Every day, I slip on my worn out Asics shoes, and I go for a quick run. During my run, I think about AS class. The subject of cheap labor came up a couple days ago. I look down a my shoes, and I wonder who made my shoes, and how much they get paid to make such fine running sheos. I decided to find out.
Asics outsources all of their production, so they do not specifically handle the making of their shoes. My shoes were made by someone would could be in one of the numerous sweatshops Asics, use. I have found that these sweat shops often produce competing brand's shoes. For instance, Puma and Nike shoes are often made in the same place. As my source says: "Workers for brands such as...Asics... are still earning poverty wages". There fore I can conclude that the person that made my shoe got an average sweatshop salary for it. Since the Asics Company is based in China, I will turn my search there. I see from a website that the average pay for a sweatshop worker in China is 23 US cents per hour. The living cost is 87 US cents per hour. I can therefore conclude that my shoes were made by a woman (90% of all sweatshop workers are female) and that it cost roughly a few cents to make my shoes. I bought them for 70 dollars. WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING?
