International Management Ethics and Values - Essay Example

She’s frequently hungry and almost always tired, she said. “Living and working like this, by the time you are twenty, you are already old, and your health is failing. When you reach thirty, they fire you. It is not just. I have no savings. I have nothing.” Akter came to Washington to tell her story as a coalition of civic, labour and religious organizations launched a public campaign seeking to highlight what it calls labour abuses in Bangladesh and other poor nations. Spearheading the push is Charles Kernaghan, the labour activist who exposed poor working conditions at Central American factories that made goods for the Kathie Lee Gifford clothing line.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokesman Bill Wertz acknowledged there have been “violations of working hour standards” at the factory where Akter works. He said the retail giant is trying to work with the suppliers to make improvements. If the manufacturer doesn’t shape up, Wertz said, Wal-Mart may sever its ties to the factory. “We can’t condone certain kinds of practices and won’t do business with companies that fail to improve,” he said. That’s what Akter is afraid of. If Wal-Mart terminates its purchasing agreements with the factory, she and her co-workers could find themselves without jobs.

Lisa Rahman, nineteen, of Dhaka, Bangladesh, said that’s what happened at the factory where she used to work after she and other workers began complaining about bad working conditions, including twelve hour workdays, filthy restrooms and unsanitary drinking water. She worked at the Shah Makhdum factory, which made goods for Walt Disney Co., including clothing in its Winnie the Pooh line. “I was crying all the time,” she said. After workers at the plant complained and took their woes to the media, Disney pulled out of the factory, leaving 200 employees out of work, she said.

Mark Spears, Disney’s compliance director, said the company has “experienced poor conditions, in Bangladesh.” When the company investigated the allegations, it found that conditions were not as serious as workers had alleged. But its subcontractor decided to cease buying goods from the manufacturer. “Clearly the publicity may not have helped,” Spears said. Kernaghan said the ease with which multinational corporations relocate has a chilling effect on the willingness of workers to speak out about what he said are widespread abuses of workers in many poor countries.

He said he has been urging Disney and other companies to stay and work to improve conditions rather than exit quickly to avoid bad publicity. “All it would take is one word from Michael Eisner,” Disney’s chairman and CEO, and the jobs could return to the factory where Rahman worked, he said. “Bangladesh has good labour laws,” said officials from the country. “It is unlikely any factories would permit such poor working conditions,” they added. “Can a person work eighteen hours a day?

” said Mohammed G. Hussain, commerce counsellor for Bangladesh’s embassy in Washington. “It’s impossible.” The officials questioned why Kernaghan and his associates are raising the sweatshop issue publicly, pointing out that it could affect employment in the deeply impoverished nation, where 40 percent of adults are unemployed. Adapted from K.G. Grimsley, “‘Already Old’ In Bangladesh”, The Washington Post, 25 September 2002, as reprinted in J.K. Milne, Ethics for International Business