Modern Slavery in Globalisation

Introduction

On the recent era of globalisation, the entrepreneurs try to hire the child labourers or the inexperienced labour force for utilising them in the organisation for personal and commercial purpose where the people are paid at minimum or less than minimum amount of wage. The issue of modern slavery is an ethical issue where the organisations sometime face serious issues to manage their employment rules and legislations to manage their business ethics. The study provides a scope to understand the ethical issue of modern slavery and the issue of child labour and forced labour in the international business content. The presentation is effective to represent the Bangladeshi garment industry, which is facing serious issues due to lack of ethical practice in the industry as there are high percentage of modern slavery and forced labourers in the industry, where the people are forced to work in the clothing industry at minimum payment.

Discussion of the topic modern slavery

There are several types of modern slavery, where the labourers are suffering through working as the managers and entrepreneurs are forcing them to work in the industry. Recent, the migration of labour is increasing over the international markets, where the workers are migrated from one place to another in order to get employed at minimum wage. As per the analysis more than 35 million people are affected due to the ethical issue of modern slavery where they are trapped in a modern form of slavery (Vaughn et al., 2019). Debt bondage, forced labour and child labour are the major issues in the modern slavery system where the children as well as adults are forced to work with minimum payment. The major issues of modern slavery are related to force labour, poor working condition and child labour, which are increasing at a rapid art in the international business firms, where the entrepreneurs are searching for minimum paid workers for maximising the organisational profitability.

Child labour is a serious ethical issue, where the children are forced to wk in the industry or service sector which is harmful for their physical and mental development. Due to poverty, migrant labour forces as well as lack of education, the children are forced to work in the industry. There is increasing numbers of children which are forced to perform which affects them negatively. It is one of the major ethical issues, where the international business firms violate the ethical laws and legislations and hire the children for their purpose. It further affects the health condition of the children, where the children are not safe at the workplace. Malnutrition and poor physical growth is another effect of children labour as well as the organisations also fail to provide the safe environment for their mental and physical development.

The forced labourers are suffering through threats from the employers and the groups that are most vulnerable to the forced labour are such as racial and ethnic monitory groups, children, women, migrants and poor labour force (Blitz and Simic, 2019). The percentage of forced labourer is also increasing at a rapid rate, where the organisations force the labourers to work in their workplace at minimum wage payment. The forced labourers are employed mainly in the agriculture and fishing, construction and mining, domestic works, industries for packaging and processing, manufacturing and market trading as well as also for illegal activities.

Bangladeshi garment industry

The Bangladeshi garment industry is growing at a rapid rate where the profit volume and sale activities of the garment manufacturing companies are also increasing due to high demand of their quality clothing. The industry fails to manage their employees and violates the ethical consideration to run the business legally. The employees are forced to work in the industry and they are paid with very low salary. For example, the minimum wage that the industry pays to the worker of 3000 Taka a month which is far below what is considered to be a living wage. The people fail to fulfil their basic needs of food, shelter and education with such minimum wage payment to the workers (Blitz and Simic, 2019). Apart from that, the numbers of people forced to work in the industry is also increasing over the years due to expansion of the Bangladeshi garment industry where the demand for their clothing is increasing across the international markets.

Child labour in Bangladeshi garment industry

As per the above discussion, the Bangladeshi garment industry is suffering through forced and child labour which violate the ethical business practice. The manufacturers at Bangladesh prefer to hire the child labourers as well as force the poor as well as ethnic monitory group to work at low payment structure. The wage is very low which does not fulfil the basic needs of the employees as well as the working hours and the working condition is also poor which violates the ethical practice of the companies (Vaughn et al., 2019). The companies like DBL group, Fakir Group and Epyllion Group are facing the ethical issue of forced labour where there is exploitation of labour force in the garment industry of Bangladesh. The labourers are not paid with proper payment and there is serious exploitation which hampers the physical and mental development of the people. The children are also forced to work in the garment industry where it is high time for the government to take immediate actions to control such modern slavery system for mitigating exploitation of the labour force in Bangladesh.

