I for one think a business that goes around deceiving its business partners (or even its own employees) is probably acting unethically. There are many exceptions but that is my general rule. The same goes for individuals. If one goes around deceiving people or businesses, they are probably acting unethically. There are many exceptions, of course.
Being that I hold the same standard to businesses, I see no contradiction in saying that deception is usually unethical.
~Max
I have honestly never heard anyone seriously argue that business ethics should take precedent over an employee’s career. LEGALITY can sure as hell take precedence; breaking a contract, acting in a conflict of interest, or stealing to advance oneself is wrong. But a normal code of business ethics will acknowledge that employees are in it for themselves.
I’m in an industry with high-ish turnover because the employees are all extremely valuable and get poached. If someone can make more cabbage or advance their career elsewhere, of course they should consider leaving. Why wouldn’t they?
You are confusing ethics with morals.
For clarification, what do you consider to be the difference?
~Max
So what?
I assume in that context the (possibly important?) employee may quit at any time on short notice, and that this is no more or less unethical than the other way around.
Not an ideal way to run a business ISTM, unless of course it depends on numbers of such cannon fodder. You’d be surprised how common it is -even universities have low-paid adjuncts working there.
I’m not sure what any of this has to do with “ethics”. Whether a company hires or fires employees or contractors is usually a matter of either business needs or performance issues. Declaring bankruptcy is a legal process and not without consequences.
I mean really, none of the examples posted here are really “ethical” quandaries. You are under no obligation to keep a job you don’t like or don’t feel is a good fit. Nor are you obligated to provide transparency into your personal or professional plans.
There are certainly business activities that are unethical, even illegal. Fraud for example. Or knowingly selling products that violate safety or environmental regulations.
But then there are lots of “gray areas”. For example, doing business in countries because their labor laws are more lax. Or at what point does marketing and advertising go from being acceptable bullshit to misrepresentation or manipulation?
Or in my profession (consulting), firms routinely staff engagements with employees whose only qualification is “available” and hope they can figure shit out faster than the client.
Employers can terminate an employee at any time, but employees can terminate their employers at any time, too. So the terms of at-will employment are not hypocritical in that regard. Neither is it inherently unethical for either party to terminate employment at any time, for any reason.
~Max
The question was about whether the family could be treated as a business and be under the same rules. Both the business and the family can fire workers, so my point was that we do work under the same ethics.
As for bankruptcy, maybe you are too young to remember this, but when I was a kid I read lots stories of upright business leaders who had worked long and hard in paying off debts their fathers accrued even though they were not responsible for them. These people were treated in these stories as highly ethical, not as chumps. The consequences of bankruptcy in terms of credit etc. have nothing to do with the morality of bankruptcy.
I’ve worked for ethical companies and unethical companies, though the unethical part had nothing to do with my job. (More ripping off the government in contracts.) They both made you take ethics classes. In the classes there were examples of unethical corporate behavior. The ethical company used examples of where they screwed up. The unethical company used examples of where a competitor screwed up.
Not asked of me, but re: the difference between ethics and morals, I would say that ethics are more akin to a professional code set in place by an organization or group the member has chosen to be a part of or associate with. So, for instance, CPAs, PEs, MDs, PMPs, members of a bar association or a local business group, etc. may have ethical standards, but whether or not there is some sort of general assumed ethical code that all “professionals” implicitly abide by… yeah, no, not in my book.
What exactly morals are, particularly whether they are strictly internal or not and the extent to which they are situational, will depend in part on your own definition. I would say, though, that fundamentally it comes down to a question of “right” and “wrong,” however you decide which is which. As in, it’s not a question of violating some external code such as a nation’s laws or a professional organization’s ethical codes, but rather of what an individual or group of individuals may consider to be right or wrong, regardless of what is or is not written (though there will often be overlap, to the point of blurring the lines in some people’s minds, and some moral codes may explicitly posit a moral imperative to abide by all laws and ethical codes to which one is subject, regardless of what one might think about their use or application in a given situation).
So I think this thread is based on a premise which may not hold in many or even most employee/employer relationships: that there is some established code of ethics to which the employee is a party to, that relates to how they should go about job termination. I mean, I could see there maybe being a professional organization out there that insists its members treat honestly and fairly with their employers, and notify them of any potential conflicts of interest (ie seeking outside employment with a competitor) or give a certain amount of notice, but unless you’re a member of such an organization then I just don’t see it as a question of ethics.
