The Global Sweatshop

• Between 1969 and 1987 the time an average person worked per year increased by 163 hours. That adds up to approximately an extra month of work a year.
  
  
• Rising work hours in the US are far outpacing hours in Japan, Germany, and Britain. Manufacturing workers in the U.S. put in 1,904 hours per year; Japan 1,888; Germany 1,639.
  
  
• In 1993, 30% of all workers worked more than 40 hours a week compared to 26.3% in 1979.
  
  
• In the 1980s the average amount of overtime in manufacturing ranged from 3.4 to 3.8 hours. By late 1994 it was 4.8 to 5.1 hours, the equivalent of 2.3 million 40-hours-a -week manufacturing jobs.
  
  
• 7.5 million people work 2 or 3 jobs just to get by.
  
  
• Today the average vacation for Americans is four days down from one week a decade ago.

• During the 1980s workers' compensation claims related to stress tripled.
  
  
• According to studies the majority of Americans are experiencing a "sleep-deficit," getting 60 to 90 minutes less sleep than we need to remain healthy.
  
  
• In 1992, about 6,500 Americans died and 13.2 million were hurt from work-related causes. The costs of these injuries and illnesses totaled $171 billion, far more than the cost of AIDS or Alzheimer's disease and at least as much as cancer or heart disease.
  
  
• According to many surveys, half of our population feels that it has too little time for family.
  
  
• 7 million children are left home while their parent's work.
  
  
• n 1965, 25% of Americans complained of feeling rushed. By 1991 33% felt rushed and 30% of all adults reported that they are under high stress nearly every day.

• In each year of the 1980s, about 2 million workers lost their jobs due to plant closings or permanent layoffs.
  
  
• 7.5 million workers are unemployed.
  
  
• 7.5 million workers have taken part-time jobs because they cannot find full-time work.
  
  
• 30 million to 37 million Americans are "contingent workers."
  
  
• Temp jobs have grown at a rate of 250% since 1982, while jobs overall have grown only 20%.
  
  
• 7,000 temp agencies now employ 1.9 million people each day.

• High unemployment disrupts families and leads to higher rates of robbery and murder, especially among youth.
  
  
• 47 percent of all part-time workers between the ages of 24 and 44 had no employer-provided health insurance in 1993.
  
  
• In 1995 only 36 percent of the unemployed received unemployment benefits.
  
  
• Recent welfare cuts mean the pool of those desperate for work is growing.
  
  
• The introduction of Workfare programs is driving down working conditions for millions of workers through substandard cheap labor competition.

An example: Loisida, New York. Just blocks away from Chinatown, in the Latino community on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, unemployment is a major problem. Latinos make up nearly half (45.4%) of the total population on the Lower East Side. Most Latinos in the area are Puerto Rican. The unemployment among Latino residents is 17.6%. The average per capita income for Latinos is $5,917 a year, putting 44% of the area's Latino community below the poverty line.