Capstone Project - 2017: Sweatshops, Forced Labor, & Human Trafficking

"There are several different ways to define a sweatshop. According to the US Department of Labor, a sweatshop is any factory that violates more than one of the fundamental US labor laws, which include paying a minimum wage and keeping a time card, paying overtime, and paying on time. The Union of Needletrades Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), the US garment workers union, says any factory that does not respect workers’ right to organize an independent union is a sweatshop. Global Exchange and other corporate accountability groups in the anti-sweatshop movement would add to this definition any factory that does not pay its workers a living wage—that is, a wage that can support the basic needs of a small family.

In the popular mind, a sweatshop is identified with hard work. And, in fact, garment manufacturing’s reliance on human labor helps explain why apparel factories are so often sweatshops.

The softness of the garments used to make our clothes, along with the complicated patterns involved, means that apparel production doesn’t easily lend itself to mechanization. For more than 150 years, the sewing machine has been, and today remains, the best way of making clothes. The basic method of garment production continues to be a worker, usually a woman, sitting or standing at a sewing machine and piecing together portions of cloth. Every blouse, every pair of jeans, every t-shirt, and every pair of shoes has to be tailored by a person doing the work. Everything we wear is made by someone.

To keep labor costs low, apparel shop owners usually pay workers a “piece rate.” That means workers don’t get paid by the hour. Rather, their wage is based on the number of items—shirts, shoes, socks—they complete in a shift. If workers hope to earn a decent income, they have to work hard, and they have to work long. Basically, they have to sweat."

Source article from globalexchange.org/fairtrade/sweatfree/faq

• Almost 21 million people are victims of forced labor – 11.4 million women and girls and 9.5 million men and boys.
• Almost 19 million victims are exploited by private individuals or enterprises and over 2 million by the state or rebel groups.
• Of those exploited by individuals or enterprises, 4.5 million are victims of forced sexual exploitation.
• Forced labor in the private economy generates US$ 150 billion in illegal profits per year.
• Domestic work, agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and entertainment are among the sectors most concerned.
• Migrant workers and indigenous people are particularly vulnerable to forced labor