integration through globalization will reveal part of the role for further activism in the sweatshop debate. The debate over sweatshops could be construed as a debate between ethicist's and economists.

Economists employ the utilitarian argument that such sacrifice as sweatshop labor is worthwhile if the benefits outweigh the losses. Ethicists argue in favor of immediate human rights for all, in accordance with a broad consensus on what constitutes ethical labor standards and human rights, as laid out by the International Labor Organization and numerous other conventions. Nevertheless, while opponents of sweatshops frequently demand their abolition, there is clear economic proof that sweatshop labor is often voluntary and that the existence of sweatshops can be part of an overall process of growth that benefits developing countries in the long run. Moreover, anti-sweatshop efforts to shut down sweatshops without putting safety nets in place for employees and their families can do more harm than good.

The passage of the Harkin Bill in 1993 in America resulted in over 50, 000 children losing their jobs in Bangladesh in 1994. (Langille 169) Follow-up by UNICEF and the ILO confirmed that without any safety-net in place, these children were working at stone-crushing and street-hustling, more hazardous and exploitative activities that their factory jobs. (Langille 173) Can a middle ground be found between ethicist's and economists in the debate over sweatshop labor? The good news is that evidence shows that corporations can put in place certain minimum standards for labor conditions without necessarily undercutting profitability. For instance, minimum wage laws do not have to reduce employment. In addition, options such as correlating wages to subsistence level, reducing (but not eliminating) child labor while allowing time off for education or other personal development measures, putting in place more codes of conduct for corporation and strengthening independent monitoring efforts are all still profitable possibilities.

There is also evidence that worker protests and strikes can be successful. A combination of American public pressure and Indonesian worker strikes encouraged Nike to improve wages and working conditions faster and to a greater degree than it would have otherwise. (Langille 193) Despite improvements, many of these factories are still considered sweatshops because they offer only limited access to medical care, require forced overtime and disregard sexual abuse. Thus, accepting the existence of sweatshops and promoting incremental change without disregarding the need for corporate profitability would be the most productive and beneficial focus for sweatshop activism. Words Count: 1, 854. Bibliography: Brian Langille. (2001). Labor Rights: Managing Global Issues, ed.

P. J. Simmons and Chantal de Junge Oudraat. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. David Held and Anthony McGrew. (1999). Global Transformations.

Stanford: Stanford University Press. Howard Zinn. (2003). A Peoples History of the United States, fifth edition. New York: Harper Collins Perennial Classics.

Research essay sample on Minimum Wage Laws Turn Of The Century