Arguing with the economic development theorists Ross outlines how rather than stepping-stones to development,
sweatshops are on a downward slide to the bottom.
A second theme is the equation of
sweatshops with the garment industry.
If the climate doesn't finish them, the
sweatshops do.
Sweatshop labor is not quantitatively dominant either in the world economy or in the United States.
Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl Wudunn in their New York Times article "Two Cheers for
Sweatshops" (September 24, 2000) assert that boycotting fails to improve working conditions and instead causes
sweatshops to close and workers to be fired altogether.
Like many who toil inside
sweatshops, most of these jornaleros are in this country illegally, and, to them, getting deported is a bigger threat than not getting paid.
These
sweatshops are a brutal face of globalization.
Several of the women interviewed were involved in legislative action against manufacturers such as Donna Karan New York (DKNY) and Jessica McClintock for the hazardous
sweatshop conditions in which their merchandise is produced.
Instead, 60 Minutes interviewed the white male
sweatshop boss, who had nothing but praise for the company.
If it's difficult to associate human labor with the Murakami gloss, it's easy enough to see a link between his industrious assistants and the
sweatshop workers who make the knockoff handbags for which Louis Vuitton is, after all, best known (Murakami's version has been available for months on New York streets).
He said they also recorded interviews with
sweatshop workers and young people involved with the Sandinista Youth Movement.
The Gap buys GE cotton, pesticide cotton, and relies upon a notorious network of
sweatshop subcontractors.
Second, the
sweatshop workers themselves had begun to organize.
In less than five years, labor rights, human rights, legal rights, community and religious organizations, later joined by university students based on their respective campuses, have formed coalitions to expose the excesses of globalization centered around the
sweatshop wherever they operate in the world.
Sugar Hill Capital Partners announced that
Sweatshop, a Brooklyn-based coffee house founded by Luke Woodard and Ryan De Remer, is occupying the firm's ground-level storefront at 336 Flatbush.