Ethics Newsline®

In recent years, poll after poll has probed our attitudes toward moral issues. Most have been broad, random-sample surveys capturing a cross section of public views. The results are sometimes provocative, always useful. But they leave one question unanswered: What do thinkers think? What are the views of those in leadership positions, capable of taking the long view, influencing attitudes, setting trends?

A new poll from the Triangle Institute for Security Studies, a nonprofit research organization in North Carolina, provides some answers. Based on nearly 4,000 interviews and reported last week in the New York Times, it was designed to test for disparity in values between military officers and comparable civilian elites — defined as prominent citizens chosen at random from “Who’s Who” and other listings of prominent women, clergy, foreign policy experts, labor leaders, and the media.

To be sure, the survey found ample disparity. Military officers are 64 percent Republican and 8 percent Democrat, a proportion sharply different from their civilian counterparts (30 percent Republican and 43 percent Democrat). And 67 percent of officers see themselves as politically conservative, with only 4 percent saying they are liberal — again in sharp distinction from a civilian elite that is 32 percent conservative and 37 percent liberal.

These differences track themselves in predictable ways through the survey, with military officers being far more willing than civilian elites to ban homosexuals from teaching in public schools, to favor prayer in schools, and to support the death penalty.

Important findings? Certainly. But hardly counterintuitive. More interesting are the points of convergence among these two groups. Asked about institutions in which they have “a great deal of confidence,” both groups give highest marks to the Supreme Court. Each gives underwhelming approval to universities. Each has hardly any trust in the press.

More troubling, however, is their view of “the presidency.” It is held in high confidence by only 17 percent of officers and 20 percent of civilian elites. Another question, asking whether they believe that “political leaders share American people’s values,” drew only 41 percent agreement from officers and 37 percent from the civilians. If this were an ordinary random sample, it might reflect little more than the leftover stench of the Clinton impeachment process, and might bounce around depending on current events. If, however, this survey captures the deliberate judgment of engaged thought-leaders, these responses suggest that the moral underpinnings of representative democracy are dangerously insecure.

To their credit, these respondents all appear to recognize the problem. Asked whether they believe that “the decline of traditional values contributes to a breakdown in our society,” 67 percent of military leaders agree. More surprising is the response from the civilian elites who, though their more liberal leanings might make them more suspicious of “traditional values,” agree in exact proportion to the officers: 67 percent.

But the real kicker lies in a question that probes the concept of ethical relativism. Respondents were asked whether they believe that “the world is changing and so should our view of what is moral or immoral.”

That’s a key question. It cuts to the heart of the permanence of our core moral values. Should morality be contextual, adjusting to changing human attitudes and discoveries? Or is there an underlying set of absolutes upon which to construct a timeless set of moral principles? Should our moral compass be reset from time to time so that we go with the flow, or is true north still true north?

Only 10 percent of military officers thought our view of morality should change, compared to more than three times as many civilians (34 percent).

If there’s a surprise in the responses here, it’s not in the three-to-one divergence between military and civilian views. It’s in the fact that only a third of the civilian elites agreed. That leaves two-thirds of our thought leaders apparently willing to fly in the face of political correctness by agreeing that all is not relative, that there are universal moral standards, and that they hold steady despite the mutations of time and our increasing sense of multicultural diversity and pluralism.

Net result? People who shape thought-trends see a lack of values in our political leadership. They think that lack contributes to social breakdown. But they aren’t cynics. They feel this way not because they dismiss the whole concept of values, but precisely because they feel there are core, universal values that are being disregarded.

The good news is that our elites — military and civilian, conservative and liberal — are not dismissive. They’re merely disheartened. On that foundation you can build the scaffolding for reform.

(c)1999 by Rushworth M. Kidder

Providing equal rights and equal protections to members of different constituencies is a high-stakes matter, and the subject of our lead stories in this week’s edition of Business Ethics Newsline.

We begin with a report on a major sexual-harassment case in which Ford Motor Company has offered a settlement of $7.5 million, plus many millions more for in-house training.

Next comes a story in a similar vein about a suit in Canada that may change the face of gender-equity employment law there.

Our report features two stories this week on ethical issues related to preservation of fair markets: an arrest of a South Korean executive on stock-manipulation charges, and a reported settlement in a vitamin price-fixing case.

