Who is responsible for the Corruption in Thailand? Thailand is one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s full of beautiful beaches, cities and wonderful food, however it is also home to a great amount of corruption. I like to believe that the corruption in Thailand is caused by globalization, the process where businesses or organizations gain international influence. Therefore this research is based off of the question how are big corporations responsible for the corruption in Thailand? Big corporations are responsible for the corruption in Thailand because of bribery and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
What are the working conditions in the factories in Thailand? The working conditions in these corporation's factories are unacceptable. According to the article titled “Former Nike Factory Worker Shares Story of Abusive Working Conditions” written by Hyun Soo Lee. “Noi Supalai” (a garment worker in Thailand) “...has faced years of harsh and abusive working conditions as a garment worker in her home country of Thailand.” Not only did they go through harsh working condition but also according to the same article “It had been two months that we did not get paid.” This proved that the working conditions in Thailand were very bad and unfair to the workers. This also proves that corporations like this are causing the corruption by letting this happen.
What is being done against corruption in Thailand? Currently in Thailand, one of the
In Vietnamese factories, workers making Nike merchandize have been found to be forced to work over 600 hours of overtime a year, which is more than 400 hours a year above the legal limit in Vietnam (“Fact Sheet”). Workers have reported being coerced into the overtime hours through threats of unemployment or forced indirectly by the low pay to volunteer for the hours in order to support their families. This in other words is a form of slavery. There are only 24 hours in a day and to spend 16 hours or more at work in order to keep a job is a complete denial of a right to life, or in other words a human rights violation.
Tulia, a small town in Texas of just under five-thousand people, is a frightening example of how the judicial system is governed solely by racism as well as one corrupt man’s word. In 1999, nearly ten percent of the town’s African American population was arrested in a single drug bust. Of the forty-six people arrested, thirty-eight were African-American, furthermore all were convicted. The remaining seven arrested where know to associate more with the black community than the white in Tulia as well. With the towns income levels averaging at or below the poverty line, most arrested could not afford to hire a good attorney that cared or had the time to care, left therefore with one provided by the state. Consequently, convictions were up to ninety years in jail for allegedly selling three and a half grams, more commonly known as an eight ball, of cocaine in drug-free zones. In was only on appeals, that the convictions where revoked on insubstantial evidence.
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
Legally the company has done no wrong doing, and the types of environments that these sweatshops are located in are normal within the countries cultures. The main issue in this case is the ethical responsibility of Nike to ensure that the workers work in humane work environments, and are paid wages that they are able to survive on (Vann, n.d.).
The highly recognized name brand—Nike— fails to notice the faults that are happening in factories that are violating a few disturbing rules. The company’s reputation has decreased due to demands and claims Nike; implying that they utilize sweatshops to produce more products at a lower pay. The company has been sued numerous times for abusing and exploiting their employees in factories for years. Another problem that Nike has faced throughout the years was making employees work in poor environments that affected the health of many— which contributed to being abused by the manager for not going to work. Nike distributes and sells merchandise of high quality for a high value. The company is giving the satisfaction of quality service to their
After doing an intense research into what various media sources have published for Foxconn it is quite obvious that this is another Nike case but nearly after two decades and despite the working conditions and infrastructure may have improved this is a case of sweatshop labor that is on steroids. The long tiring hours, nearly low wages, and a robotic lifestyle are reflective of the extreme conditions that prevail beyond the nice clean epoxied rooms where the production is carried out. The working conditions of the workers are demoralizing and nerve wrecking. . If one is found talking to a coworker you get a negative mark and some manager intervention which can be escalated to imposing of fine on the individual. This was very obvious when I watched the YouTube clippings of
In many ways, it seems obvious to me that Nike should be held responsible for working conditions in foreign companies where products for Nike are made. In my opinion a company is not only responsible for itsʼ own employees but also for the employees that produce for them even though theyʼre not in their own company. I think that every part of the supply chain is partially responsible for the entire supply chain. As Nike is the
It would be convenient to start this research paper by stating that corruption is a challenge mainly for businesses in developing countries and that it is unrelated to the current affliction of the economy in the United States. It would also be convenient to claim corruption has declined in America as a result of awareness raising campaigns and the numerous anti-corruption laws. But none of those aforementioned statements would be true. Corruption is not the exception, but rather the rule in today’s business practices. In 2004, Daniel Kaufmann, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution and former director at the World Bank, calculated an index of "legally corrupt" manifestations which is defined as the extent of undue influence
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.
Time and time again, there are stories of dishonest companies who take advantage of the fact that they have money, try to create more wealth and subsequently forget their workers well being. Although they have more then enough money, greed takes over and good morals are overlooked. Nike, a popular sports brand, makes billions of dollars a year selling various products. To manufacture them, Nike has created many sweatshops throughout the world. Although they can definitely afford to pay their workers fairly, it has been found that these workers,
Since the phenomenon of globalization, companies that decided to broaden their horizons have to face multiple challenges and their management functions need some adaptations. While going abroad, companies may become concerned with the subject of corruption that makes the business with foreign countries even more complicated. Even if there is a willingness to fight and reduce the corruption across the world, companies must be aware that this subject exists and must take it into account while dealing with foreign companies, their efforts to understand and adapt to local corruption influencing their success of
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.
The Pou Chen factory is located in a place where the minimum wage is far below the national average. It has 10,000 workers who make Converse sneakers. Most of the workers are women, and they earn only 50 cents an hour. The amount that they earn is not even enough to cover their food and very poor housing. In this factory, the women are both physically and verbally abused. Nike’s own investigations have proved these complaints to be true. The company made a statement saying that immediate actions would be taken to deal with the situation. It is interesting to note that, “an internal Nike report, released to the Associated Press after it inquired about the abuse, showed that nearly two-thirds of 168 factories making Converse products worldwide failed to meet Nike’s own standards for contract manufacturers. Twelve are in the most serious category, ranging from illegally long work hours to
Corruption is a complex political, social, and economic anomaly that negatively affects developing and developed countries. It weakens democratic institutions, holds economic development, widening the rich-poor gap and certainly leads to governmental instability. The World Bank definition of corruption states that “…the abuse of public office for private gain”.