EmployeesLearning ObjectivesAfter completing this chap.docx

Employees
Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
• Understand alternative positions on the nature
of employment.
• Discuss the ethical problems that arise with hiring
and firing people.
• Examine the ethics of wages and working
conditions.
• Discuss the merits of union membership.
• Examine the ethics and complexities of
whistleblowing.
iStockphoto
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CHAPTER 6Section 6.1 Introduction
Contents
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Ethical Theories of Employment

The Capitalist View
The Socialist View
The Middle Ground: Virtue Ethics
Employment and Social Power Conflicts
6.3 Hiring and Firing
Interviews
Firing
6.4 Wages
Fair Pay
Minimum Wage
Salary Caps
6.5 Working Conditions
Occupational Health and Safety
Understanding Hazards
6.6 Unions
History of Unions
Professional Unions
6.7 Whistleblowing
Types of Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing Guidelines
Whistleblowing Laws
6.8 Conclusion
6.1 Introduction
For many people, the term employee suggests that

thereis a boss and an underling,and that the
worker is subject to the demands and whims of
the boss.The cartoon image of an exploited,
hum-
bled worker readily comes to mind—low wages,
poor working conditions, intimidation, and sexual
advances. Yet in the world of business, thereare
many different kinds of employment and
there-
fore many different kinds of employees. Some
we would indeed describe as being
oppressed, or
at least harassed, and others we would thinkof as
having more power than their bosses.
The issues arising from employment that attract
media attention are oftenlegal breaches of con-
tract, discrimination, employment of illegal labor,
and so on. Contracts are complex, and employ-
ment law litigation has escalated sincethe CivilRights
Act of 1964 and otheremployment acts.
This escalation reflects the change in the law, but
thereare deeper, ethical, issues too:
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CHAPTER 6Section 6.2 Ethical Theories of Employment
• Do people have a right to a job?
• Do employershave ethical responsibilities to

those they employ, and if so, how far do these
responsibilities extend?
• What responsibilities do employees have
to
their employers?
• To what extent should employersbe able to
find out about employees’ personal lives?
• Should laborunions be allowed?
• Should whistleblowers be given legal
protection?
Our thinking can be prejudiced by the presence of
com-
monly known laws on discrimination and
minimum
wages. To push on with an ethical frame of
mind, we
need to put asidelegal concepts for the moment. Dis-
crimination may be illegal, but is it immoral?
Can it ever
be right to discriminate between people
because of
personal prejudice? Although hiring illegal
immigrants
is illegal, does that make it wrong? If a
promotioncan
be gained by spreading a private truth
about a col-
league competing for a post, should the
information be
used? Before hiring someone, should an
employer fish

around social networking sites for nonrelevant
informa-
tion?What kind of employer or employee should I
be?
Because of the political nature of public sector
employment, this chapter discusses the ethical
problems of employment in the private sector.
We will answer questions like those we just brought
up, discussing the ethical responsibilities
that employersand employees have to each other,
ethical issues related to hiring and firing,
and
wages, working conditions, and unions. We will
conclude by looking at whistleblowers. But let
us
get started by examining sometheories of
employment.
6.2 Ethical Theories of Employment
In Chapter 2 we introduced the theories of
capitalismand socialism. Let us look at how these
two
distinct theories view employment and its ethics
before examining the middle ground
between.
The Capitalist View
In the capitalist view of employment, the employer
and employee negotiate a contract between
themselves for their own benefits, period. This can be
called the contractual theory of employ-
ment. The terms of the contract may be

breached and hence open up either partyfor a
lawsuit,
but if one side decides to act unfairly outside
the bounds of the contract, then no rights
problem
occurs. An employee does not have a right to sue
against unfriendly or unfair treatment unless
thereis a breach of contract (Machan, 1988, p.
227). For the capitalist, an employer cannot be
David Hitch
Should work resemble this cartoon of a
classic case of the dictatorial manager
bawling and whipping people into higher
productivity? If not, why do many people
believe that we need leaders and people to
tell us what to do?
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forced into doing somethingmoral such as acting
pleasantly to employees. However, in the capi-
talistmodel, both employersand employees are seen as
equals: Both may respect each otheror
not. Fairness cuts both ways.
For the capitalist, people do not have a right to a

job, just as they do not have a right to an
income
or any product they see on the shelves. A job is
a mutual contract between two people, that is
all. This can imply that ethics does not even enter
employment negotiations or the workplace: If
workers are dissatisfied, they can leave; if a
manager is dissatisfied with a worker, he or
she can
fire the worker.
A modified version of this stark view of employment
accepts the contractual basisof employment
but adds that both employersand employees do have
otheraspects to them: They can be nice to
each other, avoid discrimination, encourage each otherto
fulfill their potential, provide flexibility.
The capitalist world of Adam Smith can be
seen as the bare minimum for any free society;
once up
and running, we can be ethical towards one another
(if we choose!).
The Socialist View
According to Marx’s socialism, employees in
capitalist systems have to work for employersand
are thus slaves to the wagesystem; inevitably,
even by definition, they are exploited. This can be
called the exploitation theory of employment. Workers
are defined as being without power or
the means to sustain their own living. They are
dependents whom the capitalist class exploits to

make and sell products and services. For Marx,
employment is defined by two opposing classes
who can only struggle against one another. On the
one hand, the capitalists struggle to keep wages
low so that they may earn higher profits; on the
otherhand, the workers struggle to raise their
wages so they do not starve. The simplistic duel
between employersand employees is compli-
cated in 20th-century ethics by notions of
justice, fairness, and responsibility, but the image
of the
boss versus employee has not faded.
These two positions form opposing theories of
employment that affect how we view employ-
ment ethically. Marx encouraged workers to strive
for all the rights and privileges they can get.
Otherwise the money will just end up in the
capitalists’ pockets. A capitalist sees employment
as
mutually beneficial and not a “winner takesall”
situation where one person’s profit is another
person’s loss.
The Middle Ground: Virtue Ethics
The reality for most workers and employers,
however, probably lies somewhere in between
the
capitalist and socialist views. There are exploitative
and manipulative bosses as well as lyingand
thieving employees. There are those who foster

fairness and decency in the workplace, and
others
who prefer an aggressive, competitive atmosphere.
There are employerswho entrust and encour-
age personal development and workers who cooperate,
adapt, and innovate. In otherwords, the
workplaceis complex, and the ethical problems it
generates cannot be fully described by either
the capitalist or socialist view. A middle ground
emerges in most discussions that seeks to
find
ethical solutions to the complexities of the
workplacein the language of virtue ethics (or
virtue
theory). Virtue ethics focuses on the good character
traitsthat people acquire. With employers
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and employees, somegood character traitswould be
reputation, morale, loyalty, discipline, pro-
ductivity, and respect. These are ethically important
qualities that capture aspects of work that
we can relate to—Joe is a loyalworker,
Shannon is diligent, Manuel is a respectful
manager, Kai is
flexible to work for, Anya’s firm has an excellent
reputation with its workers, Martha’s teams are
inspirational, and so on.

Virtue ethics tries to shed light on how we should
proceed and act towards one another in the
workplaceby focusing on good character traits, such as
being just, fair, disciplined, hardworking,
etc. But such terms are themselves open to
criticism. These virtuous character traitsthemselves
have hidden assumptions about power structures in
society, which we will look at next.
Employment and Social Power Conflicts
For critics of capitalismand the contractual theory
of employment, thereis another concern that
stems from the observation that social and
business relationships ofteninvolve power
struggles
between diverse groups of people. In forming a
business contract, for example, the relationship
between two people is not always that of two
equals. Society is characterized by power
relations
in which men are generally perceived to have greater
power than women; Whites more than eth-
nic minorities; largecorporations morethan small
businesses; producers more than consumers.
We may not accept the simple two-class war that
Marx describes, but we should look for other
kinds of hidden or subtle forms of
exploitation in our
language and acts.
When we hire another person, we are engaging in
somethingmore than just a contract to offer payment

in return for skills or time.Inevitably, social
relation-
ships are implied in the interview and in the work-
place, and they are filled with power games.
Returning
to the cartoon of the boss and employee,what if
the
boss has much greater economic or social power
than
the employee? That inevitably alters the
potential
contract made. In traditionally male-dominated
cul-
tures, this can be quiteobvious—younger men have
to trust oldermen and learnto hold their tongues, and
women are further disempowered by their gender. A
woman may be hiredfor various underlying
assump-
tions governing her weakness in society: She may be
less likely to complain or to demand higher
pay; she
may look attractive to clients and hence gain higher
sales. Her mind is less important than the social
status
she conveys.
In an attempt to produce a better and more
ethical
atmosphere for workers, somephilanthropic employ-
ers have created idealistic towns for workers to
settle
in. These are known as company towns, and
we turn
to thesenow as an interesting case study.

