Gucci Sweatshop Scandal in Shenzhen
Recently, the concept of globalization and industrialization has led to increasing cases of sweatshops across the world. A sweatshop refers to a ‘shop’ that exploits workers by offering low wages, poor working conditions, and work for long hours. While enormous business corporations operate across the world, the economic gain they provide to the third-world countries is nothing compared to the level of exploitation associated. This essay features the sweatshop scandal of the Gucci flagship store, located in Shenzhen – China. The essay elaborates that the exploitative practices carried out by Gucci Company are immoral.
Description of the Scandal
The scandal about Gucci Company concerned employee exploitation, which was publicized through the internet. An open letter dated 8th October 2011, was noted addressed to Gucci Top Management from former employees who had resigned cooperatively (Wang, Li & Robin, 175). The letter addressed various unethical practices by the company towards the employees that caused critical impacts on their lives. For instance, the letter noted a miscarriage that occurred to one of the employees that were associated with long working hours, and no compensation was made (Wang, Li & Robin, 176). Unethical rules and regulations, which included restrictions on the toilet time, and permission to get a snack or a drink, were also noted.
Additionally, the employees were forced to pay for any item that went missing or got damaged even though the products were insured (Wang, Li & Robin, 176). Low wages and long working hours were also mentioned in the letter. The letter stated that the restrictions applied to the forefront employees while the managers were excluded (Wang, Li & Robin, 179). In this regard, the employees felt that their self-worth and moralities were violated.
In light of the above description, the scandal was immoral. The failure of the company to pay the employees the legal minimum wage subjected them to poverty and poor living conditions. The employees were unable to provide sufficiently for their families, and in this case, their children suffered. The poor pay made the employees unable to provide enough food to their children who need a balanced diet for development. Considering that the company did not care about such welfare, the scandal is painted immoral because it affected innocent children, and yet, no one cared (Wang, Li & Robin, 180). With such low pay, the employees were also compelled to live in poor conditions where they could afford. The places could have inadequate sewerage and sanitation system and hence endangering them to various diseases. In general, the employees lived in a cycle of poverty despite having the ‘working class’ label.
The long working hours also affected the employees immensely. Considering that some were women with little children, they would leave them for work without a caretaker. The children would suffer from hunger while their parents left and no-one to cook for them. In this consideration, it is an immoral practice by the company to force such employees to work for long hours without considering the fate of the children. Additionally, lack of compensation for the losses incurred by the employees while at work also depicts irresponsibility and unruly behavior of the employers (Powell, 31). Such a scenario indicates that the company had less concern about the welfare and well-being of the employees.
Generally, sweatshop scandals are unacceptable in the civilized world. The case of Gucci Company discussed in the essay is an example of many others that happen around the globe. Therefore, labor laws should be revised to ensure that the cases of employee exploitation are reduced.
Work Cited
Powell, Benjamin. “Sweatshop regulation: Tradeoffs and welfare judgments.” Journal of Business Ethics 151.1 (2018): 29-36. https://philpapers.org/rec/POWSRT
Wang, Li, and Robin Stanley Snell. “A case study of ethical issue at Gucci in Shenzhen, China.” Asian Journal of Business Ethics 2.2 (2013): 173-183. https://scd-resnum.univlyon3.fr/out/memoires/langues/2017_ragazzini_c.pdf