Unethical clothes

Abstract

This case of human resource management is based on disclosure of worst working conditions at the largest Lithuanian garment company "Lelija" that took place in the beginning of 2002. The Lelija is a joint stock company employing up to 3000 people, 84 percent of its production is exported to the West and the enterprise is operating for 55 years that is since soviet times. One can often hear about tough working conditions in the Lithuanian sewing industry, therefore the disgrace with Lelija is rather a indicative outcome of a general situation than a single instance. Although the development of the case took the form of a scandal, which is intrinsically emotive and subjective, it does not mean that the case analysis cannot correspond to objective criteria because certain typical facts are perceived behind the scandal. It is necessary to emphasise that in the case study the word "fact" is not used in a direct, physical sense. Here the fact is regarded as a social fact, which should be understood within the context of Emile Durkheim's conception of collective consciousness and collective representations. "Social facts are ways of acting which emanate from collectively elaborated and therefore authoritative rules, maxims and practices, both religious and secular. [...]. Because they are collectively elaborated they are moral and therefore constrain individual behaviour" (Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology, 1994, p. 486). The case start the case analysis from disclosure of violation of employment relations at Lelija, description of responses and consequences, and finally, present ethical assessment of the case.