Trade barriers are laws implemented by a government to control Free Essay Example

Trade barriers are laws implemented by a government to control import, using quotas, embargos and tariffs. Relaxation of trade barriers encourage Primark to import not only their products to their subsidiary countries but also import raw material and cheap labor to their production facilities.

Since domestic production has high wages for labor compared to foreign imports and with relation of trade barriers Primark has advantage of domestic production due to the low foreign wages that they have to pay the workers.

Also the relaxation on import quotas and embargo open more opportunities of import to Primark giving access to new market helping them to increase in revenue.

For example UK has a mix economy which involves government and business strategy. The advantages Primark gets from this economy is they allow Primark to make their own decisions with a very limited interference from the government. On the other hand the government policies limits the ability of innovation for Primark.

Improved political relationships and International Corporation

Premark is originated in Dublin, Ireland.

Ireland is a member of World trade organization (WHO), and they have also signed in multilateral free trade agreements with EU and EFTA which helps to promote free trade and investment. These agreements have made the bond of the countries strong making it easy for organizations like Premark to trade their products easily and cost efficiently. (Privacy Shield Framwork, n.d.)

Increasing number of multinational companies

As the world is bombarded with associate endless offer of dirt-cheap garments, moral fashion activists in city and therefore the Middle East, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Canada, and therefore the United States area unit adjustment their considerations concerning the style industry’s sustained exploitation of human, animal, and natural resources.

International vesture brands were created to rethink however their producing processes affected their workers, the communities they colonized, and the environment Following tragedy of Rana Plaza that rocked the exciting world of fashion,. Philanthropists, environmentalists, human and animal rights activists, and acutely aware people round the world began actively complaintive unethical fashion. Almost all fashion brands, from the high fashion homes, to the quick fashion giants, to the labels that dominate on-line searching in UAE, area unit concerned in unethical production practices.

The golden signature gift boxes are the culmination of the global #GoTransparent campaign, led by Human Rights Watch, Clean Clothes Campaign, and International Labor Rights Forum. The campaign launched a minimum world customary of transparency for the garment sector – the “Apparel and Footwear offer Chain Transparency Pledge”, and convinced seventeen brands to commit to

Publish data regarding the factories they supply from, together with addresses and numbers of employees.

The #GoTransparent campaign specifically targeted the 5 brands Armani, Primark, Urban Outfitters, Forever twenty one and Walmart, that square measure thought of to be among the foremost uncommunicative concerning their offer chain information and who refused to commit to more transparent supply chains by signing the pledge.

The information that the “Transparency Pledge” is meant to unveal is vital for workers and activists to be able to alert brands to labour rights violations in their supply chains. Transparency in supply chains will help prevent such dramatic gestures as needed after the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh in 2013, when workers and activists had to re-enter the ruins of the building to search for brand labels. They had to risk their lives to establish who should be held responsible for the tragedy.

The decision-making method can perpetually gift moral challenges to managers. Is this the right thing to do? This question is that the essence of the moral perplexity for any chief in today’s firms. A collection of things are taken in thought in responsive to the current question.

Is it right for the company? Is it right for the shareholders? Is it right for the society? For the customers? For the decision maker himself?

There square measure some ways to approach the moral subject, and different ethical values may and will emerge from these different approaches. The way a decision will be evaluated is fully dependent on the values and interests of the person or group of people evaluating that decision.

Some of the stakeholders won’t care that a lot of if the choice was created supported moral values count it generated the results they expected. This is wherever the chance lies, as a result of the choice maker also will have this in mind once deciding regarding the subject; counting on what quantity he or she is results-driven, he or she may overlook some ethical issues in the name of a good outcome and good earnings.

This is very true once the choice maker could be a materialist philosophy, Shannon Bowen (2002, pg 271) tells America that “moral philosophy is summed up in 3 approaches: materialism, philosophy, and deontology”.

Even though Primark and other fashion brands have faced tragedies, with the growth of financial activities, number of large multinational companies are still increasing rapidly. Operating their supply chain in a global level so to be able to enjoy the specialization of each region and country over the world.

