Labor Strikes Surge In China By Shannon Van Sant
Recent studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor found that 67% of Los Angeles garment factories and 63% of New York garment factories violate minimum wage and overtime laws. Ninety-eight percent of Los
Workers were paid $2 a day at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, and that was before their bosses docked their pay for the needles, thread, and electricity they used each day. The highrise factory had locked exit doors, and practically no safety precautions in case of danger. Conditions were truly brutal, but workers had no other choice, they needed the money and their bosses could replace them at the snap of a finger. Angry garment workers, such as Clara Lemlich, were able to get workers to band together in “The Uprising of 20,000”, the largest strike of women in American history. The strikers protested low wages, dangerous working conditions, and management’s refusal to recognize unions; the mass strike failed to bring any meaningful change to the garment-making industry.
Many companies and factories don't meet their requirements when it comes to workers rights. During “the booming years” Workers didn't get all the benefits and needs they needed. Around 1911, On an average day one hundred people died on the job. The rights for the workers in the Shirtwaist factory were very poor. They got little to no rights and little to no pay.
During this time period of the 20th century, the number of strikes skyrocketed and this became the worker's main way of fighting back for their rights. “‘Strikes are mere incidents in the class war; they are tests of strength, periodical drills in the course of which the workers train themselves for concerted action. This training is most necessary to prepare the masses for the final ‘catastrophe’ the general strike which will complete the expropriation of the employers” (331). Some of the work conditions that the workers faced were “‘... dangerously broken stairways… windows few and so dirty… The wooden floors that were
They demanded less hours, higher wages, workplace safety and unions. In the summer of 1909 the majority of Triangle Shirtwaist Factory workers walked off of the job. Blanck and Harris hired private police forces and prostitutes to beat the strikers and had them arrested for fighting back. The public looked at them as disturbers of the peace, lazy immigrants who didn’t understand how lucky they were to have a job. Other workers in factories left their jobs as well, leading to Blanck and Harris organizing all of the other shirtwaist factories, leading them against the workers in what essentially became a long game of “chicken”.
The second pernicious influence is human resource exploitation. Laborers become more like work tools for industrial monopolies rather than human beings. Genders and age do not matter to the authority as they prioritize their benefits over the workers’. Not only do they have to suffer from exploitative boss, the proletariat is also made advantage of by other powers, such as landlords.
The population is slowly decreasing from the country mainly because of this policy. This sudden decrease is mainly affecting the farmers of China who mostly rely on their children to do the farm work. The population plummet really took a toll on the parent farmers and their children. The parents abused that one child and forced that child to do all of the farm work. (Document B).
The ability of unions to rapidly expand amidst crises like the Great Depression provides "important historical background on the relationships of power between labor, the state, and the economy. " Just as legislative changes enabled 1930s activism by reforming anti-union policies, so too have modern reforms enabled tactics like unionization efforts at major companies today. And mirroring how economic desperation drove militancy before New Deal relief, recent strikes have emerged from frustrations over stagnant wages and pandemic
As seen in document 4 people in the factories had to work near machines that were not covered so people could get caught in them and die or get cut and die from infection. The problem is that they can’t even get food without working so these terrible conditions are still better than not working. With these unfair conditions the workers can try to resist. The image in document 6 shows a group of people picketing for an 8 hour workday. Even if the bosses don’t listen they can get public support to boycott the product until better conditions.
The lack of “worker protections and basic labor rights…[for] unauthorized immigrant workers
Certain fields and government jobs don’t even have the legal rights to strike. The people who do strike aren’t paid during the period and face the possibility of being fired. The third article discusses this issue; talking about how, for example, teachers going on strike could pose a danger to their jobs. The parents who don't support them will complain. Despite however benevolent their intentions may be, strikers are still faced with the gamble of losing their source of income.
When deciding between the Hamilton Mill House and Oak Street House for our growing family, my wife and I compared the entertainment spaces, the play areas, the educational opportunities, and the features of the neighborhoods. Both the Hamilton Mill house and the Oak Street house offer the same great educational opportunities and closeness to family, but the Hamilton Mill House had better entertainment space, bigger play areas, and a more family friendly neighborhood. One factor that was important to my wife and I when choosing which house to purchase was the potential spaces to entertain our family and friends. The Hamilton Mill House offers a basement and a driveway big enough to park at least five cars comfortably. The Oak Street House
The work was also dangerous with not much supervising by the government. Workers, on the other hand, had little or even no bargaining power to leave the unsafe conditions. Nowadays, When Americans only pay attention when extreme work strike, levels of abuse are the norm hidden in the factories around the globe. Although the condition seems much improved, consumers don’t know the true fact- “Today, American citizens simply cannot know the working conditions of the factories that make the products they buy.
Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77” (Duhigg & Barboza, para. 9). In this case, not only do you see the effects of sweatshop labor in its typical form but also that in some cases it has
What is Foxconn’s unethical issue? In mid 2010, Foxconn Technology Group (Foxconn) was facing a crisis of having its workers held protests and riots against the company in Shenzhen, China. Being the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer (Pun, 2010), the company exploited its migrant workers by providing them with exceptionally low pay and allowing unacceptable number of overtime working hours in the manufacturing site. Such method of raising workers’ efficiency is unethical in the eyes of many.
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