2.1. Labor standards

In the 1960s and 1970s, companies in developed economies began to relocate production facilities and contracting in emerging countries to cut labor costs [6]. Offshoring raised the number moral dilemmas in the issue of sweatshops [7–10]. Some argue that sweatshops violate duties of justice because the company offers lower pay and working conditions to employees in the host country for the same kind of work. Others believe that sweatshops ought to be encouraged because they are a necessary first step for economic development in emerging countries [11].

Child labor is an especially critical issue in such debates. Managers from a Western multinational would not even think about hiring children in their home country since it would be both illegal and offensive to the moral sense of the community. In some emerging economies, however, child labor is common and even essential for the subsistence of the child. Does this make hiring children morally acceptable?

Other dilemmas involve differences in worker safety standards. The SS United States was one of the most luxurious cruise ships of the 1950s. In the 1990s, the company decided to have it refurbished which required removing asbestos from the vessel. Conducting the task under US strict worker safety norms had a cost of \$100 million. The company decided to outsource the job in Turkey, where the cost was only \$2 million. Since finally the Turkish authorities would not allow it for fear that workers would get cancer, the ship was towed to the Russian port of Sevastopol, where asbestos were removed for even less, thanks to even lower standards in worker safety.
