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B U S I N E S S E TH I C S
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501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 2
BUSINESS E THICS
A Stakeholder and Issues
Management Approach
SEVENTH EDITION
Joseph W. Weiss
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Business Ethics, Seventh Edition
Copyright © 2022 by Joseph W. Weiss
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other
electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other
noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the
publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

1333 Broadway, Suite 1000
Oakland, CA 94612-1921
Tel: (510) 817-2277, Fax: (510) 817-2278
www.bkconnection.com
Ordering information for print editions

Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associa-
tions, and others. For details, contact the “Special Sales Department” at the Berrett-Koehler
address above.
Individual sales. Berrett-Koehler publications are available through most bookstores. They
can also be ordered directly from Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-
7626; www.bkconnection.com
Orders for college textbook/course adoption use. Please contact Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800)
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Distributed to the U.S. trade and internationally by Penguin Random House Publisher Services.
Berrett-Koehler and the BK logo are registered trademarks of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Seventh Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-9154-6
PDF e-book ISBN 9978-1-5230-9155-3
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9156-0
2021-1
Book producer: Westchester Publishing Services

Cover designer: Rob Johnson
Brief Contents
Chapter 1
Business Ethics, the Changing Environment, and
Stakeholder Management 1
Chapter 2
Ethical Principles, Quick Tests, and Decision-Making
Guidelines 63
Chapter 3
Stakeholder and Issues Management Approaches 126
Chapter 4
The Corporation and External Stakeholders: Corporate
Governance: From the Boardroom to the Marketplace 193
Chapter 5
Corporate Responsibilities, Consumer Stakeholders,
and the Environment 278
Chapter 6
The Corporation and Internal Stakeholders: Values-Based
Moral Leadership, Culture, Strategy, and Self-Regulation 351
Chapter 7
Employee Stakeholders and the Corporation 430
Chapter 8
Business Ethics and Stakeholder Management in
the Global Environment 514
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Contents
Preface xviii
Acknowledgments xxiv
Case Authorship xxv
Chapter 1
Business Ethics, the Changing Environment,
and Stakeholder Management 1
1.1 Business Ethics and the Changing Environment 3
Seeing the “Big Picture” 7
Point/CounterPoint 7
Environmental Forces and Stakeholders 8
Stakeholder Management Approach 10
1.2 What Is Business Ethics? Why Does It Matter? 12
What Is Ethics, and What Are the Areas of Ethical Theory? 12
Unethical Business Practices and Employees 13
Why Does Ethics Matter in Business? 14
Working for the Best Companies 16
1.3 Levels of Business Ethics 16
Asking Key Questions 18
Ethical Insight 1.1 18
1.4 Five Myths about Business Ethics 19
Myth 1: Ethics Is a Personal, Individual Affair, Not a Public
or Debatable Matter 19
Myth 2: Business and Ethics Do Not Mix 21
Myth 3: Ethics in Business Is Relative 21
Myth 4: Good Business Means Good Ethics 22
Myth 5: Information and Computing Are Amoral 23
1.5 Why Use Ethical Reasoning in Business? 23
1.6 Can Business Ethics Be Taught? 24
vi
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Contents vii
1.7 Plan of the Book 25

Chapter Summary 26
Questions 27
Exercises 28
Real-Time Ethical Dilemma 29
Cases 30
1. Education Pushed to the Brink: How Covid-19 Is Redefining
Recruitment and Admissions Decisions 30
2. Classic Ponzi Scheme: Bernard L. Madoff Investment
Securities LLC: Wall Street Trading Firm 43
3. Cyberbullying: Who’s to Blame and What Can Be
Done? 52
Notes 60
Chapter 2
Ethical Principles, Quick Tests, and Decision-Making
Guidelines 63
2.1 Ethical Reasoning and Moral Decision Making 64
Three Criteria in Ethical Reasoning 65
Moral Responsibility Criteria 65
2.2 Ethical Principles and Decision Making 66
Utilitarianism: A Consequentialist (Results-Based)
Approach 68
Universalism: A Deontological (Duty-Based) Approach 71
Rights: A Moral and Legal (Entitlement-Based) Approach 72
Justice: Procedures, Compensation, and Retribution 74
Virtue Ethics: Character-Based Virtues 76
The Common Good 77
Ethical Relativism: A Self-Interest Approach 79
Immoral, Amoral, and Moral Management 81
2.3 Four Social Responsibility Roles 82
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viii Contents
2.4 Levels of Ethical Reasoning and Moral Decision Making 86

Personal Level 87
Organizational Level 90
Industry Level 90
Societal, International, and Global Levels 91
2.5 Identifying and Addressing Ethical Dilemmas 91
Moral Creativity 92
Ethical Dilemma Problem Solving 94
12 Questions to Get Started 94
2.6 Individual Ethical Decision-Making Styles 95
Communicating and Negotiating across Ethical Styles 96
2.7 Quick Ethical Tests 96
2.8 Concluding Comments 97
Back to Louise Simms . . . 98
Chapter Summary 98
Questions 99
Exercises 100
Cases 103
4. Ford’s Pinto Fires: The Retrospective View of Ford’s Field
Recall Coordinator 103
5. Jerome Kerviel: Rogue Trader or Misguided Employee? What
Really Happened at the Société Générale? 110
6. Samuel Waksal at ImClone 119
Notes 123
Chapter 3
Stakeholder and Issues Management Approaches 126
3.1 Stakeholder Theory and the Stakeholder Management
Approach Defined 128
Stakeholders 130
Stakes 130
3.2 Why Use a Stakeholder Management Approach for
Business Ethics? 131
Stakeholder Theory: Criticisms and Responses 132
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Contents ix
3.3 How to Execute a Stakeholder Analysis 133

