Womens Conditions In Sweatshops

Within the last few decades, many sweatshops have moved overseas and unions against sweatshops have become more powerful. Budget cuts by both Reagan and Bush limited the administration of the US Department of Labor (DOL). There are now only 800 wage and hour inspectors employed by DOL to inspect six million work sites in the United States. This makes it easier for companies to avoid inspection. "The equipment is really just a few sewing machines, just rent space, pay the electric bill and you're in business” said by Ginny Coughlin of UNITE. Women make up 90% of sweatshop workers. Most of these women are between the ages of 15 and 22. Companies that use sweatshop labor are taking advantage of young women in need of living. Women are paid as little as six cents an hour and work ten to twelve hour shifts. Some women are allowed only two drinks of water and one bathroom break per shift. Sexual harassment, corporal punishment, and verbal abuse are all punishments used by supervisors to keep workers in fear. Many factories in which women work in are crowded, filthy, and rat-infested. They are located behind barbed wire fences that are monitored by armed guards. Women are also not allowed to have visitors. In some Indonesian sweatshops, women were forced to take down their pants and show the factory doctors that they were menstruating in order to leave. Managers also lie to women for better job conditions for sex. In an investigation in Spain, some women were forced to have abortions to keep their jobs. Women in sweatshops have little to no choices and are prohibited from forming unions.


http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/sweatshops.html