Use of Foreign Workers

WORKERS

Over the past several blogs I have been covering legal and some ethical items related to international environmental business.  In this blog I will shoot squarely at the ethical issue of using foreign sub-contractors at your work sites located overseas.

At one of my most recent positions the business model for the company entailed the use of foreign sub-contractors to provide 99.9% of the labor for the projects which were located in under-developed and developing countries. 75% of these workers were not 'locals', but people located from another country who worked under a sub-contractor agreement with another foreign company.

What does all of this mean?  Quite simply it means no liability for injury or death.  So that no matter how many deaths, or injuries the company would look very safe to the outside world because there would be no injuries or deaths to its workers.  Zero injury/death rate means great insurance rates not to mention the warm and fuzzy for the investors and board of directors.

Now I would say for this particular company they did take some steps to minimize safety issues, but only so much to give the impression to the board of directors and potential investors of doing things safe.  Like so many other companies profits are the driving factor of the operation, and safety a distant 2nd.  Yes, of course profits are the driving factor for any company, why else be in business and deal with all the stress?  Now I will not mention that the profit margins of this company exceed 35% and would get up to the 45%, while the average professional foreign field worker was making less than $3000/month.

So what is so unethical about building a profitable business on the backs of foreign labor?  That has been the world model for centuries, to include the slave and indentured servant business models.  Well, if this were the 18th century and the work being conducted was not dangerous I would agree, no problem.  But when the work is inherently dangerous and there is a complete disregard for safety then I say shame.  No number of Ferrari, Lamborghini, or any other type of exotic car justifies a business model such as this.

Safety does not have to negatively impact profits.  It just takes a smart program that is implemented with the support of all corporate management.  It is to bad that most 'smart' corporate managers do not know how to do this. So it is easier to hire the 3rd party foreign worker to staff a project in another country, and pay a little blood money when he gets hurt so that everyone can sleep well at night.

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