Another interesting article in the Washington Post on 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.
Update:
To clarify my observation in light of some reader comments. Wal-Mart may or may not owe a moral obligation here, but if they do, presumably they owe it to union and non-union former employees alike. By contrast, the union here is helping former union members to find new jobs, but not the non-union members. So it seems like there is a real double-whammy here for the non-union members; first they lose their jobs in part because of the union, then the union won’t help them find a new job.
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