Whistle-Blowing & Workers Rights and Duties Within a Firm

Debate 2

Blowing the Whistle Corporations have a moral obligation not to harm. This obligation falls on the corp. as such & internally it falls primarily on those who manage the corp. Yet other members of the corporation – for instance, engineers and assembly-line workers – are not morally allowed to take part in any immoral activity. As a general rule, people have a moral obligation to prevent serious harm to others if they are able to do so and can do so with little cost to themselves. 3

Types of Whistle-Blowing Whistle-blowing is a term used for a wide range of activities that’re dissimilar from a moral point of view. Internal whistle-blowing refers to disclosures made by employees to others in a firm, maybe concerning improper conduct of fellow employees or superiors who are cheating on expenses, or engaging in theft. Personal whistle-blowing is about an offense not against the organization or system. Governmental whistle-blowing refers to employees who divulge to those in authority unethical practices in their office or with regard to government contracts. 4

Whistle-Blowing as Morally Prohibited To admit whistle-blowing is an instance of dis- obedience to the corp. & that sometimes one is owed a duty of obedience leads to a conclusion that sometimes whistle-blowing is morally wrong. That it is sometimes morally wrong seems the general consensus in society, and there is no reason to challenge the consensus. 5

Whistle-Blowing as Morally Permitted Whistle-blowing is morally permissible if: –The firm, via its product or policy, will do serious harm, whether in the person or the user of its product, an innocent bystander, or general public. –Once employees identify a serious threat, they should report it to their immediate supervisor & make their concern known. Unless they do so, the act of whistle-blowing is not clearly justifiable. –If a supervisor does nothing effective about the concern, the employee should exhaust the firm’s internal avenues. This involves taking matters up the managerial ladder & if needed, to the board. 6

Whistle-Blowing as Morally Required For there to be an obligation to blow the whistle, two other additional conditions must be met: –A whistle-blower must have documented evidence that will convince reasonable, impartial observers that ones view of the situation is correct, And that the firm’s product or practice poses a serious & likely danger to the public or user of the product. –The employee must have good reasons to believe that by going public the necessary changes will be brought about. The chance of being successful must be worth the risk one takes and the danger to which one is exposed. 7

Internal Whistle-Blowing Impersonal external whistle-blowing is the most dramatic and publicized kind of whistleblowing. An equally troubling kind is impersonal, internal, nongovernmental whistle-blowing. A firm that wishes to foster collegiality & honesty among employees will have policies that help them work through responsibilities with respect to issues of ethical breaches of superiors & fellow employees. 8

Precluding the Need for Whistle-Blowing A need for moral heroes shows a defective society & defective corp.s. It is more important to change the legal & corp. structures that make whistle-blowing necessary than to convince people to be heroes. Whistle-blowing is a relatively recent phenomenon in the workplace. Whistle-blowing should also alert corp.s to what can & should be done if they wish to be moral & excellent. When corporate structures preclude the need for whistle-blowing, they protect both workers rights and the publics good. 9

Case Analysis 10 CASE ANALYSIS

The Rights of Employees As moral beings, employees carry with them in all their endeavors & undertakings the moral obligation to do what is right and to avoid doing what is wrong. An employer is also bound by the moral law. Hence, neither side in the hiring process has the moral right to set whatever terms it wishes. The background conditions for any contract between employer & employee are the conditions set by morality, law, local custom, & by the existing social circumstances in which the contract is made. 11

Employee Rights & Equal Treatment Civil rights are legal rights that entitle each person covered by them to certain treatment or guarantee noninterference in their acting in certain ways. The right to equal employment regardless of race or sex makes it illegal for employers to discriminate in their hiring practices with respect to these. 12

Rights on the Job No employer has the right to deprive his employees of their rights off the job. The extent of an employees right to freedom of expression on the job is not a clear-cut issue, & in part depends on who the employer is. Employees do not have the right to sow disaffection & foment employee unrest during their working hours. 13

