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Over the last two decades, some of the most powerful companies in Asia have been under extensive criticism and consumer pressure to do away with sweatshop labor conditions. However, labor abuse is still a common among Chinese factories exporting their products and services to European and U.S. companies. Reports by labor right groups claim that some of these companies often shortchange their workers pay, withhold their health insurance benefits and expose their workers to hazardous working environment and dangerous chemicals (Barboza 6).
These reports argue that these chemicals are not only dangerous for the workers but also for the consumers. While Western consumers are worried about their children getting exposed to lead-coated Chinese toys, younger Chinese working in these factories are in far more dangerous situation. A recent study conducted in Hong Kong’s Pearl River Delta region established that over 20000 people lose their fingers in the manufacturing companies (Barboza 6-7).
Labor groups in China have been pushing big multinational and local companies to act right by smuggling copies of evidences such as photographs to the international media. Big corporations which are culprits include Disney, Wal-Mart, and Del Company. These companies have regularly been accused of using child labor, forcing workers to work extremely longer hours and low wages. These reports are not doing China justice given the fact that they are still coping with last year’s recall of Chinese goods from the western market due to safety reasons, and the country’s efforts to rationalize labors laws (Barboza 7).
Five faces of oppression
Justice refers to the institutional conditions vital for the development and exercise of individual and organizational capacities, collective communication and corporation. In relation to this definition, injustice refers to forms of limitations, oppression, and domination. There are five different types of injustice in the society that are involved in oppression. These are distributive injustice, redistributive injustice, moral exclusion, procedural injustice, and cultural imperialism. These types of injustice assist in assessing different groups of people being oppressed (Young 39).
Distributive justice takes into consideration the distribution of four types of capital. These are investment, skills, consumption and social capital. Consumption capital relates to the standard of living and income. Low wage paid by Chinese companies have increased the level of poverty among the workers. Due to low income, these workers live in poor conditions and are not able to adequately meet the basic needs. The low wages paid by the big multinational corporations is ridiculous given the fact that they do not pay the same wages to workers in other countries especially in Europe and U.S. The gross disparity in the standard of living and income among these nations is a major injustice (Young 15; Opotow 20).
This factor greatly prevents the nation and the entire country in the whole from rapid developing and moving on not only from the industrial point of view but also taking into account the moral aspects of society.
Investment capital is related to disparity of wealth among nations, social classes, sexes and special people in the society among others. The main victims of oppression and labor injustices in the Chinese companies are low level workers particularly the manual laborers. The top management earns relatively better wages and salaries. This has continued to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. Discrimination of wages by the multinational companies such as Wal-Mart has also resulted to unequal distribution of income among different nations (Young 15).
Skill capital encompasses specialized knowledge, social and professional skills acquired through training, education or experience. High income workers/professional workers especially the top management in the Chinese factories tends to recruit their relatives and friends to the top jobs instead of promoting their juniors who have enough skills and experience. Social capital relates to skill capital in that the network of social ties plays a significant role in influencing access to jobs and better pay. In brief, distributive justice distributes income, wealth, jobs unequally among different social class and nations (Opotow 20) (b).
Procedural justice examines the fairness of the distribution of results and personal judgment of fairness of procedures that determine settles on the results. Research studies show that people are more concerned with fair treatment than fair results. In the case of Chinese companies, there are a lot of complains in regard to the way they treat their workers. They force workers to work overtime (almost up to 16 hours per day) to achieve their targets. The worse thing is that workers do not have another way out apart from doing what they are ordered to do. Unfortunately, the employees realize it and make use of it to achieve their personal goals in the accounts of workers. Workers work under poor and dangerous conditions. Many succumb to exposure to dangerous chemicals and lack of proper gadgets when operating on dangerous machines. Besides low wages, these companies normally short-change their workers pay and do not take care of the workers welfare (Chin 5).
Retributive injustice refers to those people who deal with the breaking of the rules of the morality. There are a lot of complaints relating to workers unfair layoffs by these companies. There are very many cases in which workers have been laid off for petty offences and for their demand for better terms. The top management also does not care about the workers plight even though most of them are also Chinese.
Moral exclusion relates to discrimination or unfair treatment of people outside the social class. In the case of Chinese companies, there are numerous evidences with regard to workers discrimination. Discrimination is in the form of workers pay, income, access to jobs, working conditions and nationality among others. Moral exclusion is considered as the most dangerous form of oppression and has lead global genocides. Chinese companies pay a lot of attention to the welfare of its top management at the expense of the junior workers. Top workers earn better salaries and there welfare is well taken care of (Clark 45). Nevertheless, it is cruel enough to make use of helpless people, knowing that this job might be the only their variant.
