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Sweatshops Quotes

Browse 44 quotes about Sweatshops.

Sweatshops Quotes

“There's also an advisory board that's very into"--I made air quotes--"'optimal productivity.' Some theory about how productivity increases when workers don't know what their work is going to be each day. Switching from one task to another helps employees adapt and become more nimble? Something like that." "Well, that's completely psychotic," Sailor said, but in an unsurprised way. "Wonder how many members of this illustrious advisory board own sweatshop empires, am I right?”

WorkCapitalismTasksWorkersProductivityBoardsWorkingSweatshopsTask Switching
Book:The Island of Last Things
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“Honey, it isn’t democracy that runs this country. Capitalism rules. It does no good to reason with the capitalists or their politicians. This is a class war. We have to stir up the American people, the lower class. Some of the better-off lower class do show some sympathy for us when they’re smacked with the facts. And when they voice themselves collectively, good things happen.” — Mother Jones”

PoliticalSocialPovertyDemocracyMilitaryIndustryCapitalismEconomicsLaborSlaveryUnionsGreat DepressionMiningIndustrial RevolutionMinersChild LaborSweatshopsYellow JournalismRobber BaronsMill Workers
Author:Jerry Ash
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“I am a citizen of this country,” I declare, “and Mr. Mayor, tonight I will be a citizen of this city when I put my shoes under my bed. The courageous men, women and children who are with me (blocked from crossing the bridge into NYC) are also citizens of this country and will be sleeping near their shoes too. I want them with me tonight, here, in the city of New York. We are all American citizens.” — Mother Jones”

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Author:Jerry Ash
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“That’s got to stop,” says I. “The idea of any blood-thirsty pirate (Mexican President Diaz) sitting on a throne and reaching across the border to tromp on our Constitution makes my blood boil.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“Turning back to the crowd I say, “I am duty bound to make this plea, but I want to say, with all due respect to the governor here, that I doubt seriously that he will do — cannot do — anything. And for the reason that he is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the capitalists who placed him here in this building.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“To the RKO motion picture camera at her 100th birthday party: “I pray for the day when working men and women are able to earn a fair share of the wealth they produce in a capitalist system, a day when all Americans are able to enjoy the freedom, rights and opportunities guaranteed them by the Constitution of the United States of America.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“Go home now,” says I. “Keep away from the saloons. Save your money. You are going to need it.” “What are we going to need it for?” asks a voice from the crowd. “For guns and ammunition,” says I.”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“What do you see out there?” I ask. “Pittsburgh,” he replies. Now I laugh. “No, young man. What you see is hell with the lid taken off.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“What the hell’s the matter with you men? Are you cowards as well as stupid? You boys make me sick. I’m done with you. You hear me? I want you to go back to your places now and stay with your children until I say you’re needed. “Tell your wives and your older children to bring with them dish pans and cooking pots. Tell them to bring their stirring spoons and ladles. Tell them to carry a mop over their shoulders. We’re goin’ to march on that mine and we’re going to stand guard to see that no scabs are allowed in. Do you hear me?” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“I go back to the union man and say, “Sir, this is a house of God, not a proper place for a union meeting. I have some things to say today that God would not want to hear in His own house. Boys, I want you to get up, every one of you, and go across the road. I want you to sit down on the hillside over there and wait for me to speak to you.”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“Well, honey, it’s capitalism that brings out the meanness and greed,” says I. “Our founding fathers did a decent job of framing our democracy. They wrote the Constitution and added a Bill of Rights that intended for people of all classes to enjoy the freedoms the Constitution offers. But capitalism came along without a constitution or a bill of rights and the industrialists grabbed unrestricted power. The capitalists wrote their own ‘Declaration of Capitalism’.” — Mother Jones”

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Book:Hellraiser—Mother Jones: An Historical Novel
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“I hope things get better, but it's a difficult process,' Foudy said. 'You're dealing with governments that don't care about children working. And it's hard to put our Western ideals on their situations. If you don't pay people enough so they can survive with only the father or mother working, how can they expect the kids not to work?”

Child LaborSweatshopsJulie Foudy
Book:The Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women's Soccer Team and How It Changed the World – A Provocative Look at 1999 Role Models and Off-Field Race, Class, and Gender Issues
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“Hours are long. Wages are pitiful. But sweatshops are the symptom, not the cause, of shocking global poverty. Workers go there voluntarily, which means—hard as it is to believe—that whatever their alternatives are, they are worse. They stay there, too; turnover rates of multinational-owned factories are low, because conditions and pay, while bad, are better than those in factories run by local firms. And even a local company is likely to pay better than trying to earn money without a job: running an illegal street stall, working as a prostitute, or combing reeking landfills in cities like Manila to find recyclable goods.”

