Verse of the Day, February 28, 2015

"Yet the Lord set His affection on your ancestors and loved them, and He chose you, their descendants, above all the nations – as it is today." – Deuteronomy 10:15
Copyright © 2015 Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc.

Global Business and Issues With Child Labor and Sweatshops

There is a major issue with sweatshops and child labor if you are going to do business on a global scale. Part of this problem deals with the fact that we have different rules and regulations here in the United States, compared to other parts of the world.

    According to the International Labour Organization, Child labor is work that harms the child's well-being and hinders his or her education, development and future livelihood, and that the minimum age for employment should not be less than the age for completing compulsory schooling, and in general not less than 15 years. They also stated that developing countries have the option to set the minimum age at 14 and 12 for "light work" as a transitional measure. Many developing countries, however, have chosen to adopt the minimum ages of 15 or even 16, so it is essential to check national legislation on minimum age to ensure compliance with the national law.

    It is astounding to read that even the United States is also a part of the problem, despite our current laws. According to businessinsider.com, we ranked 141^st and considered a medium risk alongside Cuba, Georgia, and Kuwait according to a recent study on child labor risks. This article also states that some of the world's worst child labor offenders are for companies that source goods from the developing world: Phillipines, India, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Brazil, among others. In most cases, these children are either put to work to supplement family income. Some are even bought and sold as slaves! In some countries they are even involved in sex trafficking!

    Another issue we have in global business are sweatshops. Sweatshops have a poor working environment, very low pay, and usually no benefits. The United States used to have several sweat shops until we changed our rules and regulations, but currently countries like Indonesia or Sri Lanka don't have such rules and regulations. According to an article on theguardian.com, In Sri Lanka, workers were forced to work up to 130 hours per month in overtime, and anyone asking to leave would be verbally harassed, and in the Philippines, 24% of workers said that they did not receive additional pay for their overtime. Typical hours can be 6am to 8pm.

    Several companies have gotten into a lot of trouble with having a lot of their supplies being outsourced to such places including Nike, Walmart, Ralph Lauren, DKNY, GAP, Converse, Banana Republic, Land's End, Levi's, among many others.

    So what can we do to solve these issues with child labor and sweatshops? Personally, I feel that a company has a right to do whatever they want to do by their own free will even though it can be wrong at times, and we have a right to do business with such places or not after hearing their poor business practices. For example, I remember learning a couple years ago that Abercrombie and Fitch markets provocative clothes to teens, and so it causes me to not want to set foot in the store, rather than push our government to ban them from doing such things. Eventually businesses will figure out why they are losing money. Most people tend to think more legislation and government control is key to getting people and businesses to do the right thing, and I can understand why. However, I think the best way to solve the problem with child labor and sweatshops is awareness. If we make people aware of what these businesses are doing, most people I don't think will do business with these companies, and will stop buying their stuff until the companies changed their habits.

 

SOURCES:

McKenna, Luke Child Labor Is Making A Disturbing Resurgence Around The World businessinsider.com, 06 Jan. 2012. Web. 11 Feb. 2015

Business and Child Labour ilo.org, 01 Sep. 2010. Web. 11 Feb. 2015

Nisen, Max How Nike Solved Its Sweatshop Problem businessinsider.com, 09 May. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2015

Bunting, Madeleine Sweatshops are still supplying high street brands theguardian.com, 28 Apr. 2011. Web. 11 Feb. 2015

Verse of the Day, February 27, 2015

"Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures." – Psalm 119:90

Copyright © 2015 Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc.

Quote of The Day, February 24, 2015

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them." – Ayn Rand

©2015 Andrew Wilkow / The Wilkow Majority

Verse of The Day, February 24, 2015

"Share each other's burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ." – Galatians 6:2

©2015 YouVersion

Verse of the Day, February 21, 2015

Ephesians 4:26, 4:27 - "Be Ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil."

©YouVersion ® - The Bible App™

Benefits In Owning A Tablet

Recently I had decided to purchase a Tablet PC. Up until the time I made my purchase, I kept thinking to myself, "Why do I really need one? What would I use it for when everything I can do on it I can do on my phone?"
Well, here is exactly the benefits of purchasing a Tablet PC:

1. Obviously the bigger screen – you can see things better on it compared to a phone screen
2. It can be your E-Reader device: I have started using mine to do my daily bible study. It's much more portable and easier to carry with you and very light. And when you're working out of a book trying to learn computer software, sometimes those pages in those big bulky books don't want to stay. Even the smaller computer books pages don't want to stay. I can lean my Tablet on something, open the e-book copy of that particular book, and pages in the e-book will stay, lol!
3. Doing some homework assignments: In one class of mine this semester we have study guides to save. I've been printing them off in order to follow along with it to fill out the answers while reading the chapters. Not anymore. I can view the study guide on the tablet and fill out the answers as necessary while reading the chapter.
4. Playing games: you can play games on it.
5. Keeping track of appointments/meetngs: you can add to your calendar.
6. Checking e-mail, watching tv, taking notes, etc: all kinds of fun stuff you can do on it – and you don't even have to spend all day in your computer chair.
7. You can access files on your main computer on certain tablets: My tablet has Windows 8.1, so does my laptop. Through sharing certain folders, I can access any file I wanted on my tablet over a wifi connection – as long as my laptop is in that wireless network range.
   
