Benefits Are Vanishing
Is it ethical for a company to promise benefits and then years later walk away from the promise?
The ethics of gaining years of productivity and dedication from an employee with the explicit promise of a pension and healthcare after retirement then not delivering on the promise is unethical. The vast majority of employees do not have the opportunity to gain from equity participation including stock options or even stock grants, and when a company chooses to not deliver on the promises made during recruitment, or during periods of high demand for skilled positions to in effect "freeze" their staff from leaving clearly the company has chosen to "bait and switch" employees into continued commitment in exchange for nothing except a job. If an organization such as United Airlines or IBM have benefited from the hard work of their employees, they are ethically obligated to fulfill the pension and healthcare benefits promised in exchange for the work delivered. The lack of ethics companies mentioned in the article highlight how trust and the concept of lifetime employment is gone forever from the global landscape.
Countering this argument of ethical responsibility is the fact that many companies mentioned in the article have intensive pricing, product development, service and support pressures on them. Yet, given the efforts placed in planning their businesses and the intensive processes in place for financial forecasting, the costs of fulfilling these financial commitments to employees must be included in all strategic plans. To not pay these benefits is comparable to not paying for a factory or production center once created, or in the case of United Airlines, reneging on paying for a new commercial jet from Boeing. If United had done that, Boeing would repossess the jet. Yet the workers promised these benefits cannot repossess years of effort and commitment; therefore it is the ethical and one could argue legal responsibility of these companies to pay the pensions and healthcare costs promised.