Taking a Third-Party Objective Observer Perspective 133
Role of the CEO in Stakeholder Analysis 133
Summary of Stakeholder Analysis 142
3.4 Negotiation Methods: Resolving Stakeholder Disputes 142
Stakeholder Dispute Resolution Methods 143
3.5 Stakeholder Management Approach: Using Ethical Principles
and Reasoning 145
3.6 Moral Responsibilities of Cross-Functional Area Professionals 146
Marketing and Sales Professionals and Managers
as Stakeholders 147
R&D, Engineering Professionals, and Managers
as Stakeholders 148
Accounting and Finance Professionals and Managers
as Stakeholders 149
Public Relations Managers as Stakeholders 149
Human Resources Managers as Stakeholders 150
Summary of Managerial Moral Responsibilities 150
3.7 Issues Management: Integrating a Stakeholder Framework 150
What Is an Issue? 151
Other Types of Issues 152
Stakeholder and Issues Management:
“Connecting the Dots” 153
Moral Dimensions of Stakeholder and Issues Management 154
Types of Issues Management Frameworks 154
3.8 Managing Crises 159
How Executives Have Responded to Crises 162
Crisis Management Recommendations 164
Chapter Summary 165
Questions 166
Exercises 167
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x Contents
Cases 170
7. The BP Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill:
Crisis and Aftermath 170
8. Ethics and AI (Artificial Intelligence): Opportunities
and Threats 176
9. Genetic Discrimination 182
Notes 189
Chapter 4
The Corporation and External Stakeholders:
Corporate Governance: From the Boardroom to
the Marketplace 193
4.1 Managing Corporate Social Responsibility in the Marketplace 196
Free-Market Theory and Corporate Social Responsibility 199
Problems with the Free-Market Theory 200
Intermediaries: Bridging the Disclosure Gap 200
4.2 Managing Corporate Responsibility with External Stakeholders 205
The Corporation as Social and Economic Stakeholder 205
The Social Contract: Dead or Desperately Needed? 207
Balance between Ethical Motivation and Compliance 207
Covenantal Ethic 208
The Moral Basis and Social Power of Corporations
as Stakeholders 209
Corporate Philanthropy 210
Managing Stakeholders Profitably and Responsibly:
Reputation Counts 211
4.3 Managing and Balancing Corporate Governance, Compliance,
and Regulation 213
Best Corporate Board Governance Practices 216
Sarbanes-Oxley Act 217
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Contents xi
Pros and Cons of Implementing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 219

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations:
Compliance Incentive 221
4.4 The Role of Law and Regulatory Agencies and
Corporate Compliance 222
Why Regulation? 227
Laws and U.S. Regulatory Agencies 227
Laws Protecting Consumers 228
Laws Protecting the Environment 229
4.5 Managing External Issues and Crises: Lessons from the Past
(Back to the Future?) 231
Chapter Summary 238
Questions 239
Exercises 240
Cases 243
10. Conscious Capitalism: What Is It? Why Do We Need It?
Does It Work? 243
11. Uber and the Ride-Sharing Economy 259
12. The Crisis at Wells Fargo Bank: Then and Now 265
Notes 271
Chapter 5
Corporate Responsibilities, Consumer Stakeholders,
and the Environment 278
5.1 Corporate Responsibility toward Consumer Stakeholders 281
Corporate Responsibilities and Consumer Rights 281
Consumer Protection Agencies and Law 284
5.2 Corporate Responsibility in Advertising 285
Ethics and Advertising 285
The Federal Trade Commission and Advertising 286
Pros and Cons of Advertising 286
Advertising and Free Speech 289
Paternalism, Manipulation, or Free Choice? 291
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xii Contents
5.3 Controversial Issues in Advertising: The Internet, Children,

Tobacco, and Alcohol 291
Advertising and the Internet 291
The Thin Line between Deceptive Advertising, Spyware,
and Spam 292
Advertising to Children 294
Protecting Children 295
Tobacco Advertising 296
The Tobacco Controversy Continues 297
Alcohol Advertising 297
5.4 Managing Product Safety and Liability Responsibly 299
How Safe Is Safe? The Ethics of Product Safety 299
Product Liability Doctrines 302
Legal and Moral Limits of Product Liability 304
Product Safety and the Road Ahead 305
5.5 Corporate Responsibility and the Environment 305
The Most Significant Environmental Problems 306
Causes of Environmental Pollution 309
Enforcement of Environmental Laws 309
The Ethics of Ecology 310
Green Marketing, Environmental Justice, and
Industrial Ecology 311
Rights of Future Generations and Right to a
Livable Environment 312
Recommendations to Managers 313
Chapter Summary 313
Questions 314
Exercises 315
Cases 317
13. For-Profit Universities: Opportunities, Issues,
and Promises 317
14. Fracking: Drilling for Disaster? 325
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Contents xiii
15. Neuromarketing 333

16. Opioid Crisis in America 340
Notes 345
Chapter 6
The Corporation and Internal Stakeholders: Values-Based Moral
Leadership, Culture, Strategy, and Self-Regulation 351
6.1 Leadership and Stakeholder Management 354
Defining Purpose, Mission, and Values 356
Leadership Stakeholder Competencies 362
Example of Companies Using Stakeholder Relationship
Management 366
Spiritual Values, Practices, and Moral Courage in Leading 370
Failure of Ethical Leadership 372
Ethical Dimensions of Leadership Styles 373
How Should CEOs as Leaders Be Evaluated
and Rewarded? 376
6.2 Organizational Culture, Compliance, and
Stakeholder Management 377
Organizational Culture Defined 378
High-Ethics Companies 381
Weak Cultures 382
6.3 Leading and Managing Strategy and Structure 384
Organizational Structure and Ethics 386
Boundaryless and Networked Organizations 388
6.4 Leading Internal Stakeholder Values in
the Organization 388
6.5 Corporate Self-Regulation and Ethics Programs:
Challenges and Issues 390
Organizations and Leaders as Moral Agents 392
Ethics Codes 393
Codes of Conduct 393
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xiv Contents
Problems with Ethics and Conduct Codes 394

Ombuds and Peer-Review Programs 395
Is the Organization Ready to Implement a Values-Based
Stakeholder Approach? A Readiness Checklist 397
Chapter Summary 398
Questions 400
Exercises 401
Real-Time Ethical Dilemmas 402
Cases 406
17. Corporate Responsibility in the Age of Big Data: Facebook’s
Obligations to Protect Consumers 406
18. Boeing: The 737 “MAX-imum” Mistake 412
Notes 424
Chapter 7
Employee Stakeholders and the Corporation 430
7.1 Employee Stakeholders in the Changing Workforce 432
The Aging Workforce 434
Generational Differences in the Workplace 435
Steps for Integrating a Multigenerational Workforce 439
Women in the Workforce 441
Same-Sex Marriages, Civil Unions, Domestic Partnerships,
and Workforce Rights 443
The Increasing Cultural Mix: Minorities Are Becoming
the Majority 444
Educational Weaknesses and Gaps 446
Mainstreaming Disabled Workers 448
Balancing Work and Life in Families 448
7.2 The Changing Social Contract between Corporations
and Employees 451
Good Faith Principle Exception 452
Public Policy Principle Exception 452
Implied Contract Exception 453
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Contents xv
7.3 Employee and Employer Rights and Responsibilities 454

