Workers, Women and Companies
Eric Zhu
Centennial College
Have you ever wonder what it would be like to work in a sweatshop? If you worked as a washroom cleaner that made $5 an hour, you would be considered overly well paid. A person from a developed country working in a sweatshop would be considered a hellish job considering the working environment you would be working in, the amount hours that you have to work, and the amount of pay per hour. However, sweatshops are seen as an opportunity for people to work in, beneficial not only to the company, but also to the workers, especially women in the sweatshops would truly see this as an opportunity to create a new self.
According to Clive (2013), “people buy Primark clothes because they’re cheap. Primark buys its clothes from sweatshops, because they’re cheap. The sweatshops are in Bangladesh and India because labours in these places are cheap. If the labour becomes much more expensive, the sweatshops will leave. And the people will be worse off than they were before.” Most companies nowadays focus on figuring out ways to maximize their output while minimizing their input. Using sweatshops is definitely one way of making that happen. This in fact is a way for companies to keep their competitive advantages and their prices low against other companies. In most underdeveloped countries, the rate of poverty is especially high. These are perfect places to build sweatshops in because the country has a high population that is willing to work for any amount of money in order to feed their families, regardless of the long hours and working conditions. Producing a shirt wouldn’t cost much. Let’s say it takes five minutes to sew three shirts, selling them at $10 each while paying the workers 20 cents for the day. Just by looking at the inputs the company puts in and the numbers that come out by producing them and selling them at a high price, you can see why it