Sweatshops
For more than a decade, sweatshops have been a grim issue. Activists protested against multinational corporations such as Disney and Nike for hiring workers from developing countries, and forcing their workers to work up to sixteen hours every day without being paid overtime. Several enterprises have changed and worked towards improving the working environment, increasing the minimum working age, and raising the salary of the workers. Yet, multinationals continued to hire cheap overseas workers due to consumers having a high demand on their brand name goods.
The only way to end sweatshops is to bring awareness to the consumers and for them to stop purchasing the brand name goods, however, that is a difficult task. In contradiction to R. Edward Freeman’s Stakeholder Theory, he states businesses that have one (financiers mostly in this case) benefiting group out of all the stakeholders is regulated to decline, but that is not the case here. Although unethical, these multinational corporations that use sweatshop workers continue to prosper well through the decades because of factors such as millions of people in developing countries wanting to support their impoverished family, or consumers not wanting to change to sweat-free alternatives because they value trends and brand name goods more. Unless there is an alternative that will equally benefit all the stakeholders, nothing will stop multinationals from ending the use of sweatshop workers.
Source: http://www.economist.com/node/187886
Video:
- http://videos.howstuffworks.com/planet-green/38670-blood-sweat-t-shirts-tracing-clothes-to-the-source-video.htm
- http://videos.howstuffworks.com/planet-green/38671-blood-sweat-t-shirts-60-rupeess-video.htm
