Essay On Ethical Issues In Joe Camel And Walmart's Labor Practices.

Background on Joe Camel

Joe Camel was formerly an advertising mascot for the Camel cigarettes from the late years of 1987 to 1997 and has appeared in most of the advertisements and magazines. The brand had a highly successful advertising campaign that begun from the R.J. Reynolds (RJR) on the various billboards, promotional merchandises and many more. The targeting strategy was highly successful that had legal criticisms and challenges as well and the RJR made a defense claim that the age group of the target smokers was from 18-24 years. The advertising rates of the cigarette have not affected the market share and the preference of the brand that has other social factors responsible solely in the increased rate of the smoking amongst the youth. The utility can be considered as the impact of this assessment on the ethical grounds. Pro Joe is something that has an entertainment value in the campaign and makes it a successful fuel to the economy. It has also been quite evident that the teen enjoys the smoking more. A contemporary justice can be seen that is the compensation that is in the form of the funding in the various advertising campaigns (Medeiroset al. 2017). There is a need for retributive and distributive ways that deals with the greater market shares and most of them are underage smokers. The retributive can be in principle for those who were responsible for those who for the sake of the profit. The practice is also on the legal retribution of the various unwarranted things like the tobacco and unlike the marijuana that is almost legal and has internal retribution that is unwarranted in doing their own jobs. There is a need for retribution that is warranted against the various corporations that is not through the individuals and the assignment is punitive that has their compensatory damages in the civil cases. The civil cases are against the various tobacco companies that are warranted (Hartman, DesJardins & MacDonald, 2014). The rights that they are allotted with is that of the children that is not be lured in to the different harmful addictions and that which do not interfere with their long term rights towards their life and their pursuit towards happiness. The assessment deals with the rights of the children’s that prevails in the insofar that has their children at a vulnerable point that has their rights at their due protection.  

The ethical issue that is found in the Joe Camel is the negative health effects of the tobacco that slowly became public through the advertising industry. The advertising to the adolescents and the children became heavily scrutinized that has a co relation with the childhood smoking and the long term addictions. Ethnically it can be considered corrupted in case of the tobacco company that has targeted the children and the adolescents in their advertisement campaigns. The Joe Camel made a cartoon mascot that will automatically attract the young smokers to their brand. The parameters need to be more specific on the advertising grounds to the adolescents and the children. One of the main proponents for the advertising is to provide the consumers with various information of a certain product. In this case, the advertisement of the Joe Camel is to provide its consumers about the unethical ways that it shows. The main reason behind considering the Joe Camel an unethical brand is that the children and the adolescents are below the age that is the consent for purchasing and using the products of the tobacco. Hence, by law the brand became unethical as well as illegal. The campaign became unethical because it claimed that the Reynolds produced it attracts much younger smokers to the brand of the camel. The brand vehemently denied this allegation but later through the two lawsuits it declared that the brand was created only to target the age group from 14-24.

Ethical Issues in Joe Camel

The moral principles that is concerning on the various acceptable and the unacceptable behaviors of the different business people. As per the ethics, there is a need for the executives to maintain a high sense of their conduct and their value that has a comparatively fair practice and honesty in their conduct with the public. The ethical business practices in the labor practices in Walmart deals with almost 100 million customers every week, there is a need for the different low prices and private level brands (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2015). Some of the unethical business practices that may be considered in the Walmart and their workforce relations are the wages, the health insurances and the working conditions. The various practices are the violations in the child labor, use of the illegal workers, oppositions in the labor union market and the gender and the sexual orientation. There are scopes for low payment, questionable treatment and the hard work and the Walmart is considered as one of the largest private employer. Walmart is accused of the various offerings in the low payment and their feedbacks. The employees have been angered by a disparity that can be used between the high profit levels of the organization and the different low wages (Hoffman, Frederick & Schwartz, 2014). There are various working offs that can be found around the clock that can also be done without the breaks.

The working around the clock and without break is one of those serious allegations that are unfair to the treatment that has been reported of being the “work off the clock” (DesJardins & McCall, 2014). This is such a case where the employees are pressured to do overtime work but is not paid for it. There are several allegations like those that the managers would wait until the employees have clocked out. As per the annual report of Walmart in 2013 that has their defendant that is found in several cases (Crane & Matten, 2016). The pressure is on the various labor unions that have their resistance on the various unionization attempts that has a success in the union resistance level. The use of the various undocumented immigrants that consists of a series of the predawn raids that has several federal agents that may be conducted in a rounded up way that has almost 250 illegal immigrants that is working as the cleaning crew members. The ending relationships is claimed to be from the beginning of 2002 until the end in the relationships that is outside the cleaning contractors.

Background on Walmart's Labor Practices

The Walmart made headlines in the later years at an unprecedented rate and the major reason for this is for its infamous employment practices. The policies regarding the rules in labour are highly criticized. The net income of the organization is almost over $11 billion and a lot of money has been raised on the grounds of the organizations workplace practices. The inadequate health care, wage law violations and the exploitation of the workers are all the major ethical issues that arose up against the organization. 5,000 lawsuits are filed up against the Company every year that is roughly to 17 suits in every working day. The Walmart is accused of failing to provide adequate safety measurements for its fabric cutters and its overseas seamstresses. On a report, the cost benefit analysis shows that it is much cheaper to wash off the blood from the clothing of the workers even before the shipping of the clothing to the overseas. Many employees joined the class action lawsuit that is against the retailers stating that it violated the verdict of the court that stated to provide an unpaid 30 min break to the workers who are working for atleast six hours.

From the two cases the Joe Camel and the Walmart’s labor practices, it can be said that there are various similarity as well as dissimilarity. There are some specific actions that needs to be sorted out that will eventually help in improving the image of the various stakeholders that are on their fore fronts (Weiss, 2014). The areas of the outreach of the company needs to have their offices opened that is considered as one of the major city that will attempt to make an improvement in the levels of the community relations. It can be evident that from both the cases that there is a difference on the ethical grounds, one do not bother to fulfill the goals of the workers and the other makes cigarette campaign for the teenagers and the children.

The ethical issue that rose is that the company Walmart cheats on its current workers by not providing them with special amenities that they are bound to receive and also holds on their salary for a long term. The Joe Camel is another brand of cigarette that provokes the children and the teenagers to use them. In both the cases the product was a consumerism good and in case of the Walmart it can be said that the practices that are used for the labors was meant for their good but ultimately they are exploited. The major ethical issues that were present in the Walmart organization is regarded as the appeal that has a strong certified under the several laws. On an average it can be seen that in case of the Walmart’s labor case that it took men in just 2.86 years that has been promoted to get an assistant manager (Armstrong et al., 2015). However, in case of the females it took 4.38 years to make them into the better performance rating. 65 percent of all the Walmart employees are almost female and out of it only the two third of the managers are male. The female workers has an hourly job and earn almost $1,100 less than the males on an annual basis. In 1990, the FTC made an investigation on the RJR and on the Joe camel that has made ads that will determine whether the smokers are underage or are illegally targeted by the campaigns of it (Armstrong et al. 2015). In late 1997, the RJR began phasing out and that new intervention of the ad features of the various men and women.

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