Sweatshops: An Evil Empire Unfolds Consumers can play an important role in closing sweatshops, and they have a right to know what companies are using sweatshops to produce their product there are simple steps consumers can take to help fight against the use of sweatshops. Right now many famouscompanies are using sweatshops readily to save money. However, ironically, the companies thatuse them are the companies that can afford to spend the extra money for regular labor. Some of these name brand companies include; Nike, Disney, Kathie- Lee Gifford, Gap, Liz Claiborne,Ralph Lauren, and Wal-Mart. Many people have no idea that these companies are usingsweatshops. Disney for example is a very well known company. No one would ever expect thattheir favorite childhood Disney memory could have been created through sweatshops and childlabor. Disney is just one of the many well respected, loved companies with dark secrets. It ishard to believe as a consumer that a company that consumers have grown to trust and love usessuch forced labor, with underaged sweatshop employees making consumers favorite characterscome to life. Well, Peter and Rochelle Schweizer makes it clear that it could be a possibility: “The face of Disney the manufacturer is not a pretty one. All too often Disney clothes, toys, andtrinkets are made by child laborers. Disney licensees have been caught using child labor on threecontinents” (245). Many other companies are practicing the same type of labor policies withoutconsumers’s knowledge. If companies feel that sweatshops are a decent and fair way of doingbusiness and have no problems with continuing to use them, they should at least make thesereasons public and confront their consumers’s concerns. They should let their consumers knowwhy they choose to conduct their business in this manner. Consumers would then have the realinformation on the product that they choose, and not only what the ...
