Ethical concern related to low-wage workers Essay

Ethical concern related to low-wage workers - Essay Example First of all, in order to create a background for my essay, I would like to start with a definition of the term 'ethics'. This term is taken from the Greek, and the Greek word 'ethos' means 'character'. Nowadays, ethics can be defined as the set of rules for interpersonal communication, which takes place either on daily basis or at the level of big business. "Making ethical decisions in business is often difficult because business ethics is not simply an extension of an individual's personal ethics or a society's standards of right and wrong" (answers.com, 2005). Just being a righteous person, who fits ethical criteria, might not be enough to handle the problems, which occur in the workplace, such as the treatment of low-wage employees and their career development. It is important to note that many professions have already responded to the demanding business problems - in particular, with the creation of "codes of ethics, statements of corporate goals, sponsor training and educational programs in ethics" (ibid) , the installation of internal jurists who deal with various ethical improprieties, and with creation of special telephone hot lines, which allow employees report anonymously possible ethical violations. A code of ethics contains certain standards of behavior, which are obligatory for the representatives of a certain profession. Moreover, a code of ethics generally provides professionals with information about the obligations towards one another, their customers, employees and the whole society. "A code of ethics is generally developed by a professional society within a particular profession. The higher the degree of professionalism required of society members, the stronger and therefore more enforceable the code" (ibid). The main function of a code of ethics is to guide employees and employers in the most complicated ethical questions, in particular those which are especially unclear. Decisions in such cases can be made more effectively and easily if the code informs about what actions should or should not be taken and about the penalties for morally wrong behavior. Many companies have their own codes of practice, or codes of ethics, which correspond to the mission of the organization and the organizational culture. There are several ethical concerns associated with low-wage workers. The most widespread ethical dilemma, which arises in many organizations is 'utility vs. morality' (Bernstein, 1997). The ideas of utilitarianism, which penetrated the business, have been developed into the utilitarian approach to ethical concerns, which concentrates on "taking the action that will result in the greatest good for the greatest number of people" (poznaklav.com, 2005). For instance, employing low-wage workers, entrepreneur, who follows utilitarian principles, would attempt to determine whether using low-wage employees would bring prosperity to the company. For instance, those business owners, who use low-wage foreign employees in response to price competition, will probably benefit from such decision. On the other hand, using low-wage workers is likely to decrease the wages of the other employees, decreasing at the same time their standards of living and thus, reducing their ability to purchase the good s the company produces. Those company owners, who support the ideas of morality (Blank, 1997) would probably pay living wages to all employees regardless