    

Samsung and other companies have also come up with a device called a "Smart Watch." You can sync this thing to your phone and it will tell you when you got a text or phone call along with the time. Seems like a nifty device, but I don't think I'd want one, although it would be kind of neat to have something telling me I have a call when my phone isn't nearby for me to hear it, but also depends on the range they have – if my phone is too far away will it still tell me I have a text or call?

Dreams from the Digital Darkroom — 25 Years of Photoshop

Dreams from the Digital Darkroom — 25 Years of Photoshop. BY RUSSELL BRADY 

On February 19, 1990, an unknown software product calledPhotoshop arrived on store shelves, offering entirely new ways for professional photographers and designers to modify and create digital images. At the time, its creators could never have imagined just how influential Photoshop would become, eventually being used in industries as diverse as publishing, advertising, fine art, web design, film, medicine, law enforcement, fashion, government, video games, and countless other fields.

Sorry That I Been Away So Long

Hello to all of my fans and followers! I'm sorry that I been away for so long! I have been moving all of my blog posts to Microsoft Word since Windows Live Writer is no longer being updated, and half of the plug-ins I used with it won't work anymore, I decided to just switch over to using MS Word's blog post feature. I didn't want to make more posts to have to move into different folders later, so I decided it was best and easier to not make anymore posts in the meantime until I was finished converting the old posts over.
I know what you're thinking: Why convert them if they are already posted anyway? Well, the reason being is because I don't want to keep Windows Live Writer installed if I can't really do much with the plug-ins with it, and in a lot of recent posts done on Windows Live Writer, I had to publish it as a draft and go onto the blog sites to publish them in order for them to be automatically shared. And for posterity purposes, if I uninstall LiveWriter, I can't view the blog posts on my computer later if I wanted, so I needed to convert them to Word documents.
So here I am, I'm back for your blog viewing pleasure, for those of you who have missed seeing my posts these past few months!

If It’s Legal, Is It Ethical?

This question has been asked numerous times in the past: If it's legal, than is it ethical? I personally don't believe that just because something is legal to do, doesn't make it always the right thing or ethical to do. For example: Alcohol consumption is perfectly legal, but does that mean its ok to become drunks? Of course not. Just like certain instances throughout history that were perfectly legal, but weren't ethical: Slavery was perfectly fine until the US Constitution abolished it in 1865 when the 13^th amendment was created. And it wasn't until the Fair Labor Standards Act passed in 1938 that banned children working in mines, textile mills, and glass factories! Before then, children as young as 10 years old worked. Women also weren't able to vote until 1920, and blacks weren't able to vote until the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Before these years, it was perfectly legal to have slaves, have children as workers, and let only white men vote. But just because it was legal does not make it right.
    Today, lying, cheating, and breaking promises is not against the law, but is it the right thing to do in any event? No. You lose all of your credibility and have no integrity when you do such things.
    Sometimes it's difficult to figure out what is ethical when it's not illegal because there is no rulebook. Ethics are the products of our values and upbringings.
    Personally, I don't agree with all the laws we have today because it takes away the freedoms our companies have and the freedoms we have, which makes this country so great. I feel people and companies need to be ethically responsible. However, I also understand why the laws are in place as well: to keep wrong things that happened in the past from happening again. Without the laws, people will do whatever they want – even though it's wrong.
    In closing, just because it's legal doesn't make it ethical. We as a people should use our better judgment. We all know what is right from what is wrong and therefore need to always do the right thing, and not be so much concerned about what's written in the law books, just be concerned about doing the right thing.

 

SOURCES:

Weinstein, Bruce, Ph.D. If It's Legal, It's Ethical, Right? Bloomberg Business Week, 2007. Web. 23 Jan. 2015

 

MacDonald, Chris, Ph.D. What's Legal Isn't Always Ethical. The Business Ethics Blog, 2011.

    Web. 23 Jan. 2015

 

It's Legal So It's Ethical…Right? Lawyer's Weekly, 30 May 2012. Web. 23 Jan. 2015