Associated Press
In the office, there are both subtle and
obvious power structures, as in this exam-
ple of a male boss dictating to a female
typist while standing over her paternally.
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The Case of Company Towns
Historically, company townswere oftenthe product of
philanthropic or religious thinking. One of
the first company towns was the Scottish village of
New Lanark, where the socialist utopian Robert
Owen turned a mill town into a centrally run
village in which the workers were well
provided for.
Owen set up the first elementary school in
the United Kingdom, and ensured that the
workers had
good housing and were well fed. Owen’s experiment
attracted much attention, and later famous
chocolate companies such as Cadbury set up model
towns for their workers. While Owen was a
socialist, the Cadbury family, of Bournville, were
Quakers who believed in the innate equality of

men and women and sought to provide better
conditions for their working colleagues out of
a
religious duty.
Owen later traveled to the United States and
set up a communalproject in New Harmony,
Indiana,
in 1826. However, the project and othersubsequent
attempts to reproduce New Lanark failed.
Meanwhile, as industrial production followed the
migration of European peoples across the Mid-
west, company towns based on non-socialist
principles flourished for several decades.
The first and most famous, the town
of Pullman in Chicago, was reminis-
cent of Owen’s idealism, except it
was less a socialist experiment than
a paternalistically run town. George
Pullman, the owner of Pullman Pal-
ace Car Company, set up the town,
which attracted attention and
awards for meeting workers’ needs.
Indeed, in contrast to other tene-
ments in Chicago, Pullman’s town
was initially highly attractive, clean,
and modern. Amenities and utili-
ties were provided, but when his
business took a dive in 1893, Pull-
man lowered workers’ wages but
kept their rents high.The result was
a bitter strike the following year.
The Pullman case provides a useful example of
how employer–employee tensions can break out

and of the issues that ethicists draw our attention to.
On the one side, a powerful company run
paternalistically, employing and housing thousands of
people, suddenly facesa change in fortune
that means it cannot keep up its charitable
principles. On the otherside, thousands of people
and
their families who have become accustomed to the
higher standard of living the company offers
experience their lives being disrupted and changed.
It is not surprising that unions emerged in such
situations to help redress perceived and real imbal-
ances. Unions, which we will discuss later in
this chapter, set up representatives to negotiate
better
conditions and pay for workers who would
otherwise be too weakto voice their demands
and con-
cerns. Characteristic of many strikes, however,
the Pullman Strike brought in federal troops
to restore
order, essentially forcing workers to give up
their strike. This caused political problems
between the
Illinois governor and President Cleveland, and the
union agitator was sentenced to prison.
Snark/Art Resource, NY
Strikers in the Pullman Strike often had deplorable living condi-
tions, as shown here.
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CHAPTER 6Section 6.3 Hiring and Firing
While there are many intricacies
to the Pullman case, the storypro-
vides us with a general descrip-
tion of how tensions may erupt:
Such tensions may be hidden and
go undiscussed—until something
sets them off, of course. But to
what extent should businesses
seek to avoid such tensions?
Should they be forced to consider
employees’ needs through legisla-
tion and greater accountability to
municipal, state, or federal agen-
cies, or should they be just left
to work things out with workers?
When an employment contract
is made, is it solely about dollars
and centsor does it invoke deeper
responsibilities?
As we have already learned, employersare subject to
regulations concerning how they treat
employees, particularly regarding discrimination,
but they are also subject to consumer and
moral pressure. Previous chapters have discussed
whether the latter are sufficient to encourage
employersto be scrupulous and fair in their
dealings, and while free market proponents
may
prefer to keep governments out of employment

deals, it is nonetheless a reality for all
employers
that they must deal with regulations concerning hiring
and firing, wages, working conditions, and
unions. We will now turn our attention to each of
theseissues.
6.3 Hiring and Firing
From the capitalist, free market perspective, if I
choose not to buy a certain product, no
ethical
problem arises: I am exercisingmy freedom of
choice to purchase or not purchase. The same is
true for the free market view of employment: Just as
I may choose to hire an individual, I
may also
choose not to hire that individual, or to fire
him or her. In both cases, the reasons for
not acting
are mine alone.
However, the labormarket has generally been considered
different from the markets for products
and services. Marx railed against what he saw as
the commoditization of people—the market
system’s turning people into economic objects to be
bought and sold like soap. Not all free market
economists would disagree with him—Adam Smith
was highly concerned about the menial nature
of mass production, which could reduce a
worker’s brainto mush:
The man whose whole life is spent in

performing a few simple operations . .
. has
no occasion to exerthis understanding . . . .
He naturally loses, therefore, the habit
of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid
and ignorant as it is possible for
a human creature to become. (1776/1981 p.
782)
Copyright Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images
In the 1890s, President Cleveland called in the United States
15th Infantry, Company C, to break up the Pullman Strike and
restore order.
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The virtue ethicist, as you will recall, challenges
us to
consider the employment contract in more humane
terms: Behind the employment contract are people
with expectations and emotions that perhaps should
be taken into account in hiring. Accordingly, it
would
be wrong to hire a person under false
pretenses con-
cerning how much the person was to be paid
and
what the job description would be, and indeed

the
law would chastise such practices as breaches of
contract.
Yet is it also wrong to hire people knowing
that the
job may not last as long as projected, or that the
job
may be much more intricate than explained, or
that
it would be thoroughly unsuitablefor the
applicant in
otherregards? Prejudicial discrimination apart, ethi-
cists draw our attention back to the human element.
In employing someone, thereis an element of
promise
keeping, a requirement of care and respect for
others,
and an implication that excellence should be
pursued.
In turn, this encourages loyalty to the employer
(Guy,
1990). In other words, there is an
inevitable moral
dimension to hiring employees, and mutual respect
helps both parties.
It would be difficult to legalize requirements of
decency,
care, and respect. But what if an employer shows no
care for her employee? Should she be ethically
con-
demned or held legally responsible? Does she have to

showcare? What would that mean in the
workplace?
Should an employer have to consider the personal
cir-
cumstances of a potential applicant for a job? Or
should personal life remain private and out-of-
bounds in hiring decisions? We address these
and otherquestions in the next section, where
we
discuss interviews.
What Would You Do?
You work for a decent salary in a field
that you enjoy, but the line manager
stresses you out every time she enters
the office. You talk to colleagues and
they are similarly dissatisfied, but in
the present economic climate, no
one wants to make a fuss in case they
might lose their bonus or job.
1. Do you ignore the manager and
proceed with your work as profes-
sionally as you see fit, or do you
ask her to showmore respect?
2. Can you thinkof a situation in
which you or someone you know
has had to challenge a manager
for generating stress? What were
the outcomes of highlighting the
problem?
3. If you were in a hiring role, what

kind of character would you look
for in a manager—efficient, pro-
ductive, ruthless, competitive,
compassionate, decisive, thought-
ful? Create of list of values that
you thinkare important and see if
you can relate them to the ethical
notions you are reading about.
Interviews
Interviews are highly problematic affairs.
Inevitably, prejudicesmay affect an interview;
the ethi-
cist is quick to warn against personal
considerations in favor of a more objective
analysis of the
candidate (or from the employee’s perspective, of
the firm). Explicit discrimination on the
grounds
of race, gender, and age notwithstanding, personal
assessments of a candidate obviously come
into play in any interview. For example, the interviewer
may find the candidate attractive, or want
to find out more about his or her personal life
than the job warrants knowledge of. The inter-
viewer will also need to assess the candidate’s
aptitude for the job: his or her intelligence,
reflec-
tion on prior experiences, capacity for self-direction,
and interpersonal skills. Will the candidate
be an asset or a liability in the workplace?
Would his or her humor unsettle customers or
other
employees? Is the job seeker ambitious and
trustworthy? What may appear to be a

move towards
negotiating an employment contract also involves a
greatdeal of personal, subjective evaluation.
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Psychologists explain that we are good at recognizing
whether we like or dislike a person
immedi-
ately. First impressions are oftenwhat interviewers
rely on to assess an applicant. However, they
also offer a warning that we need to be aware of
for ethical considerations: First impressions are
not always good indicators of how well a person
may act in othercontexts. That is, just because
a would-be employee performs well in an interview
does not mean that that person will perform
well on the job. This conclusion is at odds with
our intuition. Mostof the time,we assume that
people display the same character traitsin different
situations. We usually underestimate the
largerole that context plays in people’s behavior
(Gladwell, 2000). Because of the slippery
nature
of the interview, human resources managers use two
basicstyles of interviewing: unstructured
interviews and structured interviews.
Unstructured Versus Structured Interviews
Some psychologists have dismissed the unstructured

interview as
“essentially a romantic process, in which the
job interview functions as a desexu-
alized version of a date. We are looking for
someone with whom we have a cer-
tain chemistry, even if the coupling that results
ends in tears and the pursuer and
the pursued turn out to have nothing in common.
We want the unlimited promise
of a love affair.” (Gladwell, 2000, p. 68)
The unstructured interview is thus ineffective.
Ethically, should we be flirting with a
candidate as
on a date? Can we remove our immediate
personal like (or dislike) of a candidate to
pursue a more
orderly interview? That is where the structured
interview comes in.
The structured interview proceeds with each interview
using the same questions in the same
order for all candidates. Psychologists claim
that such interviews are better than unstructured
ones when assessing an applicant’s true aptitude.
Interestingly, structured interviews are also less
likely to become targets for lawyers, as the
interviewer is not likely to probe into
personal ques-
tions when he or she is following a script
(OPM, 2008).
But critics of using only structured interviews
claim that such interviews do not provide

them
with all of the information they need to make an
employment decision. Some potential employ-
ers therefore combine the structured interview with
unstructured techniques. Interviewees may
be invited to a hotel, for example, where
they are interviewed formally. Following the
structured
interview, they are then observed in a social
situation such as a dinner and are judged on
their
interpersonal skills. Do they tell politicallyincorrect
jokes or drink too much alcohol? Do
they get
along well with others? The benefit of the
unstructured interview and similar unstructured
tech-
niques is that they are not tied to a script
and therefore enable the interviewer to throw
curve-
ball questions and create more “real world” scenarios to
see how the job applicant responds.
However, as noted, such interviews may crossthe
line of propriety, and the decision to hire may
become more a subjective evaluation of chemistry
than an objective assessment of ability.
From the ethical perspective, is it right to
analyze how a candidate acts in a social
situation that is
unrelated to the workplace? It can be argued
that such an interview process would be
unethical
on the grounds that it intrudes into private areasof
the candidate’s life and has no bearing on
pro-

ductivity. It is thus inappropriate to observe and
judge how someone relaxes in a bar or in
a hotel
environment, as it is none of the firm’s
business. Analogously, it would be
inappropriate to inquire
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into the candidate’s sexual orientation or to
follow the candidate into nightclubs. So why
proceed
with a behavioral examination in a hotel?
The capitalist ethicist here would reject any
interview
beyond that which is necessary for the job.
The virtue ethicist can replythat a person’s
character has many aspects that do not appear
in an
interview, just as our best abilities are rarely seen in
examinations. Rather, it is better for both
parties to “get to know each otherbetter” in
the informal environments in which deeper
layers of
the personality emerge. For the virtue theorist, a
person’s character is witnessed in the person’s
habits, or typical acts during a day or over a
few days. How does the person respond to
inappro-

