Ethics Newsline®

Future historians, looking back to characterize our age, will try to spot and name the most important trends. Here’s my vote:

I think we’ll be known as the period that finally outgrew the idea that there’s a simple fix for complex problems. We’ll go down as the era that became impatient with the merely measurable. We’ll be known for going beyond the smug comfort of “hard” answers, for recognizing that the “soft” issues were in fact the most important. They’ll call us “The Age of the Intangible.”

That, at least, is one way to read the responses to the latest polling data from the Institute for Global Ethics. Our survey, conducted by Strategic Marketing Services for the Institute and the Maine Department of Education, sampled 400 voters across Maine. To be sure, we only asked three questions. We asked them only in one state. And we focused only on education. But if it’s true that “as Maine goes, so goes the nation” — and that questions about education are really questions about our collective future — then these results flag a trend worth watching.

First, we asked what people thought was “the biggest problem facing the teen generation today.” We gave them eight choices: “AIDS,” “crime or violence,” “drugs,” “lack of job opportunities,” “cost of college,” “declining moral and/or social values,” “inadequate education,” and “lack of motivation or direction.” The runaway leader, with 34 percent of the total, was “declining moral and/or social values.” Tied for second, at 17 percent, were “drugs” and “lack of motivation or direction.”

Think about that list. Compared to the “values” and “motivation” choices, the other six topics have clear, hard answers. We know what causes AIDS, what works in dealing with drugs, and how to combat crime. We may not be putting into practice what we know, for lack of funds or lack of political will. But the research is on our shelves. Similarly, we’ve done a lot to address the scarcity of good jobs, poor education, and college costs. These aren’t mystery topics.

Nor are they the ones that most concerned the respondents. They focused on “values” and “motivation.” Nothing hard here; these are the classically “soft” topics, the intangibles that public policy so often ignores and researchers find befuddling. Yet it is precisely here that the public is shouting, “Pay attention!”

Question Two thickens the mix: “What do you think is the most important issue in education today?” The list had six items: “improving teacher quality,” “keeping drugs away from schools,” “reducing the number of students in each classroom,” “setting higher achievement standards,” “teaching children values and discipline,” and “putting more computers in classrooms.” Again, the front-runner was the least tangible issue on the list: “values and discipline,” at 39 percent. It almost doubled the size of the response for the runner-up, “teacher quality,” which got only 21 percent.

Question Three added a new dimension. “How important a role do you think public schools should play in teaching children ethical and responsible behavior?” Those answering “very important” or “critical” totaled 63 percent.

Taken together, the message is surprisingly clear. There’s a crisis of values in our future. It far outstrips the more commonplace topics in education reform today. And the schools themselves are being given permission to deal with it. Never mind that the issue is difficult to address. Never mind that it gives the shivers to those who like everything neatly defined. Never mind that it’s such a basic issue that it demands cooperation with the home, the community, the workplace, and the faith groups. These respondents, it seems, see past those concerns. They’re telling us that the crisis of values is here, it’s big, and schools can’t duck it.

What’s the message here for corporations? Three things rise to the surface. First, schools need help with character education. That’s something that’s been known for at least a decade, but that the schools are still struggling to digest. A bit of support, either in kind or in dollars, can make a real difference right now.

Second, the public isn’t buying the old notion that if you focus only on the hard issues, you can ignore the soft stuff. Some corporations still think that way — still assume that what matters are only the things you can quantify, like productivity and market share and financial performance. Of course these matter. But these days, the more astute executive is taking on the tougher challenge of dealing with the intangibles.

Third, there’s only one public. The same people who care about education buy products and services. They use the same minds to think about business and about the next generation. If the question had read, “What’s the biggest problem facing business executives today?” would we be surprised if they had said, “declining moral and/or social values”? If it read, “What’s the most important issue in the corporate environment today?” might they say, “teaching values and discipline”? And if we asked how important this topic was for business, would two-thirds of them say “very important” or “critical”?

The trend is being set. Those who see it will set out on the difficult course of finding practical ways to address the intangible. Whether schools or corporations, they’ll be the winners.

(c)1999 by Rushworth M. Kidder

Ethics and the law usually require that people be treated equally — within reason. But finding that reasonable path to parity can be difficult.

Several of our lead stories deal with the issue of equal treatment, and illustrate the wide scope of parity problems. In one case, a drugstore chain has been accused of charging certain customers — the ones least likely to complain — higher prescription prices. Another story deals with what would appear to be a well-intentioned height requirement, a job qualification alleged to be discriminatory. We also report on discrimination charges leveled against a seafood company, and a British regulatory board’s claim that homebuyers are forced to purchase unnecessary financial products from real estate agents ostensibly to be put on a “preferred” list.