Stakeholder’s mapping

Stakeholder’s mapping is one of the effective ways to identify the stakeholders who are engaged with the business. As per the stakeholders analysis, it is possible to acknowledge the people who contribution positively to run the production and operations of the organisations. The Bangladeshi garment industry is efficient to manage their stakeholders where the major stakeholders are such as, the employees, who are working efficiently to fulfil their job role and contribute positively in the companies (Blitz, 2018). The entrepreneurs are strict and force the labourers to participate actively. On the other hand, the managers and suppliers are also crucial to run the business where the management team handle the internal operations, production and distribution of the products as well as the suppliers are also proficient to manage strong supply chain and distribute the product at the right place within the right time. The government and political groups are also playing crucial, role to manage the operations where they influence the business activities and enhance international trade to increase their export volume. The trade unions and financial community are also engaged with the companies where the shareholders are also playing crucial role in managing the business activities and manage financing and investing in the garment industry for successful expansion of the industry across the international markets (Carpenter, 2020). Additionally, the competitors and customers are also important stakeholders where they are engaged with the organisations in the garment industry of Bangladesh.

Ethical theory

The organisations follow the ethical code of conduct to run their business legally so that the stakeholder’s values can be maximised in long run. The ethical code of conduct including managing integrity, transparency and accountability, fairness and professional behaviour, confidentiality and professional competence are beneficial to restructure the business process and manage the organisations efficiently. The philosophies of business ethics such as deontological, utilitarian and virtue ethics are the major philosophies to manage the business ethics. Utilitarian approach is good to identify the consequences of the actions taken place in the organisations for the people’s wellbeing. Deontology refers to the concern of duty, fair behaviour and rules at the organisation. On the other hand, the virtue ethic is related to ensure morality of the business and fulfilling the needs and preferences o the stakeholders at the workplace (Islam, 2017).

Applying ethical theory for analysing modern slavery

There is also the issue of child labour and poor working condition in the Bangladeshi garment industry which violates the business ethics. As per the analysis, the ethical approach to conduct the business is violated by the Bangladesh garment industry, where the companies fail to manage the workers and rather they force them to work in their companies at minimum wage payment (Dickson and Warren, 2020). The working hours are also set properly and the workers are working under poor working condition and thus it can be stated that there is exploitation of labour in the garment industry of Bangladesh.

Conclusion

The organisations DBL group, Fakir Group and Epyllion Group in the garment industry fail to manage ethical code and they are also unable to follow the philosophies of business ethics in running their operations and production of garments legally, hence affecting the international business.

Part B: Essay on modern slavery in Bangladeshi garment industry

Introduction

In the recent era of globalisation, the major issue in the international business is related to modern slavery where the employment rules are not good and appropriate and for which the employees are suffering through forced working activities, low wage payment and the poor working condition (Islam, 2017). The essay demonstrates the business ethical malpractice in the international business, where the multinational corporations face challenges to manage the ethical responsibilities in doing their business operations legally. Without any proper ethical standard, mismanagement and inappropriate labour laws, the international organisations face difficulties to manage their business ethics and follow proper employment rules and practice to hire the staff and manage them in long run. The international businesses are suffering through modern slavery where there are many controversies raised due to slavery, poor working condition and forced labour. The issue of child labour is another critical issue which is business ethical malpractice deteriorating the brand image of Fakir Group in the market. The essay provides a scope to discuss the ethical malpractice in the international business context mainly in the Bangladeshi garment industry where the major issue is related to modern slavery including forced labour, proper working condition, low wage payment as well as child labour. The study is effective to develop stakeholder’s analysis for the garment manufacturer Fakir Group as well as apply the ethical philosophies to analyse the ethical issue and acknowledge the strategies of the stakeholders to tackle the recent issue of modern slavery in the garment industry of Bangladesh.

