Where Sweatshops Are a Dream
Author: Nicholas Kristof
Kristof, Nicholas. “Where Sweatshops Are a Dream.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Jan. 2009, www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/opinion/15kristof.html.
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PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
Before Barack Obama and his team act on their talk about “labor standards,” I’d like to offer them a tour of the vast garbage dump here in Phnom Penh.
This is a Dante-like vision of hell. It’s a mountain of festering refuse, a half-hour hike across, emitting clouds of smoke from subterranean fires.
It is very dangerous for them to live in a workforce like this.
They have to hike over piles of trash and breath in the smoke from subterranean fires.
I can understand why most people that scavenge in these places would state that a job in a sweatshop seems like “a dream”
its do risky for workers to be working in a place where smoke its going towards them.
The miasma of toxic stink leaves you gasping, breezes batter you with filth, and even the rats look forlorn. Then the smoke parts and you come across a child ambling barefoot, searching for old plastic cups that recyclers will buy for five cents a pound. Many families actually live in shacks on this smoking garbage.
They’re working in a polluted job that doesn’t give them enough ability to have a good standard
people go scavenging in the garbage where the air is toxic just to make 5 cents a pound of plastic
Mr. Obama and the Democrats who favor labor standards in trade agreements mean well, for they intend to fight back at oppressive sweatshops abroad. But while it shocks Americans to hear it, the central challenge in the poorest countries is not that sweatshops exploit too many people, but that they don’t exploit enough.
They live in a poor condition that doesn’t give them enough ability to live. Obama wants people to exploit enough. Meanwhile, the Democrats give them low labor standards
These people are living in conditions where they can barely live.
I think what this sentence is trying to say is that Americans think sweatshops take advantage of too many people when in reality, people actually want to work there.
Talk to these families in the dump, and a job in a sweatshop is a cherished dream, an escalator out of poverty, the kind of gauzy if probably unrealistic ambition that parents everywhere often have for their children.
A lot of people say it is like “a dream” to have a job in a sweatshop because it’s better than what they are doing right now
Its often sad how they have to take their children to a polluted area and not a job that’s supplemented well like a shop
They think working in a sweatshop is a dream because it’d be better working there.
The people working in the dump say it’s a “dream” to work in sweatshops.
“I’d love to get a job in a factory,” said Pim Srey Rath, a 19-year-old woman scavenging for plastic. “At least that work is in the shade. Here is where it’s hot.”
They rather have a shop that pays them well instead of dealing with a low range and don’t get enough as how much it’s suggested. This is what makes it unfair for the people. The workability of a shop will not be as polluted as a garbage job that doesn’t pay well and that goes under unhumanity.
It’s not a safe environment for women nor children to be working in
19 year old Pim Srey Rath, said that would enjoy working in a factory then in the garbage can.
Pim Srey Rath said she would “love” to work in a factory.
She wants to work in the shade.
Another woman, Vath Sam Oeun, hopes her 10-year-old boy, scavenging beside her, grows up to get a factory job, partly because she has seen other children run over by garbage trucks. Her boy has never been to a doctor or a dentist, and last bathed when he was 2, so a sweatshop job by comparison would be far more pleasant and less dangerous.
the way that these people live off scavenging isn’t good and at times very dangerous , which is why most like Vath Sam Oeun want factory jobs for their children or for themselves.
Some parents want better for their children like a factory that’s invested in a great environment not a polluted area that deals with rats, or any source that’s dangerous.
She wants her son to have a better life because she’s seen other kids get ran over and hurt.
The garbage trucks have to be more careful when driving especially because they are children there
Vath Sam Oeun says she hopes her son can someday work in a factory because she has seen children get run over and doesn’t want that for her son.
I’m glad that many Americans are repulsed by the idea of importing products made by barely paid, barely legal workers in dangerous factories. Yet sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty, not a cause, and banning them closes off one route out of poverty. At a time of tremendous economic distress and protectionist pressures, there’s a special danger that tighter labor standards will be used as an excuse to curb trade.
