School Children and mobile phones

Introduction

Amazons Alexa device is one of the most successful virtual assistant device in the

market, but little do we know on how these products finally reach the shelves. The main

supplier of this device is Foxconn. The article written by Gethin Chamberlain provides

us an insight on the labour industry of the Chinese factories where students are

employed. The children working overtime in these production facilities has been brought

to light recently, however it has been existent since such a long time. These works done

by the students that are classified as “internships”, are forced upon the students by their

teachers and school management. The exploitation of labour is widely seen in this

situation. The teachers also face lack of job security if the children do not agree to work.

This explains that the key issue starts from the money minded mindsets of the suppliers

and the school management. The essay further relates this issue from the standpoint of

two theories. (Chamberlain, 2019)

Ever wondered how a small event can bring a big change in the functioning of many

other companies? Based on the 4 Levels of Thinking in Systems Thinking approach,

there are different ways through which the world can be viewed upon. It is the little

decisions that matter. Foxconn provides amazon their devices by hiring students to

work long hours at a very cheap rate of £1.18 per hour. This eventually pushes other

MNC’S to adopt a similar strategy of cheap and young labour. Cheap labour will
significantly help in reducing the cost of their products. On the other hand it will also

lead to the firing of workers who could be more skillful. This systemic structure will keep

repeating across various countries, where ultimately schools will focus less on

education and more on working in manufacturing units. So, what is leading to such a

pattern? The answer to this cause is primarily two reasons which is the availability of

cheap labour and the lack of freedom of the students to choose whether they can work.

According to the Chamberlain 2019, factories find it difficult to find many permanent

workers as the working conditions are not favorable, hence they approach schools to

send students to work at a price that’s extremely low. Students in turn have to work on

compulsion to avoid losing their scholarships or halting their graduation. The teachers

on the other hand would have to make students work overtime if they received any sort

of complaints. If students fail to work extra hours, the teacher would be compelled to

resign from the school. These indirect ways of blackmailing explains the companies’

mental model. As companies approach schools to send students as interns, the present

workforce will be replaced by students. This would leave many of the families to suffer

without a job.

Foxconn ignored the CSR values and looked into its own benefits. The world at large’s

beliefs about a business is vital for its success. Corporations need to look into including

ethical labor practices. Employees must be treated equally based on their output to the

business irrespective of age or position. The company even be socially responsible by

taking a philanthropic approach. They can donate a part of their sales to organizations

that have relation to their core business. Implementing CSR activities in the business

sets a bar for other competitors to embrace a sustainable growth instead of solely a
profit oriented growth. (Schooley 2019)

On a personal note, when students are being employed in factories, it would limit their

future heights of job growth and prevent them from learning their actual school courses.

The work done by the students in the factory wasn’t relevant to the school subjects they

were registered in. In the long run, such practices will eventually lead to a worse

economy where people are less educated. Hence it becomes extremely important to

look at the bigger picture and change the mental models of these companies as well as

the locals.

The Nike controversy can be considered as an important example here. During the

1990’s products of Nike were heavily manufactured by its suppliers in Indonesia. As

Nike started becoming successful, the demand for its products in the suppliers units

rose. The workers in the shoe manufacturing units were provided with poor working

conditions and being violated of human and labour rights. The wages paid to the

workers were below the minimum required wages. As the value of Nike soared, the net

worth of the workers declined. They could not voice their opinions due to fear of the

managers. To cope up with this issue, various NGO’s started to expose the situation of

the workers in the factory. This came to the attention of Nike managers. The Indonesian

government increased the minimum ages of the factory workers, and the managers at

Nike instructed its suppliers to increase the workers wages above the minimum wage by

around $10. Likewise, the event of the suppliers of Nike in Indonesia caused other

countries such as Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand to involve in similar exploitations.

The soccer balls unit in Pakistan hired school children to work in factories for very

cheap wages. When this unethical practice was brought to attention, the authorities in

Nike instructed the suppliers to remove those children from all their units and pay the

wages and bear the expenses of their school fees till they reach a legal working age.

This cautioned all other manufacturing factories. (Locke 2003)

World Systems Theory under Globalization, is a system that is a world of its own.

Here some nations benefit while some are exploited. (Wagar, 2015)

In the case of Foxconn, employment was created in the Chinese market but these jobs

were low paying jobs targeting mainly school students. China is being exploited

whereas the country that benefits more is the United States of America. The developed

country is technically taking control of the underdeveloped country. The developed

country would always develop more or else there is no reason for them to go to an

underdeveloped country. The American company is globalizing but it negatively affects

the Chinese students. Amazon earns higher profits where the sale price of one unit of

Amazon Alexa ranges between ‘$50 - $150’. They attain their resources from China

thereby saving them time and costs. The division of labour brings about the core region

and semi periphery region.

This triggers the question on why USA is the core country and China the semi-

peripheral country. The core countries exploit other countries mainly for their cheap raw

materials and availability cheap labour. USA is one of the most capital intensive

countries. Peripheral countries include countries that often get exploited.

