The Transcontinental Railroad was a huge contiguous network of railroad that connected one end of the United States to the other. At the time it was and still is, an amazing accomplishment that shaped how goods and services could be moved. However, this great American railway was built by multiple ethnic groups who were taken advantage of and forced to work in dangerous conditions. The image above shows one ethnic group that was taken advantage of, the Chinese. Under paid and over worked in hazardous conditions that no one else would do.
Like the Chinese, who were taken advantage of, are the factory workers in places like Bangladesh. The article below was written after a terrible building collapse in Bangladesh in 2013. The article goes on to talk about how the works were taken advantage of with just enough pay to get by and poor working conditions. Both the Chinese and the factory workers were creating a product that would be sold and used in America. It has been over 150 years yet, America hasn't fully learned to not allow people to be taken advantage of, no matter where or who they are.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/bangladesh-factory-worker-discusses-horrible-working-conditions-a-899976.html
I agree with the point you bring up. Of course, the reason that workers across the globe continue to be exploited is the economic factor. Unfortunately, I feel that until workers demand higher wages and strike for better working environments or technology provides us with a simpler, more cost efficient way of getting the work done that puts peoples lives in danger, this trend of worker exploitation will continue to happen. While the United States has tried to enact laws to prevent this kind of a situation from happening within the confines of our nation's borders, obviously they turn a blind eye to the fact that they are inadvertently encouraging these working conditions by importing the goods resulting from this kind of labor. It will be interesting to see if our president does anything about this as he stretches to both sides of the argument by trying to bring production back to America but is also a business man who knows that by doing this, the cost of production for businesses all over our country would sky-rocket.
ReplyDeleteIt's so unfortunate that even today people are still being taken advantage of in the work place. A lot of immigrants take the low end, heavy labor jobs because they're the only ones available to them. A lot of times they end up working ridiculous hours in unsafe conditions for minimum pay. And this isn't just in the U.S. its more common in other countries as you said, in Bangladesh and countries like it. Like Will said, I'm interested to see how President Trump is going to handle this.
ReplyDeleteIt is so sad how people to this day are still taken advantage of in the workplace. It sucks for them and for their families. Being underpaid does not help the tragedy either.
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