We follow with three stories about ethics-related litigation: a mammoth suit filed by the federal government against the tobacco industry, a fine in a Canadian price-fixing case, and a liability suit in which the parents of a man who died in a killer-whale tank accuse an amusement part of misrepresenting the whale’s danger.

We have a story and links concerning what appears to be a major municipal governance issue arising in Los Angeles: a police officer’s admission that he shot and framed a suspect and then hid behind a blue wall of silence.

An important story about international business follows: a look at new accusations that Kathie Lee Gifford condones sweatshop manufacturing, and the sometimes heated responses from Kathie Lee and her husband Frank Gifford.

We follow with two items from the environmental desk: the controversy surrounding a Canadian firm’s Sudanese oil pipeline, and charges by Ecuadorian Indians that Texaco discriminates against them.

We conclude our wrap of the news with a story about steamy billboards that are arousing protest in Mexico, and a “Trendlines” feature about the resurgence of philanthropy in the wake of the continuing bull run on Wall Street.

Have a productive, ethical week.

– Carl Hausman

TALLAHASSEE, Florida
Pharmacy giant Rite Aid deliberately overcharged customers at the chain’s Florida stores who were elderly, uninsured, and in need of pain relief, state prosecutors charged last week.

Florida attorney general Bob Butterworth announced the allegations at a press conference, detailing a lawsuit against the nation’s third-largest pharmacy chain.

Rite Aid released a statement categorically denying any wrongdoing and insisting, “not one customer was deceived or defrauded.”

Butterworth charged that Rite Aid trained cashiers to add surcharges to the bills of customers who were least likely to complain — the elderly, the uninsured, and people recently released from hospital emergency rooms, the Associated Press reported.

Butterworth also charged that cash registers were equipped with a special key to automatically increase the price of a medication.

Rite Aid allegedly overcharged more than 29,000 customers an average of $1.15 on more than 80,000 prescriptions between 1994 and 1996.

Florida’s lawsuit, launched after a whistleblower came forward and settlement talks collapsed, seeks restitution and up to $25,000 per incident.

KOHLER, Wisconsin
A height requirement intended to ensure the physical capability of workers cost plumbing-fixture manufacturer Kohler Co. $886,500 last week in a settlement of sex-discrimination charges.

More than 2,000 women sued Kohler, complaining that the company refused to hire them because they failed to meet a height requirement set to make sure workers could handle heavy work.

The 5′ 4″ height requirement amounted to discrimination, the plaintiffs charged, because it kept women from securing positions, promotions, and Kohler’s higher-paying jobs, the Associated Press reported.

Kohler spokesman Ed Allman insisted that the company never meant to discriminate. “The height restriction was not gender-specific; it’s just that women tend to be shorter.”

But the Labor Department sided with the women, saying that the height requirement — no matter how good its intention might have been — was discriminatory.

Kohler’s settlement also requires the company to hire 111 of the rejected applicants, compensate workers not hired by the company, and fund a three-year study on women in the workplace, according to the AP report.

SEATTLE
A U.S. seafood company last week agreed to pay $1.25 million to a boat crew of 18 Vietnamese workers who charged the company with mistreating them because of their race.

The workers, who processed fish on an American Seafoods vessel near Alaska, accused the company of forcing them to work while they were ill, denying warranted pay and promotions, and firing workers who complained.

Investigators from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said they found evidence of “egregious” discrimination against the workers.

American Seafoods president Mike Hyde admitted that his company erred in pushing the Vietnamese crew to continue working while they were ill with the flu, but denied that racism played any role.

But the company agreed to the monetary settlement and to provide employees with antidiscrimination training, according to the AP report.

LONDON
U.K. real estate agents routinely bully clients into buying financial services that real estate agents imply will put clients on a “preferred” list or help them qualify for credit, British regulators charged last week.

The U.K. Office of Fair Trading (OFT) warned that unless those sales are stopped, the government will launch a swift crackdown, reported the BBC.

The OFT claimed that agents routinely tell clients that they will be placed on priority lists if they buy additional services, or that contracts require the purchase of additional services.

WASHINGTON
The U.S. government last week filed a multi-billion-dollar lawsuit against Big Tobacco, charging that cigarette companies deliberately misled the public for 45 years about the dangers of tobacco products.

The Justice Department contends that the companies systematically made “false and misleading statements to create a false controversy about whether smoking causes disease,” and lied about the addictive nature of nicotine, ABC News reported.

Attorney general Janet Reno charged that cigarette companies “conducted their business without regard to the truth, the law, or the health of the American people. It has been a campaign designed to preserve their enormous profits, whatever the cost in human lives, human suffering, and in medical resources.”

