Month: September 2017

Two years ago, I took a family trip back to China. The purpose of the trip was to reconnect with relatives, but for my dad, his most pressing goal was to find the cheapest, biggest, most up-to-date drone that he could get his hands on.

Drones are currently the hottest product within the tech industry and are a must-have cool kid toy for any serious tech head, aspiring videographer, or amateur surveillance professional (home security can be a serious matter). Apart from their obvious recreational uses, drones are being steadily implemented into various industries to help in ways that have surpassed many expectations. From its roles in Amazon’s Prime Air delivery, to Dubai’s drone taxi service, and even to their data-collection role for American insurance companies during the recent hurricane devastations in Texas and Florida, drones have become a hot commodity.

The reason behind the drone’s exponential success can be attributed to the product’s versatility that crosses over multiple sectors of use that has the potential to revolutionize entire industries. In response to the overwhelming demand, the industry has boomed within the last couple years, with 2.4 million personal drones being sold last year in the U.S. alone – double what was sold the year prior.

While many may look upon the industry’s booming growth in awe, I view the numbers with alarm, because, with innovations like drones comes a lack of boundaries, and from there, major safety and privacy concerns that require the right form of regulation. Our current global regulatory controls are just not able to keep up with the rapidly changing unmanned-aircraft technology.

With new product upgrades coming in every few days, regulators are just unable to guard against major concerns and threats that drones pose, including airspace threats, privacy invasion, corporate espionage, and civilian accidents. Therefore, I find it completely necessary for governmental bodies to implement and enforce regulatory laws for the use of drones.

I believe that all consumer drones should be prohibited to fly below 400 feet over any permissible public or private property and that any drone-user wishing to fly higher must register a license with their municipality. Furthermore, any offenders should be fined as a warning to others. While these restrictions might seem overly rigorous, I believe it to be necessary for the time being so as to allow time for regulators, officials and industry leaders to develop a global operating standard for unmanned flying vehicles.

 “With the technology having just emerged into the mainstream it’s vital that the federal government be allowed to create a uniform regulatory framework, which all drone operators can follow,” – Jeff Ellis, New York-based Aviation Partner at Clyde & Co.

While the limitless possibilities for drone usage is an exciting prospect, they can only be used to their full potential with the right controls in place. So, until governments are able to pass these regulatory laws, I can only say, “Heads up”!

 

 

Word Count: 448

To many consumers, the idea of sweatshops is a foreign thought that belongs in foreign countries. We can all visualize a distressing scene of a women bent over a sewing machine working a 16-hour shift, in a crammed workspace in Southeast Asia, for a salary of mere pennies. However, with the recent rise in popularity of the “fast fashion” trend, there has been a huge resurgence of domestic textile productions in developed countries. Sonia Sodha’s article sheds light to an unknown truth that is hidden in some of the world’s most progressive nations.

Many popular high-street brands are currently having a hard time keeping up with their large demands while minimizing their turnaround periods, and have begun looking inward to domestic “sweatshops” to supply their never-ending need for fast, new fashion trends. These sweatshop-style factories operate in well-populated, urban cities – like Leicester, England – and cut costs by exploiting the wage system to get around paying their workers in full.

I, however, have to respectfully disagree with Sonia’s opinion that the main driving force behind these domestic sweatshops is from a weak state governance and an enfeebled union. I rather believe that it is the large retailer corporations that should be held responsible. Clothing brands like Forever 21, Asos, and T.J.Maxx – who rely on producing cheap clothes that sell in large volumes – are constantly pressuring their manufacturers to cut costs in order to maximize their own profit.

“They force the production costs to as low as they want because of their power in the supply chain, with the result of ultimately the workers bearing the whole cost and risk of the system.” – David Weil, former head of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division

Though no matter how tightly retailers squeeze their margins or how frequently the state penalizes them for unpaid wages, many manufacturers are unable to turn down a buyer with the quota and scale of a store like T.J.Maxx.

“It’s like moths drawn to a flame. They keep going for it,” said Daejae Kim, a downtown Los Angeles manufacturer who once supplied garments to Forever 21. “They’ll curse them — then go right back to them.”

Manufacturers are therefore left no choice but to cut whatever costs possible to meet the near unattainable demands from big retailers. With manufacturers spending less than $4 on the production of a garment that a company like Forever 21 would purchase and sell at $9 and then $25 respectively, there isn’t much left at the end of the day for the factory workers. Manufacturers are thus forced to illegally exploit immigrants and illegal refugees who are unable to say no to a paying job, no matter how little that pay really is.

The only party who seems reasonably unaffected from this vicious production cycle are big retailers who generally claim that they are only the distributer of clothes and are therefore not liable for any wage claims by workers, even if said worker has stitched their company’s label onto a garment.

In the end, the result is a situation we see all too often. Corporations 1, the people 0.

 

Word Count:438