In November 2012, the Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System, a shareholder of the Hershey’s company, filed a complaint seeking the right to inspect the company’s corporate books. Their shareholder’s goal was to examine if the Hershey’s Board of Directors allowed illegal child labor activity into it business model. (Manza 390). The illegal activity the company allowed was allowing a human rights violation to occur with the labor of children in West African cocoa production. (Manza 389). The labor was considered hazardous primarily because the child laborers used dangerous equipment and worked for long periods of time (O’Keefe par. 25). Hershey’s shareholders felt the actions of the Hershey’s Board of Directors in allowing child labor could potentially damage the company’s reputation and brand and eventually the pocketbooks of the shareholders. (Manza 390). Due to the discovery of these findings, the U.S. Legislature suggested multinational corporations to practice fair trade and sponsorship programs to implement a Corporate Social Responsibility plan (Manza …show more content…
He proved that a company can flourish financially while at the same time making an impact in the community. Twenty-seven years ago, Whole Foods began with $45,000 in capital and only $250,000 in sales. In 2008, they had sales of more than $4.6 billion and net profits of more than $160 million (Hunnicut25). Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and served as Commissioner of Human Rights from 1997-2002 agrees that progress has been made in the business arena, but still sees a need for guidance on how business can incorporate human rights protection into daily operation (Hunnicut