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Article:

Answer the question below:

Inhumane working conditions at Gucci

We all know Gucci as a high-end luxury fashion brand that is gaining popularity all around the world because of its fashion collections. However, employees working with one of the biggest fashion firms experienced some unethical practices like exploitation and harassment. They even brought the issues to the forefront by revealing them in the public domain. On 8th October 2011, an open letter by five former employees of Gucci working in Gucci Shenzhen Flagship Store, China went viral over the internet. In the letter, the employees claimed that they were forced to work under unhygienic and deplorable conditions due to which one of the female employees experienced miscarriage.  This  happened  because  of  working  for  excessive  hours,  the  micromanagement approach of the senior manager, and multiple restrictions on food and toilet breaks. The employees accused Gucci of lacking systematic management in their organizational structure and complained

that their human rights were violated.

When the case came to Gucci’s notice, they immediately fired the senior manager of the store who was responsible for the incident, and issued a statement asserting they will never tolerate such

unethical behaviour in any of their stores. By the time they took the decision, the incident had

already gotten the media’s  attention  and  citizens became  aggressively  angry  at the brand  for

exposing employees to inhumane conditions putting their safety and health at risk.

Although the company’s immediate action towards the alleged malpractice manifested that the company strongly values ethical behaviour, the incident did have several implications. To explain, it reflected that the company lacked the practice of supervision which damaged its reputation of the company across the nation. In addition to the same, the company’s perception as an employer brand also deteriorated as this case created a negative perception among job seekers. A large number of job seekers refused to work with a brand for the neglect of its duty to provide a safe and healthy workplace to employees.

Read the article to answer these questions

a)  Analyse the ethical issues in the case above through the perspective of ethics and professionalism in an organization                    (10 marks)

b)  Analyse  the  actions  of  the  senior  manager  and  the  management  of  Gucci  in  relation  to professionalism behaviour.        (10 marks)

c)  Identify and analyse the implications of the  senior manager’s behaviour to the organization. (10 marks)

d)  Based on the situation above, propose a framework to resolve or avoid an ethical problem   in the organization.      (10 marks)