Moral Foundation of Employee Rights 454
The Principle of Balance in the Employee and Employer Social
Contract and the Reality of Competitive Change 455
Rights from Government Legislation 456
Employer Responsibilities to Employees 456
Employee Rights and Responsibilities to Employers 459
Employee Rights in the Workplace 459
Other Employee Rights and Obligations to Employers 463
7.4 Discrimination, Equal Employment Opportunity, and
Affirmative Action 471
Discrimination 472
Equal Employment Opportunity and the
Civil Rights Act 472
Age and Discrimination in the Workplace 473
Comparable Worth and Equal Pay 474
Ethics and Affirmative Action 475
Reverse Discrimination: Arguments against
7.5 Sexual Harassment in the Workplace 478
What Is Sexual Harassment? 479
Who Is Liable? 481
Tangible Employment Action and Vicarious Liability 482
Sexual Harassment and Foreign Firms in the
United States 483
7.6 Whistle-Blowing versus Organizational Loyalty 483
When Whistle-Blowers Should Not Be Protected 487
Factors to Consider before Blowing the Whistle 488
Managerial Steps to Prevent External Whistle-Blowing 489
Chapter Summary 489
Questions 490
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xvi Contents
Exercises 491
Case 494
19. Women on Wall Street: Fighting for Equality in a
Male-Dominated Industry 494
Notes 503
Chapter 8
Business Ethics and Stakeholder Management in the
Global Environment 514
8.1 The Connected Global Economy and Globalization 515
Globalization and the Forces of Change 517
8.2 Managing and Working in a Different Global World: Professional
and Ethical Competencies 519
Shared Leadership in Teams’ Competency 522
Global Ethical Values and Principles 524
Know Your Own Cultural and Core Values, Your Organization’s,
and T
hose with Whom You Are Working 526
Cross-Cultural Business Ethical Issues Professionals
May Experience 528
8.3 Societal Issues and Globalization: The Dark Side 536
International Crime and Corruption 537
Economic Poverty and Child Slave Labor 537
The Global Digital Divide 539
Westernization (Americanization) of Cultures 540
Loss of Nation-State Sovereignty 541
8.4 Multinational Enterprises as Stakeholders 542
Power of MNEs 542
8.5 Triple Bottom Line, Social Entrepreneurship, and
Microfinancing 549
The Triple Bottom Line 549
Social Entrepreneurs and Social Enterprises 550
Microfinancing 550
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Contents xvii
8.6 MNEs: Stakeholder Values, Guidelines, and Codes for

Managing Ethically 551
Employment Practices and Policies 553
Consumer Protection 553
Environmental Protection 554
Political Payments and Involvement 554
Basic Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 554
8.7 Cross-Cultural Ethical Decision Making and
Negotiation Methods 555
External Corporate Monitoring Groups 556
Individual Stakeholder Methods for Ethical Decision Making 557
Four Typical Styles of International Ethical Decision Making 560
Hypernorms, Local Norms, and Creative Ethical Navigation 561
Chapter Summary 563
Questions 564
Exercises 565
Real-Time Ethical Dilemmas 567
Cases 569
20. Plastic in the Ocean: An International Climate
Change Problem 569
21. Sweatshops: Not Only a Global Issue 575
22. The U.S. Industrial Food System 580
Notes 587
Index 595
About the Author 617
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Preface
The seventh edition of Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Ap-
proach continues the mission of providing a practical, easy-to-read, engaging,
and contemporary text with detailed contemporary and classic cases for stu-
dents. This text updates the previous edition, adding new cases in addition to
other new features.
We continue our quest to assist colleagues and students in understanding
the changing environment using combined stakeholder and issues manage-
ment approaches, based on the theory and practice that firms depend on stake-
holders as well as stockholders for their survival and success. Acting morally
while doing business is a serious matter. The United States in particu lar has
recently experienced instabilities in its governance, pol itical, global trade, and
international alliance relationships. Covid-19 jarred the country’s economy,
health care systems, and businesses of all sizes, just as the United States was
recovering from the subprime-lending crisis. T hese recent disruptions pre
sent even more drastic challenges. Ethical behaviors are required, not optional,
for this and future generations. Learning to think and reason ethically is a ne-
cessity, not a luxury.
Business ethics dilemmas are matters that involve deciding and doing what
is right over what is wrong, while acting in helpful over harmful ways and
seeking the common good as well as our own welfare. This text addresses
this foundational way of thinking by asking why the modern corporation
exists in the first place. What is its raison d’être and purpose? How does it
treat its stakeholders? Business ethics engages these essential questions; and it
is also about the purpose, values, and transactions of and between individu-
als, groups, and companies and their global alliances. Stakeholder theory and
management, in particu lar, are what concern nonfinancial as well as the fi-
nancial aspects of business behavior, policies, and actions. A stakeholder view
of the firm complements the stockholder view and includes all parties and par-
ticipants who have an interest—a stake—in the environment and society in
which business operates.
Students and professionals need straightforward frameworks to thought-
fully and objectively analyze and then sort through complex issues in order
to make decisions that m atter—ethically, economically, socially, legally, and
spiritually. The United States and indeed the w hole world have been jolted
by Covid-19 and the Black Lives M atter movement. Then there are the on-
going corporate scandals, the continuing consequences of the Arab Spring,
race relations, the role of police and other public serv ice agencies, security
issues worldwide, escalating immigration problems, the increasing inequali-
ties in income distribution and wealth, the decay and now survival of the m iddle
classes, global warming and climate change—all developments that are chang-
ing institutions, livelihoods, careers, business practices, and the very survival
xviii
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Preface xix
of human lives internationally. This text attempts to identify and help ana-
lyze many of these issues and opportunities for change, using relevant stake-
holder, issues management, and ethical frameworks. Ethics always has and,
we argue, w ill continue to matter.
The Revised Seventh Edition:

