Posted by Todd Zywicki:
Wal-Mart Bids Au Revoir:
Another interesting article in the Washington Post on [1]Wal-Mart's
decision to close its store in Quebec after employees voted to
unionize. Its a pretty long article, but its well worth it. It
discusses in much detail (and in a surprisingly even-handed way), the
question of whether Wal-Mart's decision was economically-justified or
just sending a signal to other potential union organizers. It also has
a fascinating discussion of the dubious tactics used by both parties,
both Wal-Mart and the unions. Wal-Mart's questionable tactics and
bullying have been well-reported, but the techniques used by the union
organizers to intimidate employees into joining the union were
interesting to me.
In the end, the interesting question is whether the employees and city
as a whole were better off as a result of the train of events that
followed. The story also reports:
At its headquarters on the outskirts on Jonquiere, the union is
organizing a drive to find jobs for the Wal-Mart union supporters
and to provide them with financial assistance.
This is interesting to me, from the standpoint that as a result of the
union activities the store was closed, killing the jobs of union and
non-union members alone. But if we assume that Wal-Mart and the union
share some sort of moral culpability of the union in the store
closure, it seems somewhat troubling that the union tells the
now-unemployed non-union members to take a hike, while helping out
those who voted to join the union. I certainly haven't thought through
who owes moral duties to whom in this context (maybe there is a
philosopher out there who can explain how to think about this), but at
least as a first approximation, to to my mind it does raise an
interesting and potentially troubling ethical dilemma as to what
duties we owe to those who we injure indirectly at least in part,
through our actions.
References
1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51521-2005Apr13.html?nav=hcmodule
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