Toy Manufacturing: Ethical Dilemma and Child Labor

Producing toys: child’s play:

This is a case of ethical dilemma where I am the product manager of a company, which produces confectionery products (Liu 2014). Our company deals with plastic toys also. At a trade fair in Europe, I had met a Thai manufacturer company who is the manufacturer of these toys too. They show their interest to sign a contract with us to supply us the products for a period of two years. I went to Thailand to finalize the order. They agree to supply us the products in a cheap rate, but with good quality. It seems a profitable business to me. When I had expressed my wish to see the workshop to the Sales manager of that company, I saw that there is no real workshop around there. The whole process is done in different places. Some people come in the early morning with their respective carts and load the components important to make the toys. They took the components with them. The Sales manager of that company then took me to one of the houses of those men. There I saw that the family members of that family are sitting there and were busy to assemble the toys with the help of the components. The most astonishing part was that the children of that family, aged five to fourteen were also took part in such work and they had doing their work happily. After the assembling works are done, all the toys were stored in the workshop of the company and the goods are got packed. The laborers of that company are get their wages at the end of the day. When a week is over, all the goods are being packed and ready for shipped to the customers (Charmondusit, Phatarachaisakul and Prasertpong 2014).

I was not acquainted with such a manufacturing process and when I had asked for the same, I came to know that such a process is very common in such area. This process is quite profitable and the qualities of such goods are of good qualities too. On my way to back home, I had bought some mementos for my nephew and all of a sudden, I started thinking if my own child will grow up in such a situation like the child of that family, what would happened then. I fall in an ethical dilemma. The dilemma was that the process of toy manufacture was good and profitable, but on the same place, the process is based on child labor, a social crime (Del Carpio, Loayza and Wada 2016). The first process can prove itself quite profitable, but we should not support any system by what the society got harm. Therefore, I personally think that the toys manufacturing process should be done without involving the child member of the family so that the quality of the goods remain same and the malpractice like child labor can be curbed.

Who cares whose shares?

  The term who care whose share stands on the basic principle that if any one share a particular thing, he must care for him or her too (Castro 2016). That means if a person share a certain thing to someone, he has some caring attitude towards him/ her. The care ethics has its origin in feminist theory (MacKinnon and Fiala 2014). Carol Gilligan coined the term. As per the rules, sometimes it is justified to over ruling justice or code of conduct that is maintained universally. It is one of the fundamental principles of human relationship (Engster and Hamington 2015).

Off your face on face book:

Application of Care Ethics

This ethical dilemma can well be understood by way of an example (Litt et al. 2014). Suppose, there are two candidates applied for a job in medical sector. Both of them have good communication skill and good at their job. The clinical company is in a dilemma regarding the appointment, as there is only one vacant post. The company wants to know something more about their personal life. The manager of the company tries to check their face book pages to gain some information regarding the same. The face book page of candidate one reveals that she is sociable in nature, where the candidate two seems to be addicted to party and narcotic substances. The information about candidate two is collected from insiders and not from the public pages of face book.

Both the candidates are good at their respective job and it is tough to choose any one of them as the company need the most reliable, experienced candidate for the post. There are two main problems, such as from the pace book page of candidate one, it is clear that she is of sociable nature. The nature of the job needs an employee, who has good social skill. However, it is not right to trust on the pictures posted on her pages very much because pictures cannot reveal the character of a person. Moreover, candidate one is amateur in the said clinical field, but the company needs an experienced one.

The second problem is related with the second candidate. It is true that her face book impression is not good in nature. The pictures posted on her pages are revealed that she is drug addicted and party lover. However, no one knows the pictures are how old. It may so that now she has become a good person and busy with work. She is quite experienced too. It is also not sure that the white substance in the party is drug or anything else. If it was drug, then is it right to take her as an employee in that company as it is a lab-based company and she might deal with the drugs.

The dilemma is whether the manager of the company had infringed the right to privacy of candidate no. two by enters into her private face book page (Marmor 2015). The face book is a social net working site (Ellison et al. 2014). It cannot be a communication to know someone or gain information about any one’s private life. As per my view, it is not correct to rely on the face book pages regarding the appointment for an important post. The reliability of such face book pages is questionable in nature. Thus, no one should rely on the face book to characterize someone for an official post.

“Organic Food – what’s an ‘Organic’ label worth?”

Australia is a growing market for the organic foods. Many consumers feel safe to take organic food. They think it is better for the health of their family. However, it is valid when the food product is marked and certified as organic which means the food is free from antibiotics, synthetic pesticides, and hormones (Lee et al. 2013). The ecological, ethical, ingredient represents the ecolabels. In many countries of the world use the words “organic” on the products, which contains 95% of the organic ingredients but the rest, may contain monosodium glutamate but the government scientists clear them as harmless. Products may also be less than70% of organic ingredients and is labeled as organic but such labels does not carry any guarantee about what may be the other ingredients present n the product. Therefore, it is the devil in the label (Bernard, Hustvedt and Carroll  2013).