Why and How This Text Is Different
This edition builds on previous success factors to provide:
1. A competent, contemporary text grounded in factual and detailed

research, while being easy to read and applying concepts and methods
to real-t ime, business-related situations
2. Interesting and contemporary news stories, exercises, and examples
3. In-depth and customized cases (22 in this edition) specifically designed
for this book
4. Ethical dilemmas experienced by real individuals, not hypothetical stories
5. A detailed chapter on both stakeholder and issues management
methods, with step-by-step explanations, not summarized or theoretical
abstractions
6. A straightforward business and managerial perspective supported by the
latest research—not only a philosophical approach
7. One of the most comprehensive texts on the topics of workforce and
workplace demographics, generational trends, and issues relating to
ethical issues
8. Comprehensive coverage of such foundational laws as the Sarbanes-
Oxley Act, federal sentencing guidelines, and codes of conduct
9. Personal, professional, organ izational, and global perspectives, with
information and strategies for addressing ethical dilemmas
10. A decision-maker role for students in exercises and examples
This edition adds features that enhance your ethical understanding and inter-
est in contemporary issues in the business world. It also aligns even more closely
with the international requirements of the Association to Advance Collegiate
Schools of Business (AACSB) to help students, managers, and leaders achieve in
their respective fields. Among the additions and changes are the following:
• A Point/CounterPoint exercise has been added to several chapters to

challenge students’ thinking and arguments on contemporary issues. Topics
include “too big to fail” (TBTF) institutions, student loan debt, and
continuing issues related to file sharing and other forms of online sharing.
• New cases cover issues relating to the Boeing 737 MAX, Wells Fargo,
Facebook, artificial intelligence (AI), Covid-19, university admissions,
Uber, and the opioid crisis.
• The effects of the Covid-19 crisis are interspersed across the chapters.
• National ethics survey data has been updated.
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xx Preface
• New perspectives on generational differences and ethical workplace issues

have been added.
• Each chapter has new and updated lead-off cases and scenarios to attract
students’ attention.
• Data on global and international issues has been updated.
• Updated research and business press findings and stories have been added
to each chapter to explain concepts and perspectives.
• The material on stakeholder and issues management (Chapter 3) has a
section explaining stakeholder theory in more depth.
• Chapter 4 has updated research throughout, with new Ethical Insight inserts.
• Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 are updated, as are the cases.
An Action Approach
The seventh edition puts the students in the decision-maker role when identify-
ing and addressing ethical dilemmas with thought-provoking cases and discus-
sion questions that ask, “What would you do if you had to decide a course of
action?” Readers are encouraged to articulate and share their decision-making
rationales and strategies. Readers w
ill also learn how to examine changing ethi-
cal issues and business problems with a critical eye. We take a close look at the
business reporting of the online editions of the Wall Street Journal, CBS 60 Minutes,
the New York Times, Businessweek, The Economist, and other sources.
Stakeholder and Issues Management Analysis

The combination of stakeholder and issues management analysis is a comprehen-
sive approach for identifying issues, groups, strategies, and outcomes. T hese
methods are presented in an updated and more integrative Chapter 3. This chap-
ter is a useful starting point for mapping the who, what, when, where, why, and
how of ethical problems relating to organizations and their stakeholders. Issues
and crisis management frameworks are explained and integrated into approaches
that complement the stakeholder analysis. Quick tests and negotiation techniques
are presented in Chapters 2 and 8. In addition, this seventh edition includes:
• An updated instructor’s manual and PowerPoint slides

• Streamlined case teaching notes
• Suggested videos and websites for each chapter
Objectives and Advantages of This Textbook

• To use an action-oriented stakeholder and issues management approach for
understanding the ethical dimensions of business, organ izational, and
professional complex issues, crises, and events that are happening now.
• To introduce and motivate students about the relevance of ethical concepts,
principles, and examples through actual moral dilemmas that are
501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 20 9/7/21 10:33 PM

Preface xxi
occurring in their own lives, as well as with known national and

international people, companies, and groups.
• To present a simple, straightforward way of using stakeholder and issues
management methods with ethical reasoning in the marketplace and in
workplace relationships.
• To engage and expand readers’ awareness of ethical and unethical practices in
business at the individual, group, organizational, and multinational levels
through real-time—not hypothetical—ethical dilemmas, stories, and cases.
• To instill self-confidence and competence in the reader’s ability to think and
act according to moral principles. The classroom becomes a lab for
real-l ife decisions.
Structure of the Book

• Chapter 1 defines business ethics and familiarizes the reader with
examples of ethics in business practices, levels of ethical analysis, and
what can be expected from a course in business ethics. A Point/
CounterPoint exercise engages students immediately.
• Chapter 2 engages students in a discussion of ethics at the personal,
professional, organ izational, and international levels. The foundations of
ethical principles are presented in context with contemporary ethical
decision-making approaches. Individual styles of moral decision making
are also discussed. Although the approach here is a micro-level one, these
principles can be used to examine and explain corporate strategies and
actions as well. (Executives, managers, employees, coa lit ions, government
officials, and other external stakeholder groups are treated as individuals.)
• Chapter 3 introduces action-oriented methods for studying social
responsibility relationships at the individual employee, group, and
organ izational levels. These methods provide and encourage the
incorporation of ethical principles and concepts from the entire book.
• Chapter 4 presents ethical issues and problems that firms face with
external consumers, government, and environmental groups. How moral
can and should corporations be and act in commercial dealings? Do
corporations have a conscience? Classic and recent crises resulting from
corporate and environmental problems are covered.
• Chapter 5 explains ethical problems that consumers face in the
marketplace: product safety and liability, advertising, privacy, and the
Internet. The following questions are addressed: How free is “free
speech,” and what effect is weaponized disinformation having on socie
ties? How much are you willing to pay for safety? Who owns the
environment? Who regulates the regulators in an open society?
• Chapter 6 presents the corporation as internal stakeholder and discusses
ethical leadership, strategy, structure, alliances, culture, and systems as
dominant themes regarding how to lead, manage, and be a responsible
follower in organizations today.
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xxii Preface
• Chapter 7 focuses on the individual employee stakeholder and