Recent ethical issues in Bangladeshi garment industry

Recently, modern slavery is one of the major issues in the international business, where the garment companies face challenges to manage the employee’s values. The firms operating across Bangladesh fail to maximise wellbeing for the employees due to poor practice in the organisational workplace. The major issue of forced labour, where the employees are forced to work in the garment manufacture organisations and the people such as poor, backward vulnerable class, ethnic monitory group, uneducated people as well as women and children are mainly targeted. The international business firms try to force them for working in the workplace at lower payment to generate profitability (Carpenter, 2020). The entrepreneurs at the garment companies give them lower payment which does not fulfil the basic needs of the employees and this is one of the major ethical malpractices in the context of international business. The major causes of forced labour and child labour are lack of education, high poverty, and poor job opportunity, migrant’s labour which further give chances to the entrepreneurs to hire them at lower cost so that it would be possible for the business firms in Bangladesh to generate profitability in long run. In this regard, child labour is also increasing over the international countries where the children are also forced to work in the business for commercial usage and it is a crime where children should not work. The garment companies in Bangladesh also face difficulties to manage the workplace condition and it is also another ethical issue, where there is no such safety and security in the workplace where the forced labours are working. Without any proper safety and security, the workers are working at high risk and there is no such insurance policies and support from the business managers to support the workers. Poor working condition further leads to lack of physical and mental development of the workers in the workplace. The children who are forced to work in the organisations are also suffering from malnutrition and lack of education (Dickson and Warren, 2020). Their physical and mental health is also hampered due to such labour malpractice in the Bangladeshi garment industry. The organisations face challenges to manage their business ethics, where they fail to create values for the employees. As per the business ethics, the ethical code of conduct includes integrity. Objectivity, professional competences, confidentiality and the professional behaviour, he international organisations fail to manage the ethical code where there is no such professionalism to manage the workers as well as run the business activities legally in Bangladesh. Without proper legal compliances, lack of management of integrity and objectivity of the business, the garment manufacturers fail to operation efficiently across the international markets.

Ethical malpractice in Fakir Group

Bangladeshi garment industry is suffering through serious ethical issues to run their international operations, the export volume of the garments of the country is increasing at a rapid rate and the owners of the factories try to hire the employees at low payment as well as the owners force the labourers mainly children and women to work at lower wage payment, which does not fulfil their basic needs. Fakir Group is efficient to manufacture quality garments in Bangladesh where the major philosophy of the business is to ensure economic growth and create values for the customers (Fakir Group, 2020). The major challenges faced by Fakir Group at Bangladesh are such as low wage payment, long hours of work, exhaustion, in healthy and unsafe working condition, sexual harassment, mental stress and child labour (Blitz and Simic, 2019). These are the serious issues which deteriorate the business efficiency to manage international operations the organisation where Fakir Group faces issues to handle the employees efficiently with effective human resource management strategy. The working condition is poor at the factories where the labourers are not safe. The payment structure at Fakir Group is also not appropriate where the minimum wage act is violated. Increasing production activities of garments further force the employees to work overtime and the issue of forced labourers is increasing across the garment industry of Bangladesh (Vaughn et al., 2019). The owners of the factors mainly develop the strategy of maximising the profit volume by forcing the labourers to work overtime at lower wage. This is one of the major ethical issues of modern slavery where the physical and mental health of the labourers deteriorates due to such situation (Fakir Group, 2020).

Stakeholder analysis

Stakeholder’s analysis is important to identify the major stakeholders engaged with the business in the Bangladeshi garment industry and in this regard the major stakeholders involved with the garment industry are such as employees, managers and suppliers, trade associations and labour unions, government and political parties, social communities, customers, competitors and financial advisors. As per the Freeman stakeholder analysis, the internal stakeholders of the Bangladeshi garment industry are such as the managers, employees and the owners. The external stakeholders are such as government and political parties, suppliers and distributors, competitors and the customers, financial advisory team, trade associations and unions (Cheer, 2018). The stakeholders are playing crucial role in managing Fakir Group of Bangladesh which is growing at a rapid rate across the international nations due to high export volume. The Bangladeshi garment industry contributes efficiently at a huge volume in the GDP growth and economic development and the stakeholders of Fakir Group play an important role to manage the industrial activities, production and distribution of the garments across the international countries (Blitz, 2018). The stakeholders need to contribute positively in the business and the analysis of the current ethical issues can be conducted through the three level critical analysis, micro, meso and macro.

Hence, as per the stakeholder’s analysis, it can be stated that, the stakeholders of Fakir Group are engaged with each other, where the owner of the factory tries to hire them for managing their international business operations, however it is facing serious issues related to the business ethics. It is mandatory for the owner of Fakir Group as well as the major stakeholders such as government of Bangladesh and political parties to take active initiatives for mitigating such ethical malpractice and developing appropriate business strategic planning to create values for all the stakeholders including the customers, employees, managers, supplier and distributors (Nolan and Bott, 2018).

