Ethical Issue In 2016, Foxconn, a giant manufacturer of Apple and other major electronic devices, has replaced 60,000 employees in one of its factories with the introduction of robots. (Javelosa, 2017) Furthermore, Foxconn has announced its 3-phase plans to automate away majority of their human employees. The first phase involves replacing dangerous/repetitive tasks that humans are unwilling to perform. The second phase involves automating whole production lines. The last phase involves automating entire factories, leaving a minimal number of employees for production, logistics, testing and inspection processes. (Dai, 2016). Herein lies the ethical dilemma. Using robots improve Foxconn’s productivity and efficiency but by doing so, they are …show more content…
For highly skilled workers, the arrival of robots creates new, higher-paying jobs that need skilled workers, thus increasing employment and salary of skilled workers. (Graetz & Michaels, 2015), They would then consider automation as ethical as their benefits are maximized. Conversely, lower and middle skilled workers are replaced by robots who can do the same job, losing their jobs and livelihoods. Therefore, they regard automation as unethical under egoism as it does not benefit them. The government would also have to spend more and implement more measures to support these displaced workers. Foxconn’s ability to match up to Apple’s demand means increased availability of products offered to end consumers. Better product quality also translates to better consumers’ standard of living. Lower production costs lead to fewer costs passed on to consumers, hence lower pricing points for products. As end consumers pay less for more, this maximizes their benefit and therefore automation is considered …show more content…
(Population Matters, 2016) By substituting employees with robots, Foxconn is not working together with employees and not considering their value as an end. Rather, Foxconn is fulfilling its purpose of maximizing their own benefit at the expense of the employees. Thus, Foxconn’s action of replacing humans with robots is considered unethical. The management of Foxconn can resolve this issue by offering training and educational programs to encourage and assist employees in developing relevant skills and knowledge, enabling them to perform more specialized jobs that robots cannot do, thus preserving their livelihood. This allows both Foxconn and employees to continue working together. The employees are value-adding themselves with the upgrade of skills. Therefore, Foxconn consider the values of employees as an end, retaining human dignity and following Kyosei Principle as they promote cooperation and mutual prosperity and benefit. The increase in costs for Foxconn will be justified in the long run since most companies are likely to follow suit in automation (Morris, 2017), Foxconn’s quality of labour will help differentiate themselves (MacKinnon, n.d.) and remain competitive in the