Labor historian Erik Loomis claims that the conditions faced by workers in the United States in the Gilded Age have been replicated in developing countries where Western corporations utilize sweatshop labor . In particular , he compares the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911 New York to the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013 Bangladesh . He argues that the former galvanized the population to political activism that eventually pushed through reforms not only pertaining to workplace safety , but also the minimum wage , the eight-hour day , workers ' compensation , Social Security the Clean Air Act , and the Clean Water Act . American corporations responded by shifting production to developing nations where such protections did not exist . Loomis elaborates : In 1997 , economist Jeffrey Sachs said , " My concern is not that there are too many sweatshops , but that there are too few . " Sachs and other proponents of free trade and the global movement of capital cite the economic theory of comparative advantage , which states that international trade will , in the long run , make all parties better off . The theory holds that developing countries improve their condition by doing something that they do " better " than industrialized nations ( in this case , they charge less but do the same work ) . Developed countries will also be better off because their workers can shift to jobs that they do better . These are jobs that some economists say usually entail a level of education and training that is exceptionally difficult to obtain in the developing world . Thus , economists like Sachs say , developing countries get factories and jobs that they would not otherwise . Some would say with this situation occurs when developing countries try to increase wages because sweatshops tend to just get moved on to a new state that is more welcoming . This leads to a situation where states often do n't try to increase wages for sweatshop workers for fear of losing investment and boosted GDP . However , this only means average wages around the world will increase at a steady rate . A nation only gets left behind if it demands wages higher than the current market price for that labor
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
Sweatshop