The Ethics of Global Business

Chapter SixLabor Rights in Global Supply Chains

One of the most common and persistent ethical problems in international business concerns the working conditions and wages in the factories that are at the base of global supply chains, especially in consumer goods industries such as apparel, footwear, electronics, and toys. Commonly known as the “sweatshop problem,” these contested matters include working conditions that are noncompliant with local labor laws, forced overtime, the suppression of collective bargaining rights, and wage theft. In the worst cases, workers are killed or injured by explosions, fires, malfunctioning machinery, and exposure to toxic substances, among other causes. The Rana Plaza disaster in Dhaka, Bangladesh, alone resulted in 1132 worker fatalities and injured more than 2500 workers. This chapter examines the ethics of health and safety, the disclosure of workplace hazards, the role of the rule of law in protecting workers, wage exploitation, and best practices in the management of labor rights in global supply chains.

Health and Safety

The modern sweatshop debate emerged at approximately the same time that economic globalization began to rapidly increase. One result of the outflow of capital from industrialized nations to developing nations was an increase in the number of textile mills and factories employing low‐skilled workers to manufacture apparel, footwear, toys, electronics, and a variety of other consumer goods. These factories are sometimes ...