Sweatshops

 

According to the US department of Labor, the term Sweatshop means any factory that violates some of the basic labor laws by providing poor working conditions, unfair payments, and low wage rates, long working hours, child labor, and no any extra benefit to workers. About child labor, many studies conducted showed that the causes are economic deviation, unethical behaviors in employment decisions and high poverty level in developing countries. Related to such studies, an estimated figure of over 250 million children between the age of 5 and 14 falls into forced labor.100 million form these children are exposed to risky working conditions with lower wages rate. As stated by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the rise in poverty index particularly in developing nations like Asia, India, North Korea, South Korea, Jamaica and most parts of Africa is a result of factors such as poor resource distribution, money embezzlement, rise in forced labor, low salaries and poor production strategies.

Even though employment issue is a global concern, products such as shoes, rugs, chocolate, toys, bananas and many others contributed toward Sweatshops issue since the people involved in such working conditions only work for food and family survival. In 2012, the report by National Labor Committee (NLC) shown that women involved in sewing NBA jersey are only capable of making up to 24 cents for every garment that will be sell at minimum price of  145 $. In other words, the report by NLC is illustration of the low wages the sweatshops employees get, which is common in most Sweatshops. In 2000, the report released by the US Labor Department shown a number of 11000 Sweatshops violating minimum wage laws and regulations. All these issues are vital to mention when the government is fully committed to developing policies that will help minimize poverty levels in our societies.

 

As already mentioned, the rise in Sweatshops and its complications can only be viewed unethical when there are life opportunities and employment alternatives. As long as there are economic imbalances and unemployment, Sweatshops remain the only alternative source of employment. Some of the ethical issues mentioned in this case such as rise in poverty levels, less concern by the government to establish equal employment within the existing industries and the rise in labor supply are only considered violations. Many of ethical issues such as long working hours, poor working conditions, job insecurity, lower wages rates, and favoritism are some of the reasons that make Sweatshops be an alternative employment decision. If these conditions can be improved, then Sweatshops would become an important employment decision to mention in our societies.

On issues of long working hours, employees in Sweatshops urged to work for long hours in order to increase the payment they receive at the end of the day. The long working hours, overnight shifts and doing more than one job are considered infringement towards employee’s free will. The Sweatshops nature of the work is intended to extend outside the normal working hours with little or no compensations. Obviously, employers in Sweatshops take advantage of the needs of their workers and subject them to never-ending tasks. Other than long working hours, employees are subjected to poor working conditions and high environmental risks. Most Sweatshops are built in either suburbs or countryside. However employment terms compel employers to ensure safer and secure working conditions for their employees, owners of Sweatshops have never showed the interest to provide the needed environmental protection and employees’ health insurance. The need to protect workers against environmental infections in Sweatshops is necessary and putting such into practice has high costs, which managers need to skip.

 In addition to the mentioned ethical issues, employees in Sweatshops have always complained of job insecurity. In this case, the rate at which employees lose their jobs is very high in Sweatshops. The general argument here is that the number of people seeking for jobs rises each day and any form of confrontation would cause immediate replacement. Therefore, the employees are afraid and cannot fight for their employment rights as stated in most Labor Acts. Finally, employees within Sweatshops have limited control over the amount of payment they receive at the end of their service. In most cases, employers have exploited their workers with an aim of improving the businesses and making greater profits. Using employees’ effort as a stepping-stone and denying such employees their payment rights is big violation to the stated employment policies.

Following the mentioned ethical issues, one would argue that the rise in Sweatshops is an alternative for global unemployment situations and the rise in human population. As observed, there seems to be an inverse relationship between human population growth and establishment of industries and this factor compels people for alternative employment decisions. In My opinion the only proposal that would help in solving ethical issues in Sweatshops is all governments across the world have to create high demand for labor by establishing more industries, businesses and other employment opportunity. With such a plan, Sweatshops would be forced to adjust their employment terms and create friendly working conditions in order to remain competitive in the labor market.    

In general, from the perspectives of economic imbalances, we expect terms of employment to be different to a particular nation. For example, a person would be earning more for a particular job in USA while an individual using even more input for the same job description in Asia will be earning less. The diversities in compensation are due to unleveled economic development, which again is the main cause of rise in Sweatshops. Just as already mentioned working in Sweatshops is therefore an alternative to unemployment and is considered better than staying idle and unproductive. The emergence of Sweatshops is important as a plan to solve unemployment problem in different nations and since big companies are more concerned with improving their production standards than diversifying through employment, employee’s exploitation within Sweatshops is justifiable. The only concern is the extent to which the exploitation occurs and the implication it has on the entire working population.

Chernobyl

 

 

 

In 26 April 1986, a big accident occurred at Unit 4 of the nuclear power station at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in the former USSR. The power station was located 130 km north of the major city of Kiev and the nearest town to the plant was city of Pripyat, which was home to around 50,000 people at that time. There was also a small town – Chernobyl – which was home to around 12,000 people and the area was also surrounded by alot of farms and forests. The four reactors at the Chernobyl power plant were built during the 1970s and 1980s; and an artificial lake had been created, measuring 22 square km, in order to provide a water supply for the reactor. The plant used four Soviet designed RBMK-1000 nuclear reactors, the design of which was later found to be imperfect. These reactors used enriched uranium fuel to heat up water to produce steam which then drives the turbines of the reactors and creates electricity. 