Hierarchical power is also another key concept. The core and powerful countries often
dominate over the poorer periphery/semi-periphery countries. This unequal exchange

causes capital accumulation in the developed countries. (Martínez-Vela 2013)

Foxconn can be seen violating the Chinese law by appointing many workers than what

it was permitted, and where many of the students worked overtime beyond what they

are legally obliged to work. These issues can be seen in many other under developed

countries where the voices of the lower paid workers are not heard and at times the top

management being unaware of the working situations of the low waged employees.

When work is distributed equally and based on the capabilities of a worker, it is termed

as fair distribution of workload. Childrens who are not physically capable of working in

factories for long hours should not strain their body and health.

One of the most common decisions taken by many MNC’s is outsourcing of their

manufacturing unit to other countries. The advantage of doing so is the availability of

cheap labour in peripheral and semi peripheral countries. As the cost of living is low in

China, it makes the Chinese to accept a low pay and helps companies to save money.

The quality of work resulting from cheap labour is often up to mark. This can be seen in

manufacturing of Apple products in China. Sales of the devices rocket once it is

released. Finally the functioning of plants and factories in an under or semi developed

country is always cheaper than setting up one in the core country as it saves a lot of

real estate costs. As all good things have its demerits, there are moral issues too.

Foxconn which is not only the manufacturer of Amazon products, manufactures

products for Apple, Nokia, HP and so on. Workers in these factories usually work for

extra long hours and face a difficult working condition. Another issue faced is the loss of
jobs in the home country. A large amount of jobs are shifted to the peripheral countries

thereby displacing the jobs and lives of many domestic workers in the home country.

This leads to a cycle which is followed by other corporations. (O'Brien 2014) By looking

at the working of school children in Foxconn factories from a different perspective, we

can understand that it has its own good for the students as well. The students will learn

start learning the value of money by earning from their own hard work. This will give

them a chance to support for their own living expenses. By learning from the bottom

most level of the organization, they will be able to have a clearer understanding of how

things work when they reach a high level in an organization in the future. There also lies

an opportunity of the transferring of skills. Countries will be able to benefit by Brain Gain

which is bringing in of specialized workers to the country. When a worker specializes in

a particular field in a factory he would impose knowledge that would not be known by

many others.

The semi peripheral countries can be controlled by stricter government regulations and

inspections. The Foxconn factory paid 500 Chinese Yuan to the school on a monthly

basis for every student that worked in the factory. The students get a small fraction of

what is being paid to the school which is totally unfair as the schools efforts put in is

very minimalistic when compared to students outputs. This could also be considered as

a form of bribe.

In the above mentioned example of Nike incorporation, it can be seen that though Nike

originated from US, it has its presence in almost every country in the world. On an

average, the core countries purchase its products and the peripheral and semi

peripheral countries manufacture the products. As the saying goes about shoes and
clothes manufactured in the underdeveloped countries, “Some kids wear it, Some kids

make it”. This chain can be seen in not just Nike but other multi national companies.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Chamberlain(2019), in his article, explains the situation of school children

who are recruited by Amazons supplier, Foxconn. The students are paid very low

wages and are forced to work in exhausting working conditions. The four levels of

thinking showcases how the company Amazon gets cheap labour from the suppliers

which promotes other MNC’s to adopt to a similar strategy which causes the skillful

workers to be fired. By companies adopting to ethical strategies, it sets forth an example

to its competitors to initiate sustainable practices in the business. The world system

theory illustrates how the capitalist world economy turns out to be a total social system.

If a business discovers a country with cheap labour, reasonable amount of taxes, and is

able to offer a safe and healthy lifestyle and working conditions for the workers, it can

outsource its production facilities on a global scale. Exploitation of workers should be

stopped so it could transform the world to be a better and safer place.

 Reference

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development/2019/aug/08/schoolchildren-in-china-work-overnight-to-produce-amazon-

alexa-devices [Accessed 31 Oct. 2019]

Locke, R., (2003). The promise and perils of globalization: The case of Nike.

Management: Inventing and delivering its future, 39, pp. 10-13

Martínez-Vela, C. (2013). World System Theory: Understanding the Capitalist

Design. Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 1(3), pp.160-165

O'Brien, B. (2014). Pros and cons of outsourcing your manufacturing in the international

business environment - Trade Ready. [online] Trade Ready. Available at:

http://www.tradeready.ca/2014/trade-takeaways/pros-cons-outsourcing-your-

manufacturing-international-business/ [Accessed 31 Oct. 2019]

Schooley, S. (2019). What Is Corporate Social Responsibility? [online] Business News

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responsibility.html [Accessed 31 Oct. 2019

Wagar, W. (2015). Review of "Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-

Historical Change" by Stephen K. Sandersen, ed. Journal of World-Systems Research,

3(1), pp.273-274