As to whether it’s moral or immoral… that depends on who you ask and how they derive their moral code.
It’s reasonable to debate what’s ethical from company’s POV. I agree with some of the things you’ve mentioned (I believe there’s some ethical obligation for severance especially as function of tenure for example, I don’t believe it’s very practical to say company’s have to plan or negotiate restructuring/shutdown or sale/purchase of business units publicly to warn everyone). But not to get sidetracked on those specifics, or some of the vague things you said we might or might not agree on if fleshed out in detail, it’s fair to criticize particular specifics as a matter of opinion.
So by same token it’s a matter of the details IMO when it comes to an employee’s behavior. Toward the company. One can’t be subject to criticism but the other not. And contrary to OP’s implication, the society I live in (the US) is very far from never claiming company’s act unethically. 
Which they sometimes do IMO, though I might not agree which given case they do or don’t.
And in the extreme the idea (not yours AFAICT but it is some people’s) that you only have to be ethical to people who are ethical to you, or moreover to people you don’t judge in advance wouldn’t be ethical to you…is not ethics. Better to honestly say in that case, ‘I don’t have ethics’ (who says you absolutely must? though again that could be another different thread). The statement ‘I don’t have to be ethical to the company because the company wouldn’t be ethical to me’, is itself non-ethical (lets call it, as opposed to the more pejorative 'unethical).
Looking back to some discussions might have spawned this one, as examples, I think taking a job while intending to keep your options open to take another better one right away, can be ethical or not. Depends on what representations you made, including implicit ones, though the mere fact you take a job is not a promise to keep it for a minimum time necessarily. Again though ‘they would screw me if they had the chance’ is not the reason it’s ethical. Rather, that’s admitting you view leaving the company so soon as screwing them unethically and you’re looking for an excuse to justify yourself. The stronger arguments would be explaining why the judgement call in a particular case to take the better job a week after staring in less good job is ethical. Which it might be. But subject to details, like what’s really the ethical requirement of the company when/if it shuts down that division in the shareholders’ interest.
Also US politics is now infused with pseudo-ethical arguments about things that aren’t really ethical questions. For example you could have a debate saying there should be a law companies have to give x months notice of a restructuring. Maybe that would be for the social good (or maybe proponents don’t consider the unintended consequences of such restrictions carefully enough). But anyway proponents are naturally attracted to the argument ‘this is the right thing to do!’ even when it’s really more of a practical judgement call where people all of whom have overall social good in mind can sharply disagree.
I’m reminded of the old Anatole France quote - “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Yeah, my boss can fire me for no apparent reason in an instant. And I can quit at any given moment with no warning*. These are not equivalent actions and cannot be treated as such. Unless the company won’t function without you and your boss knows it, there is a clear and important power imbalance here that is obvious at first glance.
(In case you really need this explained to you, I recommend section 2.5 of the Non-Libertarian FAQ.)
Also, that big ol’ asterisk about me quitting at any point with no warning? Boy, it’d be a shame if I did that and then somehow needed a letter of recommendation or some references from my boss. Funny how that works.
This is one of my personal bugbears, but let’s be really clear here - a law that makes it legal for employer or employee to terminate the relationship at any time for any reason is a boon to the employer and a substantial attack against the working class.
Yeah I’m also kinda lost here, as I was under the impression that I lacked both ethics and morals and would very much like to clear up what I need to do to keep that streak going.
I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect that giving too much advance notice might violate all sorts of SEC rules. Information on big changes is very secret until made public, and telling employees in general is basically making it public.
I’ve been through lots of layoffs (never getting hit) and usually anyone wishing to open their eyes can guess. Not you in particular, but that one is going to happen. Even layoffs after mergers don’t happen immediately.
I agree that layoffs can be done ethically or unethically, but that is how people are treated, not the fact of the layoff.
The problem with the OP is that the examples for individuals and companies are not symmetrical, and it’s not appropriate to treat them as if the only distinction is individual vs company.
