Chiquita Brands: Ethical Responsibility or Illegal Action?

Imagine living in a country where you know you could die at any moment but don’t know how much longer till it happens. That was how much of the population of El Salvador used to feel when the government could not control the big coffee corporations. These out of control corporations, highly feared that the people would want to revolt against them so they hired murderers to kill innocent people to spread fear in the minds of the people of El Salvador. Fear, hate, and sorrow were the common feelings felt by the poor and innocent major population of El Salvador caused by the evil wrongdoings of the government during October 1979 – 16 January 1992. This is how the main character, Jose Luis, of the novel “Mother Tongue” by Demetria Martinez, felt before escaping his beautiful yet over constantly dangerous country, which depended on its cash crop, coffee beans to sell on a foreign market as the country’s main income. However, following the stock-market crash of 1929, a drop in coffee prices became apparent and affected everyone in El Salvador, but the poor especially. Making things worse, the glorious United States was funding the men whom were doing all the innocent killings with more weapons and money to increase their military power. So for Jose Luis the safe haven that he had escaped to was also blatantly funding the war that was killing so many innocent people he knew and had forced him to escape for his own safety. With nowhere else to go in order to find safety the United

ETHICAL ISSUE STATEMENT: Did Burlington allow one individual, Marvin Brown, to make an unethical business decision to retaliate against employee Sheila White?

Bribery weakens competition and diminishes free trade which can affect companies, shareholders, and stakeholders. Jacob Franklin knowingly extended bribes to governments and contractors while knowing it was against company policy. Jacob engaged in bribery even though he knew it was wrong because he was advised that it was common practice at Richard Drilling. “In 1977, President Carter signed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The law made it illegal to bribe foreign officials. The maximum punishments for violators were set at $100,000 and 5 years in jail. Companies can be fined millions” (Bredeson, 2012, p.301). Not only was extending the bribe against company policy, it was against law and could cost Jacob and Richardson Drilling money and freedom.

Death squads in Honduras were targeting anti- coup activists had been running since june of 2009. The death squads in 1960s and 1970s the crimes seem to employ criminal networks such as drug trafficking, hitmen to do violent thing against the union(history of death squads). The government was using the death squads as a why to keep everybody in control, but then the death squads went crazy. Later in October, Rios montt ordered his “army” to carry out more death squads missions, through a letter called Carte Blanche. This mission was carried out through archivos, which was the intelligence init of his

An author, Francisco E. Gonzalez, discussed one incident that took place, “A grenade attack on September 15, 2008, left eight dead and more than one hundred injured on the central square in Morelia (the capital of the state of Michoacán), on a night Mexicans were celebrating the 198th anniversary of their country’s independence.” (Gonzalez 72). This incident shows that safety is never guaranteed with the cartel’s violent and erratic behavior.

toma de Cochabamba', organizers, reassured the government that la toma would be a peaceful expression of discontent, involving flowers, white kerchiefs, and musical performances. All the same, concerned for their property, local business owners requested that the government provide military protection.

The fact that hundreds of police officers, judges, investigators, presidential candidates, and of course thousands of Colombian citizens are murdered with the attitude of “so it goes” (Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five) shows that their Nation has been very badly damaged, psychologically as well as physically.

Colombia is a Latin American country located in South America that has been ravaged by violence, starvation, and large-scale inequality between higher and lower classes. The chaos in Colombia has been between rebel forces and the government and has lasted for over fifty years. These rebel forces have fought to achieve their Liberalist lead goals of overthrowing the current democratic government of Colombia and replacing it with a communist government. La Violencia was the main contributor to the conflict between the resistance fighters of Colombia and the Colombian government that has brought on violence and terror from the violent actions between the Liberal and Conservative parties in the 1950’s. , which has directly brought on the violence and terror from the guerrilla groups.

Throughout Colombia’s history there has been two very violent groups of people who do not like each other. This caused the War of Thousand Days and The Violence,

Violence seems to be a nationwide phenomenon. Almost all aspects of the Colombian population experience some degree of violence. Almost everybody is a potential victim; violence does not prefer a particular socioeconomic class, profession, race, or

It seemed that he was faced with an overwhelming load of problems from Chiquita’s past, but he quickly decided on the best way to fix it. He told CEO Magazine in 2007, “[Chiquita’s] key challenge is to control costs while supporting innovation efforts. Cost-saving programs have not been nearly enough to offset higher industry and other costs.” He said also that “the second challenge is to remain agile in a competitive, fast-paced marketplace that is characterized by growing consumer expectations […] and that in order to strengthen the […] power of the brand, [they] are developing strategies based on consumer brands for healthy, fresh foods and focusing on diversification and innovation” (5). He made it clear from the beginning that Chiquita would be transitioning from the low-margin operations to a company that produced more value-added products. Also, that they would begin to maintain an excellent record of food safety, quality, management, customer service, and in-store

Chiquita Brands International seems to have an autocratic leadership style locally but laissez-faire at headquarter level. In the 1960s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) was founded and this cause guerrilla warfare. The FARC was against “the United States influences in Colombia, neoimperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and paramilitary/government violence” (Schotter & Teagarden, 2010). They was aware of problems involving “farm workers labored long hours in dangerous conditions, agrochemical runoff contaminated water, and tropical forests were cleared for expansion” (Schotter & Teagarden, 2010). Furthermore, the drug cartels were within the country and providing illegal drug trades; which is when the United States backed the War on Drugs. Somewhere between late 1980’s and beginning of 1990’s, Chiquita paid “taxes” to the illegal drug trade while hoping to keep employees safe. No changes were made until 1992 when Dave McLaughlin, Managing Director and

It is a relevant ethical dilemma because it is a situation in which an ethical decision needs to be made by a businessman (CFO of Gabriel Resources) where viable options to this case are available which will be judged further in this essay by applying ethical theory and concepts.

Coca Cola had been accused of unethical practices in some of its locations overseas, in particular its Colombian location. Coca Cola had seen initial success, but had no idea what was about to hit them. The country had a past of violent uprisings, as the government has been relatively unstable in the past few generations. As such, there is a heightened political nature of many of the citizens there, who often fight hard for workers rights. The company was accused of showing "complicity in the murders of union leaders in Colombia" (Lane, 2012, 37-1). In Urabรก, a particularly violent and politically active city in Colombia, Isidro Gil, a major union leader, was reportedly apprehended and murdered on location at one of the company's bottling plants in Colombia. Union leaders had been bringing allegations of Coca Cola breaking the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act. Many of these efforts were in the midst of a major anti-globalization trend that was occurring in Colombia.

As a result, the following came a lot of lawsuits, demanding compensation, and investigations, investigating the cause of the MIC leak, against the plant. During the investigations, both the government of India and the interior of the Union Carbide did research on that incident. We are not surprised at their different answers because the plant wanted to cover the truth that was harmful to themselves and the government as a result could not get the truth on the other hand. However, I can¡¦t deny that the plant really did something such as relief fund, training school, and so on to prove that they really wanted to compensate for that gas leak. In this case, I don¡¦t think that the CEO of Union Carbide should be arrested or be sentenced. But I do think he should be responsible for the whole case. In other words, he should resign for the whole incident.