We follow with two stories from the health and science beat: a crackdown on research fraud in the United Kingdom, and a call for reform of U.S. medical societies.

And we have two reports from the communications industries: a charge and a denial concerning a researcher’s claim that there is a secret “back door” in Microsoft software, and a threatened Arab boycott of Disney products because of the rumored content of a Disney theme-park exhibit.

Three stories this week focus on labor and workplace issues: a study showing that U.S. workers are the most productive in the world, a report that labor unions are becoming more prone to strike in these good economic times, and a study showing that the majority of substance abusers hold full-time jobs.

From Canada comes an item about a potentially devastating verdict against a church, and from Washington comes a report about a new gun buyback program.

We conclude Newsline with two entries from our “Whatever Happened to…” file: a follow-up on the Detroit teachers’ strike, and a verdict in the case of Ford Motor Company versus BlueOvalNews.com.

Have a productive, ethical week.

– Carl Hausman

CHICAGO
Ford Motor Co. last week agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a sexual-harassment complaint filed by female workers at two Ford facilities near Chicago.

Last week’s settlement will cover 700 to 900 women who worked at the Ford plants from 1996 to the present.

Ford also agreed to increase the number of female managers, more rigorously enforce its antiharassment policies, and pay an estimated $10 million for sensitivity training for its 40,000 workers.

The case surfaced last year, when 19 women claimed they were routinely and persistently subjected to verbal abuse, confronted with pornographic images, and groped by Ford’s male employees.

After a preliminary investigation, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) notified Ford officials that it had found sufficient evidence to back the women’s claims, according to the Washington Post.

EEOC executive John Rowe praised Ford for cooperating with the subsequent investigation, saying that the automaker’s conciliatory approach made further litigation unnecessary, the Post reported.

The settlement is the fourth-largest sexual-harassment case in EEOC history, and follows a $34 million settlement paid by Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing Co. last year on similar charges.

OTTAWA
A physical fitness test used by Canada’s firefighting service discriminates against women and cannot be used, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled last week in a landmark decision that could alter workplace policy nationwide.

The Court ruled that a female firefighter was unjustly fired after she failed to run 1.5 miles in less that 11 minutes — the same standard required of male firefighters, the Reuters news agency reported.

The Ministry of Forests argued that the standard was necessary to ensure that firefighters are sufficiently fit to protect themselves, other firefighters, and threatened communities.

The woman insisted that experience was more important than an arbitrary physical test, and that women’s aerobic capacity is less than men’s, making the test discriminatory.

The Supreme Court agreed, ruling that “the essence of equality is to be treated according to one’s own merit, capabilities, and circumstances. True equality requires that differences be accommodated.”

That decision, with its implications for Canadian employers and military forces, “completely changes the face of discrimination law in Canada,” lawyer Kate Hughes, who joined the case as a representative of women’s groups, told Reuters.

“We’re not talking about accommodating one individual,” Hughes said. “We’re talking every workplace rule, or practice, or test, or even equipment should be looked at to determine whether or not it has a discriminatory effect.”

SEOUL
Authorities last week arrested an executive of South Korea’s largest conglomerate for allegedly manipulating his company’s stock price.

Lee Ik-Chi, chairman of Hyundai Securities, a unit of the giant Hyundai Group, was detained after an investigation into a series of suspicious transactions that boosted Hyundai’s stock price nearly 250 percent during a five-month period last year.

Investigators charged that Lee set up bogus firms to buy Hyundai stock at inflated prices, tricking investors into following suit, the Associated Press reported.

The arrest prompted calls for speedier reform and restructuring among Korea’s huge conglomerates, known as “chaebol,” many of which have been hit hard by the Asian economic meltdown.

Lee’s arrest also brought calls for leniency from many South Korean businesspeople. Lee is widely viewed as the man who salvaged the nation’s economy after the regional economic crisis.

WASHINGTON
Six vitamin makers last week agreed to pay a record $1.1 billion to settle civil charges that they conspired to fix the prices of many common vitamins used by U.S. food and beverage companies, according to a report in the Washington Post.

The six firms are all based overseas, and while they are not well known to U.S. consumers, they supply the majority of vitamin supplements used in U.S. food products.

