"Sweating Out the Words"

In “Sweating Out the Words” Debbie Nathan addresses the conditions in the contemporary sweatshop: the informatics sweatshop. Companies have begun to outsource data entry to ununionized countries with cheaper labor. The economic leaders of these countries love this practice, some even going as far as subsidizing the cheapness of the labor for American companies with taxes from the salaries of the underpaid workers. While I am a fan of cheap labor and operating with the lowest possible costs, I also believe in decency. It’s one thing to outsource labor to countries where the U.S. dollar is much stronger than the national currency, thus allowing companies to save money on wages without compromising quality of life of the worker. It’s a whole other thing to operate in said country and pay workers so little they cannot feed themselves or educate their children so they are not trapped in the downward spiral of wage slavery. For example, I find it clever that informatics companies have realized that people are more efficient at data entry in a language they do not speak. However, I find it cruelly ironic that women who spend all day typing words for EDM in Mexico cannot even afford books to read. Cheap labor does not necessitate poor worker conditions, yet for some reason these almost always go hand in hand. As capitalists, we always forget that operations are not a zero sum game. Someone does not have to lose in order for us to win. We seem to think that the worse off our workers are, the better the company must be doing. Oh, a man passed out from exhaustion and starvation? Great news, we are definitely maximizing his usefulness! Employers hate unions, but every time they are allowed to operate sans unionization, they never fail to remind everyone exactly why unions are necessary.