Globalisation Globalisation is the way we connect with the world
Globalisation
Globalisation is the way we connect with the world. Whether it is by emailing a pen pal, or a company shipping goods. Globalisation is the way goods, information, jobs, fashion, and cultures are flowing around the world. In some cases, it is good and in others bad, whereas, in my opinion it is both good and bad and there are factors which contribute to both.
TNC’s (transnational companies) setup sweatshops in places like the middle east which includes Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey and many more for multiple reasons that not only benefit transnational companies and their costs but for the gratification in the cost of our luxuries.
To achieve that they can exploit workers in LIC’s (low income countries) by paying them less for long perfidious hours in a sultry and claustrophobic area which are often very unsafe. This frugal labour is wrong for so many reasons. TNC’s such as NIKE, Adidas and Puma etc. know that LIC’s contain many people in poverty who will do anything for a little bit of money and they capitalize on that by making them work in a scorching climate and even in some cases inflicting abuse and verbal abuse on their workers for a miniscule couple pennies an hour. sometimes child labour can even be in the mix. Workers are forced to work 14-16 hours a day, 7 days a week with some workers finishing work at 3AM only to commence work again at 7AM. Sexual abuse and discrimination is very mundane for women who request their right for a maternity leave. In HIC’s our working environment is always a place where we can socialise and feel safe and welcomed and that feeling shouldn’t just subsist in well developed countries. Financial status shouldn’t define who we are and influence the way employers and managers can treat us. You may be thinking, if factory work is so agonising, then why do people work there? Well the answer to this question is that factory work pays marginally more than other jobs. also, in LIC’s there aren’t many jobs. However, if any worker(s) demand higher pay, that person would lose their job and will be left in poverty, the TNC will then move somewhere else where workers don’t complain. even though they will never be able to afford what they are making, it gives no right for workers to be treated like dirt.
However, it is verbalized that a sweatshop worker earns three to seven times more than paid elsewhere in the economy, so even if we cerebrate that sweatshop labour is unfair, relative to their other alternatives, sweatshop labour is a very captivating option for workers in the developing world and this is why workers are often so eager to accept sweatshop jobs. Workers would only take a job in a sweatshop when that job is better for them than any of their other possible options. As long as workers are in liberty to choose within their constrained, we expect them to cull the job that offers the best prospects of prosperity. And when given the choice between working in a sweatshop or working on a farm or working elsewhere in the urban economy, workers consistently opt to work in a sweatshop. We know that sweatshop labour is wrong, but it is a horrible idea to interdict is altogether. People only take sweatshop jobs because they are poor and low on options, but taking away sweatshops does nothing so eliminate the ongoing problem that is poverty. In fact, it only increases poverty in developing countries by taking away what workers regard as the best choice of work. It is better to do something about global poverty rather than nothing at all, and sweatshops are at least helping global poverty a little bit.
To make sweatshops a more pleasant place to work in, factories should be safer. The conditions of which workers work in is highly dangerous, and a prime example of this is the Savar building also known as Rana Plaza that collapsed in Savar of Dhaka district on the 24th April 2013. In the eight-storey factory, all fire exits were locked so workers couldn’t flee to safety, this resulted in a death toll of 1,134. According to media, workers saw the cracks in the structure a day before the disaster but authorities did not take any precautionary steps. The owner of the building, Sohel Rana, said that the cracks were “nothing serious” and on the day of the incident workers were forced to work in the unsafe building and threatened with a month’s salary cut if they did not oblige. These individuals were making goods for high street names like Matalan, Primark, Monsoon and Walmart. Rana Plaza is one of the factories that happened to have a bad outcome due to their unsafe building and who’s to say that other unsafe factories aren’t doomed to the same ending as rana plaza. Nobody should go to work knowing that they are risking their lives just to provide some food for their families so they won’t go hungry that night.
Fair trade reduces the barriers that once stood between nations trading freely between one another. When a company in different nations don’t face a barrier to trade in the form of import or export restrictions, they can engage in free trade. Free trade has numerous benefits for economies and consumers. consumers enjoy a greater choice and variety of products, since foreign companies can easily offer their products for sale. They also benefit from lower overall prices for goods, as a greater variety of goods for sale increases competition and drives prices down. Manufacturers in countries with free trade agreements benefit from a larger export market. Which means, rather be able to export to only a few countries, exporters can now sell their good to wholesalers and consumers in a very large variety of countries. Fair trade also allows nations and economies to specialize, which means they produce better quality goods at lower prices which benefit us greatly.
