Apple Sweatshop Woes, Essay Example

Apple’s Unethical Practices

The two or three major unethical practices by Apple that were recently discovered as a result of the company contracting out its Ipod manufacturing to FoxConn, a trade name for a Chinese company Hon Hai Precision Industry, include: (i) using sweatshop workers to produce Ipods; (ii) the workers are poorly paid; (iii) the workers’ working conditions are totally deplorable. These three conditions are what a reputable company like Apple should stand against. Although Apple claims it does not have knowledge of the issue and quickly lodged an investigation to the reported abuse of Chinese workers by FoxConn.

Reasons why Apple’s Management Should be Ethical

Apple is expected to lead by good example judging by the company’s reputation worldwide. Keeping its reputation would help Apple’s brand to earn more respect everywhere in the world. On the other hand, using sweatshop Chinese may force buyers to shun Apple’s products. Similarly, Apple is expected to show more willingness to demonstrate its social responsibility: this involves catering for the general wellbeing of the public, not only for profit-making. This entails that Apple should concern itself about environment, conformity with labor laws and other issues that promote societal goodness and development.

Apple’s Approaches toward Social Responsibility

Based on the action of Apple as soon as the story of its unethical practices in China surfaces, it is true to describe Apple’s actions as positive and constructive. The company quickly launches a serious investigation into the allegations with the hope of finding the truth about the activities of FoxConn—the Chinese company. This action has forced the management of FoxConn to come up and defend its activities, most of which Apple does not have knowledge. If Apple has been silent about the issue, it would have been difficult to prove its innocence in the matter. So, taking a bold step to investigate the issue clearly reveals that Apple may be truly blame-free, though this verdict will hang in the air until the investigation has been concluded.

Some Socially Responsible Actions Taken by Apple

Steve Job, the new CEO of Apple has taken this issue personally, because he realized that some many things are at stake. As a socialite, he knows too well that Apple’s image would be dented if it is true that one of Apple’s products has been manufactured in a way that undermine human dignity and the respect for labor laws and regulations. This would also go a long way to cut off customers from buying Apple products. Almost all the CEOs take pride in talking about how responsible their organizations are. So, Steve had firstly denounced the actions of FoxConn as untypical of Apple and vowed to take a decisive action if the Chinese company has truly employed workers and made them work in a very bad condition.  Like every other organization, Apple understands the gain in being socially responsible: this would create more respect for Apple’s products and increase the number of people that would be glad to buy Apple’s brand.