Business Ethics Paper

In my point of view Nike was responsible for compensating the workers in Honduras because of corporate social responsibility. Nike should be socially responsible to do the “right thing” before their corporation decided to closed down their factories in Honduras. The right thing such as established proper procedure for employees benefits for post-employment, implement appropriate compensation, and set-up a wide-operational meeting in helping the employees understand the reasons of the closure.

The factories are also known for providing very poor living arrangements for the workers to live in through the extent of their contracts. There has been evidence found of individuals being forced to live in extremely overcrowded and dirty quarters with poor bathroom facilities. Workers and organizations all around the world have tried to push the Nike corporation to put a stop to these sweatshops, but none has prevailed. In some of the factories that Nike owns, the workers have attempted to form a union to protest the conditions of their contract, but they have never succeeded. The Nike corporations fight the unions by shutting down the factories and relocating the jobs to a different non-unionized factory (Bain). Nike has been criticized ever since the start for allowing these conditions to continue, and to this day, this problem is still

Nike corporation is one the largest businesses in the world, which produces sports wears, equipment, and other materials that related in the sports industry. The firm is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, and it outsources its production to the emerging countries to produce its products due to the low labor costs in these regions. South-East Asia and India are the main locations that support the business operations of Nike. Hence, this business method provides Nike the significant profits in the last two decades. Although Nike always states that the firm fulfills all the requirements by governments in the world, many critics believe that Nike did not comply with the business code of ethics, and cause many negative factors and conditions to the abroad labors, especially in Indonesia, where Nike’s employees must work more than 60 hours per week, but they make very low wages that compared to Americans, especially sports athletics, who earn substantial amount of money.

One major key component that allowed Nike to get to the elite status they are today would have to be the expectations they have for their employees. In their code of ethics book they clearly state on the fifth page that “every employee must reflect standards of honesty, loyalty, trustworthiness, fairness, concern for others and accountability” (NIKE Code of Ethics). These expectations of their employees shows how much Nike values its company, and it ensures every employee knows what is expected of them. None of these expectations has hindered Nike’s ability to get employees. Most, if not all, of Nike’s employees claim there’s a great work environment at Nike, which all starts with the expectations they put on them in the beginning.

Business Ethics is a set of moral principles applied in the commercial world. Business ethics provide guidelines for acceptable behavior by organizations in both their strategy formulation and day-to-day operations. An ethical approach is becoming necessary both for corporate success and a positive corporate image. Following pressure from

No one can truly understand how poor the quality of life for factory workers really is unless you live through it. A former Nike factory worker came out and shared her stories of the abuse she went through while working. Noi Supalai spoke before a crowd at an event hosted by Penn State chapter of the United States Against Sweatshops. This is an organization which is running a campaign called “Just Do The Right Thing” for workers’ rights. She said that there were harsh time constraints set for the products to be produced. When they did not meet the deadline, Nike put a fine on the factory restricting workers to receive their pay. Employees did not get paid for two months until they protested. (“Former Nike factory worker shares story of abusive working conditions” Lee) There have been others reports just like this one from The Daily Collegian such as one from DailyMail.com. Nike’s converse shoe factory supervisors have been revealed to be physically and mentally abusing workers. “Supervisors frequently throw shoes at them, slap them in the face, kick them and call them dogs and pigs.” (“Nike workers kicked, slapped and verbally abused at factories making converse” Daily Mail Reporter). Nike claims there is little they can do to stop such problems. Workers get kicked, and feel powerless, “our only choice is to stay and suffer, or speak out and be fired” says a woman from a plant in Sukabumi. The behind the scenes treatment is unimaginably brutal. It is so hard to think of the workers having things thrown at them, being kicked, scratched, slapped, growled at, forced to stand in the sun, disrespecting religions, and many many more abusive actions done to them as we make our purchases. Why would Lebron James sponsor such a company? Why would anyone sit back and get paid more than anyone could ever need for doing nothing when there are others out there getting paid barely anything for working their tails

Legally, it's interesting to note that Nike contractors were paying wages that were below minimum wage laws in several countries, such as Indonesia and Vietnam. By doing its business offshore, Nike got more favorable cost of goods prices, due to substandard and illegal wages. A secondary legal issue was the child labor one. While many of these countries have child labor laws, the enforcement of them is non-existent. Being in violation of law has been the status quo for Nike factories for quite some time, and probably still is today. Culturally, we also see a difference. In the US, wages under 3 dollars and 10 hour days for 13 year old girls is not acceptable. That why people here get so upset. Over there, they are working to support their families

For years, Nike has been sourcing from factories that seek to meet the company 's minimum standards for good labor performance. The policy of Nike is to evaluate potential contracted factories before they enter the supply chain. Throughout their business relationship with Nike to assess compliance with high standards of social and environmental performance, including country-related risk for issues including forced labor, human trafficking and slavery Nike (n.d).

