Part One Across the globe, an estimated 168 million children from developing countries employed in sweatshops.(Rogue) Sweatshops have become an integral part of U.S business corporations in the modern age. These corporations use the cheap labor of overseas factories to generate massive profit margins in the states, while taking advantage of those in poverty elsewhere. Many large athletic clothing corporations, namely Nike, Adidas, and the Jordan brand, have come under fire for outsourcing a majority of their work overseas. The most common criticism has come from the horrendous conditions and barely any pay. This topic struck home with me not just because it is involved with my field of study in business management, but also because of how it affects me as a consumer of such products. My ethical question is “should businesses be forced to maintain certain standards for overseas workers?”. By examining the standards a business should maintain, the ethical dilemma of profit versus …show more content…
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Nisen, Max. “How Nike Solved Its Sweatshop Problem.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 9 May 2013, www.businessinsider.com/how-nike-solved-its-sweatshop-problem-2013-5.
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Bob Jeffcott supports the effort of workers of the global supply chains in order to win improved wages and good working conditions and a better quality of life of those who work on sweatshops. He mentions and describes in detail how the conditions of the sweatshops are and how the people working in them are forced to long working hours for little money. He makes the question, “we think we can end sweatshops abuses by just changing our individual buying habits?” referring to we can’t end the abuses that those women have by just stopping of buying their products because those women still have to work those long hours because other people are buying their product for less pay or less money. We can’t control and tell what you can buy or what you can’t because that’s up to the person...
The controversial issue of sweatshops is one often over looked by The United States. In the Social Issues Encyclopedia, entry # 167, Matt Zwolinski tackles the issues of sweatshops. In this article Matt raises a question I have not been able to get out of my head since I have begun researching this topic, “ are companies who contract with sweatshops doing anything wrong?” this article goes on to argue that the people who work in the sweatshops willingly choose to work there, despite the poor environment. Many people in third world countries depend on the sweatshops to earn what they can to have any hopes of surviving. If the sweatshops were to shut down many people would lose their jobs, and therefore have no source of income. This may lead people to steal and prostitution as well. this article is suggesting that sweatshops will better the economy by giving people a better job than what they may have had. Due to this the companies contracting with sweatshops are not acting wrong in any way. This was a deductive article it had a lot of good examples to show how sweatshops are beneficial to third world countries. Radly Balko seemed to have the same view point as Matt Zwolinski. Many people believe the richer countries should not support the sweatshops Balko believes if people stopped buying products made in sweatshops the companies will have to shut down and relocate, firing all of the present workers. Rasing the fact that again the worker will have no source of income, the workers need the sweatshop to survive. Balko also uses the argument that the workers willingly work in the current environments.
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.
... strongly suggest that awareness of sweatshop abuses is turning consumers away from Nike.” (International Nike Mobilization - www.haleokala.com).
This report is extremely credible and qualified, as it was written by an author who is well-versed on the topic. The author was also the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, making him even more authentic source. Throughout the article, the author discusses and examines the words of two other authors, Ron and Anil Hira, who are experts on the subject of American Outsourcing. These authors are also very credible; one is a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, and the other is a professor at Simon Fraser University. Additionally, the author refers to many case studies that were taken at different universities in order to justify his claims on why American Outsourcing is bad. The intended audience is
Pittman, B. (2012, September 14). Nike sweatshop history: Should action be taken?. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/americanlaborcrises/labor-crises/nike-sweatshop-action
...rible situations for people who do not have the laws like U.S. workers have. Even though NIKE has implemented different methods to improve the companies’ image, there have still been many reports that show there has not been much change at all. At a net worth of 67 billion dollars and expected to grow, loyal customers is what allows this multi billion dollar company to grow in profit, the only way there will be an impact on those working in NIKE sweatshops is if today’s society takes action.
Americans do not realize the amount of clothing we wear on a daily basis is actually made in Cambodia, such as Adidas and even the Gap. The women that work for these sweatshops in Cambodia sew for 50 cents an hour, which is what allows stores in America, such as H&M to sell inexpensive clothing (Winn, 2015). The conditions these Cambodian workers face are a noisy, loud, and extremely hot environment where people are known for having huge fainting attacks. When workers were on strike a year ago, authorities actually shot multiple people just because they were trying to raise their pay. There is plenty of evidence of abuse captured through many interviews of workers from different factories, and is not just a rarity these places see often or hear of. Factories hire children, fire pregnant women because they are slow and use the bathroom to much, scream at regular workers if they use the toilet more than two times a day, scam hard working employees with not paying them their money they worked for and more, and workers are sent home and replaced if 2,000 shirts are not stitched in one day. Expectations are unrealistic and not suitable for employees to be working each day for more than ten
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.
Many global companies like Nike, Inc. are seen as role models both in the market place as well as in society in large. That is why they are expected to act responsibly in their dealings with humanity and the natural world. Nike benefits from the global sourcing opportunities, therefore areas such as production and logistics have been outsourced to partner companies in low-wage countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. As a result the company is limited nowadays to its core competencies of Design and Marketing.
Nisen, M., (2013, May 09). How Nike Solved its Sweatshop Problem, Retrieved March 03, 2014 from Internet site http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nike-solved-its-sweatshop-problem-2013-5
In addition to MNCs, domestic corporations often outsource manufacturing and purchase supplies from foreign countries. These corporations have come to realize they cannot dismiss their responsibility for unethical practices of these suppliers. Nike suffered reputational damage and a drop in stock value when the unethical practices of factories in Indonesia and unhealthy working conditions in factories in Vietnam which produced goods for Nike became public knowledge (Locke, 2005). This led Nike to change its oversight of the factories which produce its merchandise (Gerardin, n.d.). To avoid the fallout from unethical behaviors of suppliers, corporations should educate their supply and manufacturing partners about
An article recently published in The Wall Street Journal focused on the effects of Nike
With the increasing awareness and publicity of poor working conditions in subcontracted factories in East Asia, Nike has stimulated an uprising of activist and watchdog groups working toward seeing these conditions changed. With Nike in the negative spotlight, various organizations have revolved around generating a negative outlook on Nike’s practices of social irresponsibility. Certain campaigns such as the “National Days of Consciousness” and “International Day of Protest” were organized to educate people on the deplorable working conditions in Nike’s Asian manufacturing plants, and were designed to get more people involved in global employment issues.
Most businesses in the world use outsourcing of goods abroad to improve competitive advantage and minimize the cost of its production. Nike uses Greenfield outsourcing by hiring start up companies and independent contractors to provide manufacturing of footwear. The outsourcing business practices are very profitable to Nike. However, at the same time the company has attracted international attention because of its unethical practices in these outsourced working conditions and environments. Nike is engaged in designing, developing and marketing of products, footwear, equipment and apparel. It sells athletic footwear worldwide and the major buyer of its products is the United States. Products from Nike are made by independent contractors based in third world countries manufacture footwear products like Thailand, China and Indonesia (Bartley and C...