Life nowadays is getting harder and standards of living are reducing continuously. One of these is labor, as it gets cheaper and leads to violating worker’s rights. Because free trade market continues to push forward the global economy, it becomes difficult to hold corporation accountable for their poor practices. So Rather than preventing this problem, Manipulations of Multinational Corporations is getting harder to face because they are benefiting from it. There are many examples for Multinational Corporations’ violation of human rights and environmental abuses. First, Nestlé for unnecessarily marketing infant formula to nursing mothers, pushing bottled water sales, and failing to stop child labor in cocoa fields. Second, Syngenta for marketing harmful pesticides to farmers, contaminating waterways, and failing to assume responsibility for harm done to people exposed to their chemicals and the declining bee populations. Third, Mattel’s involvement in labor violations encourages abuse through its purchasing practices and inaction when labor violations are uncovered. To maximize profit and reduce risk, Mattel outsource production to factories in developing countries. Nestlé is well known for producing chocolate but is in fact one of the world’s largest multinational food companies producing everything from frozen meals to infant formula. Nestle executives describe the company as the “world’s leading nutrition, health, and wellness company.” Nestlé has been criticized for pushing bottled water sales in developing nations, which is not only costly for communities, but deters governments from improving water sanitation efforts locally. Similarly Nestlé has been accused of marketing infant formula to new mothers in Turkey claiming t... ... middle of paper ... ...rt a product of insufficient pre-job safety training. Finally environmental pollution that is one factory disposes of toxic waste and wastewater improperly and uses prohibited caustic chemicals, the use of which it hides from official during inspections. Finally, There are some points that any Multinational Corporations should keep in mind to stop violations of Human Rights. Frist, they have to be responsible of respecting and preventing abuse of their labor and this could be applied by applying human rights recognized in international and national laws. Second, they have to give equal opportunities to their labors by eliminating discrimination treatment that is based upon race, sex, religion, political opinion, social status and age. Third, they should not use forced labor or compulsory labor because national legislation and international instruments forbid them.
Opinions coupled alongside historical accounts provide a lesson demonstrating the truths of Coke’s corporate greed. Elmore’s argument development progresses in a way that the reader becomes furthered dismayed as the history lesson goes on. Coca-Cola ravaged precious water resources in third world countries which eventually resulted in a scale of humanitarian crisis, yet today The Coca-Cola Foundation’s mission statement reads: “…[We have] Committed ourselves to improving the quality of life in the communities where we do business”. Television commercials depicting delight paired with the soft drink, Coca-Cola’s slogan of, “open happiness” along with massive international event sponsorships that universally are recognized currently label the company as having a positive impact in communities. Elmore’s arguments successfully connect the dots, illustrating to the reader on the dissolute framework which held together and lead to the rise in Coca-Cola’s present day
Following the globalization, many companies in developed countries move factories to developing nations. As a multinational company, there is at least one facility in one country other than its home country. Those companies have offices and factories in different countries and usually have a centralized head office in their home country. Advocates of multinationals say they create jobs and wealth. And multinationals can improve technology in developing countries, which are in need of this. On the other hand, critics say multinational companies often barely pay employees enough to live on in developing countries, and it is unethical to pay cheap wages.
With the continued rise of consumer "needs" in "industrial" countries such as the United States, and the consistently high price that corporations must pay to produce goods in these countries, companies are looking to "increase (their) profits by driving down costs any way possible... To minimize costs, companies look for places with the lowest wages and human rights protections" (Dosomething). Countries with lax or unenforced labor laws grant multinational corporations the leeway to use cheap foreign labor to mass-produce their commodities so that they can be sold in countries like America. These inexpensive, sometimes borderline illegal, establishments are known as sweatshops. In his book Timmerman discusses the topic of sweatshops in great detail. Originally in search of "where (his) T-shirt was made(;) (Timmerman) (went) to visit the factory where it was made and (met) the people who made (it)" (Timmerman5).
In her book Marion Nestle examines many aspects of the food industry that call for regulation and closer examination. Nestle was a member of the Food Advisory Committee to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the 1990’s and therefore helps deem herself as a credible source of information to the audience. (Nestle 2003). Yet, with her wealth of knowledge and experience she narrates from a very candid and logical perspective, but her delivery of this knowled...
Large corporations such as Nike, Gap, and Reebok and many others from the United States have moved their factories to undeveloped nations; barely pay their employees enough to live on. Countries such as China, Indonesia, and Haiti have readily abundant cheap labor. There should be labor laws or an obligation of respecting workers to provide decent working conditions, fair wages, and safety standards.
The "Food/Challenge Corporate Abuse of Our Food." Corporate Accountability International. Stopcorporateabuse.org, 21 June 2013. Web. The Web.
