Essay --

Spencer Hsu Ethics in Manufacturing in China. 12/9/13 We often hear in the news how badly factory workers are treated in China. With their low wages, constant overtime, and hazardous work environments (Luk, 2013), it's simple to think that the factory owners are ruthless pigs. Even though conditions are far from perfect, western media have been attacking foreign practices for decades. American companies have mostly been trying to hide from the spotlight blaming the poor outsourced conditions on the foreign companies. The HBR case (Eccles, 2011) shows the challenges Foxconn had faced ever since news broke out about the conditions within the factory. Nevertheless, I wanted to take on the challenge in explaining China’s factory situation. I want to take a different angle about this as I personally know factory workers in China and how crucial it is to have this kind of work in their communities. China is a booming country. With annual GDP growth of over 7.4%, this is a number western countries can only dream of. Every so often there is a news report that hits the wire talking about factory conditions in China. The one that gets focused the most is Foxconn (Hon Hai). Foxconn is the largest and most dominant factory group in the world assembling electronics for global companies including Apple, HP, Dell, and many more. They are publicized as the bad guy every so often and even though they are not perfect, they have made significant improvements once word got out what they were doing to their employees. I could've easily wrote a paper about Hon Hai’s business practices and that it isn't ethical for American companies to outsource to dirt cheap labor with harsh conditions, but that would all be from the naive American eye. Opinions great... ...f a tremendous opportunity this is to that community. Local city governments all over the world fight for companies to create jobs in their district. Because of this intense competition of jobs, they will do whatever it takes to get that factory work there. In the end, the losers aren't American companies or the Chinese people in the factories, it's the original western country factory workers that had lost their jobs and now their city has changed forever. When you have millions of people overseas competing with you for your job willing to work at less than 1/10th of your salary, you better be 10x better than that person. Welcome to the new global economy. Appendix 1) Lorraine Luk (2013). Foxconn Admits to Labor Violations at Factory, WSJ. 2) Robert G. Eccles, George Serafeim, Beiting Cheng (2011). Foxconn Technology Group. HBR, Prod. #: 112002-PDF-ENG