Walmart faces ethical dilemmas after fire deaths in Bangladesh factory

There are serious problems facing Walmart and Apple corporations over supply chain control and corporate social responsibilities

 

 

Last year saw Apple forced to address the ugly consequences of working practices down its supply chain at Foxconn manufacturing sites in China which had led to worker suicides. Now Walmart faces criticisms over its lack of controls over a supplier in The Tazreen fashions plant in Bangladesh whose factory fire at resulted in the death of over a hundred employees. The plant had failed safety inspections in 2011 and earlier in 2012. According to the New York Times, Walmart faces the dilemma of seeking the lowest prices from suppliers globally to deliver low price products while projecting a corporate image of high ethical standards and corporate social responsibility. In December [2012], Walmart’s CEO Michael T. Duke faced angry protesters in New York, at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting According to the New York Times:

Mr. Duke’s reassurances that Walmart enforces high standards in the global clothing industry appear to be contradicted by inspection reports it requested and some of Walmart’s own internal communications. Just two weeks before, a top Walmart executive acknowledged in an e-mail to a group of retailers that the industry’s safety monitoring system was seriously flawed. “Fire and electrical safety aspects are not currently adequately covered in ethical sourcing audits,” Rajan Kamalanathan, the executive, wrote to other board members of the Global Social Compliance Program, a business-led group focused on improving the supply chain. But even as the deadly Nov. 24 fire at the Tazreen factory has stirred soul-searching inside and outside the apparel industry about the effectiveness of its global factory monitoring system, some nonprofit groups say Walmart has shown little interest in changing the existing practice of demanding that the factories, often operating at razor-thin margins, meet fire safety standards at their own cost.

The evils of globalization?

 

The tragic fire in Tazreen, and the suicides at Foxconn factories, are seen by some as evidence of the evils of the globalization and the workings of supply chains. Others argue that the examples are flaws that can be put right in a system that is helping in the development and economic health of emerging nations. Neither argument is adequate of itself. The rhetoric of corporate social responsibility too often appears to speak more of espoused beliefs than of leadership actions.

If I ruled the [Walmart] world …

“What if I were leader of the Walmart world?” One answer: I would become head of the great modern day church that provideth food to all its followers. And the followers find that the food is always good. Nor is the tithe too high a change. Should I listen to those who say that the good food and low tithes are through the labours of slaves who are not welcome in the churches of Walmark? Such a leader would need a new vision.

 

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Monday 3rd November 2014

Walmart rethinks its global strategy. Cuts back its Japanese operations

 

Tuesday 27th January 2015

Taming third party risks.  Walmart compliance officer considers that assessing third party risks is nearly uncharted territory.

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ONE THOUSAND POSTS: TEN INSPIRING WOMEN LEADERS

Leaders We Deserve has always regretted the gender bias in leadership cases. For our one thousandth post, here are ten female leaders in political life who deserve mention

Maybe this the shortest blog post ever in Leaders we deserve, but one pointing to a a serious bias in leadership cases. <a href="Takepart website“>The list of ten political leaders originally appeared on the Take Part web site which supplies excellent images of all ten women. They represent various shades of political opinion, sexual orientation, private and public controversies, education, background, and numbers of assassination attempts survived. Your editor intends to include them in the next edition of the textbook Dilemmas of Leadership.

How many of the leaders can you match with their countries without further web-surfing?

The Leaders:

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
Angela Merkel
Dalia Grybauskaite
Dilma Rousseff
Johanna Sigurdardottir
Sheikh Hasina Wajed
Tarja Halonen
Laura Chinchilla
Julia Gillard
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

The Countries:
Argentina
Australia
Bangladesh
Brazil
Costa Rica
Finland
Germany
Iceland
Liberia
Lithuania

Acknowledgements

Takepart website where you can find images of all ten leaders.

Sean Gardner ‏@2morrowknight for his tweet which alerted me to the site.

There’s too much news out there

I’ve been distracted from my customary scan of news sources recently. Now that normal service is being resumed, I have noticed how many leadership stories that are reported every day

This week I would have liked to have followed-up on at least six stories:

The Bangladesh factory tragedy

Hundreds of workers died in a factory building collapse and subsequent fire. The over-simple treatment in the UK focuses on the poor pay and wage conditions of those in the Bangladeshi ‘sweat shops’. [Primark is said to be offering hardship aid to its supplier]. The globalising drive for cheap sources of supply is also being scrutinized. One dilemma to be addressed is the economic benefits of international trade as a country develops.

Krugman and Keynes

Paul Krugman continues to express the neo-Keynesian view that austerity programmes are inadequate for dealing with the exceptional social hardships of a severe recession. He believes the majority of economic commentators are missing the point. Ironically, Keynes was himself frustrated that conventional wisdom of the time seemed unable to appreciate his arguments. Krugman feels pretty much the same, offering this rebuttal of one counter argument. Economies, he says, are not like families. Income and spending are inter-dependent. If we all cut spending our incomes will fall too. He also rejects the idea that this is a leftist spending-spree mentality, but necessary a short-term measure for exceptional economic times.

Alfredo Saenz

Then there was the surprise retirement of Santander chief Alfredo Saenz who is expected to collect a goodbye present of around $100,000,000 rather than cop an investigation into his activities by the Supreme Court .

UKIP

Back in the UK, local elections this week [Thursday May 4th 2012] are seen as a measure of protest votes away from the traditional political parties. The anti-immigration and (even more anti – European Union) party UKIP is tipped to poll well under the leadership of its somewhat unconventional and ebullient Nigel Farage, who is also standing for Parliament in a by-election.

Larry David and his mother

An article by American humourist Larry David looked at how his mother would have reacted to his being arrested for terrorist offenses. It provoked a storm of protests. When told he had confessed she replied “well he probably didn’t want anyone else to suffer.” The article saves me from going any further with an idea I had for a blog which was going to be entitled “every mother is a potential terrorist”.

Reginald D Hunter

Anti-racist comedian Reginald D Hunter is in trouble for using racist language at a Football Association dinner. Or at least I thought it was humour with a political intent, in the tradition of Lenny Bruce.

Coping with overload

This ‘six for the price of one’ blog post is my attempt to cope with information overload. Hope you liked it. Normal service, as they say, may be resumed shortly…