A few days ago, I went to see George Clooney's newest thriller, Michael Clayton. To my surprise, Clooney produces a compelling and provoking film that demonstrates how different businesspeople handle the weight of ethics in their demanding corporate lives. Michael Clayton speaks not only to ethical dilemmas present for corporate employees, but also brings to light the current context on the pressing issue of whistleblowing.The title character Michael Clayton (Clooney pictured left) is a burned-out and divorced father who works as a "janitor" for one of the most powerful Manhattan law firms. Clayton is called in to clean up the complex mess that ensues after one of the firm's top attorneys (Tom Wilkinson) has had a psychotic meltdown in the midst of a deposition for chemical giant U-North. In the process of trying to keep Edens away from the media, Clayton finds evidence that U-North may have knowingly and recklessly endangered the health of an entire Wisconsin community. This both pushes him toward a moral crisis and puts his law firm in danger of losing the biggest case of its life.
Clooney's character is paralleled by U-North's general counsel, Tilda Swinton. While both lawyers are on the same team, they choose different ethical paths to follow. Swinton's primary goal is to keep people from discovering U-North's corporate conspiracy. Clayton instead has to make the choice between outing U-North and remaining quiet so that his law firm can win the case. Harvard Law's The Record says the film "asks its audience to consider some difficult moral problems, but it does so in an unassuming way that leaves its audience satisfied in questioning the motivations and actions of these lawyers at the end." While Clayton blows the whistle on U-North at the end, it leaves one wondering if people actually find the courage to do so in corporate reality.
The term "whistleblower" originated hundreds of years ago and continues to be prevalent today. In early 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that government employees did not have protection from retaliation by their employers under the First Amendment of the Constitution. In response however, Congress introduced the Whistleblower Protection
Act of 2007 (sarcastic advertisement to the right), which had significant bipartisan support. However, President Bush promised to veto the bill if it was actually enacted by Congress. The bill is still on hold today. Without protection from their employers, employees who out their companies will not feel safe to do so and therefore more corporate fraud and corruption will continue to infest the economy.Previous legislation has given too many loopholes to corporations. After the end of the 90s and early 2000s with Enron and WorldCom, Congress passed the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which largely failed due to the Department of Labor regulations and various judges' interpretations. Rulings on the SOX act have been so varied that private employees "who expose wrongdoing are likely to suffer punishment and get the cold shoulder from the federal government." University of Nebraska College of Law found that employees win only 1 in 25 cases brought under the SOX Act.
After an employee discovers and reports an ethical dilemma in the company, what happens to their job? Hopefully, legislation like the Whistleblower Protection Act will pass but in the mean time, where do employees turn? A few days ago, the famed "Walmart Whistleblower" Chalace Lowry was given a job back within Walmart after she reported what she thought was insider training by a senior executive. Walmart gave her 60-90 days to find another job. However, Lowry reapplied to over 30 positions within Walmart, the very corporation she reported. "I acted in good faith, just pointing out that there might have been some wrongdoing," said Lowry in June. Lowry is now assisting a legal team, ironically led by the woman tasked at Enron with reassigning their whistleblower, Sherron Watkins, to a new position.
In an MSNBC article, "Whistleblowers who made their mark," government affiliated agencies are the most reported organizations, highlighted in the last several days with the CIA. They are investigating one of their own employees, who has been reporting negatively on the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation programs. These people who speak out most of the time in a negative light on the corporation, like the CIA agent, cannot fade away into the media landscape. Citizens who have the courage to stand up and speak out need to be protected, so that there can be some system of controlling money mongers without consciences.
2 comments:
Thank you for your post. Although I am not particularly familiar with the problems of business ethics and whistle-blowing, I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article, which reflects your ability within the article to make it pertinent to those of us with no direct relationship to business and business law. Also, I enjoyed reading your short assessment of “Michael Clayton”, and how you used the film to introduce the rest of your argument. I appreciated your limited summary as well; it effectively provided enough information on the movie for the purposes of your argument without going into unnecessary and distracting detail.
There were, however, a few small details in the post which I believe, if enhanced, would make the overall entry even more effective for readers. The first of these is where you note that the “term ‘whistleblower’ originated hundreds of years ago”. I would be helpful for the reader if you gave some specific evidence to back up the statement, i.e. through a particular court case, either in the U.S., Britain, or some other country where the idea of whistle-blowing exists today.
Second, as a reader, I was thoroughly intrigued by your second image, the one about the Whistleblower Enhancement Act. When I clicked on the image to learn more about the movement, however, I was disappointed to only find another version of the image itself, rather than a link to a support group for the act or the act itself.
Finally, in your final paragraph, I feel that the introduction of information on the CIA hurts the effectiveness of your conclusion. While the information is interesting, it does not belong in the concluding paragraph because rather than bringing closure to your argument, it introduces a whole new idea without expounding on that idea enough to satisfy the reader. The information, however, is pertinent to the article, but would be more effectively used in an earlier paragraph.
Other than these small details, I thought that this post was very well done. The topic was well chosen, and you incorporated film into your argument, thereby addressing said argument through a variety of mediums, which I really liked.
excellent, insightful article. I had no idea that the federal government did not protect it's own employees from reporting moral or legal violations in the government work place. Seems very hypocritical.
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