Business Ethics and Cheap Labor

Many renowned multi-national clothing companies manufacture their clothes from countries like Bangladesh due to availability of cheap labor force. I mean, It’s perfectly right for businesses to outsource or offshore or to import from a different location where (in the case of the clothing industry) the manufacturing is cheaper, as it reduces the company’s costs.

The truth though is that, the garments workers in such third world countries, where anyone hardly follows the minimum wage rules, workers are paid less than 3 dollars a day. They neither have any employment security, nor standard working conditions at their workplace.

I am not against western brands importing/off shoring from Bangladesh, as it greatly helps the country’s economy. I just want the clothing companies to realize if they can sell their outfits are reasonably high prices (which they usually do), why cannot they ensure that the workers (who are actually manufacturing the clothes) gets adequate salary and are also provided with other basic necessities.

These salary rises will surely increase the company’s cost but I am confident it will not hamper their profits by a great margin. More importantly, there is a high possibility that such socially responsible acts will generate a great boost in their sales.

ImageLink- http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/business/global/17textile.htmlpagewanted=all

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