The distributive Paradigm
The distributive paradigm relates to the current discourse about justice and encompasses different ideological positions. It defines social justice as jus distribution of social benefits and burden among the people in the society. Distributive paradigm focuses on the following elements: social right, opportunities, power, and self respect. According to this paradigm, it is very clear that the Chinese Companies are not only contravening the labor laws but also the human rights of the workers. Workers are paid low wages / income and therefore are not able to meet their fundamental needs adequately. These include proper shelter, food, clothing, education, health among others. The management of these companies abuses their powers in different way. Workers are forced to work at excessive hours and are not allowed to fight for their rights. They also regard workers lowly (Zhang 20; Yu 202).
The concept of Social group
Oppression can also be defined as the structural condition that immobilize or weaken a group. The general discourse distinguishes people into social groups in relation to gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion among others. Social groups are not mere collection of people, for they are basically interlinked with a common identity. These are specific groups of people who understand each other well and are after a common objective. One social group can be distinguished from another social group by culture, practices and their way of life. Members of a particular group have definite affinity with one another based on their identical experiences.
When social groups solely associate among themselves they create awareness of difference. It should be noted that social groups are not restricted to one single society. They can be formed by people within the same location, country, region or globally. In our case, social groups relates to labor organizations or movements that fight for the rights of underprivileged/ exploited workers. Workers in the Chinese factories should form or join labor organizations that will fight for their rights. These organizations should collaborate with regional and international labor organizations o represent the workers more effectively especially those working in large corporations. Large corporations in China are the major culprits of social injustices. These includes include Disney, Wal-Mart, and Del Company. Local labor groups have the tendency of being compromised by the management and therefore are ineffective. This is a common phenomenon among in the China where state controls almost everything (Chin 5; Yu 205).
Conclusion
The social justice understudy is exploitation of workers in the Chinese factories/ companies. These abuses are common in Chinese companies exporting their products to the western companies. These workers experience different forms of injustices/ oppression ranging from poor working conditions, low wages, exposure to dangerous machines and chemicals, lack of health and other social insurance cover among others. The study breaks down these injustices/oppressions by relating them to the existing theories.
There are five different types of injustices in the society that are involved in oppression. These are distributive injustices, redistributive injustice, moral exclusion, procedural injustice, and cultural imperialism. These types of injustices assist in assessing different groups of people being oppressed. Distributive justice takes into consideration the distribution of four types of capital. These are investment, skills, consumption, and social capital.
The distributive paradigm relates to the current discourse about justice and encompasses different ideological positions. It defines social justice as jus distribution of social benefits and burden among the people in the society. Distributive paradigm focuses on the following elements: social right, opportunities, power, and self respect. The concept of social groups distinguishes people into different categories in relation to gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion among others. Social groups are not mere collection of people, for they are basically interlinked with a common identity. Social groups such as labor organizations are well known for fighting for the workers rights. These groups can be enhanced through the integration of local, regional and international labor organizations. In this case, they will have power to even fight injustices committed by large multinational corporations. It is apparent that large corporations in China are the major culprits of social injustices. These include Disney, Wal-Mart and Del Company.
Works Cited
Barboza, David. “In Chinese Factories, Lost Fingers and Low Pay”. New York Times 5 January 2008: 6-7. Print.
Clark, John. “Social Justice and Moral Education in China”. New Zealand Journal of Teachers’ Work 5 (2008): 44-53. Print.
Chin, Gregory, et al. “Financial Social-Justice Civil Society Organization in China: Strategies, Constraints and Possibilities in Rural Poverty Alleviation”. International Conference of the International Society for Third-Sector Research July 11-14, 2004. Print.
Opotow, Susan V. “Affirmative Action, Fairness, and the Scope of Justice”. Journal of Social Issues 52 (1996):19-24. Print.
Opotow, Susan V (b). “Is Justice Finite? The Case of Environmental Inclusion”. In L. Montada & M. Lerner (Eds.), Social Justice in Human Relations: Current Societal Concerns about Justice 3 (1996): 213-230. Print.
Young, Iris M. In Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1990. Print.
Yu, Yanmin. “Market Economy and Social Justice: The Predicament of the Underprivileged.” The Journal of Comparative Asian Development 5 (2006): 200-214. Print.
Zhang, Ye. China’s Emerging Civil Society. Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies. Washington: Brookings Institution, DC, 2002. Print.
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