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Well sweatshops normally invoke forced labor of some kind, often in relation to Human Trafficking, since this conversation is about Human Trafficking I was using that context. I will recognize the technical definition is any "employer that violates more than one federal or state labor law governing minimum wage and overtime, child labor, industrial homework, occupational safety and health, workers' compensation, or industry registration", however in the context of this conversation I think it is pretty disingenuous to circumscribe that to be violations of "minimum wages"

In the context here Sweatshops often obtain workers that have been tricked into starting work without informed consent, or when workers are kept at work through debt bondage or mental duress, or child labor. None of which have anything to do with Minimum wage, they could be paying them $20/hr and still be a sweatshop

I am not a big fan of current Minimum wages laws, and believe there is far better ways to accomplish the stated goals of those laws with out a blanket floor on the price of labor, ironically minimum wages also end up hurting the very people they purport to be "helping" very much like drug and sex laws.




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