It’s completely ethical for an employee to quit if they find a better job, and I don’t think anyone would disagree with this. But that’s not the situation in the OP. The situation there is a guy taking a job while actively looking for an opportunity to quit that job and get a better one. The analogous case for a corporation is of a company hiring someone with the specific intention of continuing to search for a better hire, and with the intention of sacking the first hire as soon as they get someone better. I would think that’s unethical - less ethical than the individual doing this - but I don’t think this is commonly done or accepted.
In the case of bankruptcy, I would think either an individual or corporation declaring bankruptcy and reneging on debts simply because they think they can make some bucks by doing so is unethical. (In the case of a corporation it’s additionally unethical because it has the effect of stripping the shareholders of their assets, for what they’re worth.) But if there’s simply no way to pay back the debts, then it’s ethical, whether it’s an individual or corporation. IOW, the idea of bankruptcy is that someone who isn’t going to be able to pay back anyway should be able to move forward in life - I don’t think the idea is that you use it to your advantage any time the numbers look better for doing so. But again, no distinction between individual or corporation.
Admittedly, the relationship between employer and employee is usually lopsided.
I don’t see a problem with that either. If your company fires you for no reason, you probably won’t recommend that company to your fellow job-seekers. Or perhaps you will say it’s a great place to work, with the added caveat that they fire people for no reason at all. Just as your employer might say you are a great worker, but you don’t give two weeks of notice.
The advantage does go towards the employer and the disadvantage goes to the worker. That is OK in my book. The working class as a whole, however, should be at least on equal footing with any individual employer, if not more. That’s an inequality collective bargaining attempts to fix. Preferably the collective of workers should be on at least equal footing with the collective of employers.
~Max
It isn’t usually immediate, is it? If corporate says your department is getting shut down, usually you finish out the quarter, right? You won’t be sending everybody home with surprise pink slips the very same week, because if things were that bad, people would know.
I suppose a factory or something might suddenly shut down due to a safety hazard, and all the workers get laid off that very day. In my opinion that falls under the category of good excuses, provided they are given unemployment benefits.
~Max
Most of the employee cases arise when the employee has possible offers pending. If an employer presses the person to accept the job (which is common) and a new and better job comes along, then I think it is ethical for the employee to take the new job. If it is a case of money maybe he could negotiate, but it could be just a better job.
I don’t know of cases where an employer has dumped someone, since the employer can keep someone hanging. I know a headhunter who complains that her clients take months to make up their minds, waiting for the perfect candidate to fall from heaven. That’s almost worse, since the employee has no income. I know of lots of cases where written offers are made and then withdrawn at the last minute. Even when the employee has moved to the new place of work.
It’s immediate in the sense that nothing is certain until the day they call people in to hand out pink slips. But if you know your company is losing money, or has merged with a company with a lot of commonality, the writing is on the wall.
Before I retired I told my boss that if there was a layoff I volunteered to go first, but unfortunately the layoff I knew was coming took another year or so. (Unfortunately for me, though it seems everyone who left got another and probably better job.) When your project is a year behind schedule and over budget, the notion that is could be canceled should run through your mind. Lots of people are overly optimistic helped by managers with orders to make success seem inevitable.
Lots of places won’t give you one anyway. I quit one toxic environment with notice - if you think I’d ever ask my boss there for a reference you’re nuts.
Another good reason for networking - you can get references outside your company.
I would certainly say that anyone working hard to pay off debts that they don’t even owe is a chump, and that they are actually acting unethically with regards to their personal finances because they are failing at their ethical duty towards their own finances. Whether it’s moral or not is a question for another thread, but I really don’t see how ‘not giving money to banks that you don’t actually owe’ is a moral failing.
So any business that follows the law and SEC rules by not revealing plans for upcoming restructuring or layoffs in advance is acting unethically? That appears to be saying that basically all large businesses are fundamentally unethical.
That’s not the case in this thread. In this case, what I’m saying is "I am using this set of ethics to guide my actions towards you’ with the justification of ‘this is the set of ethics that you use to guide your actions towards me’ if there’s an objection.
I disagree. You have an ethical duty to maximize stakeholder return, and therefore keeping your options open for a better job is actually an ethical obligation, and accepting an implicit one-sided agreement would actually be unethical as it would not maximize stakeholder return. “Implicit representations” are not an ethical issue at all, as they are entirely in the other person’s head - if they want to read a representation into the situation that restricts your choices to their benefit, you don’t have an obligation to make the thing they invented come true.