Negative Effects of Cheap Labor and Sweatshops

Unlimited exploitation of cheap labour-power is the sole foundation of their power to compete, as stated by Karl Marx, is realistic indeed. More the labours are exploited they will be more motivated to fight against it. Labours are inseparable and salient part of any organization or industry and thus should be treated the same. In her essay “Labouring the Walmart Way” (p. 296-298), the author, Parmar argues Walmart’s successful business model is harmful to the economy due to unethical pay and hiring practices, determined anti-unionism, and influences on its competition. Also, in the essay “No Sweat?” (p. 301-304), the author, Garyfalakis, explains how complex and difficult the issue of addressing Sweatshops is. Both the essays, “Labouring the Walmart Way” and “No Sweat?” addresses alike concern of labour exploitation, but these essays differ in how the wages they earn impacts their standard of living and who these workers are.

Both essays are discussing the exploitation of workers. One of the main exploitation in underpayment. The labours or workers are not paid what they deserve according to their work and effort. As the author Garyfalakis explains in paragraph 3, although employers are capable of paying workers more but they do not pay more deliberately (2015, p.301), likewise, the author Parmar also states in paragraph 2, Walmart’s most repeated complain is not paying their employees, about one and half million, a living wage (2015, p.297). Moreover, both the essays, also discuss about the how the labours are forced in one or the other way to work more than expected. In the essay, “Labouring the Walmart way”, paragraph 2, the author Parmar states, the work done by Walmart is tiresome, they intentionally understaff the stores, so the current employees are forced to work harder. So does in the essay, “No Sweat?” paragraph 3, the author Garyfalakis states, sweatshops violates labours right of limited hours.

But, both the essays differ in how the wages they earn impacts their standard of living. In the essay, “Labouring the Walmart Way”, the labours of the Walmart in U.S does not seem to have a positive effect on their standard of living as they have to take social assistance from the government anyhow (Parmar, 2015, para 2). On the contrary, in the essay “No Sweat?” the labours especially women seem to have increased standard of living, as the author describes:

… Interviews with Bangladeshi women working in sweatshops revealed an unexpected reality. Although all of the women admitted that they worked long hours, were subject to harassment, and were denied labour rights, they also affirmed that the job provided and opportunity greater than they could otherwise have hoped for, and that it had improved the quality of their lives.

Moreover, both the essays also differ in who these workers are. In the essay, “Labouring the Walmart Way”, the labours of the Walmart in U.S are in general both male and female. They are working for huge stores like Walmart. These people are mostly of the first world country citizens on the contrary, the labourers describes in the essay are mostly women with age between 18 and 25 (Garyfalakis, 2015, p.301). Mostly these labours are of the third world country.

In conclusion, both the essays are about different topics in a way, but they have above mentioned similarities and/or differences.