Fashioning Responsibly - Essay Example

Fashioning Responsibly-Sweatshops A sweatshop or sweat factory refers to the negative connotation terminologies used to refer to a given working environment. These sweat shops usually have negative working conditions, poor working conditions that are way below the acceptable working standards, as well as, posing great danger and risks to the persons working under these situations. Furthermore, a sweatshop has conditions that are too difficult to operate, thereby making it hard to derive high levels of productivity in the operations of the company. A company that operates as a sweatshop usually demoralizes, as well as overworks its workers either to derive maximum output from them, or simply to enslave them so that they may work hard at dismal compensation levels. In addition, operating under a sweat shop may also lead to poor health and contraction of diseases, or even suffering severe wounds and infections which might be life threatening to the individual in consideration. The operations of sweatshops usually pose grave risks to the people working in them, as well as, fail to compensate them adequately. Under most circumstances, sweatshops abuse all labor laws in existence.1 The fashion industry has to shoulder all the responsibilities that result from their production activities. The fashion industry is the most thorough department of the economy in employing poor economic conditions, as well as, harassment of the workers who power the production systems of these companies. Most of these fashion houses have manufacturing plants whereby it employs a number of workers to produce a given product within the right time. The short deadlines between launching of a product and the growth and expansion of market spheres makes some fashion houses not to adhere to the policies and laws set to govern the delivery of labor in the society. These fashion industries operate sweatshops in order to meet their market demands, as well as, provide formidable competition for the activities and practices undertaken within their production lines. In addition, these stringent working conditions also result from the tight deadlines that they have to meet both in the industry as well as in the market.2 The conditions in sweatshops operated by fashion houses usually relate to a number of characteristics, key among them being overworking its workers for long periods of the day and sometimes in the night. In addition, these sweat shops also pay these workers below the required minimum wage, as well as, way below the set market standards in the fashion industry. This is in complete disregard and total defamation of the laws and regulations mandating payment of overtimes to employees who work for long hours, or those legal laws pertaining minimum wages. The operators of sweatshops in most cases simply abuse their employees. They see their employees as a means to achieve their goals and objectives. They do not consider their social well-being and other financial status and needs the employees in this fashion sweatshops end up working on fabric for long hours, without the right working conditions that may also jeopardize their health conditions, and still get the lowest payments at the end of the day.3 This abuse of labor in sweatshops especially in the fashion industry occurs mainly because of the poor economic standards in which these industries are located. For instance, most fashion industries in the United States and other developed countries have their headquarters at leafy and affluent locations in major cities and towns in the United States. These headquarters of a given line of fashion, or design and brand of fashion, work hard to promote their brand, as well as, coming up with the best designs to meet market demands. However, they do not host their manufacturing plants in these leafy locations and town premises. Due to the intensive requirement of labor in the production of these fabrics, as most of the fashion industry is not well techno developed, they locate their industries in countries that have cheap labor, as well as, act as tax havens.4 The resultant fact would lead to these major fashion houses locating their industries and other manufacturing plants in ov3erseas subsidiaries. For example, most of the fashion houses that operate in the United States and the United Kingdom have subsidiaries that deal exceptionally with production of fabric for supply into the market located in developing countries, which have poor economies to support their skilled and unskilled labor. Some of the favored host countries for these sweatshops are Honduras, Guatemala, and Africa for the United States and some selected United Kingdom and Chinese firms. These countries are attractive sites for the location of these fashion house-manufacturing industries because they have cheap labor, owing to the large pool of its unemployed citizens, while at the same time have low rates of taxation, which also works well in reducing the company’s costs of operations, and thus increase its profitability. These fashion companies would rather manufacture their products cheaply in a far away country then ship their finished products to their target markets, rather than undertaking production activities in their own countries.5 These countries also assist in the development of sweatshops in their economies. This is because they have poor regulations of labor, as well as having a poor economic condition whereby the few citizens lucky to have a job have to work extra hours in order to procure for their needs. These companies capitalize on the fact that the people in these developing countries live in hardship to take advantage of them and exploit them considerably. The governments of these nations also support this unfair treatment of their citizens because they see location of these overseas subsidiaries in their country as a promoter of economic development and growth, especially in the sense that it provides numerous employment opportunities to most of its skilled and unskilled jobless citizens. In addition, this government favors these overseas subsidiaries because they bring foreign trading activities on their land, as well as pay corporate taxes from their profits, which improves the country’s economic status.6 This excessive favoritism for these foreign-based fashion industries lessens the regulations of its operations, especially concerning the issue of sweathouses. These fashion houses use their good will and reputation before the government and the people of those nations to take advantage of their workers. For instance, in most of the Economic processing Zones (EPZs) within these emerging economies whereby they produce and manufacture goods strictly for exports into foreign markets, these workers are on the number of products they produce per day. As such, in the case of fabric and fashion, this may relate to the number of clothes or the number of fabric that they handle within a given day. The value on this pay is usually so low, and in order to make a substantial amount of income per day, these workers opt to work for longer hours running into overtimes, which these fashion houses do not consider in their pay slips.7 Apart from these employees working for long hours in fashion house EPZs, and at lower compensation levels, they also have to cripple with the poor working conditions within these industries. For instance, these workers lack the adequate clothing to handle some of the chemicals and detergents used in development of fabrics. This exposes them to toxic and harmful substances that can jeopardize their health, or cause them physical injuries. The worst scenario of all this undertaking is the fact that the fashion houses in charge do not take responsibilities for the injuries and damages that these workers suffer while at their firms. Too much dismay, most of these companies even try to shy away from accounting to the poor working conditions in their companies by blaming the workers for the fault that led to them suffering these injuries and damages. As such, workers continue suffering in silent because they do not have anyone to hear and attend to their cry voices. In addition, they do not have an alternative source of income, and as such, have to withstand the tough working conditions within these fashion houses in order to make a living.8 The worst case of these fashion sweatshops is their inclusion of minors in their employees’ portfolio, partly to increase their productivity, and partly to reduce its operational expenses in cost since minors earn much less compared to adults. As such, they can get a wide pool of minors working for them at a smaller fee, and still move a large production capacity as these minors work just as hard as their mature workers counterparts. A good example of these fashion houses that utilize minors in their sweatshops was the Kathie lee Gifford line of clothing, which used child labor in its Honduran sweatshops. This line of fashion house used children in its industries in order to increase its production capacity as well as meet its market and production targets.9 In conclusion, the fashion responsibility that these fashion industries have to bear with is the reduction of manufacturing their products from sweatshops. They should work to improve the working conditions of their manufacturing plants by enhancing the production cycles and adhering to all the laws of labor governing production in these industries. This also should be in consideration of the payment of the workers, which should be adequate and above the minimum wage rate. This also encompasses the usage of children in their manufacturing sites. The working conditions within these fashion houses should also improve in order to guarantee the best labor production conditions in these firms. Consequently, this would lead to a fashion responsibility and growth of the industry. In addition, this also works well in enhancing the brand image of the fashion houses due to the reputable image that develops after the customers discover that their products come under the best conditions of work possible.10 Bibliography Jones, Peter. Fashioning Corporate Social Responsibility, Cheltenham, UK: Emerald Publishing Group, 2011, P.24. Read More