ORG439 1 Culture and Ethics - Universitetet i Agder … · they found jobs in the garment industry. On the #fth "oor of Rana Plaza, Begum stitched zips and pockets on to jeans for

ORG439 1 Culture and Ethics

Oppgaver Oppgavetype Vurdering

1 ORG439, front page Flervalg Automatisk poengsum

2 ORG439, question 1 Skriveoppgave Manuell poengsum



ORG439 1 Culture and Ethics

Starttidspunkt: 04.12.2015 08:45Sluttidspunkt: 04.12.2015 13:45

PDF opprettet 01.02.2016 14:31Opprettet av Kristina AndersenAntall sider 13

1

Seksjon 1

1 OPPGAVE

ORG439, front pageCourse code: ORG 439Course name: Culture and ethics Date: 4 December 2015Duration: 5 hours Resources allowed: Dictionaries, all languages. Notes: Please answer all three questions. Answers can be in either English or Norwegian.This exam uses the Rana Plaza Factory as case: A factory building outside Dhaka, Bangladesh,collapsed in 2013, killing more than 1,000 workers in the deadliest disaster in the history of thegarment industry. -----------------------------Sometimes professors ask for exam answers that can be used for teaching purposes, but in orderfor this to take place, the university needs your consent.Do you grant the University of Agder permission to use your exam answer for teaching purposes?

YesNo

2 OPPGAVE

ORG439, question 1How can we reason ethically about the following issue: Should European fashion companiescontinue ordering clothing from suppliers in Bangladesh?You may find the attached news item helpful as a reminder of the case.

Please write you answer here

Denne oppgaven inneholder en PDF. Se neste side.

ORG439 1 Culture and Ethics Page 2 av 13

Bangladesh factory collapse leaves trail ofshattered livesIn the neighbourhood where many workers lived, survivors struggle with grief forlost relatives and the threat of destitution

Jason Burke in SavarThursday 6 June 2013 13.37 BST

Hizlapara is a neighbourhood of cement tenements and narrow dirt lanes inthe scruffy town of Savar on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh's chaoticcapital. It is a quiet area, full of hardworking families and young couples whogo to bed early and save hard. It is quieter than ever now.

A 20-minute walk away, a trough full of foul water and debris is all that remains of theRana Plaza, an eight-storey factory producing cheap clothes for the west, whichcollapsed six weeks ago.

More than 1,100 people died in the disaster, one of the world's worst industrialaccidents, and many came from Hizlapara. Every morning the workers walkedthrough its streets to clock in at 8am, climb the single narrow stairwell and startstitching trousers, T-shirts, shorts and sweatshirts for delivery to Europeanhigh-street retailers. Most returned long after dark.

Five of the 20 families living at 62A Shobuj Bagh, a lane in Hizlapara, have sufferedsome kind of loss. On the ground floor Shima, 25, a seamstress who worked on thefifth floor of the Rana Plaza, lives with her husband, who is also a garment worker. Atnight she wakes screaming with nightmares about falling or being buried. She dreamstoo of her best friend, Rekha, who lived nearby and stitched and sewed alongside her.She died when vibrations from a generator brought down the illegally built upperfloors of the factory on to the workshops below.

Then there is Lisa, a once sociable 19-year-old who worked as a helper for 3,000 taka(£25) a month on the sixth floor of Rana Plaza. She is still in pain from the injuries shesustained in the collapse and now barely talks.

Others at 62A have lost the income that shielded them from abject poverty. They sitin the courtyard talking dubiously of finding new jobs and of returning to the villageswhere they grew up but which, after flooding and land disputes, they know can nolonger provide them with a living.

Mohammed Shaheen, 18, from 59B Shobuj Bagh, is dead. He too worked on the sixthfloor, cleaning and doing odd jobs. "About 30 to 35 of my friends were killed," his

Bangladesh factory collapse leaves trail of shattered lives | Wo... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/bangladesh-f...

1 av 4 30.11.15 11:18


brother, Ramzan Ali, 20, said.

Bonma, 20, and Tanzina, 18, lived next door, at 60B. They were serious, pious girlswho said their prayers and worked hard. One is missing, the other confirmed dead.Like most of the 3,500 workers at Rana Plaza, they had been sent home the day beforethe collapse, when the factory was shut as a result of an "electrical problem" – in factlarge cracks were being examined by an engineer – and they were still in bed whentheir supervisor turned up on their doorstep the next morning to call them into work.

"My mother heard the supervisor tell them: 'If you don't go to work, you won't getany pay at all,'" their older sister recalled. "Anything they wanted, like makeup orclothes, they would borrow from me, rather than spend any of their wages." Bonma'smarriage to a man from the neighbourhood, chosen by her parents, was to take placein May.

