Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/288416 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Citation: 
[Journal:] Journal of Business Ethics [ISSN:] 1573-0697 [Volume:] 173 [Issue:] 1 [Publisher:] Springer Netherlands [Place:] Dordrecht [Year:] 2020 [Pages:] 13-27
Publisher: 
Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht
Abstract: 
Production in sweatshops entails an elevated risk of occupational injury and sickness due to accidents and exposure to dangerous working conditions. As most sweatshop locations lack basic social security systems, health problems have severe consequences for affected workers. Against this background, this article considers what obligations employers of sweatshop labor have to their workers, and how they should meet them. Based on core libertarian concepts, it shows that they are morally responsible for health problems caused by their management decisions, that they should compensate affected workers, and that they must prevent potentially irreversible health problems. In line with Nozick’s contractarian method, the article further argues that these obligations should be implemented through a compulsory employment injury insurance system. Such a system would impose industry-wide health and safety standards, in contrast to the view that libertarianism excludes any labor regulation for the protection of workers, as an illegitimate interference in voluntary labor contracts.
Subjects: 
Employment injury insurance
Incomplete contracts
Labor regulation
Libertarianism
Robert Nozick
Sweatshops
Worker’s compensation insurance
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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