Rana Plaza Factory Collapse - Case Study Example

 Rana Plaza Factory Collapse and Application of Ethical Frameworks Introduction Ethics have become highly essential for today’s business practices. Among other reasons, the growing and penetrating impact of business activities in society has necessitated that the role and importance of business ethics should be properly understood; besides, today’s business is sufficiently capable to contribute to society in terms of employment and taxes (Crane and Matten, 2010). However, these reasons are not sufficient to expecting that business owners will comply with the business ethics. Recently, the collapse of Rana Plaza unequivocally hallmarks the unethical attitude and criminal negligence on the part of the owners. In this single incident, more than 1000 human lives were lost. However, different ethical frameworks take different view about this incident in which each framework has its own positive and negative description about the outcome and action involved in the analysis. In the following parts, first brief introduction about Rana Plaza collapse has been provided. It is followed by application of four ethical frameworks (Kantianism, postmodern ethics, utilitarianism and Human Rights) before the conclusion part. Rana Plaza Factory Bangladesh witnessed the deadliest Rana Plaza factory collapse in which more than 1000 factory workers were killed (BBC News Asia, 2013). On April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza factory, situated in Savar District of Dhaka, Bangladesh, collapsed for unknown reasons, killing more than 1,021 factory workers in which bodies of many dead workers were decomposed; the main reason behind the higher death toll was caused by the presence of many factories in the Rana Plaza at the time of collapse; similarly, the absence of respect for human lives can be gauged by the fact that the same building was evacuated a few days as some reports highlighted cracks in the building; later on, the factory workers were ordered by the factory owners to return to their work (BBC News Asia, 2013). This single event has highlighted weaknesses, negligence and incompetence on the part of factory owners and related government departments authorised to ensure the safety and security of workplace environments especially in densely populated areas. At the same time, it can also be highlighted that the role of workers cannot be undermined as they are main stakeholders. This situation has raised a number of ethical questions: Did the factory owners fulfil their legal and moral duty and role for protecting and safeguarding the lives of their workers? Did they provide enough safety and security measures? Did the related government departments or agencies ensure industrial compliance with the related code of conduct? Kantianism Kantianism is based on the system of wrongness or rightness of actions (Wood, 2008). Kantianism refers to respecting individuals with dignity and identifies them as ends (Gardiner, 2011). And, it has also been contended that the moral values should not be influenced by the contingency because when it affects actions, outcome will also be influenced (Patrone, 2005). This ethical framework has numerous perspectives; each has its own rightness or wrongness. For example, in the initial history and prior to the erection of Rana plaza and factories inside the building, unemployment and lawlessness were common in Bangladesh. Consequently, some wealthy individuals decided to decrease unemployment and lawlessness through providing employment by establishing factories inside Rana Plaza. From this perspective, the original intention of the investors was to create employment opportunities in the country. Thereby, they respected humans by providing them decent and respectable employment. In other words, the owners had no intention to experience the reported deaths. On the other hand, it was also ethical duty of owners to provide safe and secure workplace environment to factory workers. For this purpose, they should have maintained strong compliance with the safety and security requirements given by the related regulatory authorities; they should have ensured a regular maintenance of all machines operational in the factory areas. But, that did not happen instead the factory owners ignored all their ethical duties of protecting and safeguarding the lives of factory workers. In this regard, it is important to highlight that the factory owners might have provided attractive wage rates, holiday packages, and other incentives to their factory workers. However, they were not sufficient instead they camouflaged the real ethical duties and responsibilities of the factory owners that should have been performed by them. The related government departments also failed to perform their duty. The reported death toll clearly highlights that the collapse was a cumulative negligence on the part of government officials; they fail to perform their duty by ensuring compliance with the relevant industrial laws and regulations. Postmodern ethics Postmodern ethics has no unified approach to understanding what is or what is not ethical; second, postmodern ethics has no absolute standard for morality but moral are based on individual or society’s preference and tastes; third, moral values or standards are not static in their very nature but they keep changing with the passage of time (Joel, 2008). In this regard, it has also been mentioned that the postmodern ethics are based on the notion of negotiation (Krause, 2005). Additionally, the supporters of the postmodern ethics also contend that the concept of social justice or equality is not universal and have no objective meaning as well (Gray and Webb, 2010). In other words, they are trying to suggest that the postmodern ethics have capacity to reform or transform society from its current shape and make it look more compatible with the today’s relative realities. Cultural issue In Bangladesh, factory owners and the government remain less concerned about the safety and security of factory workers. Consequently, such massive events are common in Bangladesh; people have already showed their acceptance to such events throughout their history. Additionally, people have realised that neither factory owners nor the government is interested to ensure full compliance and implementation of relevant rules and laws for securing life of the factory workers working in day and night shifts in the congested area in Bangladesh. It looks that the whole Bangladeshi nation has silently approved that their lives have no value and remain at higher and grave risk in factories. Based on this understanding, it can be opined that the acceptance of such events by the local people clearly hallmarks the application of postmodern ethics in which it is clearly mentioned that the ethics are not static in their very nature but they are relative and keep changing and create their own ethical system; and in Bangladesh, no mass movement against such events clearly demonstrates that people have embraced this reality as part of their new ethical system. In other words, this event has clearly proven and established that the postmodern ethics are dynamic and consistency of certain events or actions create new paradigms of ethics which provide basic foundations to emerging ethical systems in different parts of the world. Utilitarianism Utilitarianism refers to those acts