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Case study of a sweatshop worker
Case study of a sweatshop worker
The role of transnational corporations in globalization
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What role has Globalisation and the introduction of TNCs played to the implicate the qualities of life of the sweatshop workers in 3rd world countries? Throughout the history, the origination of Globalisation might have united nations to confront several modern issues, but it has also made several impacts in our world in a negative manner. As a consequence of Globalisation, the TNCs were introduced. Trans National Cooperation were introduced to allow national and local cooperation to emerge their markets at a Global scale. Though this benefited numerous corporations in various ways, ranging from revenue to global recognition, it has also implicated the globe in a negative way, Sweat Shops. Sweatshops are factories that employ manual workers …show more content…
TNCs or transnational corporation were introduced in the 1950 to allow to allow national and local cooperation to emerge their markets at a Global scale. Though it may have benefited numerous nations as well as cooperation, it has also led to the increasing amount of sweatshop factories, consequently posing devastating implication of the lives of the workers. These factories are typically operated within 3rd world countries and there are various motives for these corporations to persistently operate these factories, one of the major motives is the profit gains. Exemplification of corporations acting solely for profit and their own best interests rather than conceding for the welfare of their workers is Nike. Nike is recognised by billions as the world’s leading supplier of apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment. TNCs has allowed corporations such as Nike to establish their production factories in poorer nations with cheap labour rates and gain record-breaking profits. With an annual revenue of $30.6 billion, Nike’s establishment of sweatshops is crucial for their success. The unbelievably low pay rates for their production workers is the key factor in their continually growth of markets around the global. Even though the constant increase in the …show more content…
An exemplification of polluted living environment would be the region of Hazaribagh, which is home to most tannery factories in Bangladesh. Hazaribagh, situated in the nation’s capital, Dhaka is also densely populated with 6.97 million people spread across a land mass of only 270 km, and according to the survey conducted by ‘The Daily Star’ more than 32.3% of the overall population are poverty stricken individuals, compressing the street and footpath with makeshift tents. The greatest health implicated suffered by the workers as well as the poverty stricken citizens of Hazaribagh are the tannery factories. These factories produce about 200 leather tanneries, which liberate 22,000 cubic meters of raw liquid waste daily into rivers and groundwater. As a consequence, the Buriganga River, which offers the deprived individuals water to bath, irrigate as well as a transportation method for thousands, but now it is polluted with toxic liquid tannery wastes from the factories. The factory workers at the tanneries suffer the greatest injustices, being
In today’s world, increasing big companies open factories in developing countries but many people said it is unethical and the factories are sweatshops. Most of the sweatshops were opened in east Asia and third-world countries and regions. The companies open the sweatshops in order to get more benefits is a kind of very irresponsible behavior. For example, Apple's factories in China are not good and unethical. Audit finds
With the continued rise of consumer "needs" in "industrial" countries such as the United States, and the consistently high price that corporations must pay to produce goods in these countries, companies are looking to "increase (their) profits by driving down costs any way possible... To minimize costs, companies look for places with the lowest wages and human rights protections" (Dosomething). Countries with lax or unenforced labor laws grant multinational corporations the leeway to use cheap foreign labor to mass-produce their commodities so that they can be sold in countries like America. These inexpensive, sometimes borderline illegal, establishments are known as sweatshops. In his book Timmerman discusses the topic of sweatshops in great detail. Originally in search of "where (his) T-shirt was made(;) (Timmerman) (went) to visit the factory where it was made and (met) the people who made (it)" (Timmerman5).
Large corporations such as Nike, Gap, and Reebok and many others from the United States have moved their factories to undeveloped nations; barely pay their employees enough to live on. Countries such as China, Indonesia, and Haiti have readily abundant cheap labor. There should be labor laws or an obligation of respecting workers to provide decent working conditions, fair wages, and safety standards.
The factory workers are stuck in a complicated position where they are taken advantage of and exploited. While “exploitation occurs on any level” these factory workers do not have the opportunity to exploit others because they are the ones being exploited (Timmerman 7). Tension is created between the corporations, factory owners and workers, because the factory owners force the workers into harsh labor and intense working conditions that they were told
Nike, as many other companies do, facilitates production in other countries to help grow sales in those particular regions. The main difference between Nike and some of the other companies is that other companies do not support the exploitation of labourers or human rights. Not to suggest that Nike promotes labour exploitation, but they are less strict about these rules than other companies in foreign markets. Impacts on health and safety are a major factor for employees in sweatshops. However, physical and sexual abuse is another serious concern of many of the sweatshop workers. Most of the sweatshops run by Nike contractors are factories located in relatively small spaces to save on real estate costs. They are often soiled with dirt and kept unheated to save on expenses. Broken glass and dangerous equipment is left on the floors causing potential dangers to any people scattered within the factory. Employees are subject to harassment and violent punishments if work is not being completed as thoroughly and efficiently as the contractors would like. Workers slave under unfavourable conditions for up to 14-hour days often with no breaks. These employees are paid less than $100 US and work on average over 250 hours per month. "Substandard wages keep factory workers in poverty and force them to work excessi...
Due to the large increase of immigrants in the United States in the 1800s, sweatshops started to develop in the East Coast cities. The immigrants that were mostly targeted to work in sweatshops came from European countries. These immigrants were not forced to work in sweatshops with poor working conditions, but they had few other choices because most of them were unskilled laborers in a new country. This situation facilitated the growth of sweatshops. Social and economic conditions in cities made it possible for sweatshops owners to choose from a large desperate population of workers willi...