DevelopmentSweatshopsGlobal Poverty
Book:The Undercover Economist
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“As one unusually self-critical textile factory owner observed to me, reflecting on the system in which she played a nodal role, "There used to be a time when you could be a capitalist with personality. You could make your own decisions about what kind of ethos you wanted to create. Now it does not matter if you are a 'nice' person. It is completely irrelevant. We live in an age hen we all know what we do is disgusting but we still carry on doing it. The system we are part of feeds on desperation. And any system that demands such levels of desperation will produce more and more disorder, and the only way to keep everything in check will be the increasing militarisation of the world.”

CapitalismIndiaExploitationSweatshopsShock Doctrine
Book:Capital: The Eruption of Delhi by Rana Dasgupta (6-Mar-2014) Hardcover
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“The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons. ... Republicans: The No. 1 reason the rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb, and dangerous.”

ThinkingWorldReasonChristianPoliticalPartyLibertyBoysDangerousRepublicanTaxesGolfRadioDumbCorporateRacistPantsCheatEconomistBullyDeafConvenienceFundamentalistSwampsDevelopersFaith BasedMidgetNihilistMisanthropicSweatshopsTycoonsShills
Author:Garrison Keillor
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“Synthetic Worlds is a surprisingly profound book about the social, political, and economic issues arising from the emergence of vast multiplayer games on the Internet. What Castronova has realized is that these games, where players contribute considerable labor in exchange for things they value, are not merely like real economies, they are real economies, displaying inflation, fraud, Chinese sweatshops, and some surprising in-game innovations.”

WorldBookRealPoliticalValuesGamesSocialEconomyIssuesPlayerEconomicInternetLaborInnovationProfoundChineseFraudSurprisingInflationEmergenceSyntheticEconomic IssuesSweatshops
Author:Tim Harford
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“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish ora German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making "ladies" dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”

ChildrenMadeHomeMotherGirlBlackClassBoysWifeMiddleCenturyFlowerClothesDaughterDressesWarmCirclesMiddle ClassItalianArtificialProtectedCoalNineteenth CenturyCottonLaundryMiningWelshMother And ChildBlack GirlMiddle Class FamilySweatshopsArtificial Flowers
Author:Stephanie Coontz
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“Adolescence was invented in the 19th century to enable middle-class families to keep their children out of sweatshops. But it has degenerated into a process of enforced boredom and age segregation that has produced one of the most destructive social arrangements in human history: consigning 13-year-old males to learning from 15-year-old males.”

YearsHumansChildrenAgeSocialProcessClassMiddleCenturyMalesBoredomDestructiveMiddle ClassAdolescenceArrangementsSegregationHuman History19th CenturyMiddle Class FamilySweatshops
Author:Newt Gingrich
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“Another problem about writing about politics in the "age of globalization" is that so much of the violence in the form of war and also in the forms of institutional violence - sweatshops, child labor, victimization of people economically - happens elsewhere and out of sight. And when we do know about it and need to witness it, it's always mediated by images of one kind or another, so you're kind of stuck trying to write about what it's like trying to be you living your life thinking about and experiencing this stuff in that way.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWayNeedsWritingTryingKindChildrenWarProblemHappensAgeFormStuffViolenceLaborSightStuckWitnessBe YouElsewhereLive Your LifeGlobalizationVictimizationChild LaborSweatshops
Author:Robert Hass
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“I don't even know if I ever knew - some sweatshop in Baltimore. I knew with my other relatives - some of the women were in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union and men were shop boys and things like that. I happened to be in Philadelphia, but the family was in New York. I could see what the union was doing for them.It really saved their lives.”

IfsKnowsMenBoysHappenedNew YorkUnionsWorkersInternationalSavedShopsGarmentsPhiladelphiaBaltimoreSweatshops
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”

PeoplePeaceInterestInterestingBrainTalentFieldsEqualWeightDiedCertaintyBiologyCottonSmart PeopleScience PhysicsSweatshopsHidden TalentsCotton Fields
Book:The Panda's Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History
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“Cool is spent. Cool is empty. Cool is ex post facto. When advertisers and pundits hoard a word, you know it's time to retire from it. To move on. I want to suggest, therefore, that we begin to avoid cool now. Cool is a trick to get you to buy garments made by sweatshop laborers in Third World countries. Cool is the Triumph of the Will. Cool enables you to step over bodies. Cool enables you to look the other way. Cool makes you functional, eager for routine distraction, passive, doped, stupid.”

