Category: business ethics

The Thin Blue Line – A Bunch of Freeloaders?

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

I teach people who want to be in law enforcement.

From The Fire PIO

According to some of what I have read in the past few days, police officers are all greedy freeloaders, whose call to duty is a fraud while they exercise their narcissistic self interest.

You can look here, here and here.

Now, you might object that the writers and speakers here did not directly attack police but attacked public employee unions.

Seventy-three percent of all sworn police officers are in unions.

No, they are not going to say police or the word, fireman. But that’s what they mean.

These attacks on unions and collective bargaining hit the police just as hard as any other public union.

I’m not going to get into, whether or not unions are good ideas for police. I am more interested in another issue.

Police work is motivated in many cases by the idealism of the young and the status of the job in the eyes of the public. How are we supposed to recruit good people to be police officers with this kind of talk going on? And what if it continues? Month after month, year after year, the words, “Greedy public employees are destroying the nation!” How do you deal with that? What kind of police are we going to get?

Does this hammer idealism until only those who become policemen gravitated to it as kind of a last chance employment?

What in the hell have we become here?

If most Americans don’t have good pensions or good medical benefits, the police shouldn’t have them either?

At two o’clock in the morning, when somebody is trying to jimmy your window, do you want a highly motivated police officer whose idealism and commitment to duty made him want to be a police officer? Or would you rather have someone who couldn’t do anything else?

I wouldn’t worry about it. You see, it takes motivation and guts to confront a robber outside a house, so the unmotivated uncaring policeman will just ignore the call.

Probably a lot of you don’t care one way or the other. Or you won’t until your law enforcement agencies have started taking damage.

I’m not waiting for that to happen.

Law enforcement is not a lucrative job. It’s not always a pleasant or easy job. But my heart is with those people, who do a job that must be done and deserve better than insults.

James Pilant

 

Economic Issues That Should Influence Ethical Multi-National Enterprises (MNE) (via hinaumer)

On By southwerkIn business ethics7 Comments

This is a good article about multi-national corporations and corporate social responsibility. In fact, it’s excellent. I really enjoyed it.

From the web site - Unite the Union

It’s from the web site, hinaumer. I recommend you read it.

James Pilant

Multi-National Enterprises (MNE’s) are huge organisations whose boundaries of influence and philosophy exceed those of the home country they originate. They are a very real and important part of the business world in which we live today. Companies such as IBM, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Nike, Starbucks and Wal-Mart, to name but a few, are huge organisations whose sales and profits often far exceed the Gross National Product (GNP) and Gross National I … Read More

via hinaumer

Ethics Dunce: Texas State Rep. Debbie Riddle (via Ethics Alarms)

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

Ethics Alarms is a web site I read regularly. (You should too) This post is excellent. Marshall calls down his wrath on Texas hypocrisy. I am fully in agreement with everything he says. It’s hard for me to believe that people could write legislation like this. But they do.

Put Ethics Alarms in your favorites and read today’s article.

James Pilant

Ethics Dunce: Texas State Rep. Debbie Riddle The “Ethics Dunce” designation was invented for people like Texas Republican state Rep. Debbie Riddle.   She has proposed one of the many anti-illegal immigration bills currently being considered in the Texas state legislature. Her brainchild, and I use that term generously, … Read More

via Ethics Alarms

Jesus Hates Net Neutrality (via Strategic Mac)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Frankly, the New Testament has not given me many distinct policy points that Christ might want to take a position on. I think the author feels about the same way that I do.

I am a devoted to the idea of net neutrality. At the very least, I am devoted to it because I want to keep blogging and if my site is downgraded, everyone down to my relatives will stop looking at it.

The author has strong political views and I am fine with that. Bring on the political views! We need some serious discussions about what we should be doing in this country and what I usually hear was canned for public consumption about 80 years ago.

Read the article. Enjoy. There’s good stuff being said here.

James Pilant

Jesus Hates Net Neutrality Republicans are bound and determined to prove that with regard to Net Neutrality they are complete bone heads. Consider that the new Speaker of the House, speaking in front of the “Send your Money To Jesus” association, said that he will basically go to his grave attempting to make sure that big ISPs own the Internet. He said that if he can’t override t … Read More

via Strategic Mac

Class Work = WoW (via The Girl Who Plays WoW)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

The World of Warcraft charges with the force of a thousand screaming Orcs into the subject of ethics. And not just any ole ethics, business ethics.

Please give a read to a thoroughly original topic of ethical concern.

James Pilant

Today I had to give a presentation in my Professionalism in computing class. Basically, we had to find a computer related ethics case and present on it – so I immediately did a Bing search for WoW related court case. I ended up choosing the Kopp v. Vivendi case, and presented on that. Basically, Brian Kopp sued Vivendi for repeatedly accusing him of violating Blizzard’s copyright when he published his leveling guide. Kopp won and to this day sell … Read More

via The Girl Who Plays WoW

Despite loss of ear and tail, stray cat weathers frostbite (via Boston Globe)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Article by Katherine Landergan, Globe Correspondent –

A stray cat who was befriended by workers at Wentworth Institute of Technology is recovering from a severe case of frostbite that nearly claimed the animal’s life, according to the Animal Rescue League of Boston.

For the people at the Wentworth Institute of Technology, this is what doing the right thing means.

