Abstract: Oral Communication (1) historical

Name: Remarks at the Marymount University academic search for sweatshop solutions
Author: Alexis M. Herman
Date: May 30, 1997
Website: https://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/herman/speeches/sp970603.htm
Date of Access: February 21, 2017

Main Idea of Speech or Song:

This company is trying to fight the terms that comes with being considered a sweatshop, but still
keep the factories and make them safer and better for the workers. They have started
campaigns and they are working together with other foundations to try to reach their goal. The
company is also trying to change laws and make sure the laws that already exist, are followed.
They will continue to try to start new partnerships and make new and better connections in the
business world.

Evidence from Text or Lyrics:

1. As Labor Secretary, I have set five goals for the department: First, to equip every
worker with the skills to find and hold a good job; second, to move people from the
welfare rolls to payrolls; third, to assure that all workers are economically secure when
they retire; fourth, to help workers balance the demands of work and family; and, finally,
to guarantee every worker a safe, healthy and fair workplace.

2. In this era of concern for civility, decency and family values, sweatshops are
repugnant to our moral core. It is wrong to value fashion when we do not value the people who
make fashion real. The loveliest dress goes quickly out of style when we are reminded that the
woman who made it might not be able to feed herself or her children. Sweatshops reflect too
vividly how we as a nation feel about the weakest among us. And it is such an "underground"
problem that there is no definitive source on how many sweatshops operate in this country. But
we know this: One is one too many.

Abstract: Oral Communication (2) current

Name: Shadow Business
Author: Jedi Mind Tricks
Date: 2006
Website: http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858632752/
Date of Access: February 21, 2017

Main Idea of Speech or Song:

The song is about forced labor and how some Chinese people are forced to sign shadow
contracts if they leave China. The lyrics are over exaggerating on a lot of the different areas of
the aspect of Sweatshops, probably just to make a statement and reach out to more people.
They refer to the Sweatshop factories as hell. The artist sings about the bad working
conditions, slavery and long hours for the garment workers. Exploitation from the multinational
companies is also mentioned in the strong lyrics of this song.

Evidence from Text or Lyrics:

1. "The sweatshop situation kind of conveys it and kind of take advantage of

the people that are poor and at an economic disadvantage"

2. It's 1.6 million people locked in jail

They the new slave labor force, trapped in Hell
They generate over a billion dollars worth of power
And only gettin' paid twenty cents an hour.

Abstract: Visual (1) historical

Visual Name: Average hourly apparel worker wages
Artist: Jay R. Mandle
Date: February 17, 2003
Website where Found: https://sites.google.com/site/antisweatshopleague/maps-and-statistics
Date of Access: February 19, 2017

Main Idea of Visual:

The table shows the hourly wages of apparel workers in different countries. It shows that some
sweatshop workers are better off than others. We must also take into consideration that the
economic situation is different in the countries and the table is from a book from 2003 so the
situations may have shifted since this time period.

Distinctive Features:

1. The big difference between Bangladesh and El Salvador

2.The sweatshops in Central America pays way more than the ones in Asia.

Abstract: Visual (2) current

Visual Name: Quit the sweatshop

Artist: Justin Buzzard (photographer)
Date: August 24, 2012
Website where Found: http://www.justinbuzzard.net/2012/08/24/quit-the-sweatshop/
Date of Access: February 19, 2017

Main Idea of Visual:

This picture shows the workers inside a sweatshop. We can see how many workers they put on
the same floor - way too many. The fact that they all wear the same uniform and have the exact
same working conditions show that they are all on the same level.

Distinctive Features:

1. Mostly women working in this garment factory.

2. The conditions at this specific factory does not look all that bad.

Abstract: Article (1) current

Article Name: Inside Cambodias abusive sweatshops

Author: Patrick Winn
Date: April 11, 2015
Website: http://theweek.com/articles/546995/inside-cambodias-abusive-sweatshops
Date of Access: February 8, 2017

Main Idea of Article:

Some of the garment factories in this nation's area are found criminally abusive - theyre hot and
loud and many workers faints during their day in the factories. Over a million Cambodians work
in this sector (mainly because the alternatives are even worse), and its important to know that
there is no forced labor at the sweatshops. Kids under 15 are legally forbidden to work in
Cambodian factories, but that does not stop factories from hiring children to benefit from their
cheaper labor. About 90% of Cambodias seamstresses are women and they fired in most cases
if they get pregnant (because pregnant women are seen as less effective and they take too
many bathroom breaks). Some factories will also promise extra money if they work faster and
help the production of merchandise improve, but then later refuse to pay the workers the extra
money.

Evidence from Text:

1. Americans have reason to cringe over the sad conditions forced on Cambodian clothing
makers. The United States is the top destination for "Made in Cambodia" clothes. Major brands
such as Gap, Marks & Spencer and Adidas all rely on Cambodians to stitch their clothing.
Outlets such as H&M can sell hoodies for as little as $25 because Cambodian women (almost
all the workers are women) will sew for roughly 50 cents per hour.

2. Kids under 15 are legally forbidden to work in Cambodian factories. But some workers told
Human Rights Watch that they dropped out of the seventh or eighth grade at ages ranging
from 12 to 14 so they could start stitching for international brands.
According to the report, one woman at a factory supplying H&M clothes "estimated that 20 of
the 60 workers were children." Others told Human Rights Watch that "children worked as hard
as adults" and would stitch long hours into the night.