Many survivors of the Rana Plaza collapse talk about compensation. Bangladesh hasmade huge economic progress since the days when it was a byword for humandisaster, dubbed a basket case by Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state.The country of 160 million is on track to meet many of its international benchmarksin areas such as maternal mortality and sanitation.

But it has much ground to make up. Literacy is a miserable 59% and, as elsewhere insouth Asia, any incremental progress is fragile and uneven. For almost every familywhose lives are better, there is one whose lives are unchanged or in many casesconsiderably worse.

Most of the victims of the Rana Plaza collapse have had their hospital expenses paidby the government or the Bangladesh Garment and Exporters Association (BMGEA),an industry body representing owners. Many families have received an immediatepayment of 20,000 taka to cover basic funeral expenses. As most of the victims havebeen buried in distant ancestral villages, the money is barely adequate, their relativessay.

A further sum of between 100,000 and 600,000 taka is to be disbursed by thegovernment to bereaved families at an unspecified date. Some cash has been pledgedby big western retailers such as Primark and Matalan, which sourced goods from RanaPlaza.

The BMGEA has undertaken to pay survivors their outstanding salary for the monthof the collapse, plus a month's pay for every year worked at Rana Plaza, but fewappear to have received the full amount due. On Wednesday police used teargas, liveammunition and baton charges to break up a demonstration by former workers inSavar.

Atiqul Islam, the director of the BGMEA, said it was a very hard time for the industry."We have to learn lessons and all get together – retailers, buyers, suppliers – and seehow we can go forward," he told the Guardian.

The garment industry in Bangladesh employs about 3.5 million people, mainly young


2 av 4 30.11.15 11:18


women, and more than four-fifths of its $20bn (£13bn) production goes to the west.Pay at factories is better than other industries and despite long hours, abuse fromemployers, poor job security and danger, sewing is less arduous than alternativeemployment such as agricultural labour, construction work, cleaning homes orship-breaking.

So in Shobuj Bagh there are two great fears: that a telephone call will bring news ofanother collapse; and that the western buyers will go elsewhere and the jobs that aretheir first tenuous step out of abject poverty will disappear. There are already signsthat the latter fear may be realised as retailers seek suppliers who pose less of areputational risk. As for the former fear, most try to ignore the risk.

Asma, 45, is yet to identify the remains of her 25-year-old daughter, Moyna, whoworked at Rana Plaza. Her four remaining children leave home every morning forwork in nearby garment factories. They earn monthly wages of up to 8,000 taka each.

Asma left her village and flooded land seven years ago to seek a better life in thecapital. The combined earnings of the family will leave enough to educate hergrandchildren, she hopes.

"I try not to worry [about another accident]. It won't change anything. You have tomake a living. You have to think of the future," she said.

For some victims of the collapse on 24 April, that future is bleak indeed. Pakhi Begumalso lives in Shobuj Bagh. With her husband and two daughters, aged nine and seven,she left their village in the south-west five years ago. The couple were happy whenthey found jobs in the garment industry. On the fifth floor of Rana Plaza, Begumstitched zips and pockets on to jeans for 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Sheis now being cared for in the nearby Enam hospital.

Begum had tried to stay at home on the day of the collapse amid concerns over thecracks in the wall of the building, but her manager threatened to dock her an entiremonth's pay. So she went to work.

"When it happened, it was very fast. I saw people running and then a huge holeopened up in the floor and I fell into it. Then it was all dark, like a grave. A concretebeam was across my legs and another on my side so I couldn't move. I was screamingand praying," Begum said.

Around her, the 25-year-old could hear voices. Some came from outside. After 36hours, rescuers reached her. But lifting her from the rubble was impossible. The beamhad crushed her legs, trapping her.

"I was talking to them. I told the rescuers to cut my legs. They refused. We argued. Iwas telling them to do it. Then someone volunteered. First he did the right leg. Theanaesthetics did not work properly so I screamed. He said: 'Don't scream or I can'twork.' So I didn't scream when they cut again," she recalled.

Begum blames Sohel Rana, the owner of the factory and a local politician known for


3 av 4 30.11.15 11:18


More features

TopicsBangladesh

Save for later Article savedReuse this content

his connections with local municipal authorities, for the tragedy. He has beendetained and faces a possible life sentence.

"Rana is to blame. He knew there were problems, but sent us back in there," Begumsaid. "The prime minister said I will get rehabilitation and help and a salary all my life,but I doubt it will happen. Maybe I will go to my village and live there."

People still gather outside the now-empty plot where the Rana Plaza stood. Many arerelatives of victims: an adolescent charged by a desperate grandmother with gettingthe form or signature that would bring compensation for his dead father; a small childwho insists on being brought every day because he has been told his mother may yetbe found.

