Though I have heard of sweatshops before I visited the Tenement Museum, my understanding of them after the visit was so much more in-depth. I was amazed to hear how families of eight would live in the small apartments, with kids still sleeping on the floor of what would be their work area or garment sweatshop.

The difference between sweatshops now compared to the 1800s is the size and location. As briefly mentioned earlier, they were usually just one room with a few workers. Their wives would occasionally bring them food, and as discussed at the museum, they were at least able to see their kids since they were working from home. However, nowadays, sweatshops are in cafeteria-like large rooms with as many workers packed in as possible. Very rarely will workers get a lunch break, and they do not see their families during the day. Conditions have changed mainly because as prominent retailers and department stores have emerged, they all want one thing: the most profit. And unfortunately, that means their factory workers, get the short end of the stick. However, in American sweatshop factories, conditions are not as bad as they are in international ones. Internationally, child labor is still happening at extremely young ages, and women that are pregnant must continue working as well. The website, “The World Counts” posted the statistic that “250 million children between 5 and 14 are forced to work in sweatshops in developing countries. The pay? Sometimes less than 20 cents per day or about one cent per hour.”

What is most disturbing is that these major companies know what they are doing. According to an article on WWD, in 2016, “more than $65,000 in civil penalties were levied against repeat or willful violators. The factories that violated laws regulating minimum wage, overtime and record-keeping made clothes for retailers including Ross Stores, T.J. Maxx, Forever 21, Bealls, Charlotte Russe, Burlington, Windsor, Nordstrom, Macy’s and Dillard’s.” (1) The keyword in this quote being repeat and willful.

The link between sweatshop work and immigration is that when immigrants come to the United States, they are not necessarily aware of all the rules and regulations, therefore, they are seen as easy targets. More specifically, they are not necessarily aware of wage requirements, “mandatory” working conditions, and other important factors that should be normally enforced by employers. Therefore, when they hear of a job opportunity in the U.S., they would rather take it than being left unemployed.

Though sweatshops, for the most part, have horrendous conditions and pay their workers unfairly, there are minor benefits for immigrants and other workers. First, as mentioned earlier, they provide more jobs and do not necessarily require any identification or paperwork to be hired. Second, as we saw in the Tenement Museum, immigrants were able to connect with others from their culture and help each other from getting homesick and not feel as lonely. Additionally, “The World Counts” did report that if workers’ rights are being properly followed, then it may benefit poor countries. They mention Honduras, where the average sweatshop “worker earns 13 US dollars per day, which is a decent wage considering that 44 percent of the country’s population lives on less than 2 dollars per day.” (2) While this wage would not really work to the United States’ federal standards, news sites have reported that it is somewhat beneficial to poorer countries. Overall, this comes down to ensuring that all people are treated like people and are given a fair chance for a good quality of life.

References:

1. “Sweatshops Persist in U.S. Garment Industry.” WWD. WWD, December 5, 2016. https://wwd.com/business-news/government-trade/sweatshops-persist-in-u-s-garment-industry-10716742/.
2. The World Counts. Accessed February 17, 2020. https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty/slavery-and-sweatshops/sweatshop-workers-conditions.

After leaving the Tenement Museum, my knowledge of sweatshops and its workers expanded beyond my imagination.  As our tour guide, Joshua, transported us back into the 1800s traveling through the single home of hundreds of immigrants, we learned that the individuals residing in the tenement house also ran their businesses within the small confinement of their four walls.  A distinct difference between the sweatshops in the past and those operated today are the locations. While past sweatshops were operated within the homespace, given a designated spot in the living room, the sweatshops operating today are more so located in factories or confined workplaces.  A significant difference between the sweatshops of the past and those in present-day is the advancement in technology and efficiency.  In the past, individuals working in sweatshops were forced to breath in fabric dust, which was fatal.  The Levine family we learned about had their own family business designated in their living room space (pictured below).  Nowadays, the sweatshops are more modern and depict a more factory-like environment, compared to the home environment that was used in the late 1800s.

Compared to today, wages in both eras are low, and workers are underpaid for their labor.  The Levine family’s rent was fifteen dollars a month while they sold dresses for ten dollars each piece.^1  Today, there are existing sweatshops for large companies, such as Forever 21.  One of the workers was earning six dollars an hour for pinning tags on shirts and cutting their loose threads.^2  Most of these workers, unlike history’s, were women.

