Sweatshops

1. Sweatshops Sweatshops.

2. In Australia, there are 300,000 people making clothes for our major retailers, designers and suppliers of school uniforms, who work for between $2 and $3 an hour. They have no or minimal entitlements (holidays, sick leave etc), work in conditions that risk their Health and safety, and work long hours—up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week Sweatshops are a product of the global economy and so-called "free" trade. Companies increase profits by driving down costs any way possible, so they set up low-cost factories. To minimize costs, companies look for places with the lowest wages and human rights protections. What are sweatshops? It is any workplace in which workers are subject to extreme exploitation. This includes not providing workers with benefits, acceptable working conditions, or a living wage. A living wage differs from minimum wage by enabling workers to cover the cost of basic needs, such as food, shelter, and healthcare; minimum wages usually do not cover these costs. Sweatshop laborers generally work 60-80 hours per week and are not paid enough money to put food on the table; they sometimes receive only pennies a day for their labor. Often, the sweatshop environment is unsafe – workers are harassed, intimidated, forced to work overtime, and made to work in dangerous and unhealthy environments, even while sick. Workers handle toxic chemical paints, solvents, and glues with their bare hands.

3. What Does This HaveTo Do withRELIGION The main problem with sweatshops is that they take away the basic rights of human beings making it a social justice issue. Sweatshops jeopardize workers health with many workers dying of disease due to the poor working conditions which involve hundreds workers all working in the one room, meaning little fresh air, as well as a minimal food and hydration supplied for an 18 hour working day. Also the extremely low wage makes it very hard for workers to live a healthy life as they are unable to afford substantial amount of food to survive healthily, let alone medicine to fight disease. Sweatshops are also a Religious issue as they involve the owners of the manufacturing companies being greedy, paying the workers as little as possible in order to maximize their profit.

4. What are Catholic organizations doing about it? The Archdiocese of Newark is undergoing a project in which they plan to make sure all Catholic school uniforms are not created in sweatshops. They also plan to educate all children in Catholic schools about sweatshops and the violation of workers rights. Also the IYCW, International Young Catholic Workers, organisation is working towards creating a World Day for Deacent Work, where the world works towards showing the governments of the world that all over the world workers rights are being violated, and that we must work together to overcome. It also focuses on creating employment projects for people in third world countries so they can afford a proper healthy life.

5. Bibliography • http://www.actnow.com.au/IssuesSweat_shops_in_Australia.aspx • http://www.dosomething.org/tipsandtools/background-sweatshops