Abstract: Article (2) historic

Article Name: The Virtues of Sweatshops

Author: Stefan Spath
Date: March 1, 2002
Website: https://fee.org/articles/the-virtues-of-sweatshops/
Date of Access: February 15, 2017
Main Idea of Article:
The public at large think that sweatshops in general is a negative term, this is because they lack
knowledge on the topic and they do not consider the evidence. It states that sweatshops have
existed for a really long time and was never seen as negative until the anti-sweatshop activism
started in the nineteenth century in America. It is true that the jobs in third world countries are
underpaid compared to the jobs in the US, but the jobs there also creates programs that uplift
the community as a whole. Labor unions are saying that the factories in third world countries
(originally American based companies) create unemployment in the US, but the fact is that this
creates jobs in these areas. Even though the sweatshops only produce low-wage jobs, they are
still jobs that are better than the local jobs and other options in these countries.

Evidence from text:

1. What are sweatshops anyway? If theyre low-wage (by advanced standards), labor-
intensive manufacturing facilities, they have existed throughout the world in different places and
at different times, although now they tend to be concentrated in developing nations with large
populations of low-skilled workers. This pattern of how and where labor-intensive manufacturing
is conducted has an economic explanation evidenced by historical examples throughout the
centuries. For similar reasons, the Persians bought textiles from the Phoenicians in the sixth
century B.C.E.; the Venetians bought spices from Arab traders during the Renaissance; and the
Portuguese bought wool from the English in the eighteenth century. It is why 90 percent of the
VCRs sold in the United States today are manufactured in Korea. Specialization and the division
of labor are guided by each particular countrys comparative advantage. (Comparative
advantage, as opposed to absolute advantage, refers to a groups relative superiority in
producing a particular good vis--vis other groups compared to other goods.)

2. It is true that the wages earned by workers in developing nations are outrageously low
compared to American wages, and their working conditions go counter to sensibilities in the rich,
industrialized West. However, I have seen how the foreign-based opportunities are normally
better than the local alternatives in case after case, from Central America to Southeast Asia.
There are myriad examples of large MNCs from the West contributing to programs that uplift
entire communities, such as the maquiladora industrial towns of northern Mexico that have
benefited from improved roads, water-purification plants, and the construction of entire school
systems around new factories.
Abstract: Literature (1) current

Name of Literature: Sweatshop worker shares story, hopes to inspire

Type: Short story/article
Author: Jake Jarvis
Date: March 1, 2016
Website: http://www.thedaonline.com/news/article_570ce1be-df80-11e5-8400-
df73beb88fbb.html
Date of Access: February 15, 2017
Main Idea of Literature:

A women that used to work at a sweatshop in the Dominican Republic tells her story about the
conditions in the factory where she was a former employee. She tells about the time when they
cleaned the ceiling with toxic chemicals and no workers were allowed to leave the room (many
passed out). Now she works for a fair-wage garment factory and the conditions are so much
better - they are trying to set an example. The new factory in Alta Gracia lets students and other
people in to see how the new factories work, hoping to inspire other companies to follow the
same pattern as them.

Evidence from Text:

1. That was years ago. Olivo and about 129 other workers now work for a fair-wage
garment factory in Alta Gracia. She and Hanoi Sosa, an organizer for fair employment
laws in the Dominican Republic, have traveled across the country to inspire college
students to take up their cause.

Olivo and Sosa want to pressure universities like West Virginia University to sign
contracts with the factory in Alta Gracia so athletic apparel will be produced there.

2. Were not here trying to sell you a T-Shirt, Sosa told students in the
Mountainlair Monday afternoon. Were not here trying to sell you a brand. Were trying
to sell you a model, a model which should be followed around the world.

3. Olivo said when the new fair-wage factory was opened six years ago, she was
able to rescue her family from a life of poverty. The previous factory she worked at
closed down, forcing her to withdraw the children from school because she couldnt
afford to send them any longer.

Abstract: Literature (2) historical

Name of Literature: Historical development of the sweatshop

Type: Article
Author: Todd Pugatch
Date: April 30, 1998
Website: http://www.unc.edu/~andrewsr/ints092/sweat.html
Date of Access: February 21, 2017

Main Idea of Literature:

This article takes on the history of the sweatshops all over the world starting in the 1840s. It
also offers a wide range of definitions of what a sweatshop really is and how much this definition
has changed since the 1840s and up until today. After the industrialization times ened in london
during 19th century, we did not see much of them up until 1997. The article also touches the fact
that some of the workers at the garment factories in third world countries are under forced labor.
Also the globalization of the sweatshops is a big topic in this text, and it states that sweatshops
are the inevitable byproduct of a free market economy and a necessary stage in the economic
development of a nation.

Evidence from Text:

1.The historical development of the sweatshop can be traced to the emerging textile
industry of England, New England, and New York in the 1840s. Prior to 1850, the
Massachusetts textile industry employed more homeworkers than factory workers, engaging a
largely rural population in non-agricultural labor, many for the first time. The seemingly unlimited
supply of rural laborers and low cost of entry for firms made homework common and opened the
system to exploitation. "It is by no means the case that all homework is sweated," wrote British
labor advocate Clementina Black in 1907, "but it is the fact that a good deal of homework, in this
country and in others, exists solely because the homeworker can be ground to the lowest
stages of misery."

2.The plight of sweatshop workers first gained a public audience with the publication of
The Condition of the Working Class in England, by Friedrich Engels, in 1844. Charles Kingsley
offered a formal definition of "sweating" in 1849. The "sweating system," he wrote, "is a
surviving remnant of the industrial system which preceded the factory system, when industry
was chiefly conducted on the piece-price plan, in small shops or the homes of the workers." The
framework of this definition that sweatshops are defined by a relationship of subcontract was
common in the early attempts to define the term.