Who Is Responsible for the Factories Deplorable Working Conditions?
Everyone is responsible, from the brand companies who design them down to the consumers who purchase them. According to the Huffington Post, athletic companies pay individuals to design the shoe and market the brand, U.S. retailers pay for shipping, overhead and advertising and consumers pays double what the retailer paid. However, the person that made the shoe barely gets a month’s salary equivalent to the cost of one pair of shoes they made. Based on several published reports, the global athletic footwear and apparel market netted $74 billion at the end of 2005. In 2008, Nike and Adidas earned $18.6 billion and $1 billion dollars respectively. According to China Real News, Chinese factory workers only received $0.65 an hour, well below the minimum wage. “Labor costs in the World are so small as a percentage of the retail prices of products and as a percentage of the revenues of U.S. corporations, that the wages of overseas sweatshops workers could be doubled or tripled with little or
