Business Ethics

Please read the Case Study #8.1, "Aids in the Workplace" on page 409 of your text. Discuss the important ethical issues in this case. In your response examine the ethical issues in this case especially from the viewpoint of ethics and the workplace. In your response, please discuss the balance between employer and employee rights from an ethical perspective.

Please use the text box of this journal link to enter your response (minimum 200 words) for the case study.

Case:

CARLA LOMBARD ALWAYS WORKED WELL WITH people. So when she opened her Better Bagels bagel shop seven years ago, she anticipated that managing her employees would be the easy part. She had worked for enough different bosses that she thought she knew what it took to be a good employer. Whether she was up to the financial side of running a business was her worry. As it turned out, however, Better Bagels flourished. Not only did Carla go on to open three smaller branches of Better Bagels, but her bakery also made daily wholesale deliveries to dozens of coffee shops and restaurants around the city. No, the business was prospering. It was just that the personnel issues turned out to be more difficult than she had ever expected. Take this week, for example.

On Tuesday, Carla was in the main bagel shop when around noon Tom Walterss ex-wife, Frances, came in. Tom oversaw a lot of the early-morning baking at that shop and like most of Carlas employees put in his share of time working the sales counter. He was a good worker, and Carla had been considering promoting him next month to manager of one of the branch shops. After ordering a bagel, Frances took Carla aside. She beat around the bush for a few minutes before she got to her point, because she was there to tell Carla that Tom had AIDS. Frances said she was telling Carla because she always liked her and thought she was entitled to know because she was Toms employer. Carla barely knew Frances, and she was so taken aback that she was at a loss for words. She was shocked and embarrassed and didnt know whether she should even discuss Tom with Frances. While Carla was still trying to recover herself, Frances took her bagel and left.

Carla was still concerned and upset when she saw Tom the next day. Perhaps he had been thinner and looked tired more often the last few months, Carla thought to herself. But she couldnt be sure, and Tom seemed to be his usual upbeat self. Carla wanted to discuss Francess visit with Tom, but she couldnt bring herself to mention it. She had always liked Tom, butface it, she thoughthes my employee, not my friend. And its his business. If I were an employee, I wouldnt want my boss asking me about my health.

Later, however, she began to wonder if it wasnt her business after all. She overheard some customers saying that people were staying away from the local Dennys franchise because one of its cooks was reported to have AIDS. The rumor was that some of his fellow employees had even circulated a petition saying that the cook should go, but a local AIDS support group had intervened, threatening legal action. So the cook was stay- ing, but the customers werent. Carla knew something about AIDS and thought some of what her customers were saying was bigoted and ill informed. She was pretty sure that you couldnt transmit HIV through foodincluding bagelpreparation, but she thought that maybe she should double-check her informa- tion. But what was really beginning to worry her were the busi- ness implications. She didnt want a Dennys-like situation at Better Bagels, but in her customers comments she could see the possibility of something like that happening once the word got out about Tom, especially if she made him a manager. Carla was running a business, and even if her customers fears might be irrational or exaggerated, she couldnt force them to visit her shops or eat her bagels.

Carla knew it was illegal to fire Tom for having AIDS, and in any case thats not the kind of person she was. But she couldnt afford to skirt the whole problem, she realized, as some large companies do, by simply sending the employee home at full pay. Doing that deprives the employee of meaningful work, to be sure, but it removes any difficulties in the workplace, and the employee has no legal grounds for complaint if he or she is left on the payroll. And then, of course, there was always the question of Toms future work performance. Putting the question of promotion aside, if he really was ill, as Frances had said, his work performance would probably decline, she thought. Shouldnt she begin developing some plan for dealing with that?

UPDATE

Frances was misinformed. Tom didnt have AIDS. He had devel- oped multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system. Its not fatal, but the course of the disease is unpredictable. Attacks can occur at any time and then fade away. A person can feel fine one day, only to have an attack the next day that causes blurred vision, slurred speech, numbness, or even blindness and paralysis. Tom was never worried about losing his job, and he was pretty sure he could continue to per- form well at it, maybe even move higher in the business either with Carla or with another employer. But he kept his condition to himself, hiding his symptoms and covering up occasional absences and trips to the doctor, because he was worried that customers and colleagues would perceive him differently. He didnt want looks of pity if he stumbled or constant questions about how he was feeling.