Unions, outsourcing, health insurance, sweatshops, pensions - labor issues run the gamut from the dramatic to the relatively mundane. Multinational corporations require massive numbers of employees to make their machinery to run and to make a profit. Exploitation seems often to be a part of business. From the murders of union officials in Colombia, to Wal-Mart fighting on state courts against laws requiring it to provide minimum amounts of health insurance benefits to its workers, modern business seems to be a war between those who do the work and those who sign the checks.
The Madras Aluminium Company Ltd. (MALCO) is part of Vedanta Resources, a London listed metals and mining major with Aluminium, Copper and Zinc operations in UK, India and Australia. MALCO is a primary Aluminium producer in South India with operations encompassing mining, refining, smelting and power generation.
How has corporate social responsibility developed in the mobile phone industry in recent years and are social and environmental standards improving as fast as the product applications? This briefing will include a follow up on the ‘High Cost of Calling: Critical Issues in the Mobile Phone Industry’ report4, with the focus mainly on sourcing policies and practices and supply chain responsibility of the major brand companies.
This report examines the ICT sector, a relatively young sector that often portrays itself with a clean image of highly skilled jobs and ‘clean rooms’ where professionals work in a controlled and dust-free environment.
Poor working conditions exist in factories owned by subcontractors for Acer and Fujitsu Siemens Computers. Employees work long days in an unhealthy environment for a wage that is insufficient to live on. Such is the situation revealed in research conducted by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) on the ICT hardware sector.
SOMO conducted research in nine factories in China and the Philippines that supply parts for Acer and Fujitsu Siemens Computers. Working conditions in these factories are simply appalling.
One of the key companies in the family promoted Jindal Group, JSPL has grown from a moderately performing company in the steel sector to the largest sponge iron manufacturer in the world. Steered by Naveen Jindal, a Member of Parliament (2009), and one of four heirs to the business founded by his father, O.P. Jindal, JSPL realised a 2008 turnover in excess of $2 billion (Indian Rupee 100 billion. US $1 = Rs.
Ford, one of the great names of the auto industry, has played a major role in shaping both the horizons of everyday life and the conditions of toil on the job. Founder Henry Ford transformed automobiles from an amusement for the wealthy to a conveyance for the common person, while in his workplaces he introduced mass production on an unprecedented scale. Ford fell behind General Motors in the 1920s and experienced decades of management instability.
Nike is the world's leading supplier of athletic shoes, apparel and sports equipment with revenue in excess of $16 billion USD in 2007. Operating in more than 160 countries around the globe Nike and is subsidiaries can be found in most shoe retailing stores. In addition to manufacturing their products Nike also runs a chain of retail stores known as Niketown.
Sappi Ltd., a global player in the pulp and paper industry, is headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa. Sappi Ltd is comprised of two divisions: Sappi Fine Paper (domiciled in London), and Sappi Forest Products (domiciled in Johannesburg), and employs some 16,000 people in Southern Africa, North America, and Europe; it bills itself as "the world's leading producer of coated fine paper and chemical cellulose" on its corporate website.
Dole Food Company, Inc. is the world's largest producer of fruits and vegetables such as bananas and pineapples, and also produces cut flowers and nuts. Dole has a history of operating plantations in the US and across the globe, often creating poor working conditions and unsafe environmental conditions such as pesticide use, soil erosion and deforestation.
Toyota used its professed obsession with quality and efficiency to turn itself into the world’s leading automaker, but a safety scandal that erupted in early 2010 has seriously damaged the company's reputation. Although the Japanese-headquartered company has production and sales operations around the world, its success was based to a great degree in the United States, where it built a series of heavily subsidized plants, and took advantage of the weakened condition of Detroit’s Big Three to capture market share.
