Broader Developments Regarding Child Labor

Another development which is important in the area of child labor is corporate social responsibility. It is felt that one way of looking at corporate social responsibility is that it is part of what businesses need to do to keep up with society's expectations. Companies must now be aware of the risks they face if they are not a good corporate citizen and their reputation could be permanently damaged if they are not cautious in this regard. As we discussed in class, stockholders expect a corporation in which they have invested to make a profit, but in today’s society of high technology, news of a corporation’s unfair labor practices can travel fast. Companies must now be aware of the risks they face if they are not a good corporate citizen.

Whether companies are doing this out of the goodness of their heart or merely because they want to avoid scrutiny does not really matter. Whatever the reason, it is good business sense to not use child labor. The money saved on labor can quickly be lost with bad publicity.
Corporations must now realize that to stay competitive, they cannot afford the public embarrassment of using child labor no matter what the cost. The risks of not being socially responsible will far outweigh the benefits.

Corporations changed many of their practices in America only after legal remedies were available to injured parties. Here again we see that change was for the better of society whatever the impetus to effectuate the change. We would like to think that corporations would be socially responsible because it is the right thing to do, however, I believe that they are only being socially responsible because it would costlier for them to do otherwise.