Rhetorical Analysis of Rajeev Ravisankar’s “Sweatshop Oppression”

Ravisankar begins his essay by stating the people like to get more for a lower price. The problem he identifies is sweatshops treating workers inhumanely with longer working hours, less pay and gross working conditions. Ravisankar assumes his readers are sympathetic to the problem. His purpose in this essay is to educate consumers and human-right activist. In order to accomplish this purpose, he appeals mainly to the activist that criticizing sweatshops and bringing attention to them only hurts the workers. He also appeals to the companies to change. In his essay, Ravisankar addresses the main argument against his thesis, the idea that activists are raising awareness of sweatshop which in turn make companies pull out of areas of protest thereby creating an even worse economy for that region. He refutes this argument by saying the blame should be on the companies for wanting to give lower wages for lower prices. Finally, he concludes by making the point that Universities are using companies that do not use sweatshops for their apparel. Overall, the argument Ravisankar makes is effective because it employs us to look at both sides of the equation to understand why there are sweatshops and what has to be done to help dismantle them.