Hundreds of U.S. firms have sued the vitamin companies for allegedly inflating the cost of vitamin supplements added to everyday food items like breakfast cereal, bread, orange juice, and milk, the Post reported.

In May, criminal fines were levied against three of the vitamin makers, BASF AG of Germany, F. Hoffman La Roche & Co. Of Switzerland, and Rhone-Poulenc SA of France.

Those firms and three other manufacturers, Eisai Co., Daiiche Pharmaceutical Co., and Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd., all of Japan, then spent months hammering out the civil claims, the Post reported.

If approved by the court, the settlement would close the plaintiffs’ class-action civil lawsuit. The firms still face a potential onslaught of lawsuits from consumers.

LONDON
A group of leading U.K. medical editors last week announced a series of ethics guidelines and punitive measures intended to curb research fraud.

The Committee on Public Ethics (COPE) says the guidelines are urgently needed to reform sloppy and fraudulent medical studies, as well as to restore public confidence in research results.

Primary problems cited by the editors include failure to obtain ethics boards’ approval for experiments, failure to fully inform participants of possible risks, bogus data, and plagiarized research, the BBC reported.

While COPE lacks the legal authority to enforce the new guidelines, the group warns that it will pull no punches to clean up the industry.

Possible punishments include blacklisting egregious violators, and publishing editorials detailing researchers’ abuses.

NEW YORK
Two prominent medical ethicists last week called for reform of the nation’s professional medical associations, urging doctors to remember that their primary responsibility is to patients — not to profits.

Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Edmund Pellegrino of the Georgetown University Medical Center and Dr. Arnold S. Relman of the Harvard Medical School insisted that professional medical associations should reject “economic, commercial, and political agendas.”

Pellegrino and Relman outlined six ethics guidelines for medical associations, including putting the interests of patients above economic concerns, rejecting unionization, strict guidelines as the source of money given to medical associations, less dependence on money from drug manufacturers, and some sort of representative democracy, the Reuters news agency reported.

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

TORONTO
According to a report in the National Post, a Canadian cryptographer has charged that he discovered an extra software key — a secret backdoor to decipher encoded data — in the security systems of some Microsoft software, and that the key can be linked to the National Security Agency in the United States.

Andrew Fernandes, the chief computer scientist of a Canadian high-tech company, Cryptonym Cory, claims that when he was examining the Microsoft software key in the software for authentication and verification of computer users, he found an extra key labeled “NSAKEY.”

Fernandes said this led him to believe that there may be some form of collusion between Microsoft and the National Security Agency.

Microsoft immediately dismissed the allegations, claiming that the key, which exists in all versions of Microsoft 95, 98, NT and 2000 software packages, only signifies that the program has passed the National Security Agency’s encryption standards.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates
Arab leaders last week threatened a boycott of Walt Disney Co. products throughout the Arab and Islamic world unless an Arab committee is allowed to inspect an upcoming Disney display on Jerusalem.

The dispute centers on Israel’s display in Disney’s Millennium Village, a 35-nation exhibit opening at the Orlando theme park in October, the Associated Press reported.

Arab leaders are infuriated by rumors that Israel’s display features Jerusalem as the Jewish state’s capital. Israel seized the holy city of East Jerusalem from Arab control in 1967.

Disney spokesman Bill Warren says that the political controversy is unwarranted, but will not comment on the contents of the exhibit.

“To rollout the details now would undermine the promotional opportunities” and violate Disney’s contractual obligations, Warren said.

The threatened Arab boycott could cost Disney up to $100 million, according to the AP.

GENEVA
U.S. workers put in more hours and are more productive than workers in any other industrialized country, according to a new report released last week by the United Nations’ International Labor Organization (ILO).

Workers in the United States clocked an average 1,966 hours in 1997, surpassing Japanese workers by nearly 100 hours (1995 figures), and French and German workers by more than 300 hours, the Associated Press reported.

But while the United States leads the way in working hours and productivity, other nations are catching up — without burning as much midnight oil. U.S. labor productivity rose 22 percent from 1980 to 1996; Japanese productivity jumped 38 percent during that same time, even as workers’ hours decreased, according to the ILO survey.

