Do you remember when Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) was accused of helping Chinese authorities jail journalist Shi Tao? Do you remember Yahoo! CEO Semel's argument that a company must follow the laws of the country in which it operates? It makes sense, of course. But what if the laws of the country clearly violate human rights as determined by the United Nations?
Don't think Yahoo! is alone in this. Amnesty International accused also Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) of violating human rights principles by cooperating with China's efforts to censor the Web. Today we indeed learned that China leads the world in jailing journalists, with 31 behind bars.
This is just the beginning though. And no, it isn't just Internet companies, and it isn't just China. Remember the Nike Inc. (NYSE:NKE) child labor fiasco in Pakistan as well as many other companies in the garment industry with operations in many other countries? Just today, a Hong Kong-based labor group accused several Chinese suppliers of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT) of failing to pay legally required wages among other things. Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ:SBUX) was also recently accused of wrongdoings in Ethiopia.
Then we have Big Sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, or the diamond industry in Africa as will be well-demonstrated in Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) Warner Bros. movie Blood Diamond. Let's not even start with oil companies.
It seems that no matter what international company one looks at, it is tainted, directly or indirectly, with some form of malpractices; goings-on that simply wouldn't fly in any western country. All this is done, however, in the name of maximizing profits and shareholders' return.
Since most of us are shareholders in at least one company whose hands aren't clean, should we care? Should we accept arguments as "abiding to the country's laws," or "we had no idea, they were contractors," or any of the other million excuses? Or should we demand better accountability and practices, yes, even at the price of our returns?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-08-2006 @ 1:48PM
glenn walker said...
We americans are delutional if we believe that "we" have any right to do business with a country like china yet demand they follow our laws , if jailing a journalist in china upsets our companies then so be it... there are many Tv anchors I have wanted for years to either be gone or Jailed..LOL :) we better make some $$ somehow because the poor american worker is going to be living on the street because of his/her job being imported to china , as for me I say follow their laws and lets make the stock go up , at least maybe i can make some income since my job was shipped to china long ago...
12-08-2006 @ 9:06PM
Roger said...
The US government and other democratic nations (I would easily guess) have put profit above human rights. We keep extending China's "most favored nation" trading status year after year (Democrat and Republican administrations alike) without demanding movement on human rights.
It should be widely publicized about any company involved in violating human rights. As a nation, we should contact our representatives and urge them not to renew MFN status to China until it frees political prisoners. Thanks for blogging this story. I am also posting on this issue.
12-09-2006 @ 6:27PM
Richard Switzer said...
This is indeed an important and difficult issue and I'm having trouble getting off the fence. At the same time, let's not get too excited over pronouncements coming from the UN; I don't trust the UN with anything--especially anything involving money and/or ethics.... and certainly not with anything involving money, ethics and the USA.
-Dick