Ethical theories and application

Virtue ethic is major ethical theory to develop ethical practice in the organisations, where the business firms can develop proper strategy to run their organisations strategically. As per the virtue ethics, integrity, fairness, honesty, generosity, courage, compassion, fidelity, self-control, and prudence must be maintained in the workplace. Integrity and fairness are the major ethical code of conduct, where the owners and managers must focus in fair decision making behaviour and improve integrity and honesty to run the business ethically (Shin, 2018). Professional behaviour, courage and compassionate are also necessary factors to run the international business legally, where the firm Fakir Group play crucial role to manage the stakeholder’s value and expand the business strategically. The self control system, proper empowerment of the employees as well as improving fairness are effective as per the virtue ethics to manage the workplace and run the business of Fakir Group by managing the ethical code of conduct so that it would be possible for the owners to manage their business ethics. Additionally, as per the cardinal virtues, the factors such as prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice develop ethical values of the firms, where the organisation Fakir Group must make justice to each employee, customers and the social communities as a whole. On the other hand, the three theological virtues are faith, hope, charity, where the firms are able to manage their operations and international activities in a systematic way.

As per the ethical principles, the garment industry of the country Bangladesh must focus on the ethical code of conduct in order to run their international operations. The company Fakir Group needs to develop proper strategic planning in order to secure future sustainable development. In this regard, ethical laws and regulations to hire the employees in the organisation are also restructured well on the factories of Bangladesh to hire the staff and manage their wellbeing (Landman, 2020). The working condition must also be developed efficiently to manage safety and security of the labourers in the garment industry. The garment factories must manage transparency and accountability in order to provide equal opportunity to each employee and manage them efficiently. Wage payment and other employee’s motivational factors must be incorporated in the organisation in order to manage them in long run and secure future sustainable development.

Strategies of the stakeholders to tackle the issues

The stakeholders such as trade associations, government and political parties at Bangladesh are playing crucial role in managing the ethical challenges in the garment industry as it is a serious issue to run the international business. The organisation Fakir Group faces high threats of managing their international operation with such unethical practice in the business. In this regard, The Factories Act 1965 is implemented for prohibiting the children aged less than 15 years to work in the industries (Clogg, 2016). The Employment of Children Act 1938 is one of the appropriate executions in the garment industry of Bangladesh to tackle the issue of child labour and the government ensures that the factories must execute this law in hiring the labourers in the workplace. The Children Act 2013 is effective to maintain international standard to mitigate child labour and the government of Bangladesh also invest in the social developmental project and charity and education in order to provide educations to the children, so that the children will not be forced to work in the factories. Human Trafficking Deterrence and Suppression Act 2012 are also appropriate to tackle the malpractice of child labour as well as The Bangladesh Rehabilitation Assistance Committee (BRAC) and ILO contributes in the international organisations to develop the strategy against child labour (Van Dijk, 2020). The Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh guarantees the fundamental rights of the individuals, where the government provides clear information about managing the working condition and environment where the employees can work freely and safely.

There are other strategies which are crucial to tackle the issues in Fakir Group, Bangladeshi garment manufacturer through which the owners of the factory would be able to run their international operations ethically. Fair and equal payment structure must be developed where the male and female members at the workplace are paid equally as well as the organisation provides proper payment to each employee which would be effective for the owners to create values for the staff members at the organisation (Woode, 2019). The owner of Fakir Group must not force any labourer in the organisation to work under any critical circumstances. The culture and heritage must be developed in the organisation for creating better working environment where the owner needs to manage transparency and accountability in the workplace and it is necessary to improve internal communication and collaborative working practice for fair treatment and developing strong corporate bonding among the owner and other stakeholders. The managers at Fakir Group need to manage the diverse workforce irrespective of their differences in culture, race, ethnicity, gender, age and abilities so that every employee can be treated equally and their wellbeing can be maximised in the factories.

Conclusion and recommendations

As per the above discussion, it can be concluded that, the organisation Fakir Group in the garment industry of Bangladesh face challenges related to the ethical malpractice where the major issue of modern slavery due to forced labour, poor working condition, low payment to the employees as well as child labour, which are the major challenges for the garment factories to run their business internationally. The stakeholders of Fakir Group such as the employees, managers suppliers, trade associations, government and labour unions must be collaborated and develop appropriate strategic planning to fulfil the ethical code of conduct. The strategies such as implementing the labour standard set by the government of Bangladesh, developing proper payment structure as well as maintaining equality are mandatory to manage ethical practice, maintaining transparency, integrity and respect the employees will be able to mitigate the issue of forced labour in Fakir Group and it is necessary to develop suitable working environment so that the labourers will be able to work under safe atmosphere and secure infrastructure.

Reference List

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