Upon entering a new nation, there are more opportunities, but that does not mean that those opportunities have been granted.  Immigration and sweatshops are typically interconnected because immigrants are more willing to conduct this type of work than those who are native to the nation and dominate the language.  Immigrants’ options are limited, so they are more accepting of any opportunities coming their ways.  The Levine family immigrated, and like others’ situations, “They had few skills and little money. They couldn’t really read or write and they didn’t speak English. Needing to support themselves and their five children, the Levines, like many other immigrants in the area, literally set up shop in their home.”^3  Immigrants did not have many options, so they were willing to make do with whatever came their way in order to support their families.

Considering their harsh conditions, sweatshops can be beneficial for immigrants and other workers only in the sense of getting acclimated to surroundings and the language.  There are no monetary upsides as workers are extremely underpaid for the amount of work and hours they put into production, but as discussed on the tour, sweatshops were often the places where individuals met their spouses and worked with their families.  For immigrants, sweatshops allowed families to stay together while navigating their way into their new residing nation.  On the contrary, sweatshops are not all that beneficial to natives or citizens of a nation. Being a native-born citizen already elicits an advantage in which he/she is exposed to more opportunities in education, work opportunities, and financial stability.  There is more aid that is able to be provided to the citizens given the circumstances of their situations.  Sweatshops benefit large companies/corporations, as seen in retailers such as Forever 21.^4  They save money since they pay people less for their labor while they earn more profit from their products, benefitting in both areas of production and labor.  Sweatshops benefit the large companies, but they take more from their workers than they give them. 

Bibliography

(^2, ^4) Kitroeff, Natalie, and Victoria Kim. “Behind a $13 Shirt, a $6-an-Hour Worker.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, August 31, 2017.

(Image 1, ^1, ^3)Wanderer, The World, and Monica Suma. “The Tenement Museum, Immigration and My Grandmother.” Monica Suma, August 13, 2013.

Visiting the tenement museum was a great experience to have last Wednesday. Never before had I heard of tenements but after seeing them I was amazed. They were just regular apartments that were occupied by immigrants but I never knew that immigrants used them to operate sweatshops. This amazed me because it showed me how relentless and determined people can be when they want to provide for their family. Operating a workshop from your home is dangerous. Anything can occur out of the blue moon such as equipment issues or a child issue and those are just a couple examples. The article Sweatshop Subjectivity and The Politics of Definition and Exhibition states, “Inspectors relied on their sensory responses. Citing odors as evidence, inspectors united fears of poverty, pestilence, and promiscuity in their definition of the sweatshop. Clothing produced in filthy shops by diseased workers could infect consumers and male and female immigrants working in close quarters were becoming an enfeebled, immoral race.”
While that can be said for sweatshops in the 1800s, things are different in the world today. Sweatshops are different today than they were back then because sweatshops to people in the 1800s was just being in a small room surrounded by lots of equipment with other people occupying the room. The article states, “ The work is done under the eyes of task-masters, who rent a small room or two in the rear part of an upper floor of a high building, put in a few sewing machines, a stove suitable for heating irons, and then hire a number of men and women to work for them.” Even in those times that was considered to be a form of slavery because of the work conditions people were subjected to, yet no one did anything about it. Which led to people continuing on with the process. That was until 1994, where the United States General Accounting Office gave a definition for a sweatshop. Sweatshops were defined as, “‘a workplace’”that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers compensation, or industry regulation.”
Lots of these workers were immigrants who did not have the opportunity or resources for anything better. They came from another country clueless to the environment and the struggles that were ahead of them because they were foreigners. This connects all immigrants because they are subjects to the same conditions. Working in the sweatshop conditions is illegal if they face conditions that are below the human standard, such as not being paid minimum wage. Yet, they are clueless to this fact because they do not possess the resources to learn this information when they first arrive in this country. So they instead break their backs and teach their children the value of having an education or pursuing anything greater than working some factory for someone who underappreciated them. Immigrants from the 1800s-2000s face the same conditions, which I believe connects us. But I believe there is a chance for sweatshops to be good. All a sweatshop needs to be good in my opinion is for someone that is someone in charge that actually cares about their workers. When you have an employer who cares about you, they take care of you, so you can help take care of them and their business.

Bender, Daniel. “Sweatshop Subjectivity and the Politics of Definition and Exhibition.” International Labor and Working-Class History, no. 61 (2002): 13-23. Accessed February 19, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/27672769.

Gannon, Devin. “Tenement Museum Will Stay Open Late on Thursday Nights for Special Tours and Programs.” 6sqft, 24 Sept. 2018, www.6sqft.com/tenement-museum-will-stay-open-late-on-thursday-nights-for-special-tours-and-programs/.

Intern. “American Sweatshops.” Boston Review, 1 Mar. 2019, bostonreview.net/gordon-american-sweatshops.