An Update on Mass Layoffs

Some comments to yesterday’s post on mass layoffs deny that corporations (or owners and managers) have any ethical duties — No. 23 because such an idea is “socialist,” No. 25 because ethics has no place in a “business argument.” But we denounce child labor not just as a legal but also a moral offense. We condemn racist and sexist hiring policies both legally and ethically. We regard a chemical company as having an ethical as well as a legal duty not to poison a town’s drinking water. Mass layoffs are another sort of harm a company inflicts on individual employees, their families and their communities — and hence similarly susceptible to ethical consideration.