good year

RUNNING HEADER: GOOD YEAR CASE ANALYSIS 1

Good Year Case Analysis 6

Good Year Case Analysis

Casey M Getchell

PHI 445: Personal and Organizational Ethics

Instructor Frank Czarny

10/6/2016

Introduction

The Goodyear Vs Ledbetter case is that of gender discrimination. The woman works in the male dominated field at a time when male dominance in the society is still very high. The America of the 1970’s saw fewer women in the technical positions in the industries hence the reason why the company supervisors may have overlooked her significance as an employee. The supervisors acted in contravention of the Equal Opportunities and Equal Pay Acts. The above mentioned laws require that the employers give equal opportunities to both men and women at work. Any forms of appraisals and promotion ought to be commissioned on the basis of merit and not gender.

If the law was to be dully followed, she would have had her salary rise like the other male workers who were in the same position as her. However, for her she had to watch the male counterparts increase in income while she remains the same. At retirement, the lowest paid among the men was $ 4,286 which was above her salary at $ 3,727. The company policy was that the salaries were increased after performance evaluation and with the recommendation of the supervisors (Legal Information Institute, 2016). There is no way of telling if the other male workers performed better than her.

After long years of service to the company with little improvement to her salary, she decided to query into the way the system treated women as compared to men. In 1998, she filed her case on Equal Opportunity and Equal Pay to the Commission to have the issues surrounding her pay evaluated. She sued the firm asserting her claim that her right under the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was violated.

Thesis Statement

In the past, gender discrimination against women in formal employment was not taken as a serious issue because of male dominance.

Ethical Theory

The ethical theory that applies to this case is the utilitarianism. This is a theory that judges moral action based on the maximum utility it brings about. By this it means that as long as an action is favorable to majority, it would be considered moral even though it works to the disadvantage of a section of a group. According to Jeremy Bentham the father of utilitarianism, this is an approach to moral action that results in aggregate moral pleasure after the suffering of the people involved in the action has been deduced. His explanation was further expanded by John Stuart Mill to include the quality of the pleasure obtained from the aggregate results of such as action. He stated that in some cases, the individual moral action may supersede the rules laid down to guide them.

Others who have studied this form of moral judgment have argued that utilitarianism ought to be defined negatively whereby its utility is gauged on the basis of the suffering of the individuals involved. Utilitarianism is considered as one of the forms of consequentialism. According to this broader consideration of social action, the consequences of actions are used to determine the standards of wrong or right as per the actions ( Mill, 2006). To make this ethical standard more acceptable, it can be coupled with the virtue ethics standard which considers a virtuous action morally good.

The intention of an individual at the time of action is also considered and judged on the basis of morality. Utilitarianism is viewed either as rule utilitarianism or rule utilitarianism based on whether the action is that of one’s own volition or if it is an adherence to the rules. The Goodyear vs Ledbetter case is that of utilitarianism because of the actions of the supervisors who seem to discriminate the woman and favor the male as a way of serving the interest of the majority. It is for the good of many even though a few are casualties because of the decision.

There are two reasons that clearly state and support the claim that this was a case of gender discrimination and a utilitarianism moral judgment. The first is that the economic system seemed to support more men in formal employment and lesser women. This area was hence considered a male field and the woman had no clear role or position to play in it. The supervisors understood this position properly thus they acted in accordance with male point of view.

The other claim is that this action went on unnoticed by the entire firm and the top management. They responded in a manner likely to suggest that it was morally and ethically right to propagate male dominance in formal employment and treat the women as if they were out of place ( Mill, 2006). Why else would they authorize and agree with the salary increase for the men while on the other hand allowing the woman to be negatively evaluated. It didn’t seem to bother them because they also held the same idea of thought as the supervisors.

Comparative Analysis

The solution to this case would be the application of the deontological ethical theory. This is because of what the theory stands for. It requires that one stands by the requirements of rules and obligations which are then used to define the morality of an action. It binds you to your obligations and your position (Hooker, 2012). This theory is best fit to offer the solution in this case because it will bind the supervisors to their duty of monitoring the work progress and performance of the workers before supplying the company with the evaluation on appraisal and salary review. The duties would be handled with professionalism with disregard for the gender of the employees. Being a well-established firm, Goodyear has all the contracts and performance metrics of each position clearly laid out. These should form the judgment on whether one qualifies for promotion or salary increase. All the supervisors need to do is to stick with the standards and procedures for evaluation and determine those who deserve and those who do not.

Reference

Mill, J, S (2006) Utilitarianism , Cengage Learning.

Hooker, B (2012) Developing Deontology: New Essays in Ethical Theory , Oxford University Press.

Legal Information Institute (2016) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

LEDBETTER v. GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER CO., INC.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-1074.ZS.html