examines the new and changing workforce/workplace trends, moral
issues, and dilemmas employees and mana gers face and must respond to
in order to survive and compete in national and global economies.
This chapter has been described as a “must-read” for every human
resources professional.
• Chapter 8 begins by asking students if they are ready for professional
international assignments as well as a changed Covid-19 environment.
Ethical and leadership competencies of new entrants into the global
workforce are introduced, before moving the discussion to global and
multinational enterprises (MNEs) and ethical issues between MNEs, host
countries, and other groups. Issues resulting from globalization are
presented along with stakeholders who monitor corporate responsibility
internationally. Negotiation techniques for professionals responsibly
doing business abroad are presented.
Cases
Chapter 1
1. Education Pushed to the Brink: How Covid-19 Is Redefining
Recruitment and Admissions Decisions
2. Classic Ponzi Scheme: Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities
LLC: Wall Street Trading Firm
3. Cyberbullying: Who’s to Blame and What Can Be Done?
Chapter 2
4. Ford’s Pinto Fires: The Retrospective View of Ford’s Field Recall
Coordinator
5. Jerome Kerviel: Rogue Trader or Misguided Employee? What Really
Happened at the Société Générale?
6. Samuel Waksal at ImClone
Chapter 3
7. The BP Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill: Crisis and
Aftermath
8. Ethics and AI (Artificial Intelligence): Opportunities and Threats
9. Genet ic Discrimination
Chapter 4
10. Conscious Capitalism: What Is It? Why Do We Need It? Does It Work?
11. Uber and the Ride-Sharing Economy
12. The Crisis at Wells Fargo Bank: Then and Now
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Preface xxiii
Chapter 5
13. For-Profit Universities: Opportunities, Issues, and Promises
14. Fracking: Drilling for Disaster?
15. Neuromarketing
16. Opioid Crisis in America
Chapter 6
17. Corporate Responsibility in the Age of Big Data: Facebook’s
Obligations to Protect Consumers
18. Boeing: The 737 “MAX-imum” M istake
Chapter 7
19. Women on Wall Street: Fighting for Equality in a Male-Dominated
Industry
Chapter 8
20. Plastic in the Ocean: An International Climate Change Problem
21. Sweatshops: Not Only a Global Issue
22. The U.S. Industrial Food System
501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 23 9/7/21 10:33 PM

Acknowle dgments
This book continues the practice that has endured over the last several years
that I have been teaching business ethics to undergraduates, MBA students,
and executives. My consulting work also informs this edition in numerous
ways. I would like to thank all my students for their questions, challenges,
and class contributions, which have stimulated the research and presentat ions
in this text. I also thank all the professional staff at Berrett-Koehler, espe-
cially Edward Wade and Neal Maillet, who helped make this edition possi
ble; and the faculty and staff at Bentley University, who contributed resources
and motivation for this edition. I pay tribute to the late pioneering Michael
Hoffman and his staff at Bentley University’s Center for Business Ethics, and
to his successor Jeff Moriarty, whose shared resources and friendship also helped
with this edition. I also recognize Rachel Marvin, Kinberly Saenz de la Cruz,
Cindy Wu, Sean MacDogall, and the graduate students listed as coauthors of
cases.
Thanks, also, to the main reviewers Jeffrey Kulic, marketing instructor at
George Mason University School of Business; and Professor Judith Herzberg
of Springfield College in Boston, Massachusetts, whose comments were help-
ful. The many graduate and undergraduate students at Bentley University also
provided invaluable assistance in updating the research and text.
Joseph W. Weiss
Bentley University
xxiv
501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 24 9/7/21 10:33 PM

Case Authorship
Case 1 Education Pushed to the Brink: How Covid-19 Is

Redefining Recruitment and Admissions Decisions
Gordon Berridge
Case 2 Classic Ponzi Scheme: Bernard L. Madoff Investment

Securities LLC: Wall Street Trading Firm
Alba Skurti, Bentley University, u
nder the direction of Professor Joseph
W. Weiss, Bentley University
Case 3 Cyberbullying: Who’s to Blame and What Can Be Done?

Roseleen Dello Russo and Lauren Westling, Bentley University, under the
direction of Professor Joseph W. Weiss, Bentley University
Case 4 Ford’s Pinto Fires: The Retrospective View of Ford’s Field

Recall Coordinator
Dennis A. Gioia, professor of Organizational Behavior, Smeal College of Busi-
ness, Pennsylvania State University, provided the personal reflections in this
case. Michael K. McCuddy, Valparaiso University, provided background in-
formation and discussion questions.
Case 5 Jerome Kerviel: Rogue Trader or Misguided Employee?

What Really Happened at the Société Générale?
Steve D’Aquila, Bentley University, under the direction of Professor Joseph
W. Weiss, Bentley University
Case 6 Samuel Waksal at ImClone

Amy Vensku, MBA Bentley student under the direction of Professor Joseph
W. Weiss; edited and adapted for this text by Michael K. McCuddy, Valparaiso
University, and Matt Zamorski, Bentley University
Case 7 The BP Deepwater Horizon Explosion and Oil Spill: Crisis

and Aftermath
Jill Stonehouse and Bianlbahen Patel, Bentley University, under the direc-
tion of Professor Joseph W. Weiss, Bentley University
xxv
501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 25 9/7/21 10:33 PM

xxvi Case Authorship
Case 8 Ethics and AI (Artificial Intelligence): Opportunities and

Threats
Joseph W. Weiss, with Kristina Hagmeier
Case 9 Genetic Discrimination

Jaclyn Publicover, Bentley University, with Joseph W. Weiss, Bentley University
Case 10 Conscious Capitalism: What Is It? Why Do We Need It?

Does It Work?
John Warden, Bentley University, edited by Professor Joseph W. Weiss
Case 11 Uber and the Ride-Sharing Economy

Dhara Patel and Jon Malchiodi, with Joseph W. Weiss
Case 12 The Crisis at Wells Fargo Bank: Then and Now

Joseph W. Weiss, with Cindy Wu
Case 13 For-Profit Universities: Opportunities, Issues, and

Promises
Alicia Cabrera and Nate Pullen, Bentley University, u
nder the direction of
Professor Joseph W. Weiss, Bentley University
Case 14 Fracking: Drilling for Disaster?

