The Cheap Route

Stop and look around in the room you're in. Heck, just stare at this computer screen for it along with much of what is in your room was probably made by someone foreign in another country for almost nothing. This is what happens through Globalization, the expansion and intensification of social relations and consciousness across the world, time and world space. Americans have become the consumers in almost every possible way. This has been caused by a term known as Globality, a social condition characterized by tight global economic, political, cultural, and environmental interconnections. Basically, things have become cheaper to be made outside of the country. Those Nike shoes you're wearing, the TV in your house, heck maybe even the bed sheets you lay in at night are all affected by the global economical profit of companies, and this all comes at the expense of the worker. Take for instance the women who work in Maquiladoras, as presented in Hu-Dehart's article. The Maquiladoras are factory buildings opened up by large manufacturing companies made just on the other side of the border, in Mexico. The workers of choice by these factories are typically women, unless supervisors, for women have smaller hands and can therefore work more rapidly than men when it comes to assembling electronic items.

The women who work in these factories often do so for almost nothing, and at their own risk. The chemicals used in these factories often cause skin rashes on the workers, and are even known to cause cancer. Women cannot even hug their children before taking a shower for these chemicals can spread. Not only do the factory jobs harm the employees, but they also affect the communities built nearby. In the educational film Maquilapolis (2006) viewers are shown that factory chemicals are leaked into the air, causing pollution in Tijuana communities. When it rains, even if just for a few minutes, factories also release their water tanks filled tons of chemicals that spill down the hill and into the neighborhoods of the factory workers. To even further the humiliation of the workers, most of the companies pack up and empty out the factory when workers began to ask for more reasonable working conditions. Companies have made the effort to relocate entire factories to even poorer countries like in India where they can pay the workers even less than before. The treatment and conditions that these factory workers must face have become a human rights issue that I believe the United Nations should look into. It is unjust that big companies make so much money at the expense of their workers.