Here is a short assignment from my business class that I didn’t get to turn in due to the bus stopping, then as I cross the street to get on he speeds away despite being 5 mins early, how nice!? (/sarcasm). Anyway, I thought I’d share it with you guys since it is somewhat tech related to see if you have any opinions about the situation.
A recent article over at Maximum PC further reminds me of the poor working conditions for factory workers in China. In 2011, a company called Foxconn entered into the eye of the media as working conditions were revealed to be extremely poor. Foxconn is a manufacturing plant that produces motherboards, motherboard processor sockets, and is generally used by Apple Inc. to manufacture iPads, iPhones, and other Apple devices. The company faced a number of employee suicides to the extent that they had to install safety netting on their factories to prevent employees from committing suicide by jumping from the manufacturing plant’s roof. Further, the workers are paid very little and are forced to work extremely long hours. It is a rather grim situation for Foxconn workers. The article in question; however, brings up another injustice and seems to put all the past unethical issues into perspective.
F0xconn’s parent company is one Hon Hai. Recently their Chairman Terry Gou was quoted by the World China Times as stating that the Foxconn workforce “of over one million worldwide” are little more than animals, and that managing “one million animals gives me a headache.” He then further drove the nail home when he contacted a Zoo director Chin Shih-chien and asked him to be a speaker at FoXconn’s annual review. The Zoo director proceeded to give a presentation on how to manage various species of animals all while Foxconn Parent company Hon Hai’s Chairman Terry Guo macie numerous jokes about the company’s employees.
This article relates to chapter two of the text book because it relates to business ethics. Although Foxconn is a foreign company and is operating within the status quo of their country of origin, their numerous transgressions including general lack of care given to, and poor treatment of, employees is made not less unethical. When compared to U.S. standards, the treatment of employees and ethics violations only become worse. Apple, who is one of the company’s largest customers continues to work with Foxconn despite the ethical issues. To me, this makes Apple nearly as guilty as Foxconn itself as the company could throw its weight around to influence Foxconn just as other U.S. businesses who take advantage of China’s lower standards could stop enabling the factories’ mistreatment of employees by not working with them. It is a big ethical issue; however, in the end many companies continue the status quo of manufacturing out of the U.S. because of money- they want the slimmest margins possible so that they can make the most money. The ethical issue lies in the human cost of taking advantage of low-cost and low manufacturing standards to get the largest margins at the expense of human lives versus the monetary cost of manufacturing in the U.S. where laws exist to prevent such low standards and treatment of employees at the expense of higher costs to manufacture resulting in lower margins.
My cute corgi puppy :)