Although Nike may be technically removed from responsibility in some areas, it clearly has the obligation to be certain that exploitation by subcontractors do not occur. Certainly the pay and working conditions that the workers of subcontractors receive is due in large part to the contract that has been negotiated by Nike. If Nike had chosen to make improved working conditions a part of the arrangement, them those benefits may have been passed on to the workers. Still, Nike is a publicly owned firm whose goal is to improve the wealth of its shareholders. The workers in these Asian countries were happy, even eager, to accept the conditions that were provided as a manufacturer of Nike. The reason is that those wages were probably equal or superior to wages available from other sources. If Nike were to leave the country because of the pressures placed upon it, the workers would undoubtedly suffer greatly.

Nike corporation had a reported revenue of $20,900,000,000 with profits of $2,100,000,000 (Keady, 2011). To obtain this cash flow, worldwide Nike is noted for employing 1,000,000 workers in 1,000 factories in fifty-two countries (Keady, 2011). Adding to this idea of worker exploitation, it is reported in Nike’s corporate responsibility report in 2005 that 25% to 50% of Nike’s overseas factories that workers experienced physical, verbal, sexual, and psychological abuse (Keady, 2011). In 50% to 100% of those factories, work hours exceeded Nike’s code of conduct (Keady, 2011). Finally, in 10% to 25% of those same factories, the wage was also reported inaccurately (Keady, 2011). It is important to understand that commodity fetishism is at play

Nike has attempted to respond to criticism by arguing that if alleged abuses actually did occur in their factories, they were not a consequence of company policies which do not condone unfair, illegal, or immoral behavior on the part of factory managers.

They should be responsible for the legal, social and philanthropic aspects of its subcontracted factories. They are not paying their employees the legal minimum wage, caring about the working conditions and welfare of these employees and just not taking into consideration the well-being of others. Ten years ago, the company had been subjected to negative press, lawsuits, and demonstrations on college campuses alleging that the firm’s overseas contractors’ subject employees to work in inhumane conditions for low wages. With the introduction of the fair labour association and worker rights consortium, Nike is slowly trying to improve the working conditions on subcontracted factories and hopefully in 10 years, they would be able to re-establish themselves as a morally acceptable company.

One of the ethical standards is employment practice, which pertains to ensuring that the company adheres to policies regarding the health, recruitment and safety of its employees (Newey 196). This way, Nike has been able to fix the labor practices issues in contract factories making Nike products. The other ethical standard is addressing the key environmental concerns that are as a result of the company’s continued existence. For example, Nike has been aiming at reducing the discharge of hazardous chemicals. Nonetheless, this might take time given that the company has to invest in innovation as well as research and development. Nike’s mission and corporate social responsibility is also premised on community investment as well as engagement. This is where the company engages in activities that aim at giving back to the community. An example is increasing access to sports for the disadvantaged youth. In addition, Nike is also determined to increase transparency and corporation with the outside world. The major stakeholder is the customer. For Nike, the customers have a top priority because they have a direct impact on the company’s revenues (O’Toole and Mayer 89). The major customer’s interest that Nike has to conform to is ensuring that it provides high quality products at reasonable prices. In fact, this is why Nike has heavily invested in research and development. The other interest of the customer is to see to it that the company acknowledges and adheres to the axioms of

Nike is one the the companies who has been manufacturing their products overseas for decades. According to their interactive map the United States has 63 factories and 7,068 employees at these factories. This is equivalent to 9% of their total factories and 0% of their total 1,032,420 factory workers(yes that is 0%). Nike does not own any of the factories besides the 63 within the United States. Rather these factories are owned by third party subcontractors. Since Nike does not technically own these foreign factories, they do not have a direct responsibility for the employees. But should companies be using sweatshops to manufacture their product and do the parent companies of these factories have a responsibility to these

Nike took advantage of that and disregarded that the people making their products at an extremely low price were actually humans. It was ethically wrong for Nike to not see those employees as actual people but saw them as a machine that produced products. They did not care to see how being underpaid affected a person’s family. They also did not see that children were working to support families and continued to work in terrible health conditions because they needed the money no matter the environment. The biggest issue was that the company had a total disregard for human life.