In the new Jobs Rated Almanac, author Les Krantz examined and ranked 250 jobs accordingto six criteria: income, stress, physical demands, potential growth, job security, and work environment. Krantz’s findingsincorporate interviews and data crunching from government, trade groups, and telephone surveys, reported the Associated Press. A sampling of his findings follows:
“He who floats with the current, who does not guide himself according to higher principles, who has no ideal, no convictions — such a man is a mere article of the world’s furniture — a thing moved, instead of a living and moving being — an echo, not a voice.”
–Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss philosopher, 1821-1881)
From the nonprofit research group RAND:
AEA, IESG Release RAND Study on High-Tech Theft
“Theft of high-tech products and components from U.S. manufacturers and their customers could top more than $5 billion annually in direct and indirect costs, according to the results of a RAND study commissioned by the American Electronics Association (AEA) and the International Electronics Security Group (IESG).
“The two-year study, released today, estimates that direct losses resulting from theft from high-tech manufacturers and distributors amount to some $250 million per year. Indirect costs, such as lost business and added security and insurance needs, raise the total to more than $1 billion. Finally, theft of high-tech products from the industry’s customers could cost another $4 billion, bringing the total estimated loss to over $5 billion annually.
“The researchers surveyed 95 high-tech manufacturers that collectively account for 40 percent of the sales volume in the computer, semiconductor, hard disk drive and cellular phone industries. They also conducted in-depth interviews with numerous firms and law enforcement officials and utilized advanced analytical techniques to project estimates for the entire industry and to assess the likely magnitude of indirect costs. . . .
“James N. Dertouzos, the senior RAND economist who led the study, observed: ‘Our findings are apt to be conservative because there are many types of cost, such as warranty fraud and disruption of business, that we did not attempt to quantify.’
“Dertouzos also noted that a large part of the total cost of high-tech theft is not borne by the victimized firms but is passed on to other firms and customers. ‘This demands a larger role for collective action on the part of the industry and the public sector,’ he said. Examples include collaborative efforts focusing on standards for shipping freight; methods that would help identify and disable stolen property; and additional information exchanges between industry and law enforcement agencies.”
Now and again an event comes along that sharply rattles the moral kaleidoscope. Last week that happened in Europe. The European Commission’s decision to resign, en bloc, sends all sorts of signals. One of the strongest is that there’s been a profound shift in attitudes about the importance of ethics in European public life.
That’s no small point. For years, Europeans have stereotyped Americans as prissy puritans whose calls for moral probity were wildly unrealistic. Americans, for their part, have viewed Europeans as hopelessly cynical, cheerfully willing to abandon ethical standards whenever it served their purposes.
Never mind that plenty of individual Europeans have the highest sense of integrity — and that more than a few Americans are rank hypocrites. Despite that, the stereotypes keep getting reinforced. As a journalist writing from London in the late 1970s, I regularly encountered Continentals who chuckled in disbelief that Americans had actually removed President Nixon from office for something as trivial as Watergate. Were we naïve to the ways of the world? Didn’t we know that politicians always did such things?
Similar views reigned among European business executives. In those years, they were rubbing their hands in glee over the passage of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. That law, making it illegal for Americans to bribe foreign officials, took one of Europe’s fiercest competitors out of the running for thousands of overseas contracts, which typically went to the highest briber. Didn’t we get it about how business really got transacted? Why were we so stuffy about greasing a few palms?
Twenty years later, it’s a whole new pattern.
Last month, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development finally put in force regulations that will ultimately prohibit international bribery in all 29 member nations, among which are the leading European countries. The model: the same U.S. law that once made them laugh.
And last week, when all 20 members of the European Commission resigned after a 144-page report detailed fraud, nepotism, and gross dereliction of responsibility in running the $100-billion operations of the European Union, it became even clearer that ethics was moving to the fore in Europe.
The report of the investigating committee, released March 15, blasted the Commission for failing to squelch corruption in some parts of the vast bureaucracy it oversees. True, the report did not accuse individual commissioners of enriching themselves, a la the International Olympic Committee. Nor did it accuse them of doing specifically illegal things. This indictment was not criminal but ethical. It zeroed in on a single core value: responsibility.
“The responsibility of individual Commissioners,” wrote the investigators in their summary, “or of the Commission as a body, cannot be a vague idea, a concept which in practice proves unrealistic. . . . The studies carried out by the [investigating] Committee have too often revealed a growing reluctance among the members of the hierarchy to acknowledge their responsibility. It is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility. However, that sense of responsibility is essential. It must be demonstrated, first and foremost, by the Commissioners individually and the Commission as a body. The temptation to deprive the concept of responsibility of all substance is a dangerous one. That concept is the ultimate manifestation of democracy.”
