The Situation Stubbs had an accident involving a press machi

The Situation: Stubbs had an accident involving a press machine. He did not follow the instructions. He lost three fingers and received workers compensation. Shortly afterwards, he filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the press machine.

The company maintains OSHA records for 5 years. Tom, the Loss Control specialist has records for the last ten years. The older records expose the company to damages for lack of safeguards on the press machine. Such safeguards might have prevented the accident.

The Dilemma: Tom is asked to throw out the older five years worth of data. What should happen?

Option #1: If he destroyed the records, he can keep his job, but what are the legal ramifications of his actions? Is it his duty to report information that he has even if it puts a burden on the company?

Option #2: If he provides the records, he may lose his job for disobeying orders. Does this choice benefit the company? What about Stubbs, after all he took a risk to not follow the machine instructions?

Option #3: If he blows the whistle, he may lose his job. Should he get the directive in writing to protect himself? Is the company doing something illegal?

Option #4: If Tom goes to the attorney behind the company’s back, he may get fired. Is this decision the fairest for Stubbs? What are costs and benefits of this choice?

Post your reasons for choosing the one of the options above and provide details with a minimum of 10 sentences. Use one of the three perspectives in your answer. (Utilitarian Perspective, Justice Perspective, Rights Perspective)

Solution

Answer

Situation: Stubbs met with an accident involving a press machine. He did not follow the instructions. He lost three fingers and received workers compensation. Shortly afterwards, he filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the press machine.

The company maintains OSHA records for 5 years. Tom, the Loss Control specialist has records for the last ten years. The older records expose the company to damages for lack of safeguards on the press machine. Such safeguards might have prevented the accident.

The Dilemma: Tom is asked to throw out the older five years worth of data.

So for this dilemma, the best option for Tom is as option 3.

Option #3: If he blows the whistle, he may lose his job. Should he get the directive in writing to protect himself? Is the company doing something illegal?

This option looks the best option because this option meets the requirement of Utilitarian Perspective, Justice Perspective and Rights Perspective in this approach.

The company is asking Tom to do illegal act for safeguarding the company. But this is not right and this action comes as illegal action. The organization should not perform or ask to perform such action. The organization should not direct the employee to perform the illegal action. This is not a justice perspective of the organization.

Since Stubbs had met an accident and lost his figures, though he has not followed the instructions, but still it is the management responsibility to ensure that employees are safe and safe working conditions needs to be maintained at the organization level. So Stubb is supposed to get the reimbursement for his loss from the company. Even it is the company’s responsibility to ensure that the employee like Stubb who had lost his fingers should be financially compensated by the company in order to help him for his livelihood, as per the right perspective of the organization.

Tom needs to get in writing from directive to protect himself in this condition and he needs to raise the whistle so that he can brings the facts in front of everybody as this is the question of a life of an employee. Tom needs to support the employee by not destroying the eveidences as per company instructions.