Fashion Exploitation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5nF_mBxOlE

This link is to the first quarter of a documentary on youtube called "The New Rulers of the World." This documentary shows a very disturbing reality of globalization taking place in Indonesia. It shows many Indonesian people working at sweatshops to create brands like, Nike, Adidas, Gap, Adidas and Old Navy. The working conditions that the workers are facing are devastating. Watching the documentary you can see that the sweat shops look like slums. They are completely overcrowded and hot. Apparently, the only place that gets air conditioning is where the boss's are located. These Indonesian people are being used as cheap labour so that people in Western countries can continue to consume products like Nike. It seems completely unfair considering working conditions like that would be completely unacceptable in any westerm country. These multi-national companies realize that Indonesian people will work for cheap labour so they are purposely exploiting them. Gap also declined an interview using the excuse that it was unfair to them since the names of the factories were not released. This seems more like an excuse not to acknowledge the issue that is occurring. The reason the names of the factories were not given was to protect the workers, who would be mistreated if their names were released.