Samsung and Child Labor: Business Ethics Case

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Samsung and Child Labor: Business Ethics Case

After completing their tasks, three young girls titter as they play together. Nevertheless, when interrogated, the girls confessed their secret of using false documents to work unlawfully at a Chinese factory that makes cell phone parts for Samsung. The girls were aged 14 and 15 years, which is too young for lawful employment in China, and had finished middle school recently (Barboza par. 1-6).

The issue of the three girls in the company raised questions concerning the labor stipulations of the organization, in addition to its suppliers. In response, Samsung claimed to have improved its endeavors to supervise and assess suppliers and manufacturing processes across the globe, affirming that strategies were set to safeguard employees and stop children from working in the company.

To make sure that no factory exploits child labor, Samsung claims to have compelled all the factories to install a hi-tech facial detection device. As the girls confirmed, they were a part of the companys dispatch network that normally finds child laborers for the company in the course of summer with the purpose of increasing the speed of order processing and reception. The children are employed on a temporary basis and remunerated through an organization that has employment paths in poverty-stricken areas.

The China Labor Watch blamed Samsung for letting a supplier recruit minors, being deceitful to the legally hired employees, abnegating them overtime payment, and refusing to offer them government-authorized employment contracts (Barboza par. 7-15). In only one Samsung factory, the China Labor Watch found a number of minors hired without labor contracts and operating eleven hours a day, but being paid for ten hours only.

The three girls affirmed that they started working in the company in the middle of this year. They were recruited on a temporary basis, offered fake identification cards, and positioned to work in the most difficult shift, from half-past eight in the evening to half-past five in the morning while also engaging in 3 overtime hours for six days every week. The girls declared that the work was difficult but bearable (Barboza par. 16-26).

The China Labor Watch revealed that the minors were permitted to evade the facial detection device set to assist in avoiding minors from working in the company. Moreover, while asked the manner in which the factory offered them false government-provided identification cards, the girls disclosed that the factory used actual ID cards from other plants to register minors. Child labor in the factory is also perpetrated by the fact that the practice of employee verification as they get into the plant is not rigorous.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue theory places less significance on the regulations that individuals ought to pursue and, as an alternative, focuses on helping the individuals build excellent attributes, for instance, benevolence, care, and unselfishness. Such attributes will, consequently, make an individual formulate the right choices. This theory highlights the need for individuals to know the way to avoid bad behavioral tendencies, for instance, resentment, greed, and abuse.

These immoral behaviors are referred to as vices; they prevent an individual from being a virtuous person (MacKinnon and Fiala 34-42). Eudaimonism, the main concept of this theory, affirms that appropriate objectives of people encompass contentment, comfort, and happy life and that these objectives could be attained by the frequent exercise of virtues, depending on the practice of intelligence, in order to solve disputes and hardships that could occur.

A virtuous lifestyle could be typified by an excellently lived life, regardless of the psychological condition of an individual living it. Thus, virtues represent behaviors or attributes that enable people to thrive in their undertakings. Hence, virtue ethics is just graspable if it encompasses an explanation of the purpose or significance of human existence.

A virtuous grown-up and a nice youngster have good purposes, though the youngster is more likely to make wrong choices since he/she could be uninformed of what is required for a virtuous person (MacKinnon and Fiala 38-45). Certainly, a virtuous grown-up is not flawless and could as well, occasionally, fail due to lack of knowledge, though just on instances where the mistake is not a blameworthy ignorance.

Application of the Theory to the Case

Virtue ethics is tightly connected to the comprehension of ethics. The key task in virtue ethics is played by motivations in ethical questions. To behave, virtuously is to have some proper motivation (MacKinnon and Fiala 42-45). Therefore, affirming that virtues are vital for suitable moral judgments is affirming that suitable moral judgments demand proper motivations.

Even though the children made a mistake by choosing to take part in an unlawful practice, the organizers of child labor in the Samsung factory in China were the not virtuous ones. Child labor puts minors under risk of injury, sickness, or even death since they have little knowledge as to the handling of machines and tools, and safety precautions. Working overnight and extending to some hours during the day could also affect the psychological and physical welfare of children.

Work dangers that grown-up distress employees can affect minors more profoundly. Moreover, child labor negatively affects the future of children. Deprived of the right for excellent education in adult life, such children have minimal chances of getting a well-paid occupation and evading the cycle of impoverishment and abuse. In this case, the organizers of child labor were driven by improper motivations such as greed in carrying out their devious actions.

Works Cited

Barboza, David. Despite a pledge by Samsung, child labor proves resilient. The New York Times. 2014: A1. Web.

MacKinnon, Barbara, and Andrew Fiala. Ethics: Theory and contemporary issues. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2014. Print.

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