FREE ESSAY ON WORK OR HELL?

WORK OR HELL?

37,000 transnational or multinational corporations with their 200,000 subsidiaries control
75 percent of all world trade in commodities, manufactured goods, and services. These
corporations, such as Nike, Reebok, and Levi's, are cheating other small countries that
manufacture their products. Michael Jordan alone makes more money from Nike annually than
all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. An individual works 10-hour shifts,
six days a week to earn a monthly wage less than the cost of a pair of Nike shoes. Their
monthly wages will be around $30.00 to $40.00. Lured by cheap and abundant labor,
investment capital has poured in more than 18 billion dollars in the last three years
from these third world countries. Large corporations prefer not to do their own
manufacturing. They put the hard work to third world countries, which will do anything
for money.
Not only are multinational corporations causing problems for third world countries,
problems with farming are occurring in the United States. Family farms are being sold
down to agribusiness and factory style farming. According to the U.S. department of
Agriculture almost 90% of the total income of rancher or family style farms now come from
the outside. They have to get outside jobs to even survive. Child labor in farming is
another issue. Human Rights Watch stated that child farm workers in the U.S. work 12 to
14 hour days, often suffering pesticide poisoning, heat-related illness, machine and
knife related injuries and life long disabilities. Many of them are forced to work
without access to toilet or hand washing facilities or adequate drinking water. The
majority of these workers are Latino, so there is a racial issue brought to hand. Farm
work is considered the most dangerous work open to children in the United States. Human
Rights Watch estimated that there are at least one million child labor violations in the
U.S. each year. These children are working to survive, but they won't survive much longer
if they aren't given better working conditions. 
These multinational corporations that are taking over small farms and third world
countries are only interested in achieving an acceptable rate of return on invested
capital, gaining market share, or ensuring its longtime competivness, rather than support
these issues. There are many benefits for these third world countries to do the
corporations dirty work. The only thing good about them is in a way they gain somewhat of
an economic development.
My main concern is for the individuals who have to work 10-14 hours a day, and get
underpaid. I can barely live off of forty dollars a week, little alone forty dollars a
month. These people barely have enough money to have somewhere to live and put food on
the table. It's a reality check for me! I think that organizations need to be formed to
help these third world workers, who are overworked and underpaid, to get higher wages and
less working hours.