Suffering Under Unforeseen Consequences

The purpose of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was to promote trade and break down barriers between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It succeeded at its goal while also introducing many unforeseen difficulties for Americans. Thanks to NAFTA's elimination of tariffs (taxes imposed by one country or another on the goods and services imported by another country) between the three countries, many US jobs were lost to Mexico from companies shifting their operations for the cheaper cost of workers. Sweat puts the reader in the past with the workers in the early 2000s. The play shows how mistrust increases as management at Olstead's starts moving jobs to Mexico while leaving legacy employees whose families have worked for generations out of jobs. Once Cynthia is promoted to management when rumors of control laying off positions start spreading, her relationship with the workers on the floor becomes tense. The way things are going, they may all be out of work soon, "you've seen what being outta work has done to [Brucie]." It gets to the point where they begin to wonder if Freddy Brunner burning down his own house was crazy. With friends turning on friends and management using Cynthia as a shield to take the brunt of the pain, who is standing to gain from all this chaos? It is obvious: the companies. The companies are dividing the people and are forcing them to either renegotiate their contracts for a cheaper workforce with little to no benefits or they will take all their jobs down to Mexico. In the end, the only ones who end up getting hurt are the people who have to live with their problems while the millionaires sitting on their golden thrones rest easy.