Essay Sample on Sweatshops

With America's rapidly growing economy, many companies started appearing and covering its lands. For the companies, this meant competition, a competition to find cheaper and faster ways to increase their profit. This is, of course, how many companies were able to succeed and gather millions, but within those millions lied a secret that the consumers didn’t know about. The term “sweatshops'' was introduced in the late 19th century, a way to describe the clothing industry in which employees were employed at low wages and worked long hours. Because little safety regulations were implemented, there was much room for danger to strike, such as deadly fires and often workers would lose fingers or pick a bone due to the machines. Although to this day sweatshops are still common, many laws like the “Occupational Safety and Health Act'' have been installed to protect workers. These things don't happen out of the blue though, events like the tragic fire of the ''Triangle Shirtwaist Factory '', works and people advocated for the change that we have today. 

Sweatshops primarily consisted of women and children who had immigrated to America seeking a better future for themselves and their families, unfortunately with little work being offered to them it became hard to survive, and so they resorted to working in these sweatshops. Unfortunately this is the early stages of worker rights and those who worked in this industry would have no rights whatsoever. Many of the women who worked the sewing machines would often prick their fingers with the machine and sometimes it would hit the bone of their hand, but they wrapped a cloth and continued. The children would carry heavy bundles of fabric rushing around the cramped space and deliver it to the women. Doctors reported that children who worked in these places would often suffer with no growth and would be very fragile. A normal day of a sweatshop worker was determined by the number of work they had to do, if that work wasn't done they would have to stay longer to finish it and could not leave till everything that was assigned that day was finished. They would often work long hours with unfair pay, most they would receive cents and would need to live off of that. Of course many workers found this unfair and wanted change, but only small amounts would change throughout their lifetime. As the progressive era continued so did the start for change, a change that would help shape America’s history. In 1909 over 20,000 female shirtwaist makers would leave their jobs and protest in New York the sweatshop conditions. Workers were angered at the low wages, inconsistent shifts, high production demand and the many unsafe conditions that they had to suffer through. This caused much tension for the factory owners and gave the workers a higher wage and shorter hours, but they would refuse to talk about the equality of pay between non-union workers and union workers. 

A few years later on March 25, 1911, a fire broke out on the top floors of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory. Firefighters were immediately called to the scene but wouldn’t be able to imagine the many horrors that awaited them. They rushed to save the people when they realized that their ladders were not tall enough to reach the upper floors. This caused panic to the many workers as most of them were locked in the work rooms and the fire escape rooms were also locked. With only a limited number of escape routes available, many workers resorted to jumping off the 10-story building only to plummet down to their death; between 146-500 workers were lost because of this incident. The public was horrified to find out the conditions that these workers were working through and once again a cry for change needed to be made. Although some safety regulations were implemented it still wasn't enough for workers to feel safe. Until 1970 a law called the “Occupational Safety and Health Act” was passed, this helped protect workers in work industries, this would allow them to work no more than 12 hours a day, would get deserved pay and would be able to have weekends off depending on the jobs demand. Currently, in 2021 there have been many more significant changes done to protect people, although there are still some who desire not to follow certain laws it is a lot better now then it had been in the beginning.