Any westerner is mistaken for a representative of one of the major brands andimmediately surrounded by supplicants.

A woman kneels in the dirt, clinging to the yellow barriers barring access to the site.Sobbing, she gasps in the thick, humid air, then howls the name of her daughter againand again.


4 av 4 30.11.15 11:18


3 OPPGAVE

ORG439, question 2The Italian Benetton Group was one of the global companies that had orders being produced bysuppliers at the Rana Plaza when the building collapsed. The new Benetton CEO, Marco Airoldi,wants to improve Benettons performance. Outline three ways (ethical, risk and strategic) thatBenetton can incorporate Corporate Social Responsibility into its future global operations anddiscuss which way is most appropriate for Benetton. You may find the attached news item about Benetton helpful.

Fill in your answer here

Denne oppgaven inneholder en PDF. Se neste side.


Share Author alerts Print Clip Gift Article Comments

April 20, 2015 4:25 pm

Amy Kazmin

The Italian apparel company has changed its approach to itsresponsibilities towards garment workers

Benetton is renowned for visually striking and provocative adverts focusing on socialcauses such as HIV/Aids or race relations. But in February the Italian apparel companybecame the target of a campaign that pointedly imitated the multicultural style of its

Be first to use FT.com’s new prototype site. Opt in here (you can opt out atany time).

How Benetton faced up to the aftermath ofRana Plaza

©AFP

How Benetton faced up to the aftermath of Rana Plaza - FT.com http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f9d84f0e-e509-11e4-8b61-00...

1 av 5 30.11.15 11:32


United Colors of Benetton marketing.

The billboard — mounted on a van and driven round Treviso, home of Benetton’s globalheadquarters, for several days — was the handiwork of activists dismayed by its failure topay into a compensation fund for victims of the collapse of the Rana Plaza garmentfactory building in Bangladesh in 2013.

“Benetton: show your true colours,” demanded the slogan.The photograph on the billboard was of a Bangladeshi woman on a stretcher, four daysafter being rescued from the rubble of the building on the outskirts of Dhaka, theBangladesh capital. More than 1,100 people were killed in the collapse, the worstindustrial accident ever to hit the garment industry, and nearly 2,400 were injured,many severely.

Marco Airoldi, the former Boston Consulting Group partner who took charge asBenetton’s chief executive in May 2014, just over a year after the disaster, concedes thatthe activists’ campaign was “a bit of a kick”. Waged at some of Benetton’s Europeanstores and on social media, as well as on the streets of Treviso, it drove home the need forthe Italian company to deal with unfinished business connected to Rana Plaza, fromwhich it sourced about 266,000 shirts in the six months before the tragedy.

Now Mr Airoldi hopes Benetton is closing a chapter in the story with its move last weekto pay $1.1m into The Rana Plaza Trust Fund, just ahead of the second anniversary of thedisaster on Friday. The fund was set up under the International Labour Organisation, theUN agency that deals with labour issues, to raise money to compensate families of thosekilled in the disaster, and the injured and traumatised survivors, for lost earnings andmedical expenses.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, Benetton had paid $500,000 to BRAC, arespected Bangladeshi non-governmental organisation, to help victims access urgentmedical care and longer-term support.

Benetton’s $1.1m announcement fell short of the $5m western labour unions and socialactivists had hoped it would pay given Benetton’s image as a socially conscious brand.But Mr Airoldi insists it has fulfilled its responsibility.

“We are now ready to move to somethingelse,” he says, in an interview in New Delhi.“Does it mean the issue of the Rana Plazafund is closed? No. But I think it is closed asfar as Benetton is concerned. We not onlydid what a brand like ours was expected to


2 av 5 30.11.15 11:32


Benetton chief executive Marco Airoldi

do. But I think we did more.”

Yet in its evolving response over the past twoyears, Benetton has often seemed caught

between its professed humanitarian ideals, and the cold calculations of an organisationstruggling to overhaul itself to compete more effectively with newer, nimbler rivals.

“They have the brand that says, ‘We really believe in a better world’,” says Dalia Hashad,an activist with Avaaz, the web-based activist group behind the “show your true colours”campaign. “This was an opportunity for them to step up and show us that they really livethe principles that they push publicly.”

The eight-storey Rana Plaza housed five factories making shirts, trousers and leggingsfor nearly 30 western retailers and brands, including Primark, Loblaw, Walmart, Mangoand The Children’s Place. It collapsed on April 24, 2013, after big cracks developed theday before. Officials had ordered an evacuation, but around 3,500 garment workers hadbeen sent back to their sewing machines by deadline-conscious bosses.

