Answer To: ? Research corporations that have allegedly utilized sweatshops for their manufacturing of products...
David answered on Dec 21 2021
Ethical Issues of Sweat Shops in Apple
Running Head ETHICAL ISSUES OF A SWEAT SHOP IN APPLE
Ethical Issues of Sweat Shops
Ethical Issues of Sweat Shops in Apple
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Ethical Issue of Sweatshops in Apple
Introduction
The ethical issue of sweatshops has been an issue that has received tremendous attention over the past two decades. Sweatshops are manufacturing facilities in which employees work for long hours in unsafe working conditions and for very little pay. In such working conditions, employees are exploited, coerced to work overtime and are subject to both verbal and physical abuse (Arnold & Bowie, 2003). A wide range of organisations such as Sweatshop Watch, Human Rights Watch among others have criticised the unethical sweatshop practices by some Multinational Corporations and their subcontractors which violate and exploit workers (Frost & Burnett, 2007). In the recent past, the focus has turned on Apple, one of the most innovative, profitable and valuable company in the world. Apple has received a lot of criticism for using sweatshops to develop its products. This paper evaluates the ethical issue of sweatshops in making Apple’s products at Foxconn in China.
Ethical issues of Sweatshops in Apple Inc
Early this year, a myriad of issues impacting Foxconn, one of Apple’s major contractors came to the fore. Foxconn, the biggest Taiwanese electronics manufacturer, faced various labour issues including dangerous working environment, long working hours, low wages, bad living and conditions for the workers who lived inside Foxconn compounds. These bad living conditions were cited as the reason for the high worker suicides in the company (Caccamo, 2012). Even worse were allegations of the use of child labour in these manufacturing facilities. These unethical practises at Foxconn also reflected badly on Apple as Apple’s much loved and innovative products were being produced in deplorable and exploitative working conditions for the workers. This reflects badly on Apple, and raises questions on ethical responsibility in the company. The following sections will evaluate the ethical issues of sweatshop in Apple at various levels of the company.
Corporate Responsibility
In raising ethical issues at the level of corporate responsibility, the major issues of concern in this case would be the company’s corporate code of conduct, its relations with suppliers and contractors, its corporate social responsibility as well as ethical leader leadership. Arnold and Bowie (2003) argue that big companies such as Apple are responsible for both their actions and the actions of their suppliers and contractors with regard to ethical duty. The core corporate responsibilities that the corporations have are to ensure that their suppliers or subcontractors adhere to the local labour laws, and to that they maintain minimum working wage. Furthermore, they need to promote health and safety standards in their contractor’s location are adhered to as well as ensure they provide decent wages for living. Even more importantly, they have to ensure that their suppliers do not coerce people to work
In response to criticism of using a sweat shop to manufacture its products, Apple sought to improve its corporate approach to these ethical issues (Apple, 2012). Apple’s corporate code of conduct states out that the company is fully committed to ensuring the safety of all its employees as well as the employee of all its contractors. Within the supplier code, Apple requires that its contractors and suppliers to adhere to the international standards of working promoting respect for human rights, treating employees with respect and dignity, healthy and safe workplace and sustainable manufacturing practices (Apple, 2012).
Apple is a highly successful multinational corporation with a market capitalisation of more than $500 billion (Caccamo, 2012). This value is far higher than gross domestic product of some countries such as Sweden. Apple is also the most profitable group globally. The reason for its success is mainly due to high profit margin, which Caccamo (2012) estimates to be more than 57% per product sale. This is far higher than other players in the industry. Such...