Good Essay About Fire In Bangladesh Factory

Bangladesh ‘s major export earnings (78%) come from the garment industry. The garment sector has a greater potential than any other sector in terms of revenue generation, improve foreign exchange earnings and reduction of the poverty level in the overall economy. On April 2013, a garment factory in Dhaka with eight-story building collapsed with fire, killing over 1000 workers. This brought attention to hazardous and dangerous working conditions under which employees have to work in Bangladesh. The labors not only had to work in poor working conditions, but also they were overloaded with work with poor wage rates. This was due to the stress on finishing low-cost product which can be sold at competitive prices across the globe (Case Study, 2015).
There are some issues that were noticed in the factory such as excessive work from employees, sudden termination, irregular payment. Apart from this, the workers suffer various kind of diseases due to an unhealthy work environment, and many get killed due to fires, panic stampedes, and accident.There is not enough mechanism present in order to ensure the health and safety of employees. If health and safety measures are not taken care of, workers suffer from low morale and low productivity. They tend to get dissatisfied, and the work quality undergo. This is the reason why WalMart was dissatisfied as all foreign companies tend to collaborate only with those companies that follow international labor rules and regulations to the most and properly implement health and safety measures (Case Study, 2015).

Ethical implications of the case

I believe that every organization, especially the companies belonging to western countries and big established brand names are responsible to make working conditions for the local people more favorable. Even though the proponents of sweatshops claim, that any measures to improve the working conditions of the locale labor will increase the operational costs and make these international brands shift too low-cost options but I believe that if a multinational organization focuses towards improving the working condition in any sweatshop in this case the factories that are established in countries like Bangladesh, where working conditions are not favorable and women are forced to work in the garment industry to earn their livelihood, it will not impact the economy of Bangladesh negatively. It is important to note that due to increased awareness of corporate social responsibility and business ethics dilemma, customers are willing to pay extra practice for products of companies who are focused on social responsibility. This helps in offsetting the increased costs of production and raised operational costs (Goldberg, 2015).
Likewise, the working conditions can also be improved in the sweatshops without negatively impacting the economy of the country. A strong effort is required from multinational organizations and policy makers in this regard which will not impact the level of employment in Bangladesh. The western countries can sign agreements to increase trades and make more investment in the country with the help of reducing import quotas, as well as a prominent reduction in tariffs. The labor demands can be increased through various policy measures. This can help in increasing the employment level if not at least maintain the current level. Even though many claim that these sweatshop factories are natural and multinational brands must leave the development process on market-led processes, but I believe that companies have a strong role in pursuing how to lead this market-led forces especially in poverty stricken countries like Bangladesh (Goldberg, 2015).
One of the most significant element that is affected and must be discussed are the stakeholders. The most crucial stakeholders are the employees working in these sweatshops. The employees have to work in poor working conditions in these garment factories in the country, they are asked to work overtime with low wage rates. Most of these workers belong to poor families whose bread and butter is dependent on these sweatshops. The impact of these accidents such as factory fires or hazardous working conditions is disastrous for their families, and they are psychologically traumatized. It is important that multinational companies must hire health and safety managers. Health and safety manager can better help in issuing Social compliance Certificate system should be introduced and given to buyers which will imply that the company will follow health and safety regulations, maintain ethical working conditions, provide a safe working environment for its workers and act lawfully and follow the international labor rules and regulations properly (Goldberg, 2015).
The retailers are another critical stakeholders who not only sell products in the local market, but also in international markets such as the UK and USA. The sales of these retailers are also impacted as they have to face consumer backlash if the manufacturers are unable to confront and resolve the social responsibility issues. For example, many a times Nike has faced boycotts of their products as their sweatshops offer unfavorable working conditions for the workforce, and the working environment provided to the labor is hazardous to their health.

Conclusion

Bangladesh ‘s major export earnings come from the garment industry. The garment sector has a greater potential than any other sector. I believe that every organization, especially the companies belonging to western countries and big established brand names are responsible to make working conditions for the local people mores favorable.

References

Goldberg E. (2015) Clothing Labels List Sweatshop Atrocities So Buyers Will Shop More Consciously, The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/29/cambodia-sweatshop-condit_n_6956244.html