KnowsWorldWayWantLooksMadeCountryBodyMovingStepsStupidEmptyThirdsTricksPostsTriumphRoutineDistractionRetiringPassiveExesGarmentsThird WorldLaborersAdvertisersPunditsThird World CountriesSweatshops
Author:Rick Moody
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“Our lack of community is intensely painful. A TV talk show is not community. A couple of hours in a church pew each Sabbath is not community. A multinational corporation is neither a human nor a community, and in the sweatshops, defiled agribusiness fields, genetic mutation labs, ecological dead zones, the inhumanity is showing. Without genuine spiritual community, life becomes a struggle so lonely and grim that even Hillary Clinton has admitted "it takes a village".”

HumansShowsSpiritualCommunityHoursChurchStruggleFieldsTvsCoupleLonelyClintonPainfulGenuineCorporationsZoneVillageGrimEcologicalSabbathLabsInhumanityTalk ShowsMutationMultinationalsSo LonelySweatshopsMultinational CorporationsAgribusinessGenetic MutationSpiritual CommunityDead ZoneIt Takes A Village
Book:God Laughs & Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right
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“Maybe careers aren’t something you can really plan for. They just sort of happen, like brown eyes or flat feet. I took one of those career aptitude tests last year, and it showed that I should be a flight attendant or a seamstress. Not a fashion designer or anything, mind you, but a sweatshop worker. Apparently stewardesses and sweatshop workers and I enjoy a lot of the same interests and activities.”

ShouldYearsMindHappensEyeLastsEnjoyInterestCareersPlansFeetFashionActivityTestsWorkersFlightDesignerBrownFlatsLast YearFashion DesignerAptitudeBrown EyesSweatshopsStewardessFlight AttendantAptitude Test
Author:Susan Juby
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“Kids don't have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don't have a little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that.”

PeopleKnowsChildrenLittlesCountryStoriesBigsKidsLawSongMinesBrotherHard WorkOughtSingingLaborRootsDiedTownsManagementFruitBrokeOrganizedEnlightenedChild AbuseProtectedOrganizeCoalLungsFuture GenerationRaising ChildrenMillsBenevolentLittle SisterLittle BrotherLawlessnessChild LaborCoughingOrganized LaborDeserve BetterSweatshopsUnderpaidLabor LawsFruit Of Labor
Author:Utah Phillips
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“Most people no longer believe that buying sneakers made in Asian sweatshops is a kindness to those child laborers. Farming is similar. In every country on earth, the most human scenario for farmers is likely to be feeding those who live nearby-if international markets would allow them to do it. Food transport has become a bizarre and profitable economic equation that's no longer really about feeding anyone ... If you care about farmers, let the potatoes stay home.”

PeopleIfsBelieveHumansChildrenMadeCountryHomeCareEarthAnimalKindnessEconomicMiracleInternationalBuyingFarmersVegetablesFeedingBizarreEquationsPotatoesAsianFarmingProfitableScenariosTransportLaborersSneakersIf You CareSweatshops
Author:Barbara Kingsolver
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“It surprises people that there's actually a very large number of slaves in the world today-our best estimate is 27 million. And that is defining a slave in a very narrow way; we're not talking about sweatshop workers or people who are just poor, we're talking about people who are controlled by violence, who cannot walk away, who are being held against their will, who are being paid nothing.”

PeopleWorldWayTodayWalksPoorNumbersTalkingMillionsViolencePaidSlaverySlaveSurpriseWorkersControlledDefiningWorld TodayNot TalkingLarge NumbersSweatshops
Author:Kevin Bales
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“The Upton Sinclair of today's global economy is Charles Kernaghan, the New York based muckraker most famous for his expose of sweatshops producing the Kathie Lee Gifford line of clothing for Wal-Mart.... The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights... has been a leader in exposing sweatshops, mounting corporate campaigns, and fighting for the rights of vulnerable workers.”

HumansHas BeensTodayFightingLinesLeaderEconomyRightsNew YorkImpactWorkersHuman RightsCampaignsVulnerableCorporateLabourClothingsInstituteExposingGlobal EconomySweatshops
Author:Charles Derber
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