Global Values in Business 373foreigners to encourage preferential employment of nationals over for-
eigners. But in some cases this extends to differentiating between ethnic
groups within a country, which can collide with company’s policies on
non-discrimination. Moves to balance employment and to provide op-
portunities for previously disadvantaged groups in the interest of fair-
ness and social stability are worthy of support, but you do not have to go
as far as the distorted extremes of South African apartheid policies to
run into conflicts. The most common example is perhaps the treatment
of ethnic Chinese in countries of South East Asia who, in spite of their
families having lived and worked in countries for several generations,
may find that government policies discriminate against them (there are
many other current examples around the world of discrimination on
grounds of ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation and within my work-
ing life such discrimination was also common in many highly developed
countries where it is now illegal).
29.2.2 Treatment of Migrant Labour
The second area of concern is the treatment of migrant labour, both
cross border and within a country. In these situations, very open discus-
sion within a company and between the company and the authorities are
necessary to ensure that companies truly live up to their principles.
A good example from the non-business world of the same value be-
ing implemented differently in different parts of the world, while pre-
serving the essence of the value, is the question of what constitutes a fair
trial. Almost all societies, at least nominally, regard a fair trial for a sus-
pect as an individual right. In the UK, a fair trial is often regarded as
being one with the involvement of a jury. I myself am a strong supporter
of jury trials and felt very affronted when jury trials were suspended in
Northern Ireland at the time of the IRA troubles to avoid the intimida-
tion of jurors. But I have lived for many years in The Netherlands where
people regard the idea of trials involving twelve more or less randomly