Sunday, January 19, 2020
Sweatshop Labor: Wearing Thin Essay example -- essays research papers
     For most people in the United States, the term â€Å"slave to fashion†relates to an individual’s desire always to be wearing the latest fashions from trendy clothing lines. In a twist of supreme irony, the designation applies much more literally to the legions of poverty-stricken sweatshop laborers worldwide who toil away under miserable conditions to produce the snappy apparel that Americans purchase in droves on a daily basis.      Conditioned by a media that places considerable emphasis on possessing a stylish wardrobe, the majority of U.S. consumers are far too awash in their own culture -- one that is notorious for the value it places on material wealth -- to be sensitive to the plight of these indigent foreigners. And although the US media’s fleeting scrutiny of sweatshop conditions five years ago did make the issue a greater part of the national consciousness than ever before, not enough people changed their buying habits as a result -- or at least not enough to make a dent in the all-important bottom line of guilty corporations. Indeed, major American retailers of clothing and other apparel products have not changed this despotic element of their business practices in the least despite the negative publicity; in fact, they continue to exploit laborers in foreign, mostly Third-World countries to an alarming degree.      The scope of the problem is such that hundreds of residents in a town as small and isolated as Santa Cruz have at some point been employed in sweatshops in impoverished nations. Santa Cruz resident Lorenzo Hernandez endured years of mistreatment at a Doall Enterprises factory in El Salvador before immigrating with his wife and two sons to Santa Cruz in September, 2000. He now works full-time as a cook at Tony and Alba’s Pizza in Scotts Valley, and while he scarcely earns above minimum wage in his current position, it represents a substantial improvement to the abject conditions under which he labored for so many years in his home country. â€Å"They treated us very badly (in El Salvador),†Hernandez said. â€Å"I earned not enough to live on. My family could only buy two shirts and pants (per person), and we were always hungry. I worked 14, 16 hours a day but still did not make enough.†     Hernandez speaks and moves with the languor of a man... ...ation or escape in religion. Fittingly, while more affluent people in the United States disregard the reality of sweatshop labor because they are preoccupied with trying to sport cutting-edge fashions, the people of Ciudad Juarez seek to disguise their realities because they are so painful.      Faced with such unsettling tales of human suffering, Saganovich remains resolute: â€Å"Wal-Mart is simply looking out for its best interests, and this alleged mistreatment of foreign laborers isn’t anywhere near as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. The people who are speaking out so strongly against us are little more than a type of propagandists with their own agendas. Nobody forces anyone to work anywhere, and a lot of them are coming to America and making better lives for themselves.†     Hernandez is one of a relatively small number of lucky immigrants who have realized a greater level of wealth and comfort in the States, but he will never forget the anguish his previous jobs brought him and his compatriots. â€Å"It’s great, I can afford clothes and food here now,†he said. â€Å"But I try to buy from stores (that) don’t have sweatshops.â€
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