Sweatshops In Developing Countries

The argument for those that support the idea of sweatshops is that they provide some form of standard in living in an otherwise developing/poor company. Because these factories are mostly in poverty rich countries where it is hard to find any form of income, these job at least provide some source of income that would otherwise not be available. These arguments could be supported that the jobs help boost the developing countries. Sweatshops do not follow the standards and ethics of the parent company who they work for, rather they follow they local governments’ standards. But just because they do not have to follow local rules and regulations, does not mean that the multinational corporations can throw their ethics out the window as well. All companies in all countries is required to respect the human rights of workers(De George, p.174). Although corporations do not have a moral responsibility, individuals in corporations have a moral responsibility. Role responsibility is defined as, “… assuming a certain position, function, or role in society or an organization… that assumes special obligation”
(De George, p.107). An individual’s actions within Nike or another corporations actions reflect the image and values of his/her company. When individuals within Nike completed an agreement with the sweatshops to make their products for a certain amount of money, they the subcontractors had the proper facilities and were treating their employees fair. After all Nike is the one who gave this subcontractor work, therefore Nike must not have viewed any thing as immoral or else they would not have agreed to subcontract work to these companies. If standards in most sweatshops were enforced, many factories would be forced to close and thus people would lose their jobs. Although there may be many sweatshops in foreign countries that treat there employees as an end in itself rather than a means to an end many sweatshops are used by large corporations and business as a way to cut costs while disregarding employees’ rights.
These multinational corporations have the resource and assets needed in order to justify the actions going on at sweatshops. “… a multinational company has a positive obligation to set an example of ethics in business and to encourage the development of background institutions conducive to stability and to business practices that benefit the society as a whole” (De George, p.411). A Nike product should be viewed as a total product no matter who actually produced it and they should have a responsibility to make sure overseas manufactures are implementing safe working condition, just wages, and respecting human
rights.