Strollers recalled due to strangulation hazard (via Detroit Free Press)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

From the Detroit Free Press –

A drawstring on the stroller can get wrapped around a child’s neck, posing a strangulation hazard. The firm has received one report of an 11-month-old who got entangled in the cord at her neck. She was freed by her mother.

Courtesy of the Richards and Oliver law firm.

Did the company pull the strollers out of the good of their hearts or out of fear of law suits? It was the law suits.

The right to sue is one of the great American rights, that right most people would have to be prompted to list, but it’s critical to our health and safety.

If there is anything we have seen from the 2007 financial crisis, it is the willingness of major companies to damage hundreds of millions of lives in the course of business while blaming the victims. I promise you if Congress has not been continuously limiting the right to sue these huge financial companies over the last twenty years, the 2007 debacle would never have happened.

James Pilant

Revolution talk spurs China to block LinkedIn (via SFGate)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

Whoa, I thought China was the wave of the future? Gonna’ be the biggest economic power on earth just any day now.

So, the great Chinese Communist Goliath is shaking in its jack boots over a social networking service with one million customers out of China’s tiny population of one point two billion.

Yeah, I lay awake at night worrying about the inevitable Chinese economic hegemony.

James Pilant

From SFGate – (San Francisco Chronicle)

LinkedIn Corp. was being blocked in parts of China on Thursday after members in that country began using the professional social networking service to discuss the revolutions that have toppled governments in the Middle East.

The Mountain View company doesn’t have a major presence in China, which has about 1 million of LinkedIn’s 90 million members worldwide.

However, the blockage may be further evidence that the Chinese government is now even less willing to reopen its firewall to social networks Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc., which have played key roles in anti-government upheavals spreading through the Middle East.

“What would they have to do to become less threatening than LinkedIn currently is?” said Andy Smith, a social media marketing expert in Lafayette.

Business Ethics (Friday, February 25, 2011)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

No Irish Spring: Emerald Isle as Credit Crunch Microcosm (via The Big Picture)

Unemployment is now 13 percent in Ireland; it would be higher if 5 percent of the working-age population (principally the young and well-qualified) had not emigrated over the last two years.

Bankers Apoplectic Over Arizona’s Republican Dominated Senate Passing Chain of Title Bill, 28-2…by Martin Andelman (via ForeclosureBlues)

Frankly, I don’t know where to begin. There’s just so much to say. It’s like a cornucopia of… well, lots of stuff to say. Bankers everywhere must be walking in circles, muttering to themselves, perhaps breaking out in hives.

(Foreclosure Blues is just the best site for foreclosure news – If you want the best coverage of the foreclosure crisis, there’s no better place.)

Wall Street Cash Bonuses Fell in 2010; Average $128,530 (via Business Ethics, The Magazine of Corporate Responsibility)

Cash bonuses paid to New York City securities industry employees declined by nearly 8 percent to $20.8 billion in 2010, as Wall Street firms shifted toward more deferred compensation and higher base salaries, according to an estimate released by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

For the average Wall Street worker, however, that still translated into a 2010 cash bonus of $128,530, according to DiNapoli’s estimate.   And although cash bonuses were down, it’s estimated that total compensation on Wall Street rose 6 percent last year, DiNapoli said.

Only $128,530.

Democracy in the Workplace (via Richard D. Wolff)

Wolff has some very interesting idea and some sharp commentary.

Blogoversary and Why I Blog (via Compliance Building)

Mostly, I publish because the information is useful to me. This blog is a personal knowledge management tool. It’s all about trying to capture information that interest me and has relevance to my day-to-day work. I find that writing my thoughts adds some clarity to my thinking. By putting all of that information into the blog, it’s in a place where it is easy to find.

I promise you when I am tired – when my allergies are bothering me or just feeling a little out of it, I wonder why I blog. Compliance Building has a good handle on why it is important.

James Pilant

Cherokee tax chief quits to avoid foreclosing on more friends (via AJC)

On By southwerkIn business ethics

From AJC – Cherokee County News:

Fields, 62, became a poignant reminder of the housing bust’s impact on thousands of lives across metro Atlanta, where almost 100,000 properties were foreclosed on in 2010. Property owners are not the only ones hurt; so are people, such as Fields, at the end of a ruinous process set in motion by recession.

“I was foreclosing on the homes of people I have known my entire life,” Fields said Monday, two weeks after he walked away from his job but still carrying its burden. “I tried to do all I could to help them. But there’s only so much you can do. Your job is to collect taxes.”

In the good times Fields said he seldom dealt with bad news. “There were almost no foreclosures, and the tax digest was in great shape,” he said. “We would have collected 97 percent of taxes by the end of the year.”

Then, about a year ago, the gravity of the downturn gripped him and wouldn’t let go. A man who described himself as “normally happy and upbeat” was suddenly nauseated all the time. He didn’t have any energy. Daily events he once took in stride turned into crisis after crisis.

“I would talk to somebody or deal with something, a foreclosure or a lien, and I would just have to step out of the office to regain my composure,” he said.

Sometimes, our bodies or our minds tell us to stop doing what we’ve been doing. This appears to be one of those cases.

Many of us believe we live in a world of hard, cold facts and reasonable decisions arrived at after due consideration. Well, guess what, the heart has its own rhythms and its own needs. Sometimes those take precedence.

James Pilant