priate comments, to humor, to a game, to
an offer of a drink, to a political
headline? To get the
most out of an interview, the virtue ethicist
suggests being with the candidate for longer
and in
different situations.
Background Checks
Because standard interviews can be hit and miss,
in recent years employershave used a variety
of othertechniques to assess a person’s
character. A background check is one of
these. Economi-
cally, this can be seen as a cost-effective
measure to avoid hiring the wrong person,
but using
background checks also raises someethical
concerns.
From a hirer’s perspective, the cost of
employing someone is generally high.
Additionally, it is esti-
mated that 50% of résumés contain factual errors
and that employee theft and fraud cost U.S. busi-
nesses $50 billion annually (Jones, Schuckman, &
Watson, 2004). It is no mystery that
companies
want to get it right. But when psychological
testing is too expensive for the job, many
employers
have checked applicants’ Facebook
pages and othersocial networking
sites, for instance, to gain a better
glimpse of a job applicant’s per-

sonal interests and habits. In fact,
a recent survey found that 40% of
companies said they would check
job applicants’ Facebook accounts
(Jones et al., 2004).
This has stirred controversy. In some
respects, if a person posts her
thoughts and pictures of evenings
out with friends on public sites, then
it can be argued that a potential
employer has the right to review her
publicly declared deeds and mind-
set either before or after screening
(Finder, 2006). However, others see
such behavior as an unwarranted
intrusion into an applicant’s per-
sonal life, which, they argue, does
not relate to whether the person is
competentto do a job or not.
What Would You Do?
You are a human resources manager for
a largemarketing firm. A job candidate
is coming for an interview in the morn-
ing. Her résumé is impressive and she
seems to be a perfect match for the job.
1. In this situation, would you check
the job candidate’s Facebook
page? Why or why not?
2. What would you do if you found
information on the job candidate’s
Facebook page that you did not

approve of, such as photos show-
ing her partying or at political ral-
lies you did not support?
3. To what extent should a candidate’s
personal life remain unconnected
to his or her application? Are there
any personal matters that you think
should be considered in hiring a
candidate that would justify discov-
eringthem indirectly?
Associated Press/Ronald Zak
Surprised at what the Internet can hold on you? Austrian stu-
dent Max Schrems, shown here, filed a request with Facebook
in 2011 to obtain the personal data the company had about
him. He received 1,222 pages of information, leading him to
start a campaign to force the social networking site to follow
data-privacy laws in Europe. Facebook argues that it already
follows these laws.
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Do we have a right to enteranother person’s private
life? Some ethicists say no on grounds of
privacy, but
this presents an awkward problem. If an employer
does discreetly check a blog or a Facebook page of

an
applicant and findsthat it presents a very different
pic-
ture of the applicant than his résumé or interview
did,
is it not prudent then to seek another applicant?
One
example is that of a conservative Christian
recruiter
going through a pile of applications and
rejecting a
candidate based on her pro-choice feminist
politics
(Engler & Tanoury, 2004). This does not seemfair,
but
on meeting the candidate,the recruiter may very well
sum up the candidate’s views and dismiss him or
her
anyway. Accessing a candidate’s profile online
saves
both parties the time and money involved. Besides,
would the applicant wish to work for a conservative
Christian, given her views?
Due Diligence
Checking on job candidates’ Facebook pages may
reduce the résumé pile on an employer’s desk,
but
somebackground checks may be made to avoid
hiring
a criminal, for instance, for a sensitive job. An
inter-
viewer may justly employ due diligence—checking a
job candidate’s criminal record and employment

history, performing a credit check,
screening for
drugs, and following up on the applicant’s
references—if given the candidate’s permission.
This might seema fair proposal to ensure that
employees are not just capable but also honest
and not disposed to criminal behavior. However, since
that person has given permission to the
employer, the information may again be accessed
whenever the employer wants to know more
about the workers—which raises an important
question: For how long should a company
continue
to monitor an employee’s behavior outside of
the workplace? One argument is that by
monitoring
an employee’s social behavior, a manager can
determine whether that employee is losing focus
or going through trouble outside work that may
affect his productivity. For instance, the
manager
may become aware of the employee’s inability to
keep a long-term relationship, which explains
his
mood swings in the office; or all night
partying on the weekend could start to harm
punctuality.
Awareness of such pressures and tendencies may
help a manager deal with an employee better—
or become prepared to fire him for slacking.
Arguably, therecomes a pointwhen such research
becomes intrusive, even though it may be sanc-

tioned by law. Moreover,someresearch channels, such as
the aforementioned social networking
sites, can give an interviewer access to
information that may not legally be used in
judging appli-
cability for employment, including the candidate’s
age, relationship status, religious or political
preference, and sexual orientation. According to
the ethicist Michael Jones, companies should
not
be trawling for information on applicants that, unlike
a credit history or a drug screening,could
be
unfairly taken out of context (Jones, Schuckman,
& Watson, 2004). On this view, not peering
into
a person’s online activity is a matter of
fairness. We should treat applicants equally and
based on
their aptitude for the job and what they do on the
job, rather than on what clubs they frequent or
whom they spend their weekends with.
into the candidate’s sexual orientation or to
follow the candidate into nightclubs. So why
proceed
with a behavioral examination in a hotel?
The capitalist ethicist here would reject any
interview
beyond that which is necessary for the job.
The virtue ethicist can replythat a person’s
character has many aspects that do not appear
in an
interview, just as our best abilities are rarely seen in

examinations. Rather, it is better for both
parties to “get to know each otherbetter” in
the informal environments in which deeper
layers of
the personality emerge. For the virtue theorist, a
person’s character is witnessed in the person’s
habits, or typical acts during a day or over a
few days. How does the person respond to
inappro-
priate comments, to humor, to a game, to
an offer of a drink, to a political
headline? To get the
most out of an interview, the virtue ethicist
suggests being with the candidate for longer
and in
different situations.
Background Checks
Because standard interviews can be hit and miss,
in recent years employershave used a variety
of othertechniques to assess a person’s
character. A background check is one of
these. Economi-
cally, this can be seen as a cost-effective
measure to avoid hiring the wrong person,
but using
background checks also raises someethical
concerns.
From a hirer’s perspective, the cost of
employing someone is generally high.
Additionally, it is esti-
mated that 50% of résumés contain factual errors
and that employee theft and fraud cost U.S. busi-
nesses $50 billion annually (Jones, Schuckman, &

Watson, 2004). It is no mystery that
companies
want to get it right. But when psychological
testing is too expensive for the job, many
employers
have checked applicants’ Facebook
pages and othersocial networking
sites, for instance, to gain a better
glimpse of a job applicant’s per-
sonal interests and habits. In fact,
a recent survey found that 40% of
companies said they would check
job applicants’ Facebook accounts
(Jones et al., 2004).
This has stirred controversy. In some
respects, if a person posts her
thoughts and pictures of evenings
out with friends on public sites, then
it can be argued that a potential
employer has the right to review her
publicly declared deeds and mind-
set either before or after screening
(Finder, 2006). However, others see
such behavior as an unwarranted
intrusion into an applicant’s per-
sonal life, which, they argue, does
not relate to whether the person is
competentto do a job or not.
What Would You Do?
You are a human resources manager for
a largemarketing firm. A job candidate
is coming for an interview in the morn-
ing. Her résumé is impressive and she

seems to be a perfect match for the job.
1. In this situation, would you check
the job candidate’s Facebook
page? Why or why not?
2. What would you do if you found
information on the job candidate’s
Facebook page that you did not
approve of, such as photos show-
ing her partying or at political ral-
lies you did not support?
3. To what extent should a candidate’s
personal life remain unconnected
to his or her application? Are there
any personal matters that you think
should be considered in hiring a
candidate that would justify discov-
eringthem indirectly?
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Negligent Hiring
What if after a cursory and legally diligent
search, a candidate ends up with the job but
turnsout
to be highly unsuitableand even a danger or
embarrassment to the company? Negligent hiring
occurs when an employer should have known

about an employee’s background that would
have
revealed his or her dangerous or untrustworthy
character. One famous example is the Massa-
chusetts courtcase Ward. v. Trusted Health Resources (1999),
in which a health-care employee
murdered two of his patients. In cases like this,
companies oftenclaim they could not predict
that
an employee would commit murder or steal from
customers. But courts have generally found
companies’ defenses wanting. This,in turn, has created
strong incentives for businesses to find
out more about potential employees before hiring
them.
One company that does background checks on
applicants has claimed that employers“have not
only
a right, but a vested interest to know
about the people they are hiring” (Hamashige,
2000). However,
unsuccessful applicants have a right to ask why they
did not get the job, and although they have no
right to know the reasons, it would seem
inappropriate for an interviewer to respond,
“We didn’t
like your Internet profile.” Nonetheless, the trendmay be
for companies to conduct secret checks
of applicants. In turn, thereis a growing
incentive for job seekers to clean up their
Facebook pages.
Firing
When it comes to firing an individual,

the free market proponent says that the decision to
end a
contract and hence an employment relationship is
really up to both individuals concerned.
Either
an employer or an employee can terminate a
contract, giving the notice required in the
contract.
The socialist retorts that dismissing workers is
easier on the bosses, for they are rarely
impover-
ished by unemployment, while workers suffer.
The reality once again lies in between: An
employer may be relying heavily on an
employee
to complete a project but suddenly find her
employee giving notice. The project cannot be
completed, customers are let down, and the
business’sreputation suffers. On the otherside, a
dismissal can lead to the employ-
ee’s being unemployed and los-
ing income and self-esteem, as is
oftenportrayed in filmsand books.
It is a sad trendthat stock prices
tend to rise when listed compa-
nies announce layoffs. Sharehold-
ers may respond positively to the
company’s being seen as cutting
costsand making itselfmore effi-
cient: Labor costs are often the
highest coststhat companies have.
Employment is a two-way street
highly dependent on mutual trust
and dependency—when either

