Apple introduced its newest products. Most of its cellphones, are made by over a million young and cheap labor force in the “sweatshop”, Foxconn which puts its employees in the appalling working conditions and causes high rate of suicide.
Making profit at the sacrifice of workers’ health is immoral. Profit isn’t the only pursuit of a company. Foxconn’s Management Module ignores civil right. The feeling of isolation and desperation towards their future are the direct reasons for the suicide.
We can’t simplify the problem, ignore the further social factors and place all the blame on the company. However, if the company has high level of business ethics and is committed to protecting employees’ legitimate rights, such tragedies would not have happened again and again.
Undoubtedly, sticking to the old management module and pursuing the maximum profit regardless civil rights violate the business ethics. For another, applying robots in the Assembly Line（Foxconn‘s plan） will make a large group of people lose job, which operates against Milton Friedman’s Social Responsibility Theory. What Foxconn really needs to do is finding a balance between the two extreme cases above，which is providing job opportunities while applying technology to relieve workers’ burden and giving them humanistic care.
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optional reading:
foxconn begins replacing workers with robots ahead of US expansion