IKEA regrets use of forced labour in East Germany

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/european-business/ikea-regrets-use-of-forced-labour-in-east-germany/article5363079/

IKEA knows that forced prison labour is unethical. “The use of political prisoners for manufacturing was at no point accepted by IKEA.” an IKEA manager said. But why had IKEA done it anyways? Cost minimization.

Every company wants to minimize their costs in a way that could maximize their profit. Back in the 70s and 80s in East Germany when it was a communist state, the use of forced prisoner labour was allowed and the work was arduous. Many prisoner suffered from physical and psychological impacts because of it. It is clearly immoral and against human rights.

Also, as mentioned, a reason why is that they had an inefficient control system to prevent prison labour.

Some more questions are raised. Why would IKEA apologize after more than two decades? What is the point of apologizing now? What are the benefits? The victims’ group UOKG has pressured companies to apologize  and managers in IKEA might think it is a right decision to apologise to raise its company’s image.