Amazon and Ethics

Unethical Brands
Name
Institution/ Affiliation
Unethical Brands
Introduction
Ethics play a vital role in the success and performance of an organization. They include the moral and ethical beliefs that guide the behavior, values, and decisions of a business and its stakeholders. Some of the ethical business practices include protecting the environment, respecting the employees, suppliers, customers, better remunerations, producing healthy products, upholding labor laws, and exercising corporate social responsibility, to mention a few (Nastase & Gligor-Cimpoieru, 2013). By adopting and developing policies and procedures that encourage ethical actions helps a business build a positive corporate culture, boost customer confidence, minimize financial liabilities, improve employees' morale and loyalty, and minimize potential lawsuits, to name a few (Nastase & Gligor-Cimpoieru, 2013). This research will analyze unethical companies and their brand crisis cases.
Amazon Inc.
Amazon Inc. is an American multinational based in Seattle specializing in digital marketing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. Despite its financial growth and success, the company has faced numerous criticism due to its unethical practices (Durocher-Yvon et al., 2019). The company never seems to be out of the spotlight due to unethical behaviors, including tax avoidance, poor treatment of employees at their fulfillment centers, poor remuneration, unfair business practices, breach of contracts, poaching of employees, to name a few (Ethical Consumer Organization, 2020).
In 2018, for example, the company was in the limelight due to its unfair treatment of Chinese workers. According to, Amazon does not have a policy on living wage and rarely compensates workers to cover their basic needs (Ethical Consumer Organization, 2020). In 2019, Hubber group, an Amazon Delivery program partner, filed a lawsuit against the company. The plaintiff complained of a breach of fair dealing contracts, good faith, Estoppel, fraudulent concealment, international interferences on the business relationships, and unfair business practices.
Taxes are essential and help redistribute money so that all citizens can receive services they need like healthcare and solve social problems, including poverty and income inequalities. Unfortunately, Amazon is a serial tax avoider. The company has been cited numerous times for avoiding federal income taxes by failing to record profits but instead plowing back to the business and practicing aggressive tax planning (Ethical Consumer Organization, 2020). In 2019, the company evaded paying over $5.6 billion in federal taxes. In the past five years, the company has only paid taxes in 11.4% on its $8.2 billion in profits.
Nike
Nike is an American incorporated company that specializes in footwear and apparel. Although the brand now operates with transparency and openness, this was an aspect that was unthinkable twenty years ago. The company was on record for violation of labor laws and unfair treatment of the employees. For example, in the late 1990s, Nike paid Michael Jordan more than $20 million annually to endorse their product (Thomas, 2016). This value was twice the wages of Indonesian factory workers producing the company branded products during the same period. In Vietnam, Nike still violates the minimum wage laws, pays sustenance wages, and illegally forces workers to massive overtime. Similarly, Nike subjects employees, 90% of women and girls, to illegal, dangerous, brutal sweatshops (Thomas, 2016). For example, the company has consistently denied an independent monitoring group Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), to access and inspect its contract factories.
Nestle
Nestle is the world’s largest food and drink, but yet the world’s most corrupt organization. Nestle is a global leader in unethical practices, from practicing child labor and human trafficking, denying communities clean drinking water, gender discrimination, and exploiting women in developing countries (Boyd, 2012). In Michigan, the company has been pumping over 200 gallons of fresh drinking water from the Flint River that people desperately need. According to O'Callaghan (2020), this crisis has claimed the lives of 10 people a while hundreds more been hospitalized. On the other hand, Nestle has violated labor laws by regularly using children in cocoa plantations. In 2005, the company was sued for allegedly trafficking three Malian children to Cote d’Ivoire to work in cocoa plantations (Boyd, 2012). Besides, the company has consistently violated environmental policies. According to O'Callaghan (2020), it was ranked the third plastic bottle polluter. For example, Nestle Sources Shanghai Limited started its operations before the approval of its waste treatment facilities.
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