Benetton’s initial handling of the aftermath was clumsy. After media reports that afactory in the building was a Benetton supplier, it issued a forceful denial. Five days later,it had to admit it had sourced items from one factory, but claimed the manufacturer hadbeen removed from its approved supplier list. In fact, New Wave Style had been makingshirts for Benetton on a subcontract issued with the company’s knowledge and approval.The last of the shirts made for it were shipped on April 1.

Following the collapse, Benetton rapidly signed up to the Accord on Fire and BuildingSafety in Bangladesh, a joint initiative of western European brands and unions set up toverify the structural integrity of Bangladeshi garment factories producing for theparticipating companies. It also donated to BRAC for victims’ relief. But when Mr Airolditook the helm at Benetton, which was in the middle of a painful restructuring after thewithdrawal of the Benetton family from active management, he was dismayed at how theissue of victims’ compensation had played out.

Immediately after the disaster, the ILO led a process, with the backing of unions andbrands, to assess claims for medical care and lost wages. It concluded that $30m was theminimum required. But western companies argued over which of them should pay, andhow much. In the end, payments were voluntary, with no guidelines. Brands coulddonate without publicly disclosing the size of their contribution.

“We accept and agree that it’s a shared responsibility for those who were there,” MrAiroldi says. “But the odd thing was you defined an amount, then decided only voluntarycontributions, without any guidance, and they are undisclosed. Only a miracle would


3 av 5 30.11.15 11:32


have brought $30m.”

After the campaign by Avaaz, Benetton finally asked PwC, the professional services firm,to advise it on a fair payment to the compensation fund. PwC estimated that Benettontook less than 2 per cent of Rana Plaza factories’ total output in the year before thecollapse, and recommended a $550,000 contribution, which Benetton doubled.

Mr Airoldi says other buyers from Rana Plaza factories should assess their responsibility,and pay accordingly. “We did what we think is right,” he says. “We would have beenrelieved at finding criteria we could adhere too, but not having found them, we had tocreate it.”

Meanwhile, Benetton says it is consolidating and upgrading its supply chain andassessing the structural integrity of suppliers’ buildings in other developing countries. MrAiroldi hopes to collaborate with other western brands, including rivals, on safetyinitiatives.

As he points out, they have worked together in Bangladesh since Rana Plaza. “Under thepressure of the emergency, brands have been forced to co-operate,” he says. “Myintention is to intensify our relationship with them on these issues, which are notcompetitive but co-operative issues. We cannot change the world alone, we need tochange the world together.”

Payments: How to give victims their due?

Typically after industrial accidents in developing countries such as Bangladesh, image-conscious western

brands linked to the incidents donate to local non-governmental organisations to fund relief and rehabilitation

projects for victims.

But over the past decade of industrial accidents in Bangladesh, labour unions have been pushing to ensure

victims receive not charity — or not just charity — but cash compensation, which they are entitled to under

the International Labour Organisation convention on benefits after at-work injuries.

With charity, donated funds are given to intermediaries, who decide on behalf of the victims what they need

most or, often, what the donors’ chosen organisation is best able to provide. But compensation — for

medical expenses and lost earnings — puts cash in the hands of accident victims, or to the next of kin of

those whose injuries were fatal.

Companies tend to prefer donating to charities, which they feel avoids any assumption of their responsibility

or liability for a disaster. But unions say victims of industrial accidents have a right to cash compensation,

which gives them the opportunity to decide how best to restart their lives.


4 av 5 30.11.15 11:32


Printed from: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f9d84f0e-e509-11e4-8b61-00144feab7de.html

Print a single copy of this article for personal use. Contact us if you wish to print more to distribute to others.

© THE FINANCIAL TIMES LTD 2015 FT and ‘Financial Times’ are trademarks of The FinancialTimes Ltd.

RELATED TOPICS Asia Manufacturing

Share Author alerts Print Clip Gift Article Comments

Tesco settles class-actionlawsuit

Imperial College launchessustainability degree

Esteves arrest deepensPetrobras scandal


5 av 5 30.11.15 11:32


4 OPPGAVE

ORG439, question 3In Hofstede’s book ’Culture and organizations’ Bangladesh is ranked as nr 12 and Italy is rankedas nr 51 on a ranking of 1-76 where 1 implies high power distance. Moreover, in Hofstede’sbook ’Culture and organizations’ Italy is ranked nr 9 and Bangladesh nr 63 on a ranking 1-76where 1 implies high scores for individualism. Discuss which challenges an Italian Benettonrepresentative might face if working as a manager in Bangladesh.

Fill in your answer here


Documents

ORG439 1 Culture and Ethics - Universitetet i Agder … · they found jobs in the garment industry. On the #fth "oor of Rana Plaza, Begum stitched zips and pockets on to jeans for