 

The day before the accident occurred, the operating team were getting ready to test whether the turbines could produce enough energy to run the coolant pumps if power was disconnected for any reason, until the emergency diesel generator was switched on. In order to prevent any interruptions to the reactor's power supply, the normal safety systems were switched off purposely. Disabling the automatic shut-down system was according to the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) a big violation of safety regulations. To carry out the test, the reactor had to be reduce its power to 25 percent of its normal capacity. Unfortunately this did not go to plan and the power level of the reactor fell hugely below 25 percent, to less than 1 percent. This meant the power had to be slowly increased again, but 30 seconds after the test started there was a sudden surge in power. The emergency shut-down systems which were in place to stop a chain reaction, failed. The shocking result of this was that, in the early morning of 26 April, the reactor's fuel elements ruptured and a huge explosion occurred. The 1000 tonne sealing cap on the reactor building was blown off and as temperatures reached over 2000°C, the fuel rods melted. This caused the graphite covering of the reactor to ignite and it burned for nine days, sending huge levels of radiation into the environment. The explosion caused more radiation to be released than the nuclear bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

 

There are two main view points on why the disaster happened and both have been argued for a long time since the accident occurred. Serious design mistakes in the power plant's cooling system almost definitely caused the uncontrollable power surge that led to the Chernobyl tragedy. Most Western nuclear reactors use water as a coolant, whereby as the core heats up and produces more steam, the increase in steam bubbles in the water causes a reduction in the reactivity of the nuclear core. This is a common and important safety feature in most reactors – but not in the Chernobyl model which used graphite as a moderator at the core; which caused a continuous loop of nuclear reactivity and increase in the reactor's power output. This means the Chernobyl design was unstable at low power levels and exposed to sudden flow in energy production at dangerous levels. Moreover this element of the plant was not known about by the crew.

The other view point is that the disaster was caused by human error. Although serious mistakes had definitely been made, almost all opinions nowadays are that the operator error was probably to lack of training, experience and understanding of what they were doing. The plant operators were surely wrong to disengage the safety and cooling systems, but they had very poor experience and education in nuclear physics and engineering.

The Chernobyl disaster was the worst power plant accident in history, generating higher costs and resulting in more deaths than any other accidents. The operation following the event, to contain the contamination and try to prevent further catastrophe, involved over 500,000 workers and cost over $200 billion dollars. The explosion killed two plant workers immediately and in the following few days,  29 workers and fire fighters died in hospital due to serious radiation sickness. The attempts to extinguish the burning reactor were not successful, as fire fighters were extinguishing by water for 10 hours. Following this, 30 military helicopters flew over the site for 9 days and dropped 2400 tonnes of lead and 1800 tonnes of sand trying to extinguish the fire and absorb the radiation. but this made it worse

and it was only when the core was cooled with nitrogen that the fire and emissions came under control.    

The 600 men in the plant's fire service and the operating teams were the most severely irradiated group, with 130 of these being exposed to levels of radiation equivalent to 650 years’ worth of a worker's safe annual limit. Thousands of military workers and others also helped in the operations, moving radioactive material with little or no protective clothing and equipment. Even though it is known for sure that 31 died in the immediate aftermath the disaster, it is not known how many have died since then due to the radiation they were exposed to; and of course how it has affected people living in the area. One significant issue has been the large increase in thyroid cancer in the years after the disaster, especially among children.

My point in the issue is that it seems unfair that some of the authorities tried to put all blame on the workers after the accident. The workers were the ones who suffered the most, either through losing their life or suffering sickness after  the radiation exposure. I feel they were taken advantage of as they were working in a high risk environment and not provided with all of the knowledge and training they needed.

 

References

 

http://www.livescience.com/39961-chernobyl.html

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster

 

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/nomorechernobyls/what-happened-in-chernobyl/#a0

 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20403-25-years-after-chernobyl-we-dont-know-how-many-died.html#.U1qKyVVdVMk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mandatory drug testing

The majority of employers have adopted mandatory random drug testing on their employees, arguing that the enormous damage caused by the pervasive use of drugs in our society carries over into the workplace. Typically the tests involve taking urine or blood samples under close observation, thereby raising questions about personal privacy as well as privacy issues regarding drug use away from the workplace that is revealed by the tests.

Present & defend your view concerning mandatory drug tests at the workplace.

In your answer, take account of the argument that, except where safety is a clear & present danger, as in the work of pilots, police & the military, such tests are unjustified. Employera have a right to the level of performance for which they pay employees, a level typically specified in contracts & job descriptions. When a particular employee fails to meet that level of performance, then employers will take appropriate disciplinary action based on observable behaviour. Either way, it is employee performance that is relevant in evaluating employees, not drug use per se.

What do you think?