fails,the contract may be severed
or conditions changed to force a
resignation or earlyretirement.
Associated Press/Ed Andrieski
In this 2011 photo, filmmaker Michael Moore speaks to Occupy
Denver protesters.
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CHAPTER 6Section 6.4 Wages
Employment at Will
The moral foundation for firing in America
rests upon the doctrine of employment at will (EAW),
which was accepted by all states until 1959.
“At will”means that an employer has the right to
hire,
promote, demote, or fire an employee at a
moment’s notice when the relationship is
not covered
by a contract, union agreement, public policy,
or legal statute. Employers may have their reasons
for firing employees, but they do not have to
explain their reasons under EAW.
Free market supporters believe that the right to
terminate employment is similar to a right to

end any personal relationship. Why must a woman
provide a reason for no longer dating a
man,
or vice versa? More controversially, EAW
doctrine is said to encourage responsibility and
innova-
tion in the workplace. If a company has to
put up with slow, plodding staff, the threat
of layoffs
may encourage them to perk up, or firing them may
permit the company to compete better with
competition.
EAW is also supported on several othergrounds:
• Just as a manager can dismiss, so too can an
employee leave under EAW.
• Employers or companies have a propriety
right to hire and fire as they see fit.
• In choosing a job, an employee implicitly
understands that it is contingent rather
than a
job for life.
• Intervention into EAW only causes unnecessary
interference with commerce and wealth
creation.
These argumentsare oftenused to support EAW
against entitlement theories that say workers
have a right to a job and a right to know
why they were dismissed.
Nonetheless, as one journalist stated twenty years
ago, EAW is “on its last leg” (Flynn, 1996,

p.
123). The right to fire people arbitrarilyhas become
legally limited and employersrestrained
as to what they can ask an employee to do. For
instance, an employer cannot ask an employee
to break a law or violate stated public
policy, and hence cannot fire the employee
for not doing
so. “At will”has its legal limits. But thereis also
somethingethically questionable about treating
staff as if they were commodities being thrown
into the garbage. Ethicists generally agree that
employees are persons deserving respect and
deserving reasons for why they may be fired.
For
critics, EAW also promotes arbitrariness—in a
world of employersand employees, the bosses
may use their power arbitrarily.
However, EAW supporters would replythat
irrational management is not conducive to a
healthy,
productive workplace, so while whimsical firings
may occur, the incentive in the marketplace is
to reduce costly whims; and managers who act
randomly are not going to retain their
employees
for long.
6.4 Wages
Wages are determined for the most part in the
marketplace, in which workers supply their
labor
and firms demand workers. In this section, we

will look at issues involving the ethics of
wages. The
most common concern is whether the going rates of
pay are “fair.”
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Fair Pay
In the socialist perspective, employees oftendo
not receive fair wages. The call for fair pay is
an
ancient one and reflects a notion that work
somehow has an intrinsic value in itself.
Pay should
thus reflect the innate value of the work done,
regard-
less of how otherpeople may value it.
However, free market proponents reject the notion
of fair pay in preference for wages set by
market con-
ditions: When the demand for certain work rises,
so
too does the wagerate. Should the supply of work-
ers expand, from migration or an increase in the
birth
rate, a downwardpressure is put on wages.
Demand

and supply form an equilibrium wage rate, which is
the going rate for work.
The problem with the free market wagerate is that
workers are said not to possess sufficient bargaining
power or information to negotiate for fair pay.
Com-
panies may then simply exploit workers’ ignorance
to keep wages low. Adam Smith was no fan of
com-
panies, for he thought they would always
conspire
to keep wages low. Likewise, the early19th-century
English economist David Ricardo thought that wages
for workers would never get above subsistence
levels—that is, a wagerate that allowed them to
feed
themselves and their children but never get
richer.
Marx developed their ideasto propose that workers
were always going to be exploited by capitalists,
for
workers do not own anything while capitalists exclu-
sively own the means of production.
Minimum Wage
As socialism filtered into American liberal politics in
the early20th century, the idea was per-
petuated that workers were being constantlyexploited
and kept on cheap wages. Minimum wage

laws were then introduced in the Fair Labor
Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 to ensure that
those in
work receive a politicallyagreed-upon minimum.
Interestingly, Congress had introduced minimum
wages for women prior to the FLSA, but the
laws were struck down by the Supreme Court
for price
fixing and interfering with the right to negotiate
over pay (Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, 1923;
Gor-
man, 2008). Since the enactment of the FLSA,
the federal government sets the minimum wage
for
the nation, while the states may set theirs
above that level (Department of Labor, 2011).
Minimum wagelaws generate much controversy. For
proponents, they ensure that those in work
are paid a rate that enables them to keep off the
breadline and that may also reflect commu-
nity values concerning a basicstandard of living.
Proponents also champion a living wage, which
would also include the right to afford decent
housing, childcare, and health insurance.
Associated Press/David Zalubowski
In this 2006 photo, workers rally in support
of raising the minimum wage in Colorado,
calling for fair pay.
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For opponents, minimum wagelaws only protect those
who are in work. By introducing a legal
minimum, the law separates those who are employed at
the minimum wagefrom those who can-
not now gain employment. Consider a young and
inexperienced person who is keen to get a
job.
Employers would like to offer him employment at
$3 an hour to see how he gets on, but the
law
decrees that he should be paid $6 an hour,
for example. He remains unemployed. In a
sense, his
right to compete for work has been removed. He cannot
legally offer his services for less than the
minimum wage, which means that he either
must volunteer and work for free or must remain
unemployed. Without experience, it is more
difficult to find work.
The evidence on minimum wages is also
controversial, with someeconomists finding that
they
do not create unemployment and others saying
that they do. Even if the law does not intrude,
the fair-pay claim does hold our moral attention: It
seems only fair and just to treat people as
we
would be treated, as the principle of the Golden
Rule suggests. Accordingly, we should pay people

according to how we would wish to be paid.
Salary Caps
Sometimes maximum wages (or salary caps) have
been proposed to prevent high earners from
earning more money, oftenbecause it is considered
unfair that someshould earn what is consid-
ered an exorbitant fee for their work. During one
presidential election, the Green Party called
for a
maximum wageof $100,000. Still, therehave been no
mandatory maximum wages sincecolonial
times, when the land-owning colonists tried to
impose wagerate restrictions in the face of
scarce
workers and declining currency values.
Nonetheless, thereare examples of salary caps in
the sports world, with the American professional
football, hockey, soccer, and basketball leagues all
collectively negotiating maximum salaries for
teams
and individual players. These are types of
voluntary agreements, however, which can be
rejected
by teams and by players, who may
leave the major associations to form
new ones based on free markets for
wages (as seen in European soccer,
for example). The aim of such sal-
ary caps in sports is to ensure that
smaller teams are not outcompeted
by high-financed larger teams, and

that any excesses earned by clubs
are returned to the sport.
The caps attract controversy, as the
effects are muddied by the leagues’
cartels—which, with the exception
of baseball, effectively prohibit
competing leagues from being set
up. In turn, media companies work
with the major leagues to create
high barriers to entry for investors
wanting to create a new team.
Associated Press/Frank Franklin II
In this 2011 photo, National Basketball Association players-
union president Derek Fisher holds a news conference on labor
talks. One of the issues in the talks was the salary-cap system.
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CHAPTER 6Section 6.5 Working Conditions
Callsfor maximum wages are oftenmade on
grounds of fairness. There have been calls to
limit
bankers’ salaries and bonuses, but the concern is
that highly paid executives would just leave
to find high-paying jobs elsewhere. If an
executive adds several millions to a company’s
profits,

would it not be right for her to be rewarded
proportionately? Free market economists would
agree: Salaries are negotiable between individuals
and thereshould be neither a lower
minimum
nor an upper maximum wagerate. But the ethicist
may inquire further and ask what kind of per-
son needs to be rewarded in millions of dollars.
6.5 Working Conditions
Work takesplace in an environment, and that
environment can oftenbe as important to work-
ers as the wagethey are paid. Consider mining. The
risk of working underground increases the
wages that miners can command in the market
relative to those who do surface quarrying,
for
instance. One thingthat all commentators on working
conditions agree on is that working condi-
tions have improved immensely over the past hundred
years—they just disagree on the causes
for this improvement.
Occupational Health and Safety
Working conditions as a term in business ethics
implies thinking about the welfare, health,
and
safety of employees in the workplace.
However, it can also include the safety of
stakeholders such
as customers, suppliers, and nearby residents.
The unfortunate reality of work in the past meant
that accidents and deaths in the workplacecost

companies very little. Workers were expendable,
and so therewas little incentive to ensure their
welfare and safety. Progressively, though, workers
combined to reduce obvious risks and lax safety
conditions, and legislation began to reflect
their concerns, beginning with the railroad and mining
industries. In 1970, President Nixon signed
the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act),
designed to free workers from unnecessary risk and
unhealthy work conditions. The Act sought to
assure safe and healthful working conditions for
working men and women; by
authorizing enforcement of the standards developed
under the Act; by assisting
and encouraging the States in their efforts to
assure safe and healthful working
conditions; by providing for research, information,
education, and training in the
field of occupational safety and health; and for
otherpurposes. (Occupational
Safety and Health Act of 1970, Summary)
Critics claim that the Act caused an increase in
companies’ costs, which meant layoffs
and a loss of
competitive edge against foreign companies. Safe
and healthy workplaces are certainly more pref-
erable from a third person’s pointof view. But if
an imposed increase in safety measures meant
the loss of jobs, it might not be so welcome to
those forced out of work. The free market
approach

