Modern day sweatshops

I recently spoke to an acquaintance of mine who was having trouble at work. Of course, trouble it seems, is not enough to describe it. He is currently attempting to enter a certain field as a professional, and such had a co-op opportunity arranged through his school to provide him with experience. An added bonus was that this job, though co-op, does indeed pay. The good news end there. On his first day he was coerced into signing a document agreeing to work more than 60 hour weeks, and has been working every day for the past month (i.e. not even a single day off) at over 10  hours per day. Even worse, since this is a special kind of illegal, the company is not paying him his full hours worked, presumably since doing so would shed light on their illegal actions. This has excabrated certain medical conditions this person already has, and substantially reduced his quality of life. He fears losing the opportunity altogether if he complains, and thus he tolerates.

Really though, is this such a rare story? In this person's scenario, of course, he has options such as speaking to the co-op facilitator who sent him there in the first place. However, in most instances, people who find themselves in situations like this tend to be desperate, something the employer would know, and unfortunately sometimes exploit. The victims often feel that even such conditions are better than no employment at all, especially in such a weak job market, and tolerate it silently.

It is truly unfortunate that such blatant exploitation still occurs, especially with the vast number of laws and regulatory bodies established with the exclusive intent of preventing employers from acting immorally. At the end of the day this sad story illustrates that until more people utilize the resources available at their disposal to prevent victimization, not all the laws and all the committees and lovely speeches will change the reality that sweatshops exist, and you don't have to be an illegal immigrant with no language skills to end up in one.