Ethical Practices in Marketing

.

Ethical Practices in Manufacture and Merchandising

When you go shopping, do you ever consider the working conditions of the employees who manufacture the products you are purchasing? Or the environmental impacts of the factories that make those items?

Many large retailers in Canada have standards to which the suppliers of their merchandise must adhere if they desire to sell their products in their stores. From one retail chain to the next, the wording of their “Code of Business Conduct & Ethics” or “Code of Vendor Conduct”, call it what they may, is all but identical. Here is a sample:

This list of regulations are, at most times, available to the buying public, it's good PR. What they are trying to say is, “See what good corporate citizens we are!” “You can shop with ethical confidence”. “We do not exploit cheap labor.” “We do not tolerate discrimination.” “We care about the environment”.

Take note of who these regulations apply to, the supplier or importer who have absolutely no problem meeting the retailers standards, -providing that those standards do not apply to the actual manufacturer. Even then, they are protected through the clause, “- laws of their country of operation”. If these regulations were actually enforced; then companies such as, Walmart, The Gap, Home Depot, Canadian Tire, and many others, would not carry products manufactured in the following countries:

• Haiti; where factory workers are paid only six cents each for shirts that sell in Canada for $20.00 and up. (Do you own a Disney shirt?)
• El Salvador; where workers were subjected to shifts up to 18 hours long and undergo forced pregnancy tests. (Both The Gap and Liz Claibourne factories have been guilty of using child labor.)
• Southern China; where the minimum wage is 25 cents per hour, workers have 10 –12 hour shifts and children as young as 13 are employed. (Nike pays many pro athletes more to wear their products than the workers who made them.)
• China; where torture and deaths of many Falun Gong adherents as a result of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution.
• India; where there is employment of some 55 million children, other than those working directly for their parents.
• Malaysia and Indonesia; where they deny basic protections to migrant workers and exclude household workers. Women, are at grave risk of abuse and exploitation, treats them like tradeable goods, with almost no guarantees for their rights.
• Bangladesh; where the current basis minimum wage for garment workers, fixed around twelve years ago, stands at 600 Bangladeshi Taka (Tk) per month (Can$10), one of the lowest minimum wages in the world. (Wal-Mart exposed. for using child labor at two factories in Bangladesh.)
• Philippines; where there is a pattern of harassment and violence against workers, labor leaders and human rights promoters.
• The Marshall Islands; where there is no legislation concerning maximum hours of work or occupational safety and health standards.
• Palau; where there is no minimum age for employment.
• Saudi Arabia; where the country forbids freedom of association, the right to organize and collective bargaining.
• Colombia; where murder, threats, arbitrary detention, kidnapping, torture and disappearances are associated with the Uribe government. (Free trade talks legitimize violence in Colombia)
• Central America; where working conditions in the many sweatshops are precarious and hostile, and ignore the human rights of workers.

Add up these atrocities, how do Canadian manufacturers compete? Canada must have an Even Economic Playing Field.

.