Although sweatshop jobs are not ok for obvious reasons,people actually need them to avoid lower levels of poverty.
When I defend sweatshops, people always ask me: But would you want to work in a sweatshop? No, of course not. But I would want even less to pull a rickshaw. In the hierarchy of jobs in poor countries, sweltering at a sewing machine isn’t the bottom.
He believes that sweatshops get paid less and its enclosed by a low standard. He thinks a sewing machine is not everything
I think that sweatshops are bad and I like the author would very much dislike working in one of them, but compared to scavenging in garbage, it doesn’t seem as bad.
He says working in sweat shops is bad but not the worst
Of course, none of us would want to work in a sweatshop, but it would be way better than having to stay out in the sun searching through garbage trying to find plastic.
My views on sweatshops are shaped by years living in East Asia, watching as living standards soared including those in my wife’s ancestral village in southern China because of sweatshop jobs.
Manufacturing is one sector that can provide millions of jobs. Yet sweatshops usually go not to the poorest nations but to better-off countries with more reliable electricity and ports.
consumers go based on the easiest way to work.
There are less sweatshops in poor countries because most go to countries that have more reliable elements.
Sweatshops go to countries where the things needed for the factories are better found.
I often hear the argument: Labor standards can improve wages and working conditions, without greatly affecting the eventual retail cost of goods. That’s true. But labor standards and “living wages” have a larger impact on production costs that companies are always trying to pare. The result is to push companies to operate more capital-intensive factories in better-off nations like Malaysia, rather than labor-intensive factories in poorer countries like Ghana or Cambodia.
Cambodia has, in fact, pursued an interesting experiment by working with factories to establish decent labor standards and wages. It’s a worthwhile idea, but one result of paying above-market wages is that those in charge of hiring often demand bribes sometimes a month’s salary in exchange for a job. In addition, these standards add to production costs, so some factories have closed because of the global economic crisis and the difficulty of competing internationally.
they’ve tried putting factories but people get greedy and make them pay to get a job.
The best way to help people in the poorest countries isn’t to campaign against sweatshops but to promote manufacturing there. One of the best things America could do for Africa would be to strengthen our program to encourage African imports, called AGOA, and nudge Europe to match it.
They say the best way to manufacture is to promote, like improve not going against sweatshops that give a less amount on labor.
If people really want to help these poor countries them they need to stop being against them and instead be for them since they really have an impact on the people and their livelihoods.
Among people who work in development, many strongly believe (but few dare say very loudly) that one of the best hopes for the poorest countries would be to build their manufacturing industries. But global campaigns against sweatshops make that less likely.
It’s the condition that they live in that they can’t make manufacturing based on people being against sweatshops. Based on them living in a poor condition. That’s why people decide to compete.
They say that way they could help the poorest countries is by building sweatshops but with people trying to fight them it makes it harder
although at first it may be hard to accept the fact that people in these countries need sweatshops,I think that they need to understand that these sweatshop jobs are a big step up from what most of the citizens in the countries are doing for a living.
Look, I know that Americans have a hard time accepting that sweatshops can help people. But take it from 13-year-old Neuo Chanthou, who earns a bit less than $1 a day scavenging in the dump. She’s wearing a “Playboy” shirt and hat that she found amid the filth, and she worries about her sister, who lost part of her hand when a garbage truck ran over her.
But have they ever thought about the pollution they have to go through and the tough conditions. This makes the people want to stay in manufacturing because it’s easier. A garbage job that is polluted is not everything. The harsh conditions that they live in are worse than a sweatshop.
“It’s dirty, hot and smelly here,” she said wistfully. “A factory is better.”
The polluted area meaning as in garbage bags deals, with a lot of danger. That people smell the fire around them that gets submerged but this has to do with the children’s health. In the video, they had to walk barefoot, had to deal with rats, people are getting tired of this. They want to provide better for their children so they won’t have to go through a lot of danger.
They don’t like the working conditions and rather work in a factory
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