Apple Business Ethics

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Business Ethics: Apple Apple today is continuing to be a leader in the technological field, with its new innovations of various electronics, along with its ability to make other competitors want to follow in their shoes. With over 408 retail stores in 14 different countries, a company this large is forced to have certain morals and social responsibilities in order to make sure they are functioning as a whole and achieving that one common goal specified by the corporation (Forbes.com). Apple’s ethics recently though have came into question, through the attacks that they are facing regarding work within Chinese factories to produce their products and the child labor laws that they are breaking to make that one iPhone or MacBook. Though, one might argue that Apple has a stronger bond and promise with its consumers because they are the ones providing the profit rather than those that they employ within the manufacturing Countries of their products like China. I believe though that treating each person with respect and acting ethical has its advantages in the long run even if that iPhone they are making might be made in six hours instead of four. In addition, the government has began to crack down on social responsibilities of corporations, helping with societies overall perception of large corporations, such as Apple, promoting the idea that there is more to business than just making a profit and being at the top of your industry. The ethical issues at hand that I will be investigating at Apple are the attacks that they are facing in their factories in China regarding child labor laws, along with the tax violations that are occurring within European countries. Not only in Apple are we seeing labor laws being broken in order to guarantee production of a product and cheap labor, but also in Victoria Secret and Nestle. Apple being hit with allegations of having ethical issues is mainly because of their reliance on children to produce the products in Chinese factories. In February, Apple even announced that they found 91 children working at their suppliers in 2012, which is even an increase from the previous year (Huffington Post). The only good out of this was Apple did express responsibility for these actions and acknowledged that they in fact hadn’t been complying with their own companies working code. This issue is interesting because it focuses on the differences between countries and their child labor laws, with the U.S. having specific rules that must be followed when someone under the age of 18 is working (Labor Laws Wikipedia). Where as, China’s labor laws are less strict compared to those in the U.S. due to not enough enforcement by the Government to make workplaces obey them, because without young Chinese labor you wouldn’t see many products on the shelves of stores. In result, China and other countries are forced to break the labor laws in order to make sure they are breaking-even and staying a-float as a business. In addition, it is said that more than half of the suppliers audited by Apple have broken at least one part of the code of conduct since 2007 and if someone were to observe how and where their iPhone came from one would be disturbed. They would most likely see an 11 to 13 year old Chinese male or female working in the factory and working over 40 hours a week, well over the hour limits of the Chinese labor law. According to Mr. Van Heerden, the president of the FLA, he stated that “if you are a 16-year-old girl in a developing country, your best chance of enjoying proper rights is if you get to work at a multinational company”. He also says “the power of their contract is more powerful than the power of law”. This touches on how big corporations have difficulties maintaining their standards particularly in an increasingly global environment. This is mainly because over 8,000 people apply to work in the factories due to not getting the proper education they need in order to have higher paying jobs; in result,
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