DeGeorge Business Ethics Chap 18

8/12/2019 DeGeorge Business Ethics Chap 18

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Copyright 2011 Pearson Education. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 18

Workers Rights and International

Business


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Child Labor

Child labor is illegal in the United States and in many other parts of theworld, but it is not illegal everywhere.

The International Labor Office claims that 25 percent of childrenbetween the ages of 10 and 14 are working in Asia and parts ofWestern Europe.

Child labor is not simply a matter of children working. Often they arepaid nothing or are charged more for their room and board than theyearn, making them bonded servants working long hours in extremelypoor conditions.

Multinationals may not directly or indirectly violate human rights. Withrespect to child labor, they may not directly employ child labor in their

factories. They also may not use suppliers that employ child labor. The obligation not to use child labor further implies that multinationals

cannot simply claim ignorance about the workers who produce thegoods they buy or the conditions in which they work.


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Sweatshops

Sweatshop is a term that is broadly used to include a

variety of poor working conditions.

Typically sweatshops are in old buildings, with poor orlittle ventilation; poor sanitary facilities; and unsafe,unhealthy, and crowded working conditions. They payvery low wages for long hours of work, and the workershave no rights within them. They receive no benefits,and are often subject to physical and verbal abuse and

sexual harassment or worse. Sweatshops, however defined, violate the human

rights of workers, and hence should be eliminated.


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Outsourcing and International

Business

The export of American manufacturing has beenfaulted from many points of view.

When industry is exported, however, thenAmericans lose jobs, and harm is done to thecountry as a whole from the loss of industry aswell as jobs. This adds to unemployment, reducesthe national tax base, and benefits the companyat the expense of the country.

The argument is of a utilitarian type. But it is one-sided, for it considers only the company,American workers, and the United States.


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Outsourcing and International

Business The argument against the export of jobs is usually held

inconsistently. Those who decry such outsourcing have nocomplaint about other countries opening manufacturingplants in the United States and providing jobs forAmericans.

If outsourcing is unethical, then to accept such outsourcedjobs from other countries would be to be complicit in anunethical practice.

That no one defends such a claim is indicative of the one-sided view that the opposition to outsourcing jobs abroadinvolves.


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Migrant and Illegal Workers

The term migrant worker is used somewhat

differently in different countries.

The UN established an International Convention

on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant

Workers and Members of Their Families.

That document defines a migrant worker as a

person who is to be engaged, is engaged or hasbeen engaged in a remunerated activity in a State

of which he or she is not a national.


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Migrant Workers

As the term is used in the United States, migrantworkers include all workers, regardless ofcitizenship, who work in primarily poor-paying

agricultural or seasonal jobs. The opportunity for employers exploiting migrant

workers is considerable, and the workers havefew of the safeguards that employees with

permanent positions enjoy. In agriculture, the largest number of immigrant

workers in the United States come from Mexico.


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Migrant Workers

The United States is not the only country, however, thatimports labor for jobs that its nationals do not want.Germany and Japan are among the others for which this istrue, and Great Britain and France have considerableimmigrant populations that also take on the less desirable

jobs.

Although the societies in question are suffering the ills ofsocial unrest and are struggling with effective ways topossibly assimilate their immigrant population, theimmigrants themselves suffer not only second-class status,but discrimination and lack of opportunity beyond thepoorest-paying jobs.


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Illegal Immigration

A current labor issue in the United States is the problem ofwhat to do about the approximately 12 million (andperhaps as high as 20 million) illegal immigrants.

The United States is a country that is built on successive

waves of immigration. The number of illegal bordercrossings has increased consistently since 1980, with mostof the illegal immigrants being poor and having littleeducation.

The number of illegal immigrants increased because boththey and the businesses that hired them found thesituation advantageous, even though some in the society atlarge complained of the drain on social services and theadded costs of sustaining a social welfare net.


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Discrimination, Corrupt Governments,

and Multinationals

The experience of U.S. multinationals in South

Africa allows us to derive a number of lessons

about how to operate in the context of a

structurally immoral society.

General Motors and the Sullivan Principles.


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The Right to Work

The right to work is recognized in the UNDeclaration of Human Rights, which says,Everyone has the right to work, to free choice ofemployment, to just and favourable conditions of

work and to protection against unemployment. The right is appropriately applied differently in

different societies, but is a right in all societies.

It can be considered on four dimensions: as a

negative right, as a positive right, as having anindividual dimension, and as having a socialdimension.

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DeGeorge Business Ethics Chap 18