The video we watched in Sociology Monday informed us of the sweatshop problems in South America and other parts of the world. Countries that have free trade zones such as El Salvador are able to force people, mainly young women, to work long hours with no breaks for only .60 cents or less an hour. In some areas they are threatening to cut the wage to .33 cents an hour. They work as many as twelve hour shifts or more with no breaks, sometimes not even to use the restroom, and are paid no overtime. They are given only hot water to drink and it is very hot in the factories. If you become pregnant they only make you work harder. A woman who worked at one of these factories for five years took a maternity leave. When she returned she was beaten and fired. They told her she was having “too many kids” and if she didn’t keep quiet about it they would kill her.

I found it horrible that clothing companies such as Liz Claiborne, Nike, Adidas, and several other companies you might have never expected were treating these young women so poorly so they could make a large profit. A Nike shirt that would sell for $22 in the United States is expected to be made in only six minutes, and costs only .07 cents to make. Even though these companies would probably still make a large amount of money if manufactured in the United States, they choose not to and ignore and cover up this slave labor that takes place in these poorer countries. It upsets me to know things like this still go on today, and how greedy people could be and that they do not care about the lives of these young woman or their children that barely make enough money to survive.

Since they live in a wealthy country away from the places that work for these big corporations they never even have to see what is going on and this allows them to be so apathetic towards the situation. I really wish they could spend a day in the shoes of one of the woman working for them and see what they have to go through to survive and feed their family. They are not allowed to speak up or complain about their poor working conditions, or tell others how badly they are mistreated because they will be fired and possible even killed. They are unable to form unions to help improve their jobs.

In Georgia, 1999, there was a festival and peaceful protest formed against the School of the Americas (SOA) which resides in several of these countries. It trains non-American men militarily and was found to be teaching them how to blackmail and murder. These soldiers were used to further suppress the workers of the factories and were committing assassinations, and even killing whole villages. At the protest in Georgia, over 4000 people were arrested for crossing the borders of the SOA. This was the largest act of civil disobedience since the Vietnam War, but neither me, nor anyone else I know heard about it. This shows how easy it is for the U.S. media and government to keep America from knowing what is going on. I think it is ridiculous that our own country would allow these sweatshops to exist, and even help to suppress the workers and hide it from the people, but I am not surprised. It seems like the United States always wants to come off as the world hero, but never wants to show all the horrible things that really go on. It makes me wonder how many other things this horrible go on that we do not know about because I am sure there are a lot.

I am very glad we were shown the video. As bad as it makes me feel to be a part of this country sometimes I would rather be informed than ignorant to it. I hope we get to see more videos like it before the semester is over.