Lauren Casas and Ned Coffee, MBA Bentley students, u nder the direction of
Professor Joseph W. Weiss, Bentley University, with editorial revisions made
by Laura Gray, Matt Zamorski, and Lu Bai
Case 15 Neuromarketing
Eddy Fitzgerald and Jennifer Johnson, Bentley University, under the direc-
tion of Professor Joseph W. Weiss, Bentley University
Case 16 Opioid Crisis in America

Mati Litwin and A. Forestieri, with Joseph W. Weiss
Case 17 Corporate Responsibility in the Age of Big Data:

Facebook’s Obligations to Protect Consumers
A. Aquino, with Joseph W. Weiss
501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 26 9/7/21 10:33 PM

Case Authorship xxvii
Case 18 Boeing: The 737 “MAX-imum” Mistake

Amanda Walker, with Joseph W. Weiss
Case 19 Women on Wall Street: Fighting for Equality in

a Male-Dominated Industry
Monica Meunier, u nder the direction of Professor Joseph W. Weiss, and adapted
and edited for this text by Michael K. McCuddy, Valparaiso University
Case 20 Plastic in the Ocean: An International Climate Change

Problem
Terry DelRossi
Case 21 Sweatshops: Not Only a Global Issue

Michael K. McCuddy, the Louis S. and Mary L. Morgal Chair of Christian
Business Ethics and Professor of Management, College of Business Adminis-
tration, Valparaiso University
Case 22 The U.S. Industrial Food System

Brenda Pasquarello, with Joseph W. Weiss
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501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 2
1
BUSI N ESS ETH I CS, TH E CHAN G I N G
ENVI RO N M ENT, AN D STAKEH O LD ER
MANAG EM ENT
1.1 Business Ethics and the Changing Exercises
Environment Real-Time Ethical Dilemma
Point/CounterPoint Cases
1.2 What Is Business Ethics? Why 1. Education Pushed to the Brink:
Does It Matter? How Covid-19 Is Redefining
1.3 Levels of Business Ethics Recruitment and Admissions
Decisions
Point/CounterPoint
2. Classic Ponzi Scheme:
Ethical Insight 1.1
Bernard L. Madoff Investment
1.4 Five Myths about Business Ethics Securities LLC: Wall Street
1.5 Why Use Ethical Reasoning in Trading Firm
Business? 3. Cyberbullying: Who’s to Blame
1.6 Can Business Ethics Be Taught? and What Can Be Done?
1.7 Plan of the Book Notes
Chapter Summary
Questions
OP E N I NG CAS E
Blogger: “Hi. i download music and movies, limewire, torrent [and

other sites]. Is it illegal for me to download or is it just illegal for the
person uploading it. Does anyone know someone who was caught
and got into trouble for it, what happened to them. Personally I d on’t
see a difference between downloading a song or taping it on a cas-
sette from a radio!”1
The Covid-19 crisis has accelerated the use of online technologies, par-
ticularly social media, mobile phone apps, entertainment, and commu-
nication sites. Illegal file sharing continues to be problematic. “The U.S.
Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center estimated in
2019 that online piracy accounts for 26.6 billion views of U.S.-produced
501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 1 9/7/21 10:33 PM

2 Business Ethics
movies and 126.7 billion views of U.S.-produced TV episodes every year.

The economic impact of digital video piracy extends far beyond the movie
and television industries; in total, it is responsible for at least $29.2 bil-
lion in lost domestic revenues, 230,000 in lost American jobs, and
$47.5 billion in reduced GDP [gross domestic product].”2 The Record-
ing Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of its member
companies and copyright o wners, has sued more than 20,000 p eople
and settled 2,500 cases for unlawful downloading. RIAA detectives
log on to peer-to-peer networks where they easily identify illegal activity
since users’ shared folders are visible to all. The majority of these cases
have been settled out of court for $1,000 to $3,000, but fines per m usic
track can go up to $150,000 under the Copyright Act.
More recently, a practice known as “torrenting” has contributed to
illegal file sharing, particularly with books, movies, and games. A “torrent”
or “tracker” breaks up “the big file and chops it up into little pieces, called
‘packets’ . . . that are shared throughout a network of computers also
downloading the same file you are.” You are usually downloading it from
a network of peers. Copyrighted files are illegal to download without pay-
ing, and some of these technologies make downloading easier. The risks
for becoming part of a “torrent community” or downloading copyrighted
files for “free” can be substantial. Trolls, hackers, and other vipers can
track, steal, and corrupt your computer system. “Anti-piracy activists claim
that copyright infringement (most of it done through torrenting) is cost-
ing the U.S. economy $250 billion per year.”3
The nation’s first file-sharing defendant to challenge an RIAA lawsuit,
Jammie Thomas-Rasset, reached the end of the appeals process to over-
turn a jury-determined $222,000 fine in 2013. She was ordered to pay
this amount, which she argued was unconstitutionally excessive, for
downloading and sharing 24 copyrighted songs using the now-defunct
file-sharing service Kazaa. The Supreme Court has not yet heard a file-
sharing case, having also declined without comment to review the only
other appeal following Thomas-Rasset’s case. (In that case, the court
let stand a federal jury–imposed fine of $675,000 against Joel Tenenbaum
for downloading and sharing 30 songs.) “As I’ve said from the beginning,
I do not have now, nor do I anticipate in the future, having $220,000 to
pay this,” Thomas-Rasset said. “If they do decide to try and collect, I will
file for bankruptcy as I have no other option.”4
Once the well-funded RIAA initiates a lawsuit, many defendants are
pressured to settle out of court in order to avoid oppressive legal ex-
penses. Others simply can’t take the risk of large fines that juries have
shown themselves willing to impose.
New technologies and the trend t oward digital consumption, as noted
above, have made intellectual property both more critical to businesses’
bottom lines and more difficult to protect. No company, big or small, is
immune to the intellectual property protection challenge. Illegal down-
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1 The Changing Environment and Stakeholder Management 3
loads of music are not the only concern. In 2011, the U.S. Copyright
Group initiated what it called “the largest illegal downloading case in
U.S. history” at the time, suing over 23,000 file sharers who illegally
downloaded Sylvester Stallone’s movie The Expendables. This case was
expanded to include the 25,000 users who also downloaded Voltage
Pictures’ The Hurt Locker, which increased the total number of defen-
dants to approximately 50,000, all of whom used peer-to-peer download-
ing through BitTorrent. The lawsuits were filed based on the illegal
downloads made from an Internet Protocol (IP) address. The use of an
IP address as identifier presents ethical issues—for example, should a
parent be responsible for a child downloading a movie through the family’s
IP address? What about a landlord who supplied Internet to a tenant?
Digital books are also now in play. In 2012, a now-classic lawsuit was
filed in China against technology g iant Apple for sales of illegal book
downloads through its App Store. Nine Chinese authors are demand-
ing payment of $1.88 million for unauthorized versions of their books that
were submitted to the App Store and sold to consumers for a profit.
Again, the individual IP addresses are the primary way of determining
who performed the illegal download. Telecom providers and their cus-
tomers face privacy concerns, as companies are being asked for the
names of customers associated with IP addresses identified with cer-
tain downloads.
Privacy activists argue that an IP address (which identifies the sub-
scriber but not the person operating the computer) is private, protected
information that can be shown during criminal but not civil investigations.
Fred von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, has suggested on his organization’s blog that “courts are
not prepared to simply award default judgments worth tens of thousands
of dollars against individuals based on a piece of paper backed by no
evidence.”5
1.1 Business Ethics and the Changing Environment