Useful, ringing words — not only for political entities, but for business as well. How? Well, for “Commissioner,” try reading “member of my corporation’s board of directors.” For “responsibility,” read “ethical obligation.”
Twenty years ago, you can imagine a board of directors, particularly in Europe, laughing up its sleeve, stiffening its resolve, and plowing ahead in wholesale disregard of such allegations. Don’t people know that business, and bureaucracy, has nothing to do with ethics? Don’t they appreciate that we’re working hard to do their business, and that sometimes it’s more efficient to slide around the rules?
Not anymore. The baldly critical centerpiece of this argument — “It is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility” — reverberated too strongly to be resisted. Against that kind of condemnation, even hardened Eurocrats faltered. They must have sensed that someone had shaken the kaleidoscope, and that the familiar old design had disappeared.
Funny things, kaleidoscopes. Once a pattern is lost, you can’t ever reconstruct it. There’s no going back. Which is why this may have been such a big week for European ethics.
(c)1999 by Rushworth M. Kidder
Resignations and removals dominated the news in ethics last week, with an independent panel probing the leadership commission of the European Union concluding its report by observing that “it is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility.”
After release of that report, the entire membership of the European Commission — the executive leadership committee of the European Union — resigned. And that is our lead story in this week’s edition of Business Ethics Newsline, your weekly guide to news with an ethical angle.
Also this week, we have a report on another corruption-related story, the dismissal of six members of the International Olympic Committee.
And we follow with a story about a major issue facing U.S. business: protection for whistleblowers. According to a report in the New York Times, the Clinton administration is preparing to toughen laws shielding whistleblowers from retaliation.
We have three stories dealing with international trade: an offer by Nike to identify the overseas factories that make its college-licensed apparel; a mutual antitrust pact between the U.S. and Israel; and a decision by Iceland’s parliament to resume whaling — a move that may spark further trade disputes by nations opposed to Iceland’s policy.
Also from the international desk: a ruling by a Japanese court that suicide resulting from overwork qualifies as a work-related death and entitles a family to survivors’ benefits; a scandal at a German radio station involving an actor impersonating a government official; and a protest against movie piracy in Hong Kong. On a related issue, our Research Report this week focuses on new methods of stanching high-tech theft.
And on the subject of movies, we conclude our wrap of the news with a story from New York City, where the city council speaker wants a federal probe of sky-high movie ticket prices.
Correspondent Errol Mendes files two reports from Canada this week, looking at a marketing association’s new strictures on gathering data from children who use the Web, and a flap over an allegedly misleading mutual fund ad.
We have two stories in our Ethics in the Workplace feature: a look at passenger violence on airlines, and a survey about workers in the United Kingdom who believe that their jobs are affecting their health.
Note that our statistics report this week outlines some alternatives should you be similarly stressed-out and pondering a career change.
Our Ethics in the News feature has a double focus this week: examining the bid to keep movie studios from using bribes in the race for an Oscar nomination, and profiling a series of reports from the BBC dealing with issues related to medical ethics.
And our Whatever Happened to… follow-up this week focuses on a continuing international dispute over compensation to families of U.S. pilots shot down over Cuba.
Have a productive, ethical week.
–Carl Hausman
BRUSSELS
The entire 20-member European Commission (EC) — the executive leadership committee of the European Union — resigned last week after being cited for negligent management, nepotism, corruption, and fraud by independent investigators hired by the European Parliament.
The investigators’ 144-page report failed to single out any EC member, but said that “Commissioners or the Commission as a whole bear responsibility for instances of fraud, irregularities, or mismanagement,” the BBC reported.
The investigators’ report concluded with the observation that “it is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility.”
Embattled EC president Jacques Santer, criticized in the past for failing to address reports of EC wrongdoing, denounced the report and proclaimed his innocence.
German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the current European Union chairman, has asked the Commission to remain in place until a new group can be appointed, according to the BBC.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) last week expelled six more members and adopted reform measures intended to eradicate member corruption during the process of selecting future Olympic host cities.
IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch told reporters that the IOC had “promised to clean house. We did it. We promised reforms. We did it.”
Samaranch had been the target of criticism from outside the IOC for allowing the problems to fester on his watch, but he received a vote of confidence by assembled IOC members.
Newly adopted reform measures include the establishment of an independent ethics commission to monitor the IOC, a panel responsible for overhauling the IOC’s procedures, and a temporary panel organized to fast-track the site selection process for the 2006 Winter Games.
Samaranch also promised to cooperate with a pending U.S. Senate investigation into the bribes-for-votes scandal surrounding Salt Lake City’s successful bid for the 2002 Winter Games, the AP reported.
