Smart 1 Super Smart Professor Marcia Simmons ENGL 1302 02 February 2017 “Harnessing Our Power as Consumers: Cost of Boycotting Sweatshop Goods Offset by the Benefits” In the article “Harnessing Our Power as Consumers: Cost of Boycotting Sweatshop Goods Offset by the Benefits,” Ed Finn asserts that consumers can significantly affect the abusive labor policies of global corporations by their purchase decisions. According to Finn, our continued affinity and patronage of cheap foreign products, disregarding the exploitative labor that churns these products, only serves to further impoverish the Canadian populace, and by extension all progressive nations, in the long term. As an average consumer himself, Finn alludes to the fact purchasing locally (or non-sweatshop) manufactured products would involve some additional costs. Finn makes an emotional appeal to his readers by his personal situation. He explains that due to his baldness, he could not venture into the sun without a cap. Consequently, owning a cap was not a luxury but an absolute necessity for him. Nevertheless, it took him almost two weeks— a long time for someone in his condition—to find a suitable headgear that was “made by workers who were fairly paid and well treated” (Finn 29). Although cheaper caps were readily available, Finn baulked at the idea of purchasing a cap that was a product of “child labor, prison labor, and sweatshop labor in the Third World” (30). The terms “child labor” and “prison labor” also evoke sympathy and create pathos. Smart 2 Knowing that only an emotional appeal is insufficient for his argument, Finn also supports it with logical reasoning. He elucidated that global corporations’ misuse of cheap foreign labor is a plot to lower the wage rate in Canada. Moreover, these corporations expect the populace to keep their “needs as consumers separate from their needs as workers” (Finn 30). Finn further supports his view of boycotting goods manufactured by sweatshop labor by referencing a notable personality. He focused on Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, head of the National League for Democracy in Burma. According to Finn, Kyi was in support of the boycott of products made by sweatshop workers in her country, even though it triggered short-term economic hardship for the citizens of Burma (30). He provides facts and data from the United Nations, and employs lists and cause/effect when he reminds us that in South Africa, “Had their arguments been heeded, that country would still be ruled by a brutal and racist government” (30). Carefully balancing his argument with appeals to emotions and logical reasoning, Finn creates a rhetorically sound argument against the continual patronage of products manufactured by sweatshop labor. He acknowledges the opposing view that attempts to draw up sentiments of depriving the underpaid worker of his livelihood, but immediately rebuffs this claim as an attempt to justify the use of child labor. Finn posits that if consumers insist on knowing where the goods they are purchasing come from, it would help in curbing the loss of Canadian jobs, relieving oppressed people in Third world countries from “forced” labor and, successfully countering the destructive wage tactic of the global firms. . Smart 3 Works Cited Finn, Ed. "Harnessing Our Power as Consumers: Cost of Boycotting Sweatshop Good Offset by the Benefits." Global Issues, Local Arguments: Readings for Writing, edited by June Johnson, 3rd edition, Pearson, 2014, pp. 29-31.
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