Ethical Problems of Child and Unfair Labor Whenever you buy a pair of trainers, a new top or any type of clothing, do you consider who made them or how they were made? Would you still buy the trainers if you knew that a twelve-year-old Vietnamese girl working in sweatshop conditions had manufactured them? The main ethical problems involved with these large trans-national companies like “Nike” are that firstly, children well below the minimum working age are able to work in huge factories by showing unreliable identification, secondly most workers are labouring in sweatshop conditions, they are being abused of their human rights and finally, the wages that they are being given are very low although they are the legal minimum for that particular country. However, TNCs argue that they have detailed codes of conduct which include all of the human rights points and that they have monitors checking working conditions and any sign of child labour. They guarantee that children have not made their products. But is this the truth? Apparently not! A recent undercover documentary called ‘Panorama’ proved that TNCs such as “Nike” had sweatshop conditions and child labour happening in their factories. In its defence, “Nike” told ‘Panorama’ that its monitors were not doing enough to crush out child labour and that they will reform how they employ people and ask for more reliable sources of proof of age. They said that this is not usually the case in the rest of their factories. But again ‘Panorama’ proved them wrong by showing that all these problems were occurring in a lot of the factories. The sad truth is that most of the workers cannot afford to buy the products that they produce because they get paid so little. Only five percent of the market value goes too the person made them. At first this may seem that the TNCs are exploiting the workers but in fact they are paying the minimum requirement for that particular country. Even if this seems to be a considerably less amount of money than
Many people in our society today are constantly asking, "Why do sweatshops exist?" The answer to this question is that companies like Nike and Wal-Mart use sweatshops to produce their goods for a much cheaper rate, to reduce the cost of their products. The problem with sweatshops is that the workers are subject to hard work in often times poor conditions for minimal pay. But although many people may condemn sweatshops, there are some advantages that many people overlook when arguing against sweatshops and their practices.
I was unable to experience an ethical dilemma at my clinical site; however, I have come across a few dilemmas in recent news. The ethical dilemma I have chosen to discuss took place in California. A two-year-old boy had a severe asthma attack that resulted in him becoming brain dead after having a heart attack. Although three doctors from two different hospitals declared the boy brain dead, the family asked the court to have their son remain on a ventilator, and then took off to Guatemala to receive treatment they felt their son was not receiving in California. There, a neurologist declared that the boy was not brain dead, so the family returned to California to a new hospital. After days there the court order they asked for was denied. The boy was taken off the ventilator and passed away (Miller, 2016).
Nike, as many other companies do, facilitates production in other countries to help grow sales in those particular regions. The main difference between Nike and some of the other companies is that other companies do not support the exploitation of labourers or human rights. Not to suggest that Nike promotes labour exploitation, but they are less strict about these rules than other companies in foreign markets. Impacts on health and safety are a major factor for employees in sweatshops. However, physical and sexual abuse is another serious concern of many of the sweatshop workers. Most of the sweatshops run by Nike contractors are factories located in relatively small spaces to save on real estate costs. They are often soiled with dirt and kept unheated to save on expenses. Broken glass and dangerous equipment is left on the floors causing potential dangers to any people scattered within the factory. Employees are subject to harassment and violent punishments if work is not being completed as thoroughly and efficiently as the contractors would like. Workers slave under unfavourable conditions for up to 14-hour days often with no breaks. These employees are paid less than $100 US and work on average over 250 hours per month. "Substandard wages keep factory workers in poverty and force them to work excessi...
What is Child Labor?Child Labor is work that harms children or keeps them from attending school. Around the world and in the U.S., growing gaps between rich and poor in recent decades have forced millions of young children out of school and into work. It is estimated that 215 million children between the ages of 5 and 17 are currently working under conditions that are considered illegal, hazardous, or extremely exploitative.1 Underage children work many different types of jobs that included commercial agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, mining, and domestic services. Some children were involved in illicit activities that included drug trade, prostitution, and other traumatic occupations that included serving as soldiers. Child Labor involved threatening children’s physical, mental, or emotional well- being. It involved intolerable abuse, such as slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor or illicit activities and prevented children from going to school.
Child labor laws need to be enforced more because governments are paying little attention to those who abuse the laws; therefore children are being abused physically by long hours and economically by low pay. Farmers and many businesses in third world countries are accused of taking major advantage of these laws. This topic is highlighted as one of the highest controversial issues in labor politics. Child labor is a major issue in countries such as Africa, Argentina, and Bangladesh. For example, in Africa, some children do the work of a grown man for as little as one dollar a day. On the other hand, in the United States some studies show that child labor is a bigger problem in the U.S than some third world countries (Barta and others). Many farmers are facing a huge problem; the government is attempting to keep children from working long hours on their family farms.
The mistreatment of children is classified by four types of actions: physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and neglect. Although, in recent years several steps have been taken to prevent the maltreatment of children it seems that child abuse is still prevalent in today's society. Countless children around the world suffer from some form of abuse and in many cases the same child experiences more than one. There is no exact number of victims because it difficult to measure the exact amount of children going through abuse. Child abuse almost always occurs in private, and because abuse is often hidden from view and its victims may be too young or too frightened to speak out, experts in child welfare suggest that its true prevalence
In June of 1996, Life magazine published a article about Nike’s child labor that was occurring in Pakistan. The article showed a little boy who was surrounded by pieces of Nike sports gear. The articles were shoes and soccer balls. Nike then knew then that they had to make some major changes in the way they were producing their items.
