Ethical is about the right things to do, unlike morals, is principles of right and wrong,

standard, ethic is the belief of right actions and behaviors, determine how people should act
by the rules. In business, ethic is the examine of appropriate business policies and practices
that involve subjects that raise controversies such as bribery, corruption, discrimination, etc.
(Twin, 2019). Ethics play an essential role in business, is relating to decision-making process,
value and behavior of business organisation, and is the matter of outcomes, pros and cons
(Horton, 2019 & Weinstein, 2018). Ethic decisions can be made by individuals or groups,
however, it needs to be wise, prudent and caculating decisions and can gain approved from
public, because it will influences business’s performances in the future. This essay will
analysis the Chemist Warehouse’s case happend in March 2019.

The benefits company gain from ethical operation including attaracting potential investors,
loyal customers, talented employees and increasing company’s reputation, productivity, etc.
One of major benefit from ethics is short and long-term profit, in other word, remaining high
business’s reputation is extreme important in order to appeal potential investors and current
shareholders. To hold a positive public image, business has to committed to acting ethically
in employees and consumers treatment, following fundametal principles, environment
respectation and fair in term of price (Horton, 2019). Nevertherless, there are some big
businesses act unethically recently, especially relating to respecful workplace.

Chemist Warehouse (CHW) is one of that business, CHW is one of the largest chains of
Australian phamarcies retailers, has been well-known for high quality products with afforable
prices, distribution over 300 stores worldwide. According to Australian Financial Review, the
founder Jack Gance is in top 100 richest person in Australia while company estimate sales of
$1.6 billion or 12% of the total pharmacy market. In March 2019, there is an incident which
CHW workers in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane walked off the job for two weeks, they
called it “striking workers”. The reason for the fight were poor job security, sexual
harassment, job causulisation and low payment. They demanded for better working
conditions and high wages in agreement. However, instead of following agreement, company
used violence to threated the workers, driving cars through pickets injuring several people. It
can be seen that company exploited labor and dishonest about payment, which workers were
being paid around 25% less than other warehouse workers, said by The National Union of
Workers (NUW). Lacking respectation toward employees, using violence to intimidation, for
example, Jenna Christie, a union organizer at the CHW’s Melbourne warehouses told that:
“They’ve got a well-oiled machine for dealing with any complaints from workers, a lot of
migrant women and labor hire (hired through labor contractors) women are terrified to speak
out. They’ve seen it happen before, and they know that nothing was done about it”. Company
providing an unsafe work environment and a toxic culture of sexual abuses, which many
cases are reportedly barely investigated or left unresolved or some examples like if female
worker wants to being offer a shift, they have to provide sexual favors in return to manager.

Furthermore, workers claimed that sometimes they received text to notify them for the next
shifts day at very late times. According to Cook (2019) research, a worker described the toxic
environment: “You have to work like an animal. If you don’t reach your target you don’t get
your shift.”. Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) investigated that $2.5 million ($AUD 3.6
million) debt haven't paid back to nearly 6,000 in-stores staff who are doing compulsory
training done outside of work hours in November 2016 despite the fact company has revenue
of $1.7 billion (Dispatch, 2019). FWO forced company signed the compliance partnership
with the Ombudsman, including paying employees the money they were owed in December
2016. Nonetherless, after two years, the company increased labor casualisation, meaning they
bypass the rules in compliance agreement. This incidents also had impacts on both customers
and suppliers, customers have no chance to buy items since number of shelves were out of
stocks and there was no restocks. This issue happended when suppliers were impossible to
export products, because there were no availiable delivery trucks from CHW.

Finally the workers win the agreement after 2 weeks, come with huge benefits from
agreement, CMW workers come back to work normally, it can be seen that this was
“Deontology Ethics” – the intention of doing the right thing are more important than
consequences. So, exploit the labor casual is mutually beneficial (Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, 2016), and this could be same to other businesses. In my opinion, it hard to act
ethically or tell what is “right or wrong” in business, since it relating to organisation goals
and personal moral values and standards (Cooper & Frank, 1991 citied in Boes, 2015). If I
am an outsider of business, I can judge an action base on my emotion, I can tell what is a
moral behavior. On the other hand, if I was part of organisation, the process to achieve
organisation goals or for increase my benefits such as raising reputation, they are priority, the
outcomes are second, it depents on situation. Saying is much easier than taking action, it
simple to tell this is wrong behavior, but sometimes we have to do the wrong things. Business
ethicals are same, eventhough is immoral behavior, it about rational behavior.
In conclusion, this case study is about a business exploit labor with low payment and
deliberate creat a toxic culture of sexual abusse, from a famous pharmacy chains name
Chemist Warehouse. The decision from the CEO Jack Gance finally make CHW’s workers
sastified and the business was back to operate after no non-prescription supplies move-in in 2
weeks. Business seems allow themself to act unethically for organisation’s future, however, it
does not mean the community, both internal and external stakeholders will overlook the
action without making judgment. Pros always go with cons, same like results always next to
consequences, act unethically is benefical but harmful to business at the same times.

REFERNCES:

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