However, Primark logged associate degree annual turnover of five.3 billion euros ($7.23 billion) in its 2012-2013 yr and employs forty eight, 000 individuals in eight countries.

Global competition

Primark, land fashion merchandiser owned by Associated British Foods (ABF), is seen joined biggest fashion retail success stories of the past decade. Best well-known for its low worth and high price providing, “Amazing fashion, wonderful prices”, the main street staple has extended its reach across Europe and overseas into the US. However, in spite of its retail success, Primark has been troubled to beat the consumer’s pre-fixed notion that fast-fashion isn’t property, and positively not ethically created.

Global competition for Primark has increased over the years as famous brands like Armani & forever 21 have expanded their business overseas.

To compete with other fast fashion brands, Primark is also squeezing prizes at the factory level. And while they cannot cut the fabric cost, transport cost, export and import and taxes they can still cut on certain health and safety measure which do cost money along with labors. The final point that was squeezed on is the cost paid to the labor force. The minimum wage in Bangladesh is about 1/3 of a living wage. By living it’s meant just enough to feed their families and have a shelter over their head. Which is the very basic needs and with a basic living wage of 1/3 workers are forced into doing excessive overtime in order to make ends meet, else they are forced to send their children to work instead to make up the cost. Sweatshop workers in Bangladesh who produce cloths for stores like Primark, Tesco and Asda are often locked into the factories while they are forced to do unpaid overtime including 80hrs a week for as little as about six pound 50. They receive no sick pay, nor holiday pay and they live in terrible conditions often without running water or sanitation.

Primark has also changed the face of which consumers by cloths at UK high street by bringing down the prices of the items. Other stores have also followed suit and have been made to kind of keep their prices low. There are certain internationally recognized standards that are to do with what an employer should be providing laid down by the ILO, whereas in certain countries such as Bangladesh, China and India often these standards are not being met. It is beyond capacity of the production of overseas to cater for the new seasons in the outlets nearly each month, putting immense pressure on factories in these countries.

Following the tragic collapse of Rana Plaza, the foremost deadly accident within the history of the fashion industry, additional and additional folks begun to question however a T-shirt cost accounting as little as a pair of pounds might ever be responsibly created. On April twenty four, 2013 a building housing 5 garment factories that factory-made merchandise for roughly twenty eight brands, folded in close to Dhaka, Bangladesh, claiming the lives of one, 138 employees and injuring more than 2,000 individuals. The tragedy wasn’t solely seen as a wakeup demand the international garment industry to unite and shield those most vulnerable in their offer chains – it was also an immediate decision to action for Primark, United Nations agency sourced from New Waves Bottoms, a provider in Rana Plaza, to require a better check up on its ethics and CSR, to visualize wherever it could improve.

Factory owners find it difficult to have unions in their factories, so often they take measures to try and stamp it out before it starts. Often when workers join unions they face losing their jobs, due to which the workers are scared of talking about their rights, standing up for better wages. In June 2008 Primark received a lot of bad publicity excessive working hours and poverty pay in India with the lower reaches of their supply chain.

The company recently came under attack once a client found a “cry for help” note hidden within a try of Primark trousers. The note spoke of prison inmates in China having to work for Primark like oxen while they were given food that would be considered “unfit for animals.”

Experts haven’t nonetheless established whether or not the note was real.

Primark’s shareholder realized that ethics was an important consideration for the business, and gave a remit to the management to work on ethics, to try and do something to improve their public face. Primark has become a responsible global corporation by joining ethical trading initiative and have been working within a number of different working groups to improve things on some of their homeworking. They also have started number schemes in India, china and Bangladesh on training for management, suppliers and for buyers in how to uphold their values. Together they have started to make steps forward, checking whether that’s actually solved anything or changed anything, taking steps in understanding the ethics as something that has to be holistic, that has to be adopted as a part of the whole business, rather it just being something.