Senators have warned that if the IOC reforms fail to clean up corruption, the United States may revoke the IOC’s tax exempt status and limit its revenues in the United States, where broadcasting rights yield hefty profits for the IOC, according to a report from National Public Radio.
WASHINGTON
The Clinton administration will soon strengthen the laws that protect U.S. whistleblowers from reprisals by their employers, according to a report in last week’s New York Times.
While workers are ostensibly protected from retaliation by various laws, a recent study by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found that 67 percent of whistleblowing workers are fired after filing complaints about workplace safety.
More than 2,000 such complaints are filed each year by workers who claim they were demoted, dismissed, or punished for reporting unsafe workplaces.
OSHA head Charles Jeffress told the Times that existing federal protections are “too weak and too cumbersome to discourage employer retaliation or to provide an effective remedy for the victims.”
Proposed changes to the whistleblower law are expected to include extending the amount of time whistleblowers can file complaints of retaliation from 30 days to six months, and granting whistleblowers the right to appeal dismissed cases, the Times reported.
BEAVERTON, Oregon
Nike Inc. last week promised to reveal the locations of its overseas factories if competing apparel makers do the same — an offer that human rights groups say could dramatically reduce sweatshop labor conditions.
The move comes after antisweatshop protests at U.S. universities throughout the past month, the Oregonian newspaper reported.
Last week, six universities — including Harvard, Brown, Princeton, Duke, and Cornell — announced that they would require apparel makers with college contracts to disclose the locations of factories where licensed apparel is made.
Nike chairman Phil Knight announced that his company, a frequent target of sweatshop protests, would accept independent monitors and disclose factory locations if universities required “the same level of disclosure from all licensees,” according to the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON
The U.S. and Israeli governments last week signed an antitrust agreement aimed at helping the countries coordinate efforts to fight price fixing and other monopolistic trade practices, the Associated Press reported.
The agreement, signed by the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, and Israel’s Trade Ministry, encourages the countries to share nonconfidential evidence in antitrust cases that affect companies doing business in the two countries.
U.S. attorney general Janet Reno, who signed the deal, issued a statement hailing the agreement as “an important tool that will be used to protect consumers in both countries.”
The new pact mirrors similar agreements between the United States and Canada and the European Union, Reuters reported.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland
Iceland’s parliament last week ordered the government to prepare plans for resuming whale hunting by the year 2000.
An Icelandic official told the Associated Press that the whales are unreasonably protected “for political reasons,” are not endangered, and a continued ban on whaling is threatening the nation’s fishing industry.
Iceland, which renounced its membership in the conservation-oriented International Whaling Commission (IWC) and has not signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, plans to export most of the whale meat that it harvests.
That plan, say critics, could jeopardize Iceland’s tourist economy and provoke retaliatory boycotts from countries that disagree with the whaling resumption, the Associated Press reported.
TOKYO
A Japanese court last week ruled that the government must provide compensatory payments to a Japanese woman whose overworked husband committed suicide.
In its landmark decision, the court ruled that the 1985 suicide of a Japanese machinist was largely caused by the man’s exhausting 80-hour weeks, making his suicide a job related death, the Associated Press reported.
Under Japanese law, the government is required to pay roughly $17,000 per year to the immediate family of a worker who dies from a job-related injury or illness.
Observers say the verdict — the second of its kind in Japan — could trigger a flood of thousands of suicide-from-overwork lawsuits in Japan, where a rigorous work ethic and a struggling economy are triggering a growing number of such suicides, according to the AP.
The government is considering an appeal.
BERLIN
A Berlin radio station suspended its manager last week after using an actor posing as German president Roman Herzog to obtain a telephone interview with German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the Associated Press reported.
A spokeswoman for Berlin’s RTL radio said the station had erred in broadcasting the brief interview with Schroeder.
In the interview, Schroeder discussed the recent resignation of finance minister Oskar Lafontaine, and named Hans Eichel as his intended replacement — a fact that had been previously unconfirmed, the Reuters news agency reported.
HONG KONG
Hong Kong movie theaters shut their doors for one day last week to protest the territory’s booming trade in pirated movies, music, and software.
Hong Kong cinemas have suffered a 60 percent drop in box office receipts over the past few years as a result, they claim, of high-tech pirates selling cut-rate video copies of first-run movies before they hit theater screens, according to reports from the Associated Press and the BBC.
Concurrent with the blackout, Hong Kong authorities raided more than 70 vendors, arresting 37 people and seizing $700,000 in pirated goods.
Hong Kong, which was removed last month from the U.S. government’s list of suspected intellectual property rights violators, says it is making progress in its fight against piracy.