says that as a country gets richer, people tend to
want safer workplaces and homes, so it makes
sense that competition for workers would also
involve offering better workplaces, which
would
incentivize othercompanies to follow suit. In
otherwords, if my company offered employees
a day
care center for their children, I would attract
othercompanies’ employees to my company
even if
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CHAPTER 6Section 6.5 Working Conditions
I paid them the same hourly rate. The OSH Act merely
intrudes into what the market would cater
for anyway—it is an unnecessary intrusion into
business life.
Also importantly for critics, the OSH Act was a
benefit to largecorporations who could
swallow the
higher costsbut it was a death knellfor smaller
companies faced with mandatory cost
increases.
The larger corporations could then buy up the
smaller firms, or the smaller ones would
simply go
under. So from the free market perspective, thereis

no ethical problem as such: Some people
may
accept working in riskier jobs than others and
accept occupational hazards in return for
higher pay.
But what kind of corporation or firm would wish to
put the lives of its employees at risk? From
a moral perspective, it seems extraordinary to
seek profits and turnover at the cost of human
safety. There may be risk takers in society
who enjoy cleaning windows of skyscrapers or
climbing,
but it would not be professional or diligent to
expose the average employee to hazards beyond
their understanding or anticipation. Critics raise
concerns about the culture of safety both in
the
workplaceand in the nation as a whole: Is it
acceptable for employees to take unnecessary
or
inappropriate risks without proper training, for
instance?
Indeed, when the North American Free Trade
Agreement cameinto forcein 1994, therewere
concerns that Canadian and American companies would
lose out to competition from Mexico,
which was perceived to have lax restrictions for
health, safety, and environmental protection. In
the long run, it was argued, othercountries might
catch up with higher U.S. standards, but what

if the competing trading partners do not have a
so-called safety culture? Would it be right for an
American company to lower its safety standards
and expect employees to accept a higher
level of
risk in the workplace?
Supporters of the OSH Act may have a pessimistic
or cynical view of people and corporations
that
echoes Marx’s critique. Workers will be paid a
minimum and will be subjected to risks beyond
their calling in the capitalist system, so governments
must step in to impose minimum require-
ments. Otherwise, unsuspecting employees may
hazard their health and lives because of lazy or
exploitative managers. The capitalist replies that people
have a right to take on risks if they so
choose: You can ride a bike into a city or take a
bus; one carries a higher risk than the other.
If you
do not understand or know the risks, that is
your fault. But the capitalist replyhere is an
unfair
and simplistic understanding of the modern workplace.
With new technologies, workers may not
know about hidden toxins or radiation in
the workplace, for instance, that gradually wear
down
their health. We need an independent scientific
organization to assess the potential threats
work-
ers face, and in many cases that assessment of
facts is not available to workers.

Understanding Hazards
Some jobs carrygreater risks than others, and these
differences carryover into different popula-
tion segments. Men are more likely to make claims
for compensation and are more likely to suffer
fatalities and severe injuries in the workplacethan
women (Sarkis, 2000, p. 21). Teenagers are
also at high risk, particularly in summer jobs. More
than 60 teensa year die in the United States
from workplaceaccidents, and their rate of injury is
75% higher than adults’ (Torres, 2006). This
imposes an ethical, legal, and economic burden on
companies to do more. However, if
youngsters
are prohibitedfrom taking employment on the
grounds that they may come to harm, the
loss of
experience would mean that they enterthe
workforce olderbut still untrained and liable to
cause
harm. A stereotypeof teenagers is that they are
less risk averse than olderpeople, which implies
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CHAPTER 6Section 6.6 Unions

that they are more vulnerable to unknown hazards
than are more experienced people. When a
young person asks to take on a job, should an
employer reduce the risks he faces, or permit
him to
learnon the job? There is an added, special
responsibility towards younger people: The adultis
in a
position of role model, guide, and teacher, and
theseare critical responsibilities not to be entered
into lightly. It is because workers have felt that
their concerns were ignored that somehave turned
to forming unions to protect workers in the
workplaceas well as strive for higher wages.
6.6 Unions
A union is an organization whose purpose is
to protect and enhance workers’ jobs. Since
their
emergence in the late 19th century, unions have
been praised as the saviors of the working
class
and condemned as disruptive and violent
organizations. For socialists, they are useful
vehicles
to empower the working man and woman and to
educate them. For capitalists, unions are
impediments to competition and growth. In turn,
legislation has permitted them, banned them,
allowed them under certain conditions, limited
their actions, jailed their leaders, and hailed
them
as heroes. They are controversial, and even though
membership declines and grows, they have

played and continue to play a role in the modern
economy.
Do you agree with union membership? Do you
owe more to unions than you realize, or have
they
been a blight on American prosperity? A brief
review of unions’ aims may help you decide.
History of Unions
Although attempts to protect the interests of a
class of producers or artisans go back to
medieval
European guilds, laborunions only emerged with the
industrial revolution. At this time,skilled
workers banded together to challenge the
technological shift toward mass production that
was
causing unemployment in rural areas. The industrial
revolutionshifted much production from the
cottage and village into the factory and city.
Thousands of workers could end up
working for the
same company, and unions emerged to become the
voice of labor, taking up the demands of
oth-
erwise voiceless masses submerged in sprawling
cities. Members of theseearlyunions paid into a
fund to assist members in need and to negotiate
for better working conditions and pay.
Initially, laborunions were motivated politicallyto change
not just the workplacebut also society
and government. By using the power of

workers in pursuit of a socialist agenda,
late-19th-century
union leaders thought they could halt capitalism
and what they saw as its inherently exploitative
nature. In Europe, the 20th-century union
movements maintained that political momentum
to
rewrite society and politics, but in the United
States, the unions shifted motives. Instead of
com-
bating corporations and “fat cats”with socialism, the
unions preferred to gain as much as they
could from business turnover for their members in
higher wages, fewer hours, better
conditions,
holiday entitlements, pensions, and so on. Instead of
being socialist unions, they became business
unions interested in filling their members’ pockets.
The earlyunions in the United States were small
and did not last long.There were too many
opportunities for companies to take their production
elsewhere and hire people for less pay, or
too many migrant workers for a union to
grow. Gradually, however, as cities grew up
and popula-
tions became more stable, unions had a chance to
develop and to assert their power. The union’s
power rests in its ability to call all members
out on a strike: It is a most persuasive
bargaining tool.
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However, this power was oftenabused. Early unions
were oftenviolent, breaking up machinery
that they saw as replacing their jobs and intimidating
workers who preferred not to cooperate,
calling them “scabs” and “blacklegs.” Not surprisingly,
property owners turned to government to
protect their property and in turn to intimidate the
unions.
From a legal standpoint, up until 1840, unions
were deemed as “criminal conspiracies in
restraint
of trade” (Goldberg, 1956, p. 157).
However, following the rise of union activity,
various prolabor
laws were passed in the 20th century, alongside laws
that also sought to restrain union activity
that spilled over into violence and intimidation.
In Commonwealth v. Hunt (1842), the Massachusetts
Supreme Judicial Court allowed that unions
were lawful and that members were not collectively
responsible for individual members’ acting crim-
inally. In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt signed
the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), or the
Wagner Act. This act encouraged collective bargaining,
facilitated the formation of the National Labor
Relations Board, and made it easier for unions
to be created (Reynolds, 2009). Union
activism fol-
lowing World War II was calmed in 1947 under

the Labor–Management Relations Act (Taft-Hartley
Act),but unions sidestepped the restrictions in
the law to form union shops, in which
employment
does not have to be based on union membership
but employees must join the union within a
certain
period of time or pay somefees to the union
even if they do not wish to become full
members.
Historianswill champion whicheverside they thinkhas the
moral right; many free market econo-
mists do not mind unions in the abstract.
Individuals, they argue, have a right to
combine col-
lectively. However, when the union imposes a
monopoly on workers and says that they have no
choice but to join, an ethical problem arises. In
a world of choice, the closed-shop union
removes
choice. If you want to work in a profession
and you have no choice but to join a union,
your free-
dom of choice has been removed.
But is union membership an ethical duty?
On the one hand, it can be argued that
unions have
used up their usefulness. They helped foster a
more tolerant and liberal society, but they are
now
defunct and even act as a brake on
economic progress, as they tend
to reject change and innovation
as much as they reject low wages.

Unions cannot do anybody any
good in a dynamic marketplace.
On the otherhand, consider those
whose lives have been improved
through union action. Would
women or Blacks have the same
rights and respect they have today
if unions had not been used in the
cause to promote their dignity and
freedoms?Addie Wyatt worked as
a meat packer and rose to become
the union representative. Her char-
acter and intelligence brought her
cause fame, and she later worked
alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and
on the Presidential Commission on
the Status of Women. She was the
Copyright Bettmann/Corbis/AP Images
Addie Wyatt (second from right) worked hard to empower
underpaid Black women in food processing factories; her intel-
ligence and integrity brought her acclaim, and she later worked
on the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women.
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fie66722_06_c06_137-164.indd 155 3/2/12 9:42 AM
first Black person to be named person of
the year by Timemagazine. Her civil rights efforts
have been

saluted. It can be argued that thereis a duty of
solidarity,especially amongst oppressed workers, to
join a union to ensure that progressive
measures are continued in corporations and
government.
Unions continue to face additional challenges when
dealing with questions of gender and racial
equality on the job. Consider the following example: In
1993, the New York City Fire Department
issued an order that no photos ought to be
taken of its female firefighters. The
department had
been a male preserve for over a century, but women
were gradually passing tests to qualify as
firefighters. They struggled to gain acceptance and
were harassed, intimidated, bullied, and sexu-
ally assaulted. The women allied with the Vulcan
Society, an organization of Black firefighters,
to
secure the respect they deserved (MacLean, 1999,
p. 44–45).
In a male-dominated profession such as
firefighting, the assumption is that women
should not be
firefighters, as one female captain of the New
York Fire Department recalled:
“When I first cameon the job 23 years ago,
fighting fires was the easiest part of
the job for me. Much harder was dealing with
the hatred and discrimination that
somemale firefighters had for me. Now, many of
the initial problems [New York
City Fire Department] women firefighters encountered

have improved.” (Berk-
man, n.d.)
While therehave been greatimprovements, the gains
are superficial so long as more men, or
more white people, are in positions of higher
authority and economic power across the
country.
Professional Unions
When we thinkof unions, we generally thinkof
laborunions, but thereare also professional unions
such as the American Medical Association (AMA).
And sinceunions’ policies are to raise wages, it
is
not surprising to find critics claiming that the AMA
raises doctors’ wages by restrictingentryto
the
profession (through its influence on licensing boards)
and by demanding that competing health
practitioners such as homeopaths and chiropractors be
criminalized by the licensing boards (Cic-
chetti, 2008; Peterson & Wiese, 1995, p.
144–147). In fact, at one pointthe AMA was
found guilty
of violating the Sherman Antitrust Act in its
attempts to prohibit chiropractors from practicing
(Wilk v. American Medical Association, 1990). While
laborunions call opponents “scabs,” profes-
sional unions call the competition “unsafe” or
“cults,” yet professional unions have generally
been
immune to the backlash against unions that arose
in the 20th century to control union action.