The Right to Treatment with Respect The right of an employee to be treated like a human being is a moral right. –It is an extremely broad and, in many ways, a vague right. Nevertheless it is a central right. –Its foundation is straightforward: Each person is a human being, a moral agent deserving of respect. 14

Sexual Harassment The right to freedom from sexual harassment in the workplace has come to the fore in recent years. Sexual harassment is demeaning and fails to show people the respect they deserve. The courts have recognized 2 types of harassment: -Quid pro quo harassment and -Hostile environment harassment. The Right to a Just Wage The right to a just wage, sometimes called a living wage, is a right derived from the right to life, the right to employment, and the right to respect. 15

Keeping Desperation out of the Labor Market A just legal & political system must at least provide an income floor & keep desperation out of the market by providing alternatives to forced acceptance of any wage offered, regardless of conditions. Only within a set of what can be called fair back- ground institutions can the market be allowed to determine wage differentials. 16

Fairness Beyond the Minimum There are five levels of interpretation of the principle equal pay for equal work. 1.On an international level, across an occupation or position; 2.On a national or regional level, across an occupation or position; 3.On an industry level; 4.On a company level; and 5.On an individual or interpersonal level. 17

Privacy, Polygraphs, and Drugs Employees have a moral right to privacy. They work for their employers for a certain period of time each day, and the rest of their time does not belong to the company but to themselves. They should be allowed to do what they want during that time, free from company interference. 18

Polygraph Testing The use of polygraph tests for pre-employment purposes is at least prima facie unethical. Using a polygraph test on current employees may violate workers rights in the following ways: –The questions asked could be of a type that the firm had no right to ask. –The range of questions employers might go into issues which employers have no right to go, such as ones sexual preferences, religious beliefs, political affiliations, home life, & drinking habits. –Those taking the test have no guarantee that the results of the test would be kept private. 19

Drug Testing If drug testing is morally justified, the reasons must be important enough to override the employee’s right to privacy. Random drug testing also tends to cause uncertainty & uneasiness among workers, since they never know when they will be called. Defenders of the practice claim that this is the point: –Since workers do not know when they will be tested, they have an incentive not to use drugs. The positive effects of random drug testing have not been empirically proven. 20

HIV Testing The emergence of AIDS raised issues about workers rights. –One issue concerns the right of the person with AIDS to privacy. –The second is the right of the person with AIDS to nondiscriminatory treatment. –The third is the claimed right of other workers not to be exposed to a fatal and communicable disease. 21

Employee Duties Though workers have rights on the job, they are hired to perform specific tasks, & justice demands they do the job for which they are hired. Employees are morally obliged to : –Obey moral laws, & they are legally obliged to obey the civil law at work, just as during all other times. –Not to lie, not to spread false information, not to sexually or otherwise abuse or harass others. –To treat their fellow employees, whether above or below them, with respect. –To fulfill the terms of their contracts. –To consider the interests of the firm for which they work. 22

Worker Loyalty and Obedience Though obedience can be morally justified, there are clear moral limits to obedience. No one can be morally obliged to do what is immoral. Loyalty is also a quality expected and demanded by many firms. Being loyal in these ways is morally permissible, but it is not morally obligatory. One has no general moral obligation of loyalty to ones employer, even though employers would like to have loyal employees. 23

The Right to Organize: Unions In a just society, among the institutions to achieve a system of fair wages, unions play an important role. The justification for unions stems from the right of individuals to the greatest amount of freedom compatible with a like freedom for all. -Includes rights of individuals to pursue their own ends & the right to associate with others to achieve common ends. -The right to association is a Fundamental charter right. -The right to form unions is recognized in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as in many international conventions. Although workers have the right to form and join unions, workers have no obligation to do so. 24

The Right to Strike In relations between labor & management, there are four major groups involved: –Labor –Management –Government –General public. Often the right of the public must be weighed against the right of the workers to strike. A frequent example is public-sector strikes. 25

26