In my point of view, safety is everything. Safety of people, environment and properties. Such tests could be justified and acceptable in specific jobs like, pilots, drivers and policemen and similar jobs. Because any reckless behavior would cost a lot, and may reach to a level of losing lives. So in such cases and circumstances this mandatory test is for everyone’s good. On the other hand, there are some jobs and occupations, where it doesn't matter whether the employee is a drug user or not. In this situation it’s unethical to force the employees to do mandatory drug tests, because this is something personal and private. So the rule here which gives the justification to this mandatory test is the job nature; if any absence of mind could lead to big losses especially loss of life; this test is a must. If it’s not, in this case, this test will be unjustified and inappropriate.   

Mike W. Martin & Roland Schinzinger, Introduction to Engineering Ethics, 2nd edition, McGraw-Hill, Noew York, 2010, p. 156

 

Dhaka building collapse

It was the 24th day of April 2013, when the fate of around 5000 workers brought the worst day of their lives. Rana Plaza was an eight-story commercial building situated in Savar, which is a sub-district in the Greater Dhaka Area of the capital of Bangladesh. This building collapsed to the pile of rubble. Up to the last efforts in the search for survivors on 13 May, 1,129 dead bodies were found and around 2,515 injured people were rescued alive.

 There was not any one to blame specifically. It was a crime committed collectively by the owners of the building, owners of garment factories operating inside that building and the government authorities.

 Sohel Rana, owner of the building was used as a scapegoat to put all the blame on, while the owners of factories who forced the workers by threatening to cut their one month salaries after ignoring a day before notice from government authorities, were viewed as less culpable.

 There are a few ethical issues involved in this incident including but not limited to the following:

 It is the social responsibility of the organizations to check the poor working conditions of the factories from where they are outsourcing.

 Overloading a factory beyond its production capacities would definitely result in creating a chain of sub-contracts after sub-contract to fulfil the order completion. In such a chain, subsequently, it goes beyond control to have checks on working conditions.

 Workers in Rana Plaza factories were a perfect example of modern day slavery. They were working at $38 salary rate.

 An eight-storey building with 5000 workers; we can imagine such working conditions.

 The collapse of Rana Plaza was not just a collapse of a building but it actually was a failure of a whole system.The owners of factories, the plaza and the government authorities, ignored their personal, social and industrial responsibilities.

 To avoid such an incident in future, we have to examine all the system including all stakeholders from the manufacturers, retailers and consumers to the local authorities and workers.

 

Human rights

The American Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau:

"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains" That was the first sentence of Rousseau's "The Social Contract."

This was the concept of ‘the noble savage’.

Thomas Hobbes:

"In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently, not culture of the earth, no navigation, nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Aluminium cans

Aluminium cans

Approximately 1 billion are produced in the USA each year. The first can was designed in 1958 by Kaiser Aluminium. This metal proved ideal as it was a lightweight, flexible material that allowed manufacturing of the bottom & sides of the can from a single sheet, leaving the top to be added after the can was filled.

 

The first cans were opened with a separate opener but this was inconvenient so Ermal Fraze designed a small lever attached to the can which was removed as the can was opened.

 

The design was workable but after a while it created an ethical dilemma:

The ethical dilemma here is, this small lever could injure the consumer and cause bleeding, other aspect is every consumer after opening the can will throw out this small lever. This will cause environmental pollution.  

 

 

 

 

So in 1976 Daniel F. Cudzik invented a simple, stay-attached opener of the sort familiar today.

 

 

As improvements were made in the design & production of aluminium cans, various ethical problems arose concerning:

 

 

a.     Human safety: the new developments encouraged people to buy and drink soft drinks, and these soft drinks are considering unhealthy for humans bones.

 

b. Environmental pollution:  the more consumption the more pollution will be. Because there is a big majority of people are not caring about environmental issues, so they throwing cans in the surrounding environment. These cans need long period of years to be degraded.  

 

c. Convenience: aluminum cans recycling need a lot of energy to melt it and remade it again. This big amount of energy will have a bad effect on the global warming.

d. Money:

Aluminum cans industry is profitable business if everyone recycles the aluminum. The consumer can send the empty cans to the recycling factories and will get money for it. Also the factory will benefit from recycling  process, no need to have ore aluminum in big quantity.

Gray area

The right and the wrong is very obvious and clear, so making a decision is very easy. The problem occurs when it comes to what we call a gray area, neither black and nor white. Here making a decision will be difficult. My point of view is there are many factors will affect making decisions and deciding the right and wrong such as:

            . Gender: the woman thinks differently than the man, due to psychological and physical differences between the two genders.

 

2         . Religion: some issues might be allowable in one religion and unacceptable in other religion.

 

3         . Culture: culture differences from one country to other are varying, for example, some western women’s dress not acceptable in Saudi Arabia, where the women are fully covered.

 

4         . Education: the more education the person get the more he accepts and understands other point of view and can be confessed easily.

 

 

So what might be acceptable in one culture might not be acceptable in other cultures. For example, using animals in experiment to test new chemicals and medicines; it’s immoral, but to know the effectiveness of the new medicine it must be tested by animals.