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Ethical Labor Dispute

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Submitted By mammabear75
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The US Department of Labor defines a sweatshop as being a factory that violates two or more labor laws. Sweat shops in America slip under the radar but are not as common as those in under developed countries. This being said many of the successful fashion companies utililize sweatshop labor from the under developed countries. One of the largest sweat shop capitals is located in Indonesia, where women and children are forced to work unreasonable hours and paid unfair wages with poor working conditions. The list of violations are endless.
It is unethical to use women and children as well as men in these sweat shops to reproduce a product that is going to give the CEO’s and upper management great financial gains. On average a worker is paid .24 per NBA Jersey they produce, that same garment is sold in the USA for more than $140. Studies have shown that when a sweat shop worker wages are doubled, the product would increase the cost to the consumer by only 1.8%. Many of those consumers would be willing to pay up to 15% more to ensure that fair and ethical conditions and regulations were instilled during the manufacturing of the product they are purchasing. Companies have a duty to the consumer to provide ethical business practices, thus giving the business and or brand a reputation that stands for conditions that are humane while the product is being produced.
A company can stand behind their ethical business practices by setting higher standards for factories they are contracting with in other countries, by ensuring management is checking in on these factories and employees are being treated fairly. As long as the business has set high standards and has instilled their business practices in the factories they hire to produce their product they can communicate up front their zero tolerance for these types of behaviors on factory workers.
Ethical decision making in a business, needs to be looked at in the big picture, not only how is the decisions being made going to affect the company, but how are the decisions are going to affect those people working for the company. When business’s practice ethical decision making they reap the benefits of knowing that they can stand behind the quality of the product and how it was made. Thus the consumer proudly purchases the product over and over again.

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