The Internet, Zoom, and other apps—with enhanced use during Covid-19—are
now among the primary ways of communicating, d oing business, and managing
life—individually, organizationally, nationally, and internationally. Those less
fortunate in the United States as well as the last “third billion” of p eople in un-
developed countries who are not and cannot afford broadband access are particu-
larly disadvantaged.6 Covid-19 has been a wake-up call to the health and welfare
and technological needs of the United States and businesses worldwide. Also, as
this chapter’s opening case shows, there is more than one side to every complex
issue and debate involving businesses, consumers, families, other institutions, and
professionals. When stakeholders, governments, and companies cannot agree or
negotiate competing claims among themselves, the issues generally go to the
courts, as was shown in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
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4 Business Ethics
Stakeholders are individuals, companies, groups, and even governments and

their subsystems that cause and respond to external issues, opportunities, and
threats. Global crises, natural disasters, corporate scandals, globalization, de-
regulation, mergers, technology, and global cyberterrorism have accelerated
the rate of change and brought about a climate of uncertainty in which stake-
holders must make business and moral decisions. Issues concerning question-
able ethical and illegal business practices confront everyone, as exemplified
in some of the following examples:
• Covid-19 and events surrounding and heightened by it have ushered in

a host of contemporary issues that have both legal and ethical urgency.
Cybersecurity is a necessity for all. Hackers demanding and getting ran-
somware extracted $144 million in 2020 from municipality govern-
ments, universities, and private businesses.7
• Public outrage over institutional racism, triggered by the May 2020 mur-
der of George Floyd, gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement na-
tionally and internationally and has pressured police and other criminal
justice institutions to reimagine their organizations and practices.
• While Covid-19 has in many ways overshadowed other previous crises, the
subprime-lending crisis of 2008 is also memorable, as it affected stakehold-
ers as varied as consumers, banks, mortgage companies, real estate firms, and
homeowners. Many companies that sold mortgages to unqualified buyers
lied about low-r isk, high-return products. Wall Street companies, while
thriving, are also settling lawsuits stemming from the 2008 crisis. Hun-
dreds of thousands of subprime borrowers strugg led from that crisis, and
many lost their homes. Subprime securities still pose a significant legal risk
to the firms that packaged them, using capital that could be gainfully ap-
plied to the current economy.”8 Standing now as a landmark financial cri-
sis, in 2011, Bank of America announced that it would “take a whopping
$20 billion hit to put the fallout from the subprime bust behind it and sat-
isfy claims from angry investors.”9 The ethics and decisions precipitating
the crisis contributed to tilt the U.S. economy toward recession, with long-
lasting effects.
• The corporate scandals in the 1990s through 2001 at Enron, Adelphia, Hal-
liburton, MCI WorldCom, Tyco, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, Dyn-
egy, Qwest, and Merrill Lynch are now deemed “classic cases” economically
and in business ethics; and similar scandals could reoccur at other firms with-
out responsible diligence, especially with democracies across the globe
threatened by domestic terrorism, lax citizen and environmental protec-
tion policies, and shared governance by stakeholders and stockholders. We
reference these classic cases since they jolted shareholder and public confi-
dence in Wall Street and corporate governance. Enron’s bankruptcy with
assets of $63.4 billion defies imagination, and WorldCom’s bankruptcy set
the record for the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history.10 Only
22 percent of Americans express a g reat deal or quite a lot of confidence in
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1 The Changing Environment and Stakeholder Management 5
big business, compared to 65 percent who express confidence in small

business.11 Confidence in big business reached its highest point in 1974
at 34 percent, and even during the dot-com boom in the late 1990s it hov-
ered at 30 percent. The lowest rating of 16 percent was polled in 2009 after
the subprime-lending crisis, and although public confidence has since in-
creased slightly, the significant differential in American confidence between
big and small business belies a public mistrust of big business that may not
be easily repaired.12
• According to the New York Times, “Even as millions of p eople have lost their
jobs during the [Covid-19] pandemic, the soaring stock market since the
spring of 2020 has delivered outsized gains to the wealthiest Americans.
And few among the superrich have done as well as corporate executives
who received stock awards this year.”13 Moreover, the debate continues over
excessive pay to t hose chief executive officers (CEOs) who continue to post
poor corporate performance. Large bonuses paid out during the financial
crisis made executive pay a controversial topic, yet investors did l ittle to
solve the issue. “Investors had the opportunity to provide advisory votes
on executive pay at financial firms that received TARP [Troubled Asset
Relief Program] funds in 2009, and they gave thumbs up to pay packages at
every single one of those institutions. This proxy season, with advisory votes
now widely available (thanks to the Dodd-Frank Act), only five companies’
executive compensation packages have received a thumbs down from share-
holders.”14 “Realized CEO compensation grew 105.1% from 2009 to 2019,
the period capturing the recovery from the Great Recession; in that period
granted CEO compensation grew 35.7%. In contrast, typical workers in
these large firms saw their average annual compensation grow by just 7.6%
over the last 10 years.”15 A recent analysis showed that in 2020, the average
multiple of CEO compensation to that of rank-and-fi le workers is 320.”16
• During the Covid-19 pandemic, some critics on the right of the political
spectrum continue to argue that companies still can become overregulated.
Others argue that more sufficient and effective regulation of the largest
fi nancial and social media companies is needed to overcome the inequali-
ties in income, pay, wealth, and taxes that have been created. The Sarbanes-
Oxley Act of 2002 was one response to the scandals in the early 2000s. This
act states that corporate officers w
ill serve prison time and pay large fines if
they are found guilty of fraudulent financial reporting and of deceiving
shareholders. Implementing this legislation requires companies to create ac-
counting oversight boards, establish ethics codes, show financial reports in
greater detail to investors, and have the CEO and chief financial officer
(CFO) personally sign off on and take responsibility for all financial state-
ments and internal controls. Implementing these provisions is costly for cor-
porations. Some claim their profits and global competitiveness are negatively
affected and the regulations are “unenforceable.”17 More recently, Covid-19
and the ensuing economic crisis has exposed an increasing racial divide
along with income inequalities between those at the top of the income and
wealth spectrum and the shrinking middle-and lower-income levels.
501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 5 9/7/21 10:33 PM

