Is Gender and Language Barrier Causing Wage Exploitation in the UK Textile Industry - Essay Example

Is gender and language barrier causing wage exploitation in the UK textile industry? According “Made in Britain: UK textile workers earning £3 per hour”, an article written by Tansy Hoskins and published in the Guardian Newspaper on February 27, 2015, the textile factories and workshops in the greater Leicester area are paying their workers £3 per hour, which is way below the required minimum wage in the UK, of £6.5 per hour (Hoskins, 2015:n.p.). This could be a business/industrial strategy for the textile factories and workshops to minimize the costs of production, by paying minimal wages and thus avail the products in the market at a lower price (Meltzer & Brunner, 1978:5). In my opinion, when assessed from an ethical perspective, it becomes apparent that language barrier is the key factor causing the textile industry to pay its workers the below minimum wages, which are highly exploitative. According to the article, most of the workers in the factories and the textile workshops are predominantly women, who are also predominantly from Eastern Europe or from the “Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi migrant communities” (Hoskins, 2015:n.p.). Thus, I hold the opinion that the gender and language barrier are the two factors that the factories and the workshops have been exploiting, in order to pay the workers the meager wages. Further, the child poverty in the region is higher, meaning that it makes these workers vulnerable to exploitation. The child poverty rate of the greater Leicester region is 37%, which means that, even though the wages are low and exploitative, the workers must seek and accept the work (Hoskins, 2015:n.p.). According to the Keynesian theory of employment and unemployment, the supply of labor is determined by the individual worker’s decision to give up leisure and commit their time to labor (Meltzer & Brunner, 1978:4). Thus, according to this theory, the price of labor and the value attached to real wage is determined by the intersection of the labor demand and supply, such that if the supply of labor is higher than its demand, the price of labor and the real wages will go down (Meltzer & Brunner, 1978:4). On the other hand, if the demand of labor is higher than the supply, then the prices of labor are pushed up, and thus the real wages attached to the labor increases. It’s therefore my opinion that the below minimum wages paid to the textile factory and workshop workers in the greater Leicester area has to do with the law of demand and supply of labor, as explained by the Keynesian theories of employment and unemployment. Therefore, while assessed from the economic view, the payment of the minimal wages to the textile factory and workshop workers in Leicester is simply as a result of the natural operation of the law of demand and supply (Meltzer & Brunner, 1978:7). However, according to the ethical theory, this occurrence can be explained in a variety of ways. First, according to the Utilitarian Theory of Ethics, the payment of minimal wages to the textile factory and workshop workers in Leicester cannot be wholesomely condemned as an evil or be generally regarded as unethical, unless its whole outcome is evaluated. According to the Utilitarian Theory of Ethics, the moral rightness or wrongness of an action is solely based on its outcome (Sen, 1999:12). In this respect, an ethical action or event is considered to be the one that causes the greater happiness or the greater good to the highest number of people, while the unethical action is considered to be the one that causes suffering to the greatest number (Timmons, 2013:414). Therefore, the fact that the Leicester textile factories and workshops are paying below minimum wages is only good or evil, based on the way in which it impacts the society. According to the Utilitarian Theory of Ethics, the action of paying minimum wages to the factory and workshop workers can be interpreted in two different ways. First, the action can be interpreted as ethical, moral and good. For example, the workers in the Leicester textile factories and workshops could be paid minimum wages, so that the factories and workshops can produce their clothing products at lower costs, and thus sell them to the markets at cheaper prices (Meltzer & Brunner, 1978:6). In this case, the number of workers suffering from the low wages due to working in the factories and workshops might be smaller, compared to the society that benefits from accessing clothing products at lower prices. Therefore, the payment of the low than minimum wages to the factory workers is ethical, since the overall effect is the enjoyment of the greater good by the greater number of people (Sheng, 1998:56). In this case, the society would be enjoying the benefit of low clothing prices. Secondly, the action of paying minimum wages by the Leicester factories and workshops could be interpreted as wrong, evil and immoral (Brandt, 1995:3). For example, the factories and the workshops in the Leicester textile industry could be paying minimal wages to the workers, so they can reduce the costs of the factories and workshops and maximize their profits. The beneficiaries of such high profits would only be the owners of the factories and the workshops, who are definitely fewer than the number of workers enduring suffering through minimum wage payment. In this case, the action would be interpreted as immoral and unethical (Lyons, 1997:14). The research conducted to establish the conditions of workers within the Leicester textile factories and workshops found that between 75% and 95% of the workers in the factories and workshops were paid a wage of £3 per hour (Hoskins, 2015:n.p.). Considering that the industry had 11,700 workers in 2010, while the minimum wage that the workers should earn is £6.5 to £7.8 per hour, the workers are cumulatively denied over £1 million weekly (Hoskins, 2015:n.p.). Therefore, I hold the opinion that the reason for the payment of the minimum wages to the employees is for the factory and the workshops operating in the Leicester textile industry to deny the workers their rightful dues, in favor of the workshops and the textile factories. This being the case, the application of Utilitarian Theory of Ethics would conclude that the actions of the textile factories and workshops in denying the workers their rightful dues is immoral and unethical (Timmons, 2013:27). This is because, the textile factories and the workshops operating in the Leicester textile industry pay below minimum wages in favor of increasing their sales, through selling their clothing products at low prices, and consequently increasing their profitability. Since such an action is not undertaken towards the greater good of the highest number of people, but rather for the sake of benefiting the few owners of the textile factories and workshops, the action is wrong and unethical (Sullivan, 1989:72). The Kantian Ethics Theory is another theory that can be applied to analyze this situation. The Kantian Ethics Theory provides that every human being should be treated equally, owing to the fact that a rational actor should only act in such a way as would expect others to react towards him/her (Tampio, 2012:15). Thus, determining whether an action, event or occurrence is ethical under the Kantian Ethics Theory does not require assessing how such an action will influence the happiness or suffering of the others, but simply evaluating if such an action is the most natural thing to do. According to the Kantian Ethics Theory, the first quetion that an individual should ask in assessing whether an action is right or wrong is; can I rationally wish that everyone else acts in the manner that I am proposing to act? If the answer to this question is yes, then the action is moral, right and ethical (Allison, 2003:17). On the other hand, if the answer is negative, then the action is wrong, immoral and unethical. Further, according to the Kantian Ethics Theory, the second question that an individual needs to ask in evaluating whether an action is ethical or unethical is; does my action respect the goals of human life rather than just using other people to achieve my objectives? To the extent that the answer is affirmative, then the action is ethical and acceptable (Allison, 2003:17). However, should the answer to this question be negative, then the proposed action is unethical and immoral. Therefore, the Kantian Ethics Theory can be summarized to mean that humans should not be treated as means to an end, but rather as an end itself (Muchnik, 2009:33). The application of the Kantian Ethics Theory in evaluating the Leicester factory and workshops case scenario would require that the decisions of the factories and the workshops to pay minimum wages are assessed on the basis of the way the factories and the workshops would want to be treated themselves. The textile factories and workshops in the greater Leicester area pay their workers a lower than minimum wage, which is in fact lesser than half of what the workers should be earning (Hoskins, 2015:n.p.). The first question that the Kantian Ethics Theory would ask these factories and workshops is; would they rationally wish that they were treated the way they treated the workers by paying them a low than minimum wage that equates to lesser than half of what they should be paid? The answer to this question by both the factories and the workshops would be certainly, No. The owners of the textile factories and the workshops would not want to be denied their rightful dues in wages, yet be required to work under the deplorable conditions of inadequate health and safety standards, humiliation, denial of toilet breaks and payment of meager wages (Hoskins, 2015:n.p.). Thus, since the answer to the first Kantian Ethics Theory is negative, the action taken by the workshops and factories operating in the Leicester textile industry to pay their workers low than minimum wages is unethical, immoral and humanly unacceptable (Rosen, 1996:47). On the other hand, the Kantian Ethics Theory would ask the owner of the factories and workshops operating in the Leicester textile industry whether their action amounted to doing what is the humanly right for an individual to do to another, or it amounted to using their workers in order to attain their objectives (Dicker, 2004:14). Most certainly, the answer to this would be that the factory and workshop owners were using the workers to attain their individual purposes, since they paid them mammal wages so they can be able to reduce the prices of clothing products and thus increase their sales and profitability (Hoskins, 2015:n.p.). In this respect, the actions of the Leicester textile workshops and factories amounted to using the workers as a means to an end, rather than treating the workers as an end themselves (Tännsjö, 2008:22). Thus, in my opinion, their action is immoral, unethical and unacceptable. References Allison, H. E. (2003). Kants theory of freedom. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press. Brandt, R. B. (1995). Morality, utilitarianism, and rights. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press. Dicker, G. (2004). Kants theory of knowledge: An analytical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hoskins, T. (February 27, 2015). Made in Britain: UK textile workers earning £3 per hour. 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