Corporations in the United States have proved time and time again that they are all about profit and not about what is good for America. One example of this is the fact that many corporations have factories in other countries, or buy from other corporations that do. Nike (an athletic shoe and clothing company) produces most of their shoes and apparel in factories in other countries, including Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, China, Vietnam and Malaysia. According to Nike’s factory disclosure list released May 2011, only 49 of it’s over 700 factories are located in the U.S. (Nike, Inc.) This means that thousands of jobs that could be filled by needy Americans are instead being filled by workers in other countries. This reason that Nike and other corporations outsource is very simple, it is very cheap to do so. In an excerpt from Jeffrey St. Clair's book “Born Under a Bad Sky” the author describes the vast differences between Nike’s production costs and retail prices. “In Vietnam, it costs Nike only $1.50 to manufactu...
This paper will give a brief introduction about the history of Nike Sweatshops which will shed the light on their public image and their manufacturing process. It will further move to the suggested alternatives, what facts impact them, their stakeholder and their impact on the economic as well as social basis. In the end, it will discuss if the given choices are legal and ethical or not.
...rible situations for people who do not have the laws like U.S. workers have. Even though NIKE has implemented different methods to improve the companies’ image, there have still been many reports that show there has not been much change at all. At a net worth of 67 billion dollars and expected to grow, loyal customers is what allows this multi billion dollar company to grow in profit, the only way there will be an impact on those working in NIKE sweatshops is if today’s society takes action.
Nike does not merely sell products these days. They spend billions of dollars for advertising contracts with famous athletes like Tiger Woods to increase the value of the brand by associating the factor of lifestyle to their products. The company's image has been damaged many times by press releases as well as a variety of NGOs who have long pointed out the inhumane working conditions in the production facilities of sporting goods manufacturers. This leads to the question whether should Nike orientate the regulations of the suppliers to the labor standards in their respective countries or those in the United States? The labor conditions are so inhumane that Nike at least should try to converse to the US standard to improve the situation. The following analysis of an abstract of Nikes’ Responsibility Concept, including SHAPE and their Code of Conduct, should give an insight into the difficulties of the Sweatshops.
Phil Knight started his shoe company by selling shoes from the back of his car. As he became more successful in 1972 he branded the name Nike. In the 1980’s Nike Corporation quickly grew and established itself as a world leader in manufacturing and distributing athletic footwear and sports' attire. The Nike manufacturing model has followed is to outsource its manufacturing to developing nations in the Asia Pacific, Africa, South and Latin Americas; where labor is inexpensive. It quickly became known for its iconic “swoosh” and “Just do it” advertisements and products. Its highly successful advertising campaigns and brand developed its strong market share and consumer base. But, the road has not always been easy for Nike; in the late 1990’s they went through some challenging times when their brand become synonymous with slave wages and child labor abuses. During this period, Nike learned that it paramount that the company understands its stakeholders’ opinions and ensures their values are congruent with their stakeholders. Nike learned that their stakeholders were concerned with more than buying low cost products; their customers were also concerned with ethical and fair treatment of their workers. Because Nike was unwilling to face the ethical treatment of its employees, the company lost its loyal customers and damaged its reputation. Nike has bounced back since the late 1990’s and revived its reputation by focusing on its internal shortfalls and attacking its issues head on. Nike nearly collapsed from its missteps in the late 1990’s. They have learned from their mistakes and taken steps to quickly identify ethical issues before they become a crisis through ethics audits. This paper is based on the case study of Nike: From Sweatsh...
Linda Lim, a professor at the University of Michigan Business School, visited Vietnam and Indonesia in the summer of 2000 to obtain first-hand research on the impact of foreign-owned export factories (sweatshops) on the local economies. Lim found that in general, sweatshops pay above-average wages and conditions are no worse than the general alternatives: subsistence farming, domestic services, casual manual labor, prostitution, or unemployment. In the case of Vietnam in 1999, the minimum annual salary was 134 U.S. dollars while Nike workers in that country earned 670 U.S. dollars, the case is also the similar in Indonesia. Many times people in these countries are very surprised when they hear that American's boycott buying clothes that they make in the sweatshops. The simplest way to help many of these poor people that have to work in the sweatshops to support themselves and their families, would be to buy more products produced in the very sweatshops they detest.
With the increasing awareness and publicity of poor working conditions in subcontracted factories in East Asia, Nike has stimulated an uprising of activist and watchdog groups working toward seeing these conditions changed. With Nike in the negative spotlight, various organizations have revolved around generating a negative outlook on Nike’s practices of social irresponsibility. Certain campaigns such as the “National Days of Consciousness” and “International Day of Protest” were organized to educate people on the deplorable working conditions in Nike’s Asian manufacturing plants, and were designed to get more people involved in global employment issues.
As we can see in the essay, “The Noble Feat of Nike” by Johan Norberg, the globalization of companies like Nike isn’t all bad. There is some positive light to it, for example, the fact that workers are finally making enough money to live a decent life and send their children to school. In addition to this, workers are guaranteed jobs and don’t have to endure the tough labor of working on farms in the harsh weather conditions. So from these effects we can conclude that the globalization of Nike in third world countries like Nike isn’t a disadvantage to these workers, in fact it serves as an advantage.
Dicken believes that most TNCs are capitalist enterprises driven by profit. He argues that they are the primary movers and shapers of the global economy with the power to easily control or coordinate production networks across the world. In chapter four Dicken challenges a view that with time TNCs are going to abandon their country of origin, and take over the smaller weaker firms.