Thursday

Would you leave a job for moral reasons?

By Paul Dion, STL

Most of the adults who read ParishWorld.net have jobs. Most of you pehaps have jobs in companies or enterprises that are generally quite moral. We all have heard of the immoral activities of certain companies and we tell ourselves how happy we are to be working for a "good" company.

Every now and then, though, along our career path we find ourselves working in a company where it rapidly becomes clear that lying, cheating and stealing are the rule of the day. Without painting a detailed picture of what can be immoral, let us just ennumerate a few behaviors that could be practiced in any given enterprise.

One of the most common immoral behaviors is the underpaying of employees, such as cheating on overtime laws, withholding bonuses and other abuses visited upon the lowest tier of employees. Another common practice is to have a middle manager sign contracts or agreements in place of the senior management when the executives have no intention of abiding by the agreement.

The burning question for the week is, Should a person leave this work environment for a more moral one? If leaving would seem to be the worst possible alternative, does the moral person (good Catholic) have an obligation to bring the immoral practices to the attention of upper management?

Would you have the courage of the Syro-Phoenician woman related in the Gospel story of the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)? Click here to read this Gospel passage.

Since there is no black and white answer to this question, give us your answers and we will respond with our opinion. I promise that I will not tell you what I did in circumstances like those described above. I'll leave that up to my wife!!!