Cigarette maker Philip Morris denounced the suit as “politically motivated” and hypocritical, noting that the government quietly pulled in lucrative tobacco taxes for more than thirty years despite deciding in 1964 that tobacco was unhealthy, the Financial Times reported.

The government’s suit seeks the recovery of roughly $120 billion paid through Medicare to treat smoking-related diseases over the past six years, plus a potentially colossal claim for fraud under racketeering laws.

Defendants include Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, American Tobacco, Brown & Williamson Tobacco, British-American Tobacco, Liggett and Myers, and Lorillard Tobacco.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

TORONTO
A Canadian court imposed fines totaling more than $60 million on five international drug companies for what the court said was a global conspiracy to fix the prices of vitamins.

Three European drug companies, Hoffman-La Roche, BASF, Rhone-Poulenc, and two Japanese firms, Eusai and Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co., pleaded guilty to some or all of the eight charges of price-fixing dating back to 1990.

Hoffmann-La Roche was handed the biggest fine, $34.6 million, based on sales of $260 million in Canada.

The criminal investigations in Canada are part of a larger international probe into what investigators say is a global vitamin cartel. Roche Holdings, BASF, Eusai, and Daiichi have already been penalized with huge criminal antitrust fines in the United States.

ORLANDO
A Florida couple whose son was found dead in a killer whale’s tank at SeaWorld amusement park announced last week that they were suing the park for misrepresenting the whale as a friendly, people-loving creature.

Patricia and Michael Dukes allege that SeaWorld confused their son, Daniel, into believing that the dangerous orca was a human-friendly novelty, the Reuters news agency reported.

Daniel Dukes was found naked and dead in the killer whale’s tank last July, after apparently sneaking into the tank after the park had closed. While there was no evidence of major physical trauma, investigators theorize that the man may have drowned after being dragged along the bottom by the whale.

The multimillion-dollar lawsuit accuses SeaWorld of sending misleading messages about the orca, confusing the public on the way to making a profit.

SeaWorld general manager Vic Abbey said that his company will vigorously fight the charges, insisting that “the facts speak for themselves. A fellow trespasses on our property, evades our security, scales two very clear barriers, takes off his clothes, and jumps into 50-degree water with an 11,000-pound killer whale.”

LOS ANGELES
The Los Angeles Police Department last week suspended 12 officers and began investigating charges of internal systemic corruption after a former LAPD officer admitted that he and his partner stole eight pounds of cocaine from an evidence locker, and shot and framed an unarmed Honduran immigrant in 1996.

Rafael Perez, who made the confession last week as part of a plea bargain giving him immunity for shooting the Honduran, Javier Ovando, also began naming fellow officers who allegedly dealt drugs, shot unarmed suspects, and lied to their superiors to cover up their misdeeds, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The charges sent shock waves through the LAPD, prompting police chief Bernard Parks to announce a massive investigation. Federal authorities also launched a similar probe.

The scandal has rocked Rampart Station, the Los Angeles division that was Perez’s former beat, which has experienced dropping crime rates due to increased police presence, the Times noted. In the wake of the scandal, LAPD officials stepped down some of the tough enforcement measures and procedures used in anti-gang task forces in the division.

“It kind of shakes everything that you believe about in everything,” Ovando’s public defender Tamar Toister told the Associated Press. “The system is not supposed to work like this.”

NEW YORK
Thousands of Salvadoran women last week petitioned television star Kathie Lee Gifford to investigate alleged sweatshop conditions at a factory used to produce Gifford’s line of clothing.

A human-rights group representing the women charged that they labored under intolerable conditions — 11-hour, six-day workweeks for a base wage of 60 cents an hour — to produce Kathie Lee-brand clothes, the Associated Press reported.

Gifford, who pledged three years ago to help end sweatshop labor in the garment industry, has said that she will pull out of the Salvadoran factory if the allegations are substantiated.

Gifford and her husband, former football star Frank Gifford, both spoke out publicly against the charges last week. Kathie Lee used her talk show to claim that she was doing everything within her power to improve conditions at the shops, and Frank held a sometimes heated news conference during which he said that his wife was one of the few celebrities connected to clothing lines to actually do something about the sweatshop problem.

TAIPEI
Taiwanese authorities made their first arrest last week in their investigation of what they charge is shoddy construction that contributed to the collapse of thousands of buildings in last week’s devastating earthquake.

The government arrested building contractor Liu Tai-han, whose residential high-rise collapsed in the quake, on charges of breaking Taiwan’s building codes, the BBC reported.

Government investigators have questioned hundreds of contractors, architects, and engineers in an attempt to discern their culpability and the extent of substandard construction.

More than 2,100 people died in last week’s quake, which measured 7.6 on the Richter scale, according to the BBC.

