Insight
ETHICS ; PROFESSIONAL GROWTH
ETHICS
Moving Target
Global Ethics in Industrial Hygiene Is a Continuous Process
BY NANCY M. MCCLELLAN
When I was an undergraduate at Michigan State University, I was informed that
I should take some “fun” classes and not
focus just on science and math. Eventually I agreed. Perusing the course catalogue, I found a “Morals and Ethics”
class and signed up for what turned out
to be the ride of my life. Never before
had I witnessed or taken part in so much
loud debate in a classroom.
Today, not much has changed—the
topic of ethics still evokes strong, passionate debate among those committed
to a multitude of agendas. The industrial
hygiene profession and its ethical standards of practice are no exception, especially when global or cultural issues are
involved.
As taught by my MSU professor,
there’s a difference between morals and
ethics, and there is a difference between
morals and mores. We all must appreciate these differences if we’re going to
engage in the continuous process of resolving professional ethics issues.
Change vs. Character
The difference between ethics and
morals is that ethics is an intellectually
understood code of right or wrong that
may change, while morals actually define an individual’s character and are
less likely to change. Like ethics, mores
are also likely to depend on changing
cultural acceptability. Both ethics and
mores are, therefore, moving targets.
Why is this important? The borders of
our professional practice are expanding.
Very few American industries are isolated from global issues. Whether you
work for a health care organization that
receives vaccines from Europe or for a
mining company that operates in Asia,
you are likely confronted with the ethics
of global health and safety. We must understand and appreciate these differences
between moral standards and ethical
codes to resolve global issues.
In consulting practice, which involves
interactions with many industries and
cultures, human rights becomes an issue.
The factors affecting the prominence of
human rights include but are not limited
to government, union representation, industry type and corporate culture. For
example, many entities in the world, especially in places such as Bangladesh,
India, Pakistan, China and Vietnam, are
ignorant of the risks of ship breaking, or,
worse still, regard workers as a disposable commodity and think little of ship
breakers’ toxic exposures to heavy metals. The growing textile industry in Indonesia is another example. As
Indonesian workers process raw materials and produce the textiles themselves,
workers are exposed to a multitude of
hazards.
Our most recent and tragic example is
that of the reactor workers in Japan,
who have forfeited their health in an effort to contain radioactive materials following the recent earthquakes,
aftershocks and tsunamis. Worker exposures that one culture permits as acceptable risk may seem barbaric to another
culture. As industry is transferred from a
developed country to a developing country, do the worker health and safety
ethics also transfer? In many cases, unfortunately, the answer is no. As businesses attempt to establish operations in
developing nations, they confront a long
list of issues that include cultural and
economic constraints and a lack of regulatory enforcement of health and safety
standards.
That lack of enforcement results in the
suffering and early deaths of workers
