I've been watching the Blood, Sweat and ..... series for a few weeks now and this last one about sweat shops in India and Manila has me thinking the most.
Sweat shops have long been a dirty word. And I have no doubt that some are absolutely horrendous, even in third world standards.
However, the two profiled in this TV show were actually quite nice. Extremely strict conditions and very little pay for the amount of work the people actually did but in terms of standards, the place was clean and safe.
In Manila, at a factory manufacturing Mp3 players the manager raised a good point: this is a very hard job but if they didn't have it, what would they do? They would be working in the real sweat shops, or worse - becoming prostitutes or scaling rubbish dumps for scraps to sell or feed their families.
I think I know what I would rather do. It has me wondering - is this Asian labour thing really that bad?
Yes there are awful places out there where abuse and terrible conditions prevail but without the industry - we can see the alternative which is unsafe and far more degrading.
The issue seems to be that the pay does not match living costs or the amount of work they do.
What do you think?
Are we simply viewing this through first world eyes where we have desks as large as queen size beds, work life balance comes before doing any work and we can talk freely to our co-workers?
Lauren
