Does the Athletic Apparel Industry subcontract with sweatshops?
This study group will look at definitions of sweatshops and measure said variables in a sample of subcontract factories. It will also propose and implement action research experiments in alternative conditions. To us, it is critical to demonstrate experiments that prove to subcontract managers that “extreme” forms of Taylorism are both unproductive and unnecessary (See review of French Taylorism above). A critical question is just how do we define “extreme Taylorism (see above) and what is a sweatshop? The US General Accounting Office defines a sweatshop as a business that regularly violates wage, child labor, health and/or safety laws. There are other definitions this study group would explore. Some include young adults who work in sweatshops, not just in the third world, but in major metropolitan cities in late capitalist economies. • The name, sweatshop, goes back to the late 1800s, and refers to the technique of “sweating” as much profit as possible out of each worker. Once a thriv
