Supplier’s Working Conditions: A Response

Ethics in business is absolutely essential. While creating revenue is the goal, how you create the revenue is important. In the case of FoxConn and Apple, their revenue does not justify their business practices. On my classmate Katty Lee’s blog (http://blogs.ubc.ca/kattylee/ ), she discusses the horrible working conditions for employees of Foxconn. Foxconn is an electronics manufacturer that creates Apple products. At the factories in China in 2010, eleven workers committed suicide by jumping off the roof. The general belief was this happened because of poor working conditions. Katty asks a very good question in her blog: should companies be concerned about the supplier’s working conditions? In my opinion, companies should. First, from an ethical standpoint, no one should have to work long hours in horrible conditions for low wages. Second, from a public relations standpoint, it is important that companies care. In this case Apple looks awful and is blamed for the suicides. Even though employees of Apple may be treated well and have great working conditions, it does not matter so long as the supplier’s working conditions are awful. Therefore for ethical and PR reasons, companies should care about their supplier’s working conditions. It is the intelligent thing to do.