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Research paper topic: Everyone Has The Right To Work, To Free Choice Of - 1083 words

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"Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work. . .Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social service." These are excerpts from the Declaration of Human Rights. Written over 50 years ago, the Declaration was created to give, "inherent dignity and. .

.equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family." The Declaration gave hope to many people across the globe who were living in tyranny and oppression, hoping for equality and fair treatment. Unfortunately for some, this document turned out to be merely one of false hope and lies. The people I speak of are our fellow human beings working under slave-like conditions in sweatshops. To them, the aforementioned promises are just a myth, something they can only dream about. As the aforementioned articles state, all human beings are guaranteed fair pay and working. Are not those sweat shop workers human beings? Of course they are human beings! Sadly, they're not treated like it. They're forced to work and incredible number of hours, under hazardous conditions and at ridiculously low wages.

Don't they deserve the rights the Declaration mentions? Of course they do! This is the exact reason that such treatment can't continue. Something must be done. Although proponents of sweatshops say that consumer demand for the lowest prices controls worker wages and conditions, they are just fooling themselves. If they want to talk about it economically, cheap labor actually debilitates the economy by driving wages down and forcing the lack of money which can only lead to a recession. In addition, workers who are paid less, are in turn less motivated to work. In addition, as economist Hazel Henderson explains: Many international manufacturers are subsidized by sweatshop wages.

Once they exploit cheap workers in one area, they find even cheaper workers someplace else, so fragile societies get disrupted. Human rights groups need to inspect these factories, so we won't have world trade built on child labor, sweatshop wages and burning down rain forests. This short-term exploitation is just not sustainable. (Henderson 1) So, taking this into account, one can see the flaws in the oppositions argument that demand for low prices controls worker wages. Not only is there a problem in the oppositions excuses, but there are also problems with worker wages that need to be faced and dealt with.

As everyone knows, we live in a capitalistic society in which everyone tries to get ahead and make the most profit they can. Manufacturers are no different, they too are capitalists trying to maximize profit as best they can. But there still must a point where a line must be drawn. At this point, the manufacturer must realize that workers are human beings and that their well being is worth more than any profit. In most cases, clothing manufacturers hire contractors to make their clothes. These contractors can range from expensive to cheap. Most often, the expensive ones are those contractors who do the job themselves, legally. The other ones are the contractors who charge low prices because they, in turn, contract out low wage sweatshops.

Not only does this profit the manufacturer, but it also makes the contractor more appealing to other manufacturers. So in most cases, sweatshops come about because of capitalistic greed. Because of this, sweatshop workers live in poverty and can barely, if at all, make enough to provide for themselves and their family. Although the situation is bad in the United States, it's much worse in other parts around the world. In a report entitled "How Do You Survive On 31 cents-an-Hour Wages?" published by the National Labor Council, a study was conducted on wages and living expenses for workers in sweatshops in Nicaragua.

They found a pay stub, "from the NICSEDA factory (which the workers told us produces Polo Ralph Lauren) shows the hourly wages to be 2.08 Cordobas or 0.21 cents." Furthermore, the average pay for a worker who put in a 56 hour week was $17.31. In addition, the report stated that the base wage for these workers was 10 cents an hour, which translated into $4.80 a week, $20.90 a month and $249.60 per year! This is outrageous. There is no way a person can live off those wages. The report left off by informing that these Nicaraguan workers were tired of their ridiculously low wages so in protest they were going to try to start a union. Their demands were a raise to 88 cents an hour.

This translates to $2,196, 48 per year. As one can see, these demands were not very high. Perhaps the only way they'll get it is by, as they started doing, forming a union. Unionization is a very important factor in workers winning some rights. Unfortunately, in some cases factory leaders just simply shut down the unionized factories and open up new ones where the unions are no longer in tact.

In an article by the Clean Clothes Campaign, a story was reported about a woman who wished only to be called by her first name, Maria. She was a single mother who worked in a sweatshop. In January of this year, Maria was forced to switch contractors due to the fact that her old factory was shut down beacause the workers started forming unions. Because of the union, Maria was earning $1.50 per hour, which came out to $66 for a 44 hour week. Unfortunately, to combat the unions, the owner gave the workers an ultimatem: break up your union or the plant will be shut down and you'll have nowhere to work. Simply wanting to be treated faily, the workers didn't budge.

In response, the owner closed the plant and relocated. As the report states, at her new job, which wasn't unionized, Maria earned only $20 for a 44 hour week. This was less than half of what she earned at her old job, which was at the standard wage for a single mother. Even when she tried to work 55 hours of week, she still didn't have enough to provide for her and her child ("Leader" 1). This is typical of sweatshop wages. Sweatshop workers all around the world are facing the same situation as Maria.

They work as much as their bodies will allow and yet it is still not enough to provide for their families. While wages are one obstacle facing the sweatshop worker, there are still several other issues that must be addressed. One of the bigg ...

Related: free choice, human beings, child labor, human rights, facing

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