Tennessee Gentleman said:
I stipulate that a company may (in an At Will state) fire you for any reason or no reason. However, using the example you did earlier; firing someone who was being stalked to decrease your liability is immoral. It was legal to process sub prime loans but probably was not moral.
I say again - Corporations have no morals and they
may have ethics. The sub-prime loans processed were likely unethical, even though legal. I don't know the canon of ethics in that industry.
As to firing a stalking victim who discloses to their employer what's happening is, in my view, disgusting. It could also be a
civil tort because, as Mr. Armstrong points out, you agree to abide by the rules and do, yet the company terminates you for something not in their rules.
Again, if the employer denies you the right to protect yourself and takes no steps to protect you at work then that is an immoral work rule and one should be free of guilty conscience in disobeying said rule. May get fired but it isn't unethical to protect your life.
In many businesses, precautions are taken. Those card-key stations to access the building, a security guard in the lobby or parking lot, the wearing of badges at work, etc. If those steps are taken, it reduces (or eliminates) your valid reasons for carrying at work
[1]
But let's take a different job. Suppose you are a 7-11 clerk. Southland Corp., owner of 7-11, (used to) refuse to allow employees to carry while working. Yet, they place 7-11 stores right next to freeway on/off ramps, out by the edge of towns and in high-crime areas. The store is open to anyone coming in the door. The company almost never discloses the number of clerks injured in robberies and never to job applicants.
The way I see it, the "security" measures at most stores (cameras, recording systems, alarm buttons, etc.) are tantamount to having
no safety shields in a cannery and telling employees they're "safe" because the company has an on-site ambulance.
It's not an authority issue, it is an honesty issue. When we rebelled against the Crown we did so openly, with a Declaration of Independence. We didn't sneak around and pretend we were following the rules.
Oh, come now. The Colonies had a history of disobedience, especially about taxes. But it was the Currency Act in 1764 that really set tempers flaring.
[2] The next
12 years saw increasing numbers of protests and skirmishes with British rule. In those years men quietly organized and discussed what measures could be taken. Only after years of suffering did they finally say "enough!" in 1776.
Also, lying about your religion to your employer during the Depression to hoodwink a bigot isn't really analogous to embezzeling funds. That's a stretch.
Not in my book. They both amount to getting money under false pretenses.
David, you need a two hour listening session with my mother who lived through the Great Depression. It was seriously ugly. She saw, first-hand both the desperation of the jobless and the cruelty of many employers. Some were simply bigots who would not hire a Jew - or a German or an Irishman or "one of them
eye-talians". In fact, the local pharmacist went to jail after beating the tar out of an employee when he found that the family name Newhouse was anglicized from
Neuhaus.
Appealing to "the greater moral good" or purpose only works for those with similar morals.
Businesses have no morals. Thus, today I would phrase it in a more business-like fashion. Employers have a duty to minimize the risk of injury or death to employees
and employees agree to avoid unnecessary risks. But certain jobs pose a risk of injury or death by others not controlled by the business and if the employer cannot mitigate those risks, he must allow the employee to provide for his own safety when necessary.
Footnotes:
[1]: At least in theory.
[2]: According to many, including Benjamin Franklin, the currency act was the primary cause of the American Revolution.