Ethical issues in the workplace can be influenced by economic gains, differing worldviews, and ineffective communications. Nursing ethics usually begins with issues experienced during practice (Butts & Rich, p. 118). An ethical dilemma that occurred, during work, at a hospital in Northwestern United States will be examined. The impact of Christian and postmodern worldviews will be considered. Ethical decision making implications will be identified.
These continuing pressure impacted on the negative image and decreasing revenue of the company. Consequently, the ethical practices of Nike’s corporate have argued until now. Thus, this essay will discuss whether Nike has transformed as an ethical company or not by evaluating sweatshop utilization, environment and corruption issues in this company.
An ethical dilemma a social worker might have to face would be a client who is currently self harming themselves. A situation involving self-harming that a social worker might have to face could be if a client admits to their social worker that they’re always sad and unhappy, and that they help themselves feel better by self-harming. The social worker has been seeing this client for years, and only now is the client opening up to them. This can become an ethical dilemma because more than one social work values are in conflict (Hick, 2010). This dilemma would be both a absolute and approximate dilemma, as it conflicts with more than one of the values mentioned in the CASW Code of Ethics (as cited in Hick, 2010), and also conflicts with personal values (Hick, 2010).
We as a society are faced with ethical dilemmas virtually every day. How we handle these situations shapes our culture. But what are ethics? According to the Miniature Guide to Ethical Reasoning, ethical reasoning entails doing what is right even in the face of powerful selfish desires. To live an ethical life is to develop control of our own egocentric tendencies. It is not enough to be able to do the right thing when we ourselves have nothing to lose. We must be willing to fulfill our ethical obligations at the expense of our self-centered desires and vested interests. (Dr. Richard Paul & Dr. Linda Elder, 2003) In short, ethics is doing what is right even when no one is looking. A society with a strong code of ethics tends to run smoothly. A society with no code of ethics devolves into anarchy. Although arguments have been made to the contrary, ethics are just as vital in the workplace. Ethics are essential in the workplace because a tough ethical code provides a non-threatening environment with high employee morale, a company that exhibits clear-cut ethics tends to show higher profits, and simply because it is the right thing to do.
Ethics in the Workplace "Ethics are personal and, at the same time, a very public display of your attitudes and beliefs. It is because of ethical beliefs that we humans may act differently in different situations" (University of Phoenix, 2007). Poor ethical choices in the workplace can truly hurt people. Poor ethics can damage their career, happiness, and quality of life. Not only can these actions hurt the individual who has made the bad choices, but also most often it hurts the innocent.
A young child dies from exhaustion, their limp body has been pushed to the very limit and they finally give in to death and another child has just become a statistic. This child was not even eleven years old. They had just completed their twenty hour day and then stumbled home 6 miles from where they were working. They saw their house in the distance which gave them hope to keep on walking. They dragged their feet towards the corner where they slept; their eyes are drooping not just from physical tiredness but from the pain of living this way. The last thing this little child saw was darkness, the last thing this weak child felt was coldness and the last thing this unfortunate child could do, was give up. At last this child is able to rest. This child was a victim of child labour. So, I ask you; is child labour morally right? I will argue that the exploitation of children is always wrong but that sometimes child labour is a necessary evil. I will also distinguish between child labour and child work.
Most of the human beings experienced the sentiment of being exploited many times in their lives; so, how are children supposed to feel after being abused throughout their childhood? Child labor is described as the act that deprives teenagers of their childhood, potential or dignity, and is dangerous to their physical and intellectual development such as forced labor that interferes with their schooling, work that makes them depart school in early age and humiliation which is mentally and socially unsafe. This act also damages their family ties because of their permanent absence of home. Over all the developing countries, children work to earn living for their families. They get a little cash which is very insufficient to help the children families or the children themselves to lead a
What is ethics? Is ethics an ability that grows in us from a child or does our parents teaches us ethics? According to dictionary.com, states that the word ethics means, "the code of good conducts for an individual or group." Ethics also means, simply stated, that ethics refers to standards of behavior that tell us how human beings ought to act in the many situations in which they find themselves-as friends, parents, children, citizens, businesspeople, teachers, professionals, and so on. There are many characteristics of ethics. There are good and bad ethics. But when sociologist Raymond Baumhart ask business people "What does ethics means to you?" According to him, the replies he received were: "ethics has to do with whether their feelings tell them what's right or wrong, Ethics has to do with their religious beliefs, being ethical is doing what the law requires, Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts, and I don't know what the word means." (Wallace, 1985) All of those could be true, but the word "ethics" is hard to define and many views are quite shaky. If at a young age you find your daughter is stealing from the corner store, do you tell her that it is not ethical. Do you teach her that stealing is wrong? But is that ethical? So the question still remains, "What is ethics?"