Sweatshop Labor: Wearing Thin Essay example -- essays research papers

For most people in the United States, the term slave to fashion relates to an various(prenominal)s desire always to be wearing the latest fashions from trendy clothing draw offs. Ina twist of supreme irony, the designation applies much more than literally to the legions ofpoverty-stricken sweatshop laborers worldwide who toil away to a lower place miserable conditionsto produce the snappy app atomic number 18l that Americans purchase in droves on a day by day basis.Conditioned by a media that places considerable emphasis on possessing a stylishwardrobe, the majority of U.S. consumers are far too awash in their take in culture -- onethat is nonorious for the value it places on material wealth -- to be sensitive to the plightof these indigent foreigners. And although the US medias fleeting testing of sweatshopconditions five years ago did groom the issue a greater part of the national consciousnessthan ever before, not enough people changed their acquire habits as a result -- or at leastnot enough to blade a dent in the all-important bottom line of guilty corporations. Indeed,major American retailers of clothing and other apparel products father not changed thisdespotic element of their business practices in the least despite the proscribe publicity infact, they continue to exploit laborers in foreign, mostly Third-World countries to analarming degree. The scope of the problem is such that hundreds of residents in a town as subatomic andisolated as Santa Cruz have at some point been employed in sweatshops in impoverishednations. Santa Cruz resident Lorenzo Hernandez endured years of mistreatment at aDoall Enterprises manufacturing plant in El Salvador before immigrating with his wife and two sons toSanta Cruz in September, 2000. He now works full-time as a cook at Tony and AlbasPizza in Scotts Valley, and while he scarcely earns above minimum wage in his currentposition, it represents a substantial improvement to the abject conditions under which he labored for so many years in his home country. They treated us very badly (in ElSalvador), Hernandez said. I earned not enough to live on. My family could only buytwo shirts and pants (per person), and we were always hungry. I worked 14, 16 hours aday 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 ofsweatshop 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 resoluteWal-Mart is manifestly looking out for its best interests, and this alleged mistreatment offoreign laborers isnt anywhere near as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. Thepeople who are speaking out so strongly against us are little more than a type ofpropagandists with their ow n agendas. secret code forces anyone to work anywhere, and alot of them are coming to America and making better lives for themselves.Hernandez is one of a relatively small number of lucky immigrants who haverealized a greater level of wealth and comfort in the States, but he will never forget theanguish his previous jobs brought him and his compatriots. Its great, I can affordclothes and food here now, he said. But I try to buy from stores (that) dont havesweatshops.