Generally, economists agree that both laborand
professional unions act to restrict the supply
of
their laborto the market, in order to push wages
up. This also implies that to the extent that a
union is successfulin raising wages for its
members, nonmembers will suffer a relative
decline
in salary. The evidence, however, is unclear: The
number of physicians has increased in the
past
few decades, contrary to this theory. But could
the number of physicians have increased further
if licensing of doctors were more relaxed? That is a
harder question to answer. Milton Friedman
and otherfree market economists have thought the
AMA restricts entry(Friedman, 1980, p.
273),
whereas the AMA and similar professional unions
prefer to claim that their purpose is to
ensure
patient safety as well as look after physicians’
interests. What fuels the controversy is that
over
200,000 Americans die annually from mistakes caused
by physicians, and over 100 million Ameri-
cans have been adversely affected by medical mistakes
(Null, 2010, p. 50–51).
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CHAPTER 6Section 6.7 Whistleblowing
6.7 Whistleblowing
A whistleblower is a person who informs the
public or someone in authority about illegal
activi-
ties or someothermisconduct that has occurred within
an organization. The term is a metaphor
based on the use of whistles in law enforcement
and sports, where an official draws
attention to
someinfraction by blowing a whistle. In this section,
we will review types of whistleblowing,
some
guidelinesfor whistleblowers, and somelaws that protect
whistleblowers.
Types of Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing can be either internal or
external. Internal whistleblowing occurs when
employ-
ees draw attention to a misdeed by a fellow
worker or supervisor. The complaint takesplace
within
an organization’s established operational structure,
and thus relies on the organization to correct
the problem. A famous example of internal
whistleblowing occurred at the Firestone Tire and
Rubber Company. Its director of development sent a
memo to top management regarding flaws in
one of its products, stating, “We are making an
inferior quality radial tire which will subject

us to
belt-edge separationat high mileage” (“Forewarnings of
FatalFlaws,” 1979). The company did not
correct the problem, and blamed reports of tire
failure on consumers’ underinflating their tires.A
government investigation determined that the tires
were in fact defective and responsible for 34
deaths. Firestone was forced to recall seven
million of those tires,the largest tire recall
to date.
To deal with such problems, companies
sometimes have whistleblower systems or hotlines.
These are mechanisms that allow for employees
to make complaints within the company
struc-
ture. Some areasof business, such as accounting,
have laws that require the implementation
of whistleblower systems to collect and resolve
employee complaints or concerns. These might
include telephone hotlines or Internet sites where
complaints can be registered anonymously.
Some companies encourage internal whistleblowing,
partly as an effort to eliminate any
miscon-
duct on the part of employees and managers in
the company and partly to avoid potential
legal
and public relations problems and thereby protect
their image as transparent and responsible
companies in the eyes of the public. There
are also companies that specialize in
whistleblower
systems and sell their services to organizations,

advertising that their systems are more effective
and have a lower risk of costly retaliationclaims.
Unlike internal whistleblowing, with external
whistleblowing the informant goes outside the
organization to seek somekind of remedy. Complaints
of misconduct may be brought to the atten-
tion of authorities outside the organization, such as
governmental oversight offices, attorneys, the
media, or special interest groups such as
watchdog agencies. Here are two dramatic examples:
• In the mid-1990s, Jeffrey Wigand, a former
vice president of the Brown and Williamson
tobacco company, appeared on the CBS news show60
Minutes and stated that his com-
pany was “a nicotine-delivery business” and had
intentionally manipulated its tobacco
blend to increase the amount of nicotine in
cigarette smoke. He went on to provide evi-
dence in a case that resulted in a $246 billion
settlementwith the tobacco industry. His
storyis depicted in the feature film The Insider.
• In another case, four employees of the
pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly filed lawsuits
against their employer for illegally marketing
the drug Zyprexa for the treatment of
dementia in the elderly, a treatment that was not
approved by the Foodand Drug Admin-
istration. The company pled guilty and was ordered to
pay $1.42 billion, which included
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a $515 million criminal fine, the largest fine ever
imposed on a company in the United
States at that time.
Both of theseare rather dramatic situations; for
the
typical whistleblower, appearing on national televi-
sion or filing a billion-dollar lawsuit are not
options.
With many external whistleblowing situations,
the
employee simply complains to a government agency
that oversees a particular area of business.
Suppose, for example, that a company violated a
health or safety regulation by not providing proper
protective gear for employees who work with hazard-
ous material. An employee could bring the
situation
to the attention of the federal government through
the OSH Act. In the case of violation of
environmental
regulations, such as improper disposal of hazardous
waste, the employee could notify the
Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA). With violations of
securi-
ties regulations such as insider trading, the

employee
could contact the Securities and Exchange Commis-
sion (SEC). For example, a vice president of Enron,
Sherron Watkins, blew the whistle on her company
when she informed the SEC of the irregular
account-
ing activities at her company. The SEC then investi-
gated Enron, which ultimately led to the
company’s
bankruptcy.
Whistleblowing Guidelines
External whistleblowing can cause considerable harmto
a company because of fines, lawsuits,
and tarnishing of its public image. Consequently,
employees who blow the whistle are caught in
a
conflict between loyalty to the company and loyalty
to the public and the law. On the one hand,
as members of the company they have a
responsibility to look out for the best interest of
their
employer and avoid causing unnecessary harm.
On the otherhand, as citizens they have a
respon-
sibility to the public at largeto draw attention to
especially harmful activities of their company.
The act of going public with a complaint is
not one to take lightly, however, and the
argument can
be made that in most cases it is not
justifiable. Sometimes even well-intentioned

whistleblowers
get their facts wrong and cause a public
spectacle even when the company has not
committed
an infraction (Tongue & Instone, 2006). Some
types of whistleblowing can be unjustifiably
con-
frontational, such as creating a Web site that boldly
states, “My company is dumping toxicwaste
in your backyard.” Also, somewhistleblowing may be
the consequence of the employee’s strong
ideological convictions, which are disproportionate
to the actual harmthat a company does.
For
example, an employee who is especially sensitive over
environmental issues may misconstrue a
minor environmental infraction as a major one.
Associated Press/Ron Edmonds
Sherron Watkins is sworn in before Con-
gress. She blew the whistle on Enron’s
dubious accounting practices, and not long
afterwards, she feared for her life.
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Ultimately, thereshould be guidelinesfor when
external whistleblowing is appropriate. Of the
various suggestions that have been made, here are

five valuable ones offered by political philoso-
pher Richard T. De George:
1. The firm, through its product or policy, will do
serious and considerable harmto the
public, whether in the person of the user of its
product, an innocent bystander, or the
general public.
2. Once an employee identifies a serious threat
to the user of a product or to the general
public, the person should report it to an
immediate superior and make his or her
moral
concern known.
3. If an employee’s immediate superior does
nothing effective about the concern or com-
plaint, the employee should exhaust the internal
procedures and possibilities within the
firm. This usually will involve taking the matter up
the managerial ladder, and if neces-
sary and possible, to the board of directors.
4. The whistleblower must have, or have access to,
documented evidence that would
convince a reasonable, impartial observer that one’s
view of the situation is correct, and
that the company’s product or practice poses a
serious and likely danger to the public or
to the user of the product.
5. The employee must have good reason to believe
that by his or her going public, the nec-

essary changes will be brought about. The chance
of being successfulmust be worth the
risk one takesand the danger to which one is
exposed (2006).
Whistleblowers such as Jeffrey Wigand are
sometimes considered folk heroes for
exposing great
harm. Other times, however, they are depicted as
disloyal snitches or emotionally unbalanced
com-
plainers. In either case, through their efforts,
whistleblowers put themselves at risk of
employer
retaliationthrough layoffs, pay decreases,hour cutbacks,
job reassignments, and even termination.
Wigand himself maintained that he was harassed
and publicly discredited by Brown and
Williamson
for whistleblowing. Unable to find a corporate
job in the aftermath,he worked for a while
as a high
school teacher receiving $30,000 a year, which
was one tenthof his former salary. The
emotional
impact on whistleblowers can therefore be very great.
Whistleblowing Laws
Just a few decades ago, whistleblowers had little
protection from retaliationby employers, but laws
have been passed more recently to safeguard them,
and employer retaliationhas subsequently
been on the decline. We will look at threeof the
more important laws protecting whistleblowers.

