THE FEDERAL Government’s industrial relations changes raise important ethical concerns for managers in the workplace, attendees at a public forum heard recently
THE FEDERAL Government’s industrial relations changes raise important ethical concerns for managers in the workplace, attendees at a public forum heard recently.
“The changes raise serious ethical issues that touch all of us in the workplace,” said John Sweeney, leader of the Edmund Rice Business Ethics Initiative, co-hosts of the forum with the St James Ethics Centre.
Amid widespread debate over the reforms, Sweeney said the main theme that should underline parliamentary discussion was that decision makers should act with integrity and with an understanding that people should be treated fairly.
“One of the most famous mottoes of this sort of ethical argument is [about] the greatest good for the greatest number,” he said.
He also said the government’s central argument for IR change was that the changes will strengthen the Australian economy by increasing productivity, for example: “Maintaining a strong economy in the face of stiff competition in the global market is the best way we have to ensure that the greatest number of Australians will be better off in the future.”
However, “outcomes can be hard to predict. The bigger the promises, the larger the scale of the prediction, the more difficult it is for the predictions to be accurate,” he said.
For example, “the changes to unfair dismissal laws may provide an incentive for managers to manage less. When a not particularly skilled employee of a not particularly large firm begins to manifest signs of not coping, of taking too many days off sick, not turning up on time, not being very productive, instead of trying to find out the causes and help put some measures in place to respond to the problem, a manager may well think it is just easier to get rid of the person.
“The firm’s profitability may rise, but the economy now has one more worker with serious trauma … and another manager who, learning how to manage less, will be less likely to be creative and innovative and both will have an overall negative impact on productivity.”
In addition it could be hard to balance benefits and burdens. “Typically, decisions will have different outcomes for different people. The greater good for the greatest number may well mean that some minority will in fact be worse off,” he said.
“Reform has had its costs in the past but we still know little about what they are and who is bearing them. There are good reasons to believe that inequality and disadvantage are on the rise in Australia. These IR changes will produce less job security and that will contribute to higher stress levels, especially for those with less financial resources,” he said.
Employer groups were sceptical. “I don’t think we are looking at a new set of ethical issues,” said Garry Brack, CEO of Employers First.
“Structurally there will be a new commission [the Australian Fair Pay Commission] to deal with, but what will that mean in terms of the way employers function? Will it mean that they suddenly go out there and not pay any attention to the labour market and they think they can pay half the money the market demands? Well, plainly not because you won’t get the people.”
Brack added that despite the workplace changes, HR’s priorities will remain the same. “In any organisation with an established HR function they are still going to be looking at the major issues of effective discipline, reasonable performance, good training and competent workers. So I can’t see it changing that much for most employers.”
However, “there are already employers who don’t do things the way most of us would … and there will continue to be employers that won’t do things the best way or the most reasonable way [regardless of the legislation] … and that has nothing to do with a new ethical debate at all,” he said.
Ultimately ethical issues about the changes will be superseded by questions about how Australia will remain internationally competitive. “The fact is the Chinese are killing us in a variety of areas of manufacturing and we’re trying to work out strategies [such as free trade agreements] where we can still be effective and competitive and still provide jobs,” Brack said.
He said it was more an argument about survival. An IR system that provides guaranteed wages and conditions for employees would not help ensure Australian employers could provide jobs in the future “because we have been killed in the marketplace”, he said.