“While the benefits of hard work are clear, it is not at all clear that working more is the same thing as working better,” observed ILO director-general Juan Somavia.

The UN survey of workplace productivity covered 240 nations and territories between 1980 and 1997.

DETROIT
Good economic times and a string of high-profile strikes have made U.S. labor unions more aggressive and more willing to walk off the job, according to labor experts interviewed by the Associated Press.

Analysts warn that while the number of strikes is down from their historic highs of more than 200 per year during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, their scale is increasing.

Last year, unions chalked up 34 major stoppages, affecting 387,000 workers — an increase of more than 15 percent over the previous year, according to U.S. Labor Department statistics.

Last week alone, major contract disputes with Boeing and the Detroit public school system were resolved after unions flexed their collective muscles to win contract concessions.

Last week’s win against Boeing proved one thing, Seattle-area machinists’ union leader Bill Johnson told the Associated Press: “You can take on a major corporation and be successful.”

WASHINGTON
Seven out of ten U.S. drug abusers are employed full-time, according to a U.S. government survey released last week.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says that the numbers, while lower than in the mid-1980s, are still cause for concern.

The study shows that 6.3 million drug abusers, aged 18 to 49, populate the nation’s workplaces. About an equal number admitted abusing alcohol.

“These employees take more unexcused absences, change jobs more often, and are more likely to quit or be fired,” HHS substance-abuse agency executive Nelba Chavez told reporters. “They’re more likely to be young, white, male.”

The Department’s report emphasizes the fact that employees’ substance-abuse rates decrease when their employers provide them with counseling and information on drug and alcohol abuse, according to the Reuters report.

“Whether you are a corporate CEO or a small-business owner,” Chavez said, “you need to know that simple, low-burden, effective steps … can increase workplace safety and productivity, and lower substance abuse and its human and economic effects.”

Special to Newsline from Canadian correspondent Errol P. Mendes

VANCOUVER
The British Columbia Supreme Court has ruled that the Anglican Church of Canada and the Canadian government were jointly liable for the sexual abuse of a nine-yea-old boy at an Indian residential school in British Columbia in the early 1970s.

The boy was repeatedly molested by the dorm supervisor, who has already been convicted and imprisoned for the assaults.

The decision marks the first time that a Christian Church which ran a residential school and the government have been found directly liable for sexual assaults that are alleged to have occurred in thousands of cases at religious residential schools, which were sanctioned by previous federal governments in Canada in an effort to educate and assimilate aboriginal children.

Such a precedent could threaten bankruptcy for most of the Christian Churches that ran residential schools.

WASHINGTON
President Clinton last week launched a $15 million gun buyback program that he says is aimed at fighting the growing number of shooting deaths among U.S. children.

The new initiative follows a string of similar programs across the nation, most recently in Washington, D.C., where the police department netted more illegal guns in 48 hours than in the previous year.

Clinton said that such efforts were vital to protecting U.S. children, who suffer an accidental shooting rate “nine times higher than the rate of the other 25 industrialized nations combined,” reported the BBC.

The buyback program, operated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, will provide each participating city with $500,000 to fund local buyback operations.

Such programs, paying $50 per weapon and with a no questions-asked approach, must be set up near community housing developments, where crime rates generally are high, according to the Washington Post.

Critics of the new program say that it will do little to stop criminal firearm use. But proponents argue that any measure that reduces the estimated 200 million guns in U.S. homes is welcome.

DETROIT
Detroit’s public school teachers voted overwhelmingly last week to return to work, ending a 10-day strike that had idled the district’s 182,000 students.

By a voice vote, teachers gave preliminary approval to a compromise package worked out between union leaders and school-district representatives.

That deal, widely viewed as imperfect but workable, translates into a slight pay raise for teachers over the next six years, smaller class sizes, and more classroom supplies, the Detroit News reported.

To win the union’s approval, school officials were forced to drop their most contentious proposals — linking teachers’ pay to students’ performance, and lengthening the school year.

Teachers are expected to give final approval to the compromise contract later this month by a mail-in secret ballot, according to the Associated Press.

DETROIT
A Web site posting confidential Ford Motor Co. information may continue to do so, but must reveal the sources of the information, U.S. District Court judge Nancy Edmunds ruled last week.