Nike publicizes itself as one of the leading industries in corporate responsibility. However, they do not comply with several human rights obligations overseas in countries like Thailand, Pakistan, China, Vietnam and Indonesia. In these countries, production facilities called sweatshops have been running for almost 35 years employing workers as young as 13 years of age. The conditions of these factories are adverse to say the least and deprive workers of the moral human rights they should be entitled to. Sweatshops are unethical, immoral and demonstrate Nike’s ignorance towards their social responsibilities abroad. Within these facilities, workers endure stressfully long days under undesirable conditions, often with no breaks and very little pay. While this is going on overseas, sponsored athletes are being paid million dollar salaries here in North America. Although Nike’s reputation has been foiled through the tabloids regarding this issue, they have been making a substantial effort to “clean up” production messes in the East.
Nike has a responsibility for the working conditions of their employees who produce Nike products. In cases of multinational companies, the question of whose ethics and standards to follow is in dispute. Best judgement and reasoning and a combination of the countries’ standards combine to decide on appropriate treatment. In Nike’s case, as part of their strategy, they moved work overseas to save on labor costs. However, the employees still work in Nike factories making Nike products, and Nike has responsibility to protect their working conditions and workers’ rights. They should guarantee workers are being paid fairly according to the minimum wage, ensure their overseas factories comply with child labor laws, and certify the working conditions
Foxconn has factories in Asia, Europe, Mexico and South America why is it that only China’s Foxoconn was in highlight and not any other country? While the Chinese factories happened to be the largest factories in China, these factories are also facilitated with dormitories and other infrastructure to host the workers and provide workers to go back at end of the 12 hour shift to relax and reenergize for the next shift. A quarter of the employees live in these so called dormitories. My Case study will analyze how the various news sources revealed the global sweatshop to the world and the reactions by the companies who were using Foxconn to manufacture electronic goods. The Chinese newspaper displayed Foxconn employees having social and psychological reasons leading to suicides whereas US news showed it as human rights violation. Both of them did not acknowledge the social justice and world economy aspects and steps that were taken by the electronics giants to rectify the problems that were being faced in Wuhan, China.
When one considers the injustice the sweatshop worker deals with at the hands of corporate America, one can only wonder how such actions are allowed. Where is the Declaration of Human Rights? This document declares rights to all humans, but somehow sweatshop workers are overlooked? They are human beings too. Something must be done to end this parade of abuse. Take some action, next time you see The Gap, walk right by it, every little bit helps.
Ecuador is the biggest fine or flavor cocoa exporter of the world. Since chocolate is a billion dollar industry, one would think cocoa farmers would be benefit fairly. However, when the production chain is analyzed, one can find large differences between the working conditions of cocoa farmers and the chocolate factory employees. Still in the 21stcentury there exists a large amount of child labor in cocoa producing countries. Meanwhile in the chocolate factories (which are mainly located in developed countries), the transnational corporations boast about their compromise with ethics, particularly human rights and environmental protection.
The use of sweatshop in multinational companies has become a common practice around the world. The main reason is because it could maximize profit by overseas manufacturing with lower labour costs. According to Skarbek et al (2012, p.556),the sweatshop is a factory in the developing country which employ the low wage labors in the poor working environment to produce goods for multinational enterprises. The proponent of sweatshop claimed that based on consequentialist approach, sweatshop has given a positive impact on the welfare of developing countries included workers and even future generations
There has been increased the outcry by international labor organizations accusing multinational companies of foul play when dealing with their workers. Many multinational companies, in a bid, to reduce operation costs and costs of production, end up suppressing their clueless workers. Some multinational companies have gone to the extent on having their central productions being done in low-income earning companies where they would not have many responsibilities to bear for the workers. Coca-Cola, however, has received widespread criticism for its mistreatment of workers and the way it has...
Globalization is the dominant force by which the world has become interconnected significantly as a result of extremely increased trade and decreased cultural differences. Globalization has made crucial changes in the production and trade of goods and services. The giant companies are now multinational corporations with subsidiaries in many countries. They are no longer national firms with their operations limited to the boundary of just one country. Such companies’ growth and operations are not constrained by any geographical, economical or cultural boundary. One of these multinational corporations is “Nestle”; that has gained world-class recognition in recent times. Nestle has made significant use of globalization in the last decade in the following manner-
First of all globalization has led to exploitation of labor. We can’t ignore the fact that ethical aspects of international business deserve special attention. Corruption and engaging in illegal practice to make greater profit is a source of continuing controversy. Sometimes companies go international and move their production to foreign countries so they could employ workers for long hours, at low wages and in poor working conditions (sweat shops). They are also using child labor, the employment of children to a full time work that can be otherwise done by adults all that so they could get out of their responsibility towards their workers by avoiding paying them national insurance …When these multinational firms go abroad they forget all about principles and about human beings and their rights, according to Kent, J., Kinetz, E. & Whehrfritz, G. (2008/March24). Newsweek. Bottom of the barrel. “The dark side of globalization: a vast work force trapped in conditions that verge on slavery”, David, P. Falling of The Edge, Travels through the Dark Heart of Globalization..Nov 2008. (p62) also agrees with them when he explained his concerns about Chinese and Indians t...