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Nike the sweatshop debate
Nike the sweatshop debate
Positive impact of corporate social responsibility
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The world-wide Nike Corporation has changed their policy from poor treatment of their employees which do not reflect the Catholic Social Teachings of Life and The Dignity of a Human Person and The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers, but now they have made some minor improvements. In Third World countries were large Unite States corporations have moved in a large part to avoid problems in the United States (Schlafly). The reasons they moved are they can hire workers at very low wages, the companies do not have to pay any employee benefits, they do not have to worry about safety and environmental regulations and they do not have to pay foreign taxes when they export their products back to the United States (Schlafly). But, the main reason they have built those factories they make a much greater profit. It is all about the money, not the people.
Sweatshops have been present for centuries. Since sweatshops were discovered no other company has received as much criticism as Nike has. Nike moved most of its production markets across the globe because this gave them several benefits. Expanding into China, the world’s most populous country, opened up a huge opportunity to spread into all of Asia because there was the labor aspect in which cheap labor could produce shoes and other clothing at a lower cost. Everything seemed well in the corporation as stockholders and managers were receiving huge dividends and the public was receiving great products.
However, in 1991 problems began, Jeff Ballinger a labor activist made a report on working conditions and wage levels for the Asian-American Free Labor Association(Nisen). Ballinger believed that foreign companies often exploited low wage, politically repressed labor pools(Nisen). Subs...
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...cked, Slapped and Verbally Abused' at Factories Making Converse." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
Wazir, Burhan. "Nike Accused of Tolerating Sweatshops." The Observer. Guardian News and Media, 19 May 2001. Web. 24 Mar. 2014.
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"'CAPTAIN CATHOLIC' Productions." 'CAPTAIN CATHOLIC' Productions. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.
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"Learn Liberty | Top 3 Ways Sweatshops Help The Poor Escape Poverty." Learn Liberty. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.
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“Sweatshops” provide the unemployed who struggle finding work a paying job, to provide food, shelter, and medicine, thus reducing (infant) mortality rates, and may even provide enough money to provide an education for family’s offspring. This gives the younger generation a chance to improve their future quality of life, with a wider variety of career opportunities with a better salary. ACIT (2000) writes that multination...
During the Great Jubilee year, John Paul II gave a relevant speech of apology on behalf of the entire Catholic Church for the serious sins committed by its members for over 2,000 years. Since John Paul II did that, he wished the Church to enter the new millennium with a clean slate, allowing it to speak to and discuss freely with the other religions of the world, including the cultures and nations from a place not only of permanency but also of moral and religious power, having acknowledged in specific ways the crimes, from time to time unbearable, committed by its human origins throughout history. These apologies were hardly accepted, and common apologies for sins committed against the Church and its members have not been imminent. “Catholics distinguish between the holiness of the inevitable sinful nature of men, including the men who serve the Church stated by Thomas E. Woods Jr.”
Sweatshops are factories that violate two or more human rights. Sweatshops are known in the media and politically as dangerous places for workers to work in and are infamous for paying minimum wages for long hours of labour. The first source is a quote that states that Nike has helped improve Vietnamese’s’ workers lives by helping them be able to afford luxuries they did not have access to before such as scooters, bicycles and even cars. The source is showing sweatshops in a positive light stating how before sweatshops were established in developing countries, Vietnamese citizens were very poor and underprivileged. The source continues to say that the moment when sweatshops came to Vietnam, workers started to get more profit and their lives eventually went uphill from their due to being able to afford more necessities and luxuries; one of them being a vehicle, which makes their commute to work much faster which in turn increases their quality of life. The source demonstrates this point by mentioning that this is all due to globalization. Because of globalization, multinationals are able to make investments in developing countries which in turn offers the sweatshops and the employees better technology, better working skills and an improvement in their education which overall helps raise the sweatshops’ productivity which results in an increase
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition Bible. Eds. Dom Bernand Orchard, Rev. R. V. Fuller. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1966. Print.
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...
Nike’s sweatshop manufacturing practices which can be seen through media have shown people that this company goes under the good guys images, these images which are displayed in their commercials show people that their employees are treated well and their happy in their working environment.
Nike has always been a company that's been questioned ethically. People have heard about the stories of the sweatshops in Southeast Asia exploiting adolescent employees for unreasonably small amounts of money. This had blemished Nike’s reputation several years ago, but since then, it has strived to become a truly respectable company. Located on Nike's website you can find Phil Knight's credo about ethics. It is as follows:
Many global companies like Nike, Inc. are seen as role models both in the market place as well as in society in large. That is why they are expected to act responsibly in their dealings with humanity and the natural world. Nike benefits from the global sourcing opportunities, therefore areas such as production and logistics have been outsourced to partner companies in low-wage countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. As a result the company is limited nowadays to its core competencies of Design and Marketing.
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...
Many people in our society today are constantly asking, "Why do sweatshops exist?" The answer to this question is that companies like Nike and Wal-Mart use sweatshops to produce their goods for a much cheaper rate, to reduce the cost of their products. The problem with sweatshops is that the workers are subject to hard work in often times poor conditions for minimal pay. But although many people may condemn sweatshops, there are some advantages that many people overlook when arguing against sweatshops and their practices.
Another area of concern is the discrepancy of differences in East Asian worker regulations and wages compared to the North American standards. Much speculation has gone toward attacking Nike for their blatant disregard of American labour ethics, but Nike is having difficulty explaining their justification of meeting offshore requirements. For example, the legal age in Indonesia was 14, an age at which compulsory Schooling has ended. Nike was criticized for apparently having girls at this age working in their factories (which wasn’t true), and was shunned for inhuman labour practices according to American standards.
New Revised Standard Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1989. Print. The. Russell, Eddie.
In June of 1996, Life magazine published a article about Nike’s child labor that was occurring in Pakistan. The article showed a little boy who was surrounded by pieces of Nike sports gear. The articles were shoes and soccer balls. Nike then knew then that they had to make some major changes in the way they were producing their items.
Holy Bible: Contemporary English Version. New York: American Bible Society, 1995. Print. (BS195 .C66 1995)