labor exploitation
Underpaying vulnerable workers
Labor exploitation is the practice of taking unfair advantage of workers—paying below-market wages, imposing unsafe conditions, or extracting excessive work through coercion or desperation.
The term ranges from sweatshop conditions and wage theft to human trafficking: The investigation uncovered widespread labor exploitation at the factory.
What constitutes exploitation often depends on who's defining fairness.
- wage theftEmployer withholding earned compensation
- minimum wage violationsIllegal underpayment of workers
- slaveryOwnership of people
- modern slaveryCurrent forced labor exploitation
- sweatshopsExploitative manufacturing facilities
human trafficking · plantation economy · indentured servitude · union busting · race to the bottom · underpayment · under the table · off the books · income inequality · debt bondage · underemployment · peonage · maquiladoras · oppression · colonialism · coercion · overtime · vulnerable
- laborwork, laborers, workers, hard work, employment
- child laborchild workers, debt bondage, hazardous work, hazardous occupations, factory work
- Labor LiteratureGrapes of Wrath, The Jungle
- migrant labormigrant workers, foreign workers, farmworkers, guest workers, agricultural workers
- social critiquesocial injustice, inequality, expose, muckraking, polemic
- regional crisespoverty, inequality, violence, crime, corruption
labor exploitationfair wages
Reasonable compensation for labor
fair compensation · living wage · worker protection · fair labor practices · employee welfare
labor exploitationprofit sharing
Distributing earnings to workers
worker ownership · worker cooperatives · collective bargaining · fair trade · cooperative enterprise
labor exploitationworker empowerment
Granting staff meaningful authority
collective bargaining · workplace democracy · self-management · union representation · labor organizing