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... eople use it. Most factories only allow one bathroom break per day. The lighting in these factories is not very good. Poor lighting cause eyestrain and eye injuries (Springer 78 - 79). The factories should make sure that their workplaces are clean and that their workers cannot inhale the fumes before hiring any workers.
The workers do not get minimum wage. The workers work long fifteen-hour days with one or no breaks. If they get a break, they can only take fifteen minutes and must go back to work. When they work past eight hours, they do not get any extra pay. They should be paid some sort of overtime when they work past eight hours. In the United States people who work past eight hours get paid their hourly plus half of their regular wage.
While working for these factories, they do not get any benefits. If one of their children gets sick, they must decided whether to spend their last pay to get medicine for their child or go to work and make money that does not even pay for daily expenses. Most children stay ill since many of the workers choose to go to work instead. Many colleges and universities in the United States get their products from factories that have their workers working in sweatshops. A lot of college and universities buy their sweatshirts, baseball caps, T-shirts, jackets, and jerseys with their logo on it, from these kinds of factories. The college or university pays as much as $ 1. 50, for a $ 19. 50 baseball cap.
The workers that produced that cap will only earn about eight cents. One student said, "we were as shocked as you to find out that baseball caps with our schools' logo were made in a sweatshop" (Mandle 93). Eight cents will not get any of the normal daily expenses paid for. This student then demanded to be informed where their college logo apparel is made and that it is made in good conditions.
Why is the college or university not notified where their products are made? If the students knew they would not buy from these factories. Colleges should be notified if their products come from a sweatshop. Many students organize organizations at their school to prevent their products from being bought from a sweatshop. These students get together and try to find the source of where their products are made. Once they figure out where their product is made, they find ways to stop buying from a sweatshop that gives their workers low pay, no benefits, and horrible working conditions.
If all these students get together, sweatshops could start to clean up their factories. They could give their workers better benefits and more pay. They could also make the working conditions better for the workers. As long as the students keep trying to help prevent more sweatshops from forming and have their college or university buy their products from someplace else, is a step in the right direction.
The apparel industry has over 4. 9 million employees (Mandle 94). Apparel stores in the US like the Gap in Central America, Wal-mart in Honduras, and Nike shoe products in Indonesia, are produced in sweatshop factories. Other apparel stores like J. C. Penny, K-mart, and Walt Disney use sweatshop factories as their providers. Nike shoe for example charges the consumer $ 85 for a pair of shoes, and charges the store $ 20 per pair.
However, the person who makes the shoes will only earn up to sixty-eight cents for that hour that they made the shoe. Where does all the money go, that Nike makes? Nike's stock is worth over $ 4. 5 billion and the workers making the shoe will only get $ 2. 20 for that day (Mandle 92 - 93). For a company that makes that much money why can't they pay the workers who are making their product more? With that much money they should be able to make the conditions in their factories better to work in. What does Nike do with all their money that they make?
Since they are not bettering their working conditions in their factories. Walt Disney has workers in Haiti that work for 28 cents per hour. They make 5 cents for every $ 11. 99 children's outfit. A worker in one of the factories in Haiti said, "They treat us badly, like we are dumb, with no respect" (Williams 18). Why is this worker only paid 5 cents and why are sweatshop workers treated unfairly?
How many other workers are treated as bad as this? Treating anyone this way is wrong and should be penalized. Walt Disney makes billions of dollars that could be used to fix up their factories. What does Walt Disney do with this money? They do not use the money in the way they should be. They can give their best employee a raise.
Giving he or she a raise would just increase the person's income. Their income is already high enough to support their family. While in the factory, the workers are afraid to ask for a raise. Nancy Penaloza a worker that makes clothes in one of the factories says, "I can not ask him a question because I'm afraid he will hit me. If I were to ask for overtime pay or a raise, I would be fired" (Williams 10). Why can this woman be fired but the person works for the actual company will get a raise and overtime pay without think twice about it?
This woman deserves to have overtime pay, a raise, and better working conditions. With the money the Walt Disney makes, it should be expected that they use some of their money to improve the conditions for this woman and other workers in these factories but they do not do anything for these workers. These factories should be doing something to help out these workers. Companies should be getting penalized for making workers, work in these conditions.
Many sweatshop factories claim that they made changes to their factory but did they really? A spokesperson from the Global Exchange, Michael Shellenberger said, "This is a step backwards. These companies will be able to market their products as sweatshop free without actually making any changes to their factory" (Mandle 96 - 97). Why are these factories able to claim that changes were made, even if nothing was done? When a young boy had gotten hurt by one of the machines, why did the owner do nothing to prevent it from happening again?
An owner of a factory said that they do not have accidents in their factories, once in a while a finger or foot is smashed, but that does not amount to anything" (Freedman 35). Why did the owner do nothing to prevent this accident from happening again? The owners of theses factories should have more respect for their workers, but they do not. These workers risk their life for just pennies a day. The owners could at least make sure the conditions are safe for anyone to work in. They should also make sure that when an accident occurs that it will not occur again.
These kinds of workplaces should not be able to stay open until the conditions are better. Many workers will become sick from the conditions in these workplaces. The conditions in these factories are not good enough for an adult to work in and children should not be working there either. Sweatshop workers do not get benefits, which gives the worker a choice to take their sick son or daughter to the doctors or work to get money. Many stores and schools in the United States use sweatshops as a part of their provider for their product. Students are working together to make sure that the workers will have better working conditions and better benefits.
Children should be able to go and play like a normal child. They should not worry whether or not they should be at a factory working. Children under the age of sixteen should be out having fun, not locked up in a damp, dark, and dirty factory.
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Research essay sample on College Or University Walt Disney