Earlier this month, Turkish authorities began a similar investigation into the construction industry after a temblor leveled thousands of buildings, many of which failed to meet Turkish construction codes.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

CALGARY
An oil pipeline that is part of a controversial project in the Sudan was bombed last week, stopping the flow of oil to a port on the Red Sea.

The project, 25-percent-owned by a Canadian oil company, Talisman Energy Inc., has been criticized by nongovernmental groups around the world because it brings new oil revenues to the fundamentalist Islamic government in the Sudan, which has been accused of major human-rights abuses and is engaged in a civil war that has cost approximately two million lives.

Sudanese military also patrol the pipeline, which has been openly targeted for attack by rebels.

Talisman has attempted to downplay the incident. Company spokesman David Mann stated that the attack was a minor incident, and that pipelines get blown up in Alberta, Canada, also.

NEW YORK
Texaco Inc. was blasted last week in a series of radio, TV, and print ads accusing the company of contaminating the land of Ecuadorian rainforest Indians and allowing the pollution to continue because of racism.

The ads are the latest salvo in a six-year battle over charges made by the Indians, who claim that Texaco dumped pollutants into the rivers, killing their food supply.

The Indians say such blatant disregard for their health and way of life was racially motivated. An ad the group placed in the New York Times read, “Bluntly put, Texaco does not create this level of devastation near white people.”

Texaco spokeswoman Faye Cox insists that the firm “acted responsibly in Ecuador,” and denounced the new ad campaign as an inflammatory attempt to “level unsubstantiated allegations” against the petrochemical giant.

The Indians filed a lawsuit against Texaco in 1993, charging the firm with dumping more than 20 billion gallons of toxic waste water and crude oil between 1964 and 1992, according the Reuters news agency.

The lawsuit is currently being considered by a federal judge, who will issue a ruling on whether the case should proceed in the United States or in Ecuador, according to the Reuters report.

MEXICO CITY
A series of sexually suggestive billboards has sparked renewed debate in Mexico City over the nation’s outdoor advertising laws, which leave content to the conscience of the advertiser.

The furor centers on a series of ads showing lingerie-clad models in provocative poses, coupled with suggestive double entendres.

The ads have sparked controversy over the impotence of Mexican law to regulate outdoor advertising — and boosted sales for lingerie firm Vicky Form, the Reuters news agency reported.

More than 2,000 women called in complaints, women’s-rights groups have denounced the ads as misogynistic, and several advertisers have declined to publish the ads. Regulators have asked Vicky Form to tone them down.

But Vicky Form has the final say, since Mexican law prohibits regulators from curtailing the content of outdoor ads.

SEATTLE
Wall Street’s bull market has helped swell the ranks of the nation’s nouveau riche, many of whom are looking to spread the wealth by giving it away, the Associated Press reported last week.

This new wave of social philanthropy — $174.5 billion in 1998 — reflects an 11 percent jump in charitable giving over the past two years.

Many of the newly wealthy, predominately Internet pioneers and Baby Boomer beneficiaries, say that their newfound riches carry a responsibility to help empower local communities.

While financial gifts remain the most common form of modern philanthropy, novel approaches are also appearing, including “wealth counselors” who teach people how to manage their fortunes, and “venture philanthropy” foundations, which require members to pay hefty annual “dues” and volunteer at facilities receiving funds.

“The idea is that you don’t only give them money, you give them your Rolodex and resources, and you help them build,” venture philanthropist Erin Hemmings told the Associated Press.

From the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:

“Americans are showing signs of disaffection with a presidential campaign that is just beginning. The public thinks the press and large campaign contributors are having too much influence on who gets nominated, and a 60 percent majority thinks voters themselves have too little say.

“The latest Pew Research Center survey, conducted on the heels of protracted controversy about coverage of alleged cocaine use by George W. Bush, found public reservations about news coverage of most ‘character issues’ ranging from youthful drug use to psychological counseling. The poll also shows only a 53 percent majority of Americans now saying that press scrutiny of political candidates is worth it and a plurality rating political coverage as only fair or poor.

“The response of the public is to tune out. Few are paying close attention to campaign news, while at the same time an increasing number of people think the press is overcovering the campaigns. Not surprisingly in this light, many Americans cannot even name a single candidate for the two parties’ nominations. Fully 37 percent of Pew’s respondents could not offer up the name of a GOP candidate, and even more — 50 percent — could not name a Democratic candidate, without prompting.

“Public inattention to the campaign is about the only hopeful sign in this survey for Al Gore’s candidacy. Opinion about the vice president is not improving. As in other recent nationwide surveys, Gore continues to lag behind Bush in the general election matchup. This poll also shows his support for the Democratic nomination softening. . . . “

“Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.”

– Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (German philosopher, 1844-1900)