The government is now considering assigning more police officers to fight piracy, and classifying intellectual property infringement as an organized crime, broadening the government’s investigative leeway, the AP reported.
NEW YORK
New York City Council speaker Peter Vallone last week called for a federal investigation into price hikes by cinema operator Loews Cineplex Entertainment, which controls about half the movies houses in the city and recently raised ticket prices to a stunning $9.50.
New York’s movie ticket prices have risen by 27 percent over the past five years — more than double the cost of living, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Vallone wants the Justice Department to reopen a consent decree that allowed Loews to merge with other theaters. He claims that the participating theater companies promised that ticket price hikes would not follow the merger.
Vallone also called on consumers to hit the theaters “where it hurts most” by boycotting cinemas on the first Friday of each month, and by bringing their own food and drinks to the show, reported the Associated Press.
Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes
TORONTO
Canada’s largest marketing association recently introduced a mandatory code of ethics that allows its members to market to children on the Web, but prohibits them from collecting marketing information from children younger than 13 without approval of a parent.
Under the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) code, consent will not be required if games or contests are involved, but the information must be destroyed and not used for any other purpose.
Marketing on the Web also must not exploit children’s lack of experience or sense of loyalty. Any company that violates the rules will be thrown out of the Association, reported the Ottawa Citizen.
But 20 percent of Canadian direct marketers do not belong to the Association, which does not include marketers from the United States and abroad. Many concerned parents and the CMA hope that other national direct marketing associations will follow the Canadian lead and develop similar codes of ethics.
Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes
TORONTO
David Singh, the founder of one of Canada’s major mutual fund giants, Fortune Financial Management Inc., apologized as part of a settlement to the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) for a misleading ad published by his company.
Singh was suspended by the OSC from holding a securities license for three months, reported the Financial Post.
The regulators had objected to an ad that referred to the yield of the Infinity Income Trust without mentioning that unit values had fallen.
Many in the multibillion dollar mutual fund sector are pondering what implications this outcome may have for their advertising strategies.
BOSTON
Airline-passenger violence hit a five-year high in 1997, forcing U.S. airlines to rethink customer policy and incorporate employee safety into the bottom line, the Boston Herald reported last week.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) tallied 196 unruly passenger incidents, 284 civil-penalty cases, and more than $73,000 in civil penalties in 1997, according to the Herald.
Industry observers say that smaller seats, more passengers, abundant alcohol, and stricter carry-on baggage policies have helped fuel mid- and preflight disruptions, which threaten passenger and crew safety and eat into company profits.
But plain old passenger rudeness is also to blame, Patricia Friend of the Association of Flight Attendants told the Herald.
In addition to urging industry-wide adoption of the FAA’s proposed “zero tolerance” policy toward passenger violence, Friend says that airline companies need to make sure that passengers know their place.
“We’ve said that continual use of the word customer encourages an attitude that the customer is always right, and we’ve encouraged [airlines] to revert to the word passenger,” Friend told the Herald. “People have some responsibilities as a passenger that supersede their rights as a customer.”
LONDON
An increasing number of U.K. workers believe that their jobs are hurting their health, according to a new study by the British Heart Foundation (BHF).
The BHF survey of 659 adults showed that more than one third of the respondents, and 40 percent of men aged 25 to 50, believes that higher workplace stress and hours are damaging their health, according to the BBC.
The study cited longer workweeks, shorter breaks, decreased free time, and increased stress as the workers’ chief complaints. According to the BHF, more than half of the surveyed workers took less than 30 minutes for lunch, and more than one-third of the women took no lunch break at all, the BBC noted.
HOLLYWOOD
NPR reports that movie studios are increasingly relying on a controversial practice — mailing videotapes of their top films to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 5,371 voting members — to boost exposure and their odds of grabbing a lucrative Oscar nomination.
The problem is not the videotapes themselves, Academy executive director Bruce Davis told NPR. The problem is the gifts — including consumer electronics and leather valises — that have often accompanied the studio mailings.
To cut down on the chances of bribery, the Academy has instituted rules barring movie studios from “sending members anything but the [movie] that is to be judged. We don’t want anything that steps over the line from movies into bribe,” Davis told NPR.
In a push for further transparency, the Academy also offers members free screenings of movies at its own theater, as well as free screenings at public theaters as the Academy award nomination season approaches.
While other critics of the videotapes fault the mailed tapes for ruining film esthetics and fueling an international black market in pirated movies, the practice has grown popular in Hollywood.
Studios say the tapes are needed to reach members who cannot find the time or the opportunity to go to the public cinema. Many Academy members agree, adding that the tapes have democratized the voting process by giving obscure and independent studios a better chance to get their movies seen.