which are morally correct and generate expected results in the form of happiness and satisfaction; more specifically, this ethical approach is more related to consequentialism which judges actions based on their results rather than actions (Wilkens, 2011). In other words, utilitarianism totally rejects and ignores the rightness or wrongness of action instead more focus is the right or wrong results (Wilkens 2011; Strain and Robinson, 2005). Based on the above description, it can be deduced that utilitarianism talks about ends or results that benefit to overall society by any type of action is taken. If the action brings utility or happiness, it proves that ends justify the means. Consequently, that action can be justified or legitimatized as well if it is related to positive outcomes (i.e. happiness or satisfaction). On the other hand, if actions bring negative outcome, then the results are morally wrong and the same is applicable to the actions as well. In the Rana Plaza collapse, the action did not bring happiness to the majority or all of factory workers working in the factories instead they brought misery and pain and, most of all, loss of human life and human values as well. From this perspective, the theory of utilitarianism clearly stipulates that the results in the shape of misery and loss of human lives have shown that the certain actions are also morally wrong; consequently, these actions cannot be justified under any circumstances. For example, the absence of workplace safety and security measures clearly highlights that the factory owners were not endeavouring to provide safety and security to the workers. In other words, it was highly unethical and constituted a criminal negligence by not putting in place the factory safety and security standards. However, there is another perspective to this story as well. utilitarianism is related to general happiness of masses; and in today’ world, access to the basic human needs, such as food, clothing, health, education, employment and accommodation, are some factors that directly bring happiness to human life and diminishes many common economic and social problems as well. Within this context, it is important to emphasise that the factory owners established factories for doing business and earning legal profit from the business operations. Originally, their intent was not to kill humans but to do legal business and for this business, they needed factory labour so as to ensure equilibrium between demand and supply of factory goods; their objective was to compete in business and utilise the demand gap present in the local and international market. For these objectives, they hired labour with incentives and benefits as well. And due to this, Bangladesh was able to export more factory goods in the international market and that improved the overall living condition and living standard as well. From this aspect, the factory owners’ actions and their results brought positive and utilitarian impact to the general society especially in the shape of improved living standard to many poor and underprivileged segment of the society. Human Rights Ethics and human rights are two sides of the same coin. Human rights are the fundamental privileges highly essential to pass life with respect and dignity including access to food, accommodation, health, beliefs, freedom of expression, and most importantly freedom from violence and abuse (Children’s Rights Alliance for England, 2014). Most significantly, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is applicable to the global community and member states of the United Nations, elaborates the Article 23 insisting that everyone has right to favourable workplace conditions (United Nations, n.d.). In other words, this Article clearly stipulates that employers (i.e. owners) have ethical and legal duty to provide favourable workplace conditions to employees or workers and the same time, it is also inbuilt to this Article that it is the responsibility of the owners to ensure safety and security of human life. However, the factory owners in the Rana Plaza completely ignored and disregarded the Human Rights Act 1998 and its guidelines provided in the Article 23. This gross human rights violation clearly highlights that the owners were unethical and irresponsible when they did not take necessary measures for providing safety and security to the factory workers. In this regard, it is important to understand that the provided ethical frameworks in the shape of Human Rights Act 1998, have no legal backing instead such stipulations are voluntary in their nature; and it is the will and wish of organisations and individuals whether to follow them. If they do not enforce any such measures, no legal action can be taken against them as the Human Rights Act is voluntary in its nature and local labour laws are more effective in countries. Additionally, governance in the developing countries, such as Bangladesh, has been very poor and questionable as the elite have backing from judiciary and government for protecting their illegal actions and criminal negligence as well. Conclusion The collapse of Rana Plaza is an outcome of gross violation of human rights and the negation to the fundamental ethics. It was a legal and ethical responsibility of the factory owners to provide and ensure the safe and secure workplace environment for the factory workers. However, they did not carry out the necessary measures instead they ignored when they ordered the factory workers to return even knowing that cracks had been reported in the entire factory building before the factory building collapse. In this regard, it is important to understand that ethics have no legal support but they are voluntary in their nature. Thereby, owners and individuals cannot be forced to implement them. References BBC News Asia, (2013). Bangladesh Factory Collapse toll passes 1,000. BBC News. Available: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-22476774 . Accessed: 6 November, 2014 Children’s Rights Alliance for England, (2014). What are Human Rights? Available: http://www.crae.org.uk/childrens-rights-the-law/what-are-human-rights/ Accessed: 9 November, 2014. Crane, A., & Matten, D. (2010). Business Ethics. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gardiner, S.M. (2011). A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gray, M., & Webb, S.A. (Eds.). (2010). Ethics and Value Perspectives in Social Work. London: Palgrave Macmillan Joel (2008). Dealing with the Postmodern Ethic. Available: http://thechristianwatershed.com/2008/12/21/dealing-with-the-postmodern-ethic/ Accessed: 6 November, 2014 Krause, D. (2005). Timothy Findley’s Novels between Ethics and Postmodernism. Wurzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann. Patrone, D. (2005). Leaving Morality Where it is: Contingency and the Particularistic Approach to Morality. Oxford: Lexington Books. Strain, J., & Robinson, S. (Eds.). (2005). The Teaching and Practice of Professional Ethics. Leicester: Troubador Publishing United Nations, (n.d.). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations. Available: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/ Accessed: 9 November, 2014 Wilkens, S. (2011). Beyond Bumper Sticker Ethics: An Introduction to Theories of Right and Wrong.2nd edn. Illinois: Inter Varsity Press. Wood, A.W. (2008). Kantian Ethics. 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