Edmunds’ decision marked a victory for site owner Robert Lane, who insisted that the First Amendment protected his right to publish Ford information on his Web site, BlueOvalNews.com.

The judge ruled that while company secrets are indeed protected by U.S. and Michigan law, the right to protect secrets is outweighed by the right to free speech, ZDNet reported.

This case represented a “clash between our commitment to the freedom of speech and the press, and our dedication to the protection of commercial innovation and intellectual property,” Edmunds wrote in her ruling. “In this case, the battle is won by the First Amendment.”

Ford spokeswoman Terry Bresnihan said that the automaker was “generally pleased” with the ruling, which included several partial victories for Ford.

Under terms of the ruling, Lane must reveal his sources, and must stop posting information that he knows is copyrighted by Ford or obtained improperly, according to the Reuters news agency.

From the Gallup News Service:

” According to a new Gallup survey conducted August 24-26, nearly nine in 10 employed adults age 18 and older say they are generally satisfied with their current jobs. However, workers fall short of expressing total enthusiasm. Only 39 percent are completely satisfied with their jobs, while another 47 percent are somewhat satisfied. Fourteen percent of employed Americans indicate they are dissatisfied with their jobs.

“The Gallup survey does provide some clues as to why workers are less than fully satisfied. When probed about specific aspects of their jobs, Americans seem to consider themselves hardworking, stressed, underpaid, and underappreciated. Forty-four percent of workers describe themselves as ‘workaholics,’ and another 56 percent as ’solid performers,’ but fewer than four in 10 are completely satisfied with their pay, the degree of recognition they receive at work, or amount of on-the job stress they endure. . . .

“The most satisfied American workers are those who are self-employed in their own business or professional practice. Nearly three in five workers in this group, 58 percent, say they are ‘completely satisfied’ with their jobs. Satisfaction also correlates with age, rising from 29 percent among 18-29 year-old workers, to 39 percent among those 30-49 years, and 49 percent among the 50-years and older group.

“The impact of income on job satisfaction is mostly seen at the lower end of the income spectrum. The percentage of workers in households earning $75,000 per year or more who are ‘completely satisfied’ with their jobs is 47 percent. That figure is 42 percent among those making $30,000-74,999, but just 24 percent among those earning less than $30,000.

“Beyond overall job satisfaction, Gallup focused on fifteen specific aspects of employment in the new Labor Day survey. The items covered a variety of work conditions, human interrelations and financial benefits. . . .

“Of all the items rated, employees are most satisfied with their relations with their co-workers; 67 percent say they are completely satisfied with this aspect of their jobs. More than half of all workers also report high satisfaction with the physical safety of their workplace, the flexibility of their work hours, and the amount of vacation time they receive. The general satisfaction in these areas could be driven by good working conditions, or by relatively low (or perhaps reasonable) expectations.

“By contrast, workers are the least satisfied with the amount of on-the-job stress they face, their salaries and various financial benefit issues. . . . Recognition for a job well done also ranks fairly low, with just 38 percent of workers saying they are completely satisfied with the recognition they receive at work for their accomplishments.

“Job security, bosses and supervisors, employee workload, and the opportunity to learn and grow all rank as mid-level work issues, with 43-48 percent saying they are completely satisfied with these aspects of their jobs.

“So which of these workplace items, in particular, seem most strongly related to employees’ overall job satisfaction? Three factors emerge as the most important ‘drivers’ of employee satisfaction in this survey: stress, recognition, and salary. Close to two-thirds of workers who say they are completely satisfied with their stress, recognition, and salary levels also say they are completely satisfied with their jobs. This contrasts most sharply with relations with coworkers, amount of vacation time, and physical safety at work. Less than half of those who say they are completely satisfied with these aspects of their jobs are completely satisfied with their jobs, overall.

“On the flip side, the items most highly correlated with worker dissatisfaction are dissatisfaction with coworkers, with one’s boss, with one’s job security, and with the opportunities to learn and grow. More than 40 percent of workers who are dissatisfied with these items say they are dissatisfied with their job overall. . . .”

“A disciplined conscience is a man’s best friend. It may not be his most amiable, but it is his most faithful monitor.”

– Henry Ward Beecher (U.S. clergyman, 1813-1887)