Employment Decision-making and Social Media Profile

Organic supplies contained genetically modified seeds but the field-testing to ensure compliance according to the standards is rarely done. In EU and US have by agreement started to recognize each other’s organic seal for the development of trade.  In Australia, The National Standard for Biodynamic Produce performs organic certification through Biosecurity, which is a section of the Department of Agriculture (Meas et al. 2015). The Competition and Consumer Act 2010 covers and deals in the claims of organic products, which are sold in Australia. The Organic Federation of Australia plays a vital role for the organic industry in Australia and helps in setting the organic standard. The Organic Consultative Committee Legislative Working Group sets the organic standards. The organic products, which are exported from Australia, require accreditation from the Department of Agriculture. The DOA accredits the products in the domestic market.

Thus, the department in Australia approves the ethical standard of the organic products. The departments play a vital role in the certification process and perform various functions such as assessing organic and biodynamic operators, issuing Quality Management Certificate(QMC) and issues export documentation to be known as the Organic Produce Certificates(OPC). There are more than 2567 certifies organizations dealing in the process of certification of organic products. Australia does not have a logo to identify certified organic products for which they use the logo’s of the individual certifying organization.  

Uzbeck Cotton – a new spin on responsible sourcing

The above case is a controversy related to the use of cotton from Uzbekistan by the clothing brands and retailers. Uzbekistan has been alleged to create poor working conditions in the industry, using of child and forced labor (Crane and Matten 2016). Most of the clothing brands and retailers are well known of the problem of child labor. Cotton is the most important element to make s clothes. The dresses we wear regularly all needs cotton to make. However, the question is that the people who grows cotton and the condition under which they grow is the matter that we must look into and discuss. Uzbekistan being the world’s one of the topmost exporters of cotton, which makes use of, forced labor and child labor in cultivating the crop. Many efforts have been made by the companies to stop the use of child labor and forced labor to cultivate the crop. The companies also boycotted the use of Uzbek cotton and protested against the violations of human rights (Jurewicz 2015).

I realized the problems and hardships faced by the cotton cultivators in Uzbekistan. I would request the International Labor Organization to force Uzbekistan to obey the international labor norms and the International Human Rights conventions. The international organizations must come up to force Uzbekistan to enter into treatise and sign international conventions. Uzbekistan should make reforms in its labor laws and make Human Rights compulsory and infringement of the Human Rights shall be strictly punishable. The International organization must make Uzbekistan signing conventions like United Nation declaration of Human Rights and violation of which will have strict liability over the country. The country violating the human rights rules must be boycotted from trading (Jurewicz 2014). No country shall trade with Uzbekistan. The Organizations can also sue Uzbekistan before the International Court of Justice. The international organizations may directly intervene into the formation of the government and the legislations. However, if after all such applications Uzbekistan stays rigid in its decision then the countries must boycott exporting foods to Uzbekistan and may start armed rebellion against the state and capture the state to form a new government in the state.

Certification of Organic Food in Australia

Thus, concluding on the note that Uzbekistan should comply with the international rules and regulations, The state should change and make reforms in its rigid employment rules and also implement human rights an provide the basic rights to its people.

Ethics are those principles that consist of some rules of conduct that regulate a person’s behavior or activity (Crane & Matten 2016). Ethics identify the best way for the livelihood of a person. Universal code of ethics is such rules that can be followed by every person (Fennell 2014). There are number of ethical standards that are self-evident. In business, some ethical responsibilities are important for the development the standard of the business. The business has expanded its wings globally and it is much more needed to maintain the ethical code universally to avoid the complexity. For instance, the International Federation of Accountants has promoted a universal code of ethics in case of accountancy. People need to follow the codes universally and should abide by the principles so that the safety of others may not be jeopardized. Universal code of ethics is important in work places too. We should maintain the equality in work place (Singh and Thard 2016).

A universal code of ethics is important to maintain the equality amongst others but the question is whether it is possible or not. Simply says, the nature of the moral rules are universal. There are many ethical principles that are present but we should maintain a unique notion in case of ethics.

Reference:

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Castro, R.B., 2016. Business Ethics and Sustainability.

Charmondusit, K., Phatarachaisakul, S. and Prasertpong, P., 2014. The quantitative eco-efficiency measurement for small and medium enterprise: a case study of wooden toy industry. Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy, 16(5), pp.935-945.

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Litt, E., Spottswood, E., Birnholtz, J., Hancock, J.T., Smith, M.E. and Reynolds, L., 2014, February. Awkward encounters of an other kind: collective self-presentation and face threat on Facebook. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing (pp. 449-460). ACM.

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