"At the Canton headquarters of Reebok, Gregg Nebel tries to keep tabs on the foreign factories that churn out his company's products. Nebel's team is working with officials in Mexico to make sure suppliers there are meeting Reebok's standards for fair wages and worker safety. He says his job gets harder each day, because Reebok and its parent company Adidas rely on foreign manufacturers more than ever" (Nickisch, 2008). A crucial issue in this instance is given by additional expenditure. For example, the company had to settle a lawsuit for the death of a four-year-old with one million dollars, and this raises the question whether the money saved are efficiently spent.
Through a generalization of their operations and practices, it can easily be observed that the shoe maker is encountering major difficulties with their plants. Several unions have reported several problems with employee treatment and the company responded in a most favourable manner, by getting involved in the resolution of these problems. But this response implied additional costs as well and various consequences. For instance, two companies in Indonesia terminated their contracts with the American shoe maker after the latter forced the suppliers to obey the human rights regulations. The companies had been accused of numerous violations, such as discrimination, extremely low wages that were often unpaid, inadequate working conditions, beating and even trafficking of the workers. Reebok "applied pressure to its suppliers for workers' rights compliance, expressed concern over the number of temporary workers,...
Such actions have compelled the management at Factory a to terminate its business relationship with Reebok" (Co-op America, 2004-2005)
Unlike other players in the shoe industry that outsource as a means of reducing labor costs to a minimum and seldom care of the working conditions within their plants, Reebok encourages the positive practices and often supervises the working conditions in their plants. Foremost, they allow and even encourage the formation of unions to an extent larger than any competitors. But even in this context, the human rights and specialized employment organizations advice the Reebok officials to pay attention to the discriminatory practices that still occur in the detriment of union members.
Works Cited
Nickisch, C., April 18, 2008, the Problem of Outsourcing, WBUR, http://www.wbur.org/news/2008/76668_20080418.asplast accessed on May 26, 2008
Parloff, R., April 26, 2006, Not Exactly Counterfeit, Fortune Magazine
Thompson, a., May 12, 2006, Companies Buck the Outsourcing Trend, MSNBC, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12760698/last accessed on May 26, 2008
Van Dusen, S., 1998, the Manufacturing Practices of the Footwear Industry: Nike vs. The Competition, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, http://www.unc.edu/~andrewsr/ints092/vandu.htmllast accessed on May 26, 2008
2004-2005, Profile: Reebok, Co-op America, http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/profile.cfm?id=281last accessed on May 26, 2008