The False Claims Act of 1863
The False Claims Act of 1863 aimed to help the
government recover money from companies
that
defrauded governmental programs. It was signed into
law during the CivilWar as a mechanism
for punishing military contractors who intentionally
sold the government faulty weapons and sup-
plies. The law was expanded in 1986 to allow
citizens to sue on behalf of the
government—in
essence, to blow the whistle on companies that
defraud the government. Mostimportantly, the
law allows for whistleblowers to be rewarded by
receiving a percentage of the money
recovered.
For example, in the Zyprexa case the four employees
of Eli Lilly received nearly $80 million in
their
share of the settlement.
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CHAPTER 6Section 6.8 Conclusion
The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989
Next, at the urging of President Jimmy Carter,
Congress passed the Whistleblower Protection Act
of 1989, the purpose of which was to protect
employees in government jobs from
whistleblower
retaliation. As the act itselfstated, it sought to

“strengthen and improve protection for the rights
of Federal employees, to prevent reprisals, and to
help eliminate wrongdoing within the Govern-
ment” (WhistleblowerProtectionAct of 1989, §2(b)).
The No FEAR Act of 2002
A final whistleblower protection law is the Notification
and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination
and Retaliation Act of 2002, more commonly known as
the No FEAR Act, which aimed to dis-
courage supervisors in government agencies from
engaging in discrimination and retaliation. The
act was sparked by the case of Marsha Coleman-
Adebayo, an employee of the EPA, who alerted
the agency that a specific U.S. company was
engaged in an environmental violation. When
the
EPA did not take action, she reported the violation to
external organizations. When she was later
denied promotion, she filed suit. The EPA was found
guilty of civil rights violations and ordered to
compensate her with $600,000. In an effort to
reduce the occurrence of similar lawsuits
against
the government, the No FEAR Act was introduced,
which required federal employerslike the EPA
to regularly notify employees of their rights
and remedies regarding discrimination and whistle-
blower retaliation. The notification must include
the following language relating to whistleblowing:
A Federal employee with authority to take, direct
others to take, recommend or
approve any personnel action must not use that

authority to take or fail to take,
or threaten to take or fail to take, a personnel
action against an employee or appli-
cant because of disclosure of information by that
individual that is reasonably
believed to evidence violations of law, rule or
regulation; gross mismanagement;
gross waste of funds; an abuse of
authority; or a substantial and specific danger
to public health or safety. (Office of
Personnel Management, n.d.)
Deadlines for retaliationcomplaints range from a
few days to several years, dependingon the
type
of retaliationand the governing federal or state laws.
Thus, whistleblowers who wish to complain
of retaliationneed to be alert to thesevarying
timetables. One resolution for retaliationis a
“make
whole” remedy, whereby the employee is returned to
the position and status that he or she held
prior to the complaint.
From an ethical perspective, the whistleblower
believes that justice ought to be done—there
is
a perceived duty to tell the truth because the
corporation or government body is acting
illegally,
fraudulently, or without regard to worker safety.
It takescourage to tell the truth and to stand
up
against one’s peer group and possibly against
very powerful political and economic interests. The

easier routeis to do nothing, say nothing, and
hope the problem will go away. But, as the
philoso-
pher Edmund Burke warned, evil flourishes when
good men and women do nothing.
6.8 Conclusion
In the marketplace, goods and services are
constantlybeing produced and exchanged. Labor,
too,
is an economic service offered by people in
return for a wage. The contract between
two people
generates more emotional debate than the buying and
selling of cars, though, which reflects our
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CHAPTER 6Summary
moral concern that an employment contract should
involve more than just the buying and selling
of time,energy, and skills. When two people
interact, thereis a need for respect, a fair
process,
and a fair contract. What that means in
practice can be difficult to spell out, and even
though
federal laws have tried to explain what it means, it
is up to the courts to decide the
interpretation
of the laws.

In the last century, we have generally seen a move
towards protecting workers from unfair treat-
ment and unhealthy working conditions, and a shift of
the burden onto corporations to treat their
employees with respect and decency. But the
relationship goes both ways: As employment
costs
more in terms of wages, worker-compensation
schemes, and health and safety requirements,
companies have an incentive to demand more
knowledge about the people they intend to
hire.
So employees can no longer accept that all
they have to offer is what is on their résumés
and
transcripts: Their entire social lives spilling
onto the Internet are therefor employersto exam-
ine (Finder, 2006). In somerespect, that captures
the problem of seeing employment as more
than just an economic transaction—if it’s a “person to
person” transaction, then each has a right
to demand more knowledge about whom they’re
dealing with.But if employment law is overly
regulated, then we may risk returning to employment as
a commodity transaction. As long as the
boxes are properly ticked and the hiring and
firing are done according to the letter of
the law,
employersmay overlook important values of decency,
politeness, or fairness in the transaction.
Summary
In this chapter, we reviewed ethical theories
concerning the nature of employment.

Capitalists
see employment as a simple contract between
two people that is generally mutually beneficial
and generally needs no otherethical consideration.
Socialists see it as a matter of exploitation
that will always involve a dominant partner. Virtue
theorists prefer to reflect on what kind of
virtuous character traitsmanagers or employees have.
From the perspective of social power
struggles, what is important are the subtle prejudices
that may enterthe expectations of workers
and managers. In hiring people today, one of
the greatest temptations is to survey their
social
networking online; we examined whether it is
right to look up or to continue monitoring
people’s
online activity. In firing people, we considered
the right to fire at will versus the recognition
that
firing people at will is not conducive to a
healthy, ethical workplace. Finally, we
reviewed whistle-
blowers and considered how important they are in
bringing ethical issues to the government’s
or public’s attention.
Discussion Questions
1. Against due diligence testing and surveying of
applicants, an alternative view is to
impose a greater role on the diligence of
managers in the workplacerather than employ-
ing potentially low-quality Internet searches on
employees. Through no longer having

the temptation to check out online profiles,
managers would have to assert greater
observational skills at work and ask lawyers to
tighten up contractual agreements. Do
you agree that putting more responsibility on the
people actually hiring is better than
asking third parties to do criminal and online
assessments of employees and applicants?
2. When reviewing a manager or an employee,to
what extent do cultural considerations
and stereotypes of people enterinto the analysis?
Are you aware of any gender or racial
biases in your own thinking or in people’s
assumptions about work colleagues?
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CHAPTER 6Summary
3. Unions and various workers in big corporations
and governments sometimes protest
about fair pay. Outline what you thinkconstitute the
essentials of fair pay in a given job
and then examine the advantages and disadvantages of
enacting minimum wages, a fair-
pay ethic, and maximum wages in the United
States.
4. Unions have been blamed for causing disruption to
the advancement of the economy;
they have also been praised for their work in drawing

attention to and alleviating injus-
tice in the workforce. But has their day ended?
With union membership on the wane, do
you thinkthat unions have a function in the current
economy? Why or why not?
5. Examine a particular case of whistleblowing of
your choice. What ethical reasons moti-
vated the whistleblower and what was the reaction of
otheremployees, friends, and the
media? Do you thinkthat whistleblowing should be
encouraged or do you thinkthat it
would only cause a greatdeal of crying wolf?
Key Terms
closed-shop union Aunion association that a
worker must join.
commoditization of people A socialist view
that employment contracts turn people into
commodities to be bought and sold by corpo-
rations as they see fit.
company towns Towns that have built up
around a single company and in which all
the workers’ needs are provided for by the
company.
contractual theory of employment The view
that employment is just a matter of a
contract
rather than any otherethical expectations,
such as being decent.
due diligence A range of research that a busi-

nessperson is expected to make before com-
mitting to a contract.
employment at will (EAW) The theory that
an employment contract should be instantly
terminable by either party.
equilibrium wage rate The wageset by mar-
ket conditions.
exploitation theory of employment The
socialist view that of the two parties engaged
in a job, the boss has more power and the
worker possesses little if any power.
external whistleblowing When an employee
makes a complaint to an external authority
such as the police, the SEC,or another federal
agency.
fair pay The idea that a wageshould ade-
quately reflect a worker’s needs and ability to
live in society.
False Claims Act of 1863 U.S. federal law
to assist the government in retrieving mon-
ies from people and corporations who are
defrauding it.
internal whistleblowing When an employee
makes a complaint about a fellow worker or
corporate procedures and keeps the complaint
within the company.

Labor–Management Relations Act of
1947 U.S. federal law that removed the right
of unions to used closed shops.
living wage A wagethat should reflect an
adequate standard of living in a society.
maximum wage The highest wagethat may
be paid according to a government.
minimum wage law A law that stipulates
the minimum wagethat can be paid to an
employee.
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CHAPTER 6Summary
National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA)
U.S. federal law that encouraged the use of
collective bargaining by unions and employers.
negligent hiring When a company hires an
inappropriate person and can be ethically cen-
sured for not doing its due diligence.
Notification and Federal Employee Antidis-
crimination and Retaliation Act of 2002
(No FEAR Act) U.S. federal law designed to
stop federal supervisors from threatening or
retaliatingagainst federal employees who
blow the whistle.

Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act)
Introducted by the Nixon administration to
regulate the protection and welfare of workers
in the workplace.
professional unions White collar unions such
as the American Medical Association whose
purpose is to protect members’ interests.
safety culture The prevailing ethical view in
a company with regards to the health, safety,
and welfare of employees.
structured interview An interview that fol-
lows a set list of questions.
union An organization set up to protect and
advance workers’ safety, work conditions, and
wages.
union shop An alternative to the closed shop
that mandated union membership upon enter-
ing a job contract. In a union shop,
workers
were still obliged to join a union later or pay
fees to the union even if they preferred not to
be full members.
unstructured interview An interview that fol-
lows the conversation that two people make
rather than being prescribed by set criteria.
virtue ethics The view that morality is
grounded in the virtuous character traitsthat
people acquire.

whistleblower Someone who divulges to an
authority that the company or department he
or she is working in is breaking a law.
Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 U.S.
federal law to protect federal employees who
blow the whistle on fraudulentor unsafe prac-
tices in federal agencies.
whistleblower systems or hotlines Systems
within a corporation that allow whistleblowers
to make official and sometimes anonymous
complaints.
working conditions The health and safety
conditions of a workplace.
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fie66722_06_c06_137-164.indd 164 3/2/12 9:42 AM
[INSERT TITLE HERE] 2
Running head: [INSERT TITLE HERE]

[INSERT TITLE HERE]
Student Name
Allied American University
Author Note
This paper was prepared for [INSERT COURSE NAME],
[INSERT COURSE ASSIGNMENT] taught by [INSERT
INSTRUCTOR’S NAME].
Directions: Using Microsoft Word to save and submit your
work, please choose ONE of the following writing topics and
write a well-developed essay (3-4 pages). You will present an
argument APA format based on ONE of the three topics below.
MUST have at least 2 sources cited. And must have an outline.
Topic One
The First Amendment was written before technologies for
disseminating ideas like television or the Internet were ever
dreamed of. As a result, there have been many debates over
“freedom of speech” in these media. Select one narrow issue
(for example, publication of bomb-making instructions; hate
speech against a religious or ethnic group) and argue for your
reasoned final position (for, against, or nuanced) on control of
freedom of expression on that issue in that medium.
Topic Two
The Bill of Rights is considered fundamental to U.S.
government and culture. Other nations do not embrace these

freedoms (for example, China rigorously censors the Internet
and the press and Saudi Arabia does not allow freedom of
religious expression). How tolerant should the United States be
toward the “intolerance” of other cultures? Write an argument
proposing a code of conduct for Americans with nationals of
another country who do not recognize the same freedoms (for
example, Saudi Arabia supports the building of mosques in the
United States but allows no Christian churches or synagogues to
be built in Saudi Arabia; the Cuban government organizes anti-
American rallies but does not allow anti-Castro rallies).
Topic Three
Recommendations to decrease violent juvenile crime range from
see-through school bags to confiscating guns, eliminating
violent video games, altering local news coverage, and changing
the way parents teach their children esteem for others. Imagine
that you are an advisor to the President of the United States and
you have been asked to write a policy speech in which you lay
out a series of feasible initiatives for reducing violent crime by
juveniles.
Discrimination in the Workplace
Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
• Define the various types of discrimination.
• Explain the notions of affirmative action,
equal opportunity, preferential treatment,
individual and group
compensation, and reverse discrimination.

• Explain the different argumentsfor and against
affirmative action.
• Describe the different U.S. affirmative action
laws and procedures.
• Describe the major Supreme Court decisions
that have clarified affirmative action laws.
Royalty-free
5
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CHAPTER 5Section 5.1 Introduction
Contents
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Discrimination
Features of Discrimination
Social Institutions and Discrimination
Types of Discrimination
Evidence of Discrimination
5.3 Affirmative Action
Features of Affirmative Action
Arguments for Affirmative Action
Arguments Against Affirmative Action
5.4 Affirmative Action in U.S. Law

Two Laws and Two Governmental Agencies
Compliance Guidelines and Plans
Supreme Court Cases
5.5 Conclusion
5.1 Introduction
Racial prejudice has been the source of social
conflict and personal suffering for as long as
there
have been human records, and quitepossibly for tens of
thousands of years before that. Rival
ethnic groups wagewar upon each other, enslave
members of opposing groups, and even try to
exterminate them. The concept of racial
equality is a comparatively recent one, and it
has only
been a matter of decades that governments have
denounced racial prejudice and made efforts
to
undo at least someof the damage it has caused.
Indiais a case in point, with its centuries-old
tradition of the caste system, which has
splintered
the population into a hierarchy of social classes.
While the higher castes have been the holders
of
the country’s wealth and power, at the very bottom
are the “untouchables” who are so low that,
in the past, upper castes avoided coming into
any contact with them. Making up 16% of
the coun-
try’s population, they historically had no meaningful
access to education, respectable employ-
ment, or political representation. Millions today

live on the streets or in garbage dumps,
where
they forage for scraps of anything that might
have someresale value. While Indiawas a
colony, the
British government made efforts to elevate
the untouchables into mainstream society, one of
the
first efforts at what we now call affirmative action.
After independence in 1947, the government
of Indiacontinued this policy, even writing into the
constitution special protections and opportu-
nities for the untouchables. Among thesepolicies is
the reservation of 16% of all government
jobs
for untouchables, in direct proportion to their
number in the population. A high percentage
of
student positions in universities are also reserved
for them.
When we look at India’s situation, it is easy to
conclude that the country chose the right
remedy:
Dramatic injustices call for dramatic corrective measures,
without which the untouchables would
be forever locked into a cycle of the most
unimaginable poverty. It is not just India,
however, that has
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CHAPTER 5Section 5.2 Discrimination
this problem. Many of the world’s
countries have minority groups that
are economically suffering because
of a history of discrimination. The
United States is a case in point. This
country has adopted solutions like
India’s, though not quiteas radical.
Businesses in particular are on the
cutting edge of social reforms that
aim to elevate historically disadvan-
taged minority groups. Sometimes
companies proactively embrace
theseefforts, but in most cases, the
efforts are backed by government
mandates and businesses have no
choice but to comply. Discrimina-
tion in the workplaceis one of the
most important ethical and legal
issues for businesses. Social con-
science urges companies to elimi-
nate discriminatory employment practices, and the law
requires them to do so. In this chapter, we
will explore many of the issues connected with
discrimination in the workplace.
5.2 Discrimination
We will begin with a look at the nature of
discrimination itself, how it affects businesses
and other
social institutions, and the evidence for it.
Features of Discrimination

Take this simple case of discrimination: A man and a
woman both apply for the same job; the
woman’s qualifications are much stronger, but the
employer hires the man instead. In essence, the
woman was turned down purely because of
her gender, and not because of her abilities.
Discrimi-
nation is the unjust or prejudicial treatment of
people on arbitrary grounds, such as race, gender,
or age, which results in denial of opportunity,
such as in business employment or promotion.
Key to this definition is the idea that the treatment is
based on arbitrary grounds. A person’s gender
or skin coloris irrelevant to his or her job
performance as, for example, an accountant,
and it would
be arbitrary to deny that person an employment
opportunity on that basis. Sometimes, though,
it
is not discriminatory to deny opportunities to people
because of someunique feature about them.
Suppose that a blindperson applied for a job as
an air-traffic controller and was turned down
for
the specific reason of blindness. In this case, having
eyesight is a necessary requirement for doing
that job, and thereis nothing arbitrary about
denying that opportunity to blindpeople.
However, it can be a challenge sometimes to
determine whether a particular physical feature is

needed to do the job. An interesting case
illustrating this is that of a 240-pound
woman from San
Francisco who was denied work as an aerobics
instructor because of her weight. The company
Associated Press/Saurabh Das
This 2011 photo shows an Indian “untouchable” who has pros-
pered despite the odds. Hari Kishan Pippal now owns a hospi-
tal, a Honda dealership, and a shoe factory (Sullivan, 2011).
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fie66722_05_c05_111-136.indd 113 3/2/12 9:42 AM
in question was Jazzercise, which advertiseditselfas
the world’s leading dance-fitness program,
having 5,000 certified instructors across the
country. The company’s stated policy was
that their
instructors must have a “fit appearance,” and they
turned down the woman when seeing
her in
person. After she complained to the San
Francisco Human Rights Commission, the
Jazzercise com-
pany agreed to drop the “fit appearance” criterion
and conceded that “recent studies document
that it may be possible for people of varying
weights to be fit” (quoted in Ackman, 2002).

This case
shows that long-standing stereotypes may be
grounded in little more than prejudice, and this is
precisely what makes discriminatory treatment unfair.
The most commonly acknowledged forms of
discrimination today are on the bases of:
• race,
• gender,
• disability, and
• age.
Still others include color, creed, political
affiliation, national origin, religion, ancestry,
pregnancy,
medical condition, mental condition, marital status,
sexual orientation, and status as a
veteran. The
list of discrimination types could be endless: I
could discriminate against people who were
fans of
a rival sports team, or likeda particular type of
music, or drove a particular model of
car. Whatever
differences exist between one human and another
could potentially become matters of
prejudice.
Social Institutions and Discrimination
In combating discrimination, there are three
principal social institutions that are targeted
for
change: schools, businesses, and governments.

Eliminating discrimination in schools is important
because theseinstitutions provide people with
the skills to compete for almost everything
else in life. If schools at both the K–12
and college
levels systematically discriminated against certain
groups, those individuals would forever be
at a
competitive disadvantage and locked into something
like a castesystem which it would be
exceed-
inglydifficult to rise above.
Eliminating discrimination in the workplaceis
important because it is the quality of jobs that
determines whether an employee becomes rich or
poor. When employerssystematically discrimi-
nate against certain groups, they thereby turn those
groups into a socioeconomic underclass from
which, again, it is difficult to break free.
Finally, eliminating discrimination in positions of
political power is important because it is
the
government that shapes social policy regarding
the equal treatment of groups. Without proper
representation in government, the risk is too great
that the interests of White males will prevail
over those of othergroups.
Types of Discrimination
The type of discrimination that is most relevant to
businesses is called employment discrimi-

nation and involves the prejudicial treatment of
people in hiring, promotion, and termination
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decisions. In the past, employment discrimination was an
integral and acceptable part of doing
business; that was a reflection of the prevailing social
order. Women and ethnic minorities, it
was
felt, belonged only in specific jobs, typically lower
paying ones, and it was just assumed that
the
better jobs should go to White males. Not so
now. The law protects women and minority groups
from employment discrimination, and it is a serious
blemish on a business’smoral record to be
accused of discriminatory practices. Still, someemployment
discrimination continues today in
spite of changing laws and social attitudes.
Sometimes businesses engage in intentional
discrimination, when the policies of a company
are
shaped by overtracial prejudicesof its managers or
executives. For example, a family restau-
rant in a racially divided town had a policy of

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