6 Business Ethics
• U.S. firms before Covid were outsourcing work to other countries to cut
costs and improve profits, work that some argue could be accomplished in
the United States. Estimates of U.S. jobs outsourced range from 104,000 in
2000 to 400,000 in 2004, and on average, 300,000 annually. “Forrester Re-
search estimated that 3.3 million U.S. jobs and about $136 billion in wages
would be moved to overseas countries such as India, China, and Russia by
2015. Deloitte Consulting reported that 2 million jobs would move from
the United States and Europe to overseas destinations within the financial
serv ices business. Across all industries the emigration of serv ice jobs can
be as high as 4 million.”18 Do U.S. employees who are laid off and displaced
need protection, or is this practice part of another societal business trans-
formation? Is the United States becoming part of a global supply chain in
which outsourcing is “business as usual,” or is the working m iddle class in
the United States and elsewhere at risk of predatory industrial practices and
ineffect ive government polices?19 Still, there are critics in 2020 who argue
that outsourcing does lower company costs, increases profits for stockhold-
ers, and gives lower prices to consumers—resulting in higher standards of
living and an overall increase in employment for larger numbers of the
population.
• Will robots, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) applications replace
humans in the workplace? This interesting but disruptive development poses
concerns. “The outsourcing of human jobs as a side effect of globalization
has arguably contributed to the current unemployment crisis. However, one
rather extreme trend sees humans done away with altogether, even in the
low-wage countries where many American jobs have landed.”20 What w ill
be the ethical implications of the next wave of AI development, “where
full-blown autonomous self-learning systems take us into the realm of sci-
ence fiction—delivery systems and self-driving vehicles alone could change
day-to-d ay life as we know it, not to mention the social implications.”21 AI
also extends into electronic warfare (drones), education (robot assisted or
led), and manufacturing (a Taiwanese company replaced a “human force of
1.2 million people with 1 million robots to make laptops, mobile devices, and
other electronics hardware for Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Sony”).22
One futurist predicted that as many as 50 million jobs could be lost to ma-
chines by 2030, and even 50 percent of all human jobs by 2040. These, again,
may be extreme views.
These large macro-level issues taken together underlie many ethical di-
lemmas that affect business and individual decisions among stakeholders in
organizations, professions, as well as individual lives. Before discussing stake-
holder theory, the management approach that it is based on, and how these
perspectives and methods can help individuals and companies better under-
stand how to make more socially responsible decisions, we take a brief look
at the broader environmental forces that affect industries, organizations, and
individuals.
501-97287_ch01_3P.indd 6 9/7/21 10:33 PM

Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
cotton operatives, and of the Northumberland and Durham miners,
maintained their position with only a temporary contraction of
membership. The political organisation of the movement was,
moreover, unaffected. The local Trades Councils went on
undisturbed. The annual Trades Union Congress continued to meet,
and to appoint its standing Parliamentary Committee. In short,
though many individual Unions disappeared, and many others saw
their balances absorbed and their membership reduced, the trials of
1879 proved that the Trade Union Movement was at last beyond all
danger of destruction or collapse, and that the Trade Union
organisation had become a permanent element in our social
structure.
We see, therefore, that the work which Allan and Applegarth had
done towards consolidating the Trade Union Movement had not been
fruitless. But along with increasing consolidation and definiteness of
purpose had come an increasing differentiation of policy and
interest. Each trade was working out its own industrial problems in
its way. Whilst the miners and the cotton operatives, for instance,
were elaborating their own codes of legislative regulation of the
conditions of labour, the engineering and building trades were
becoming pledged to the legislative laissez-faire of their leaders.
Under the influence of the able spokesmen of the northern counties
the coal-miners and ironworkers were accepting the principle that
wages must follow prices; whilst the cotton operatives, and to some
extent the boilermakers,[503] were making a notable stand for the
contrary view that the Standard Rate of Wages should be a first
charge on industry. And while the miners and cotton operatives
regarded their organisations primarily as societies for trade
protection, there was growing up among the successors of the Junta
in the iron and building trades a fixed belief that the really “Scientific
Trade Unionism” consisted in elaborate friendly benefits and
judiciously invested superannuation funds. So long as trade was
expanding, and each policy was pursued with success, no
antagonism arose between the different sections. The cotton
operatives cordially approved the Nine Hours Movement of the
engineers, whilst these, in their turn, supported the Factory Bill
desired by the Lancashire spinners. The miners applauded the
gallant stand made by the cotton operatives against the reductions
of 1877-79, whilst the cotton operatives saw no objection to the
acquiescence of the miners in the dependence of wages on prices.
And though all Trade Unions regarded with respect the high
contributions and accumulated funds of the Amalgamated Engineers,
they were equally respectful of the success with which the
Northumberland coal-miners, through bad times and good, had for
half a generation maintained a strong Union with exclusively trade
objects. Thus the divergences of policy, which were destined from
1885 onward to form the battle-ground between what has been
once more termed the “Old” Unionism and the “New,” did not at first
prevent cordial co-operation in the common purposes of the Trade
Union Movement. It was in the dark days after 1878-79, when every
Union suffered reverses, that internal discontent as to Trade Union
policy became acute, and a new spirit of criticism arose. Not until
the purely trade society, on the one hand, had been found lacking in
stability, and the trade friendly society, on the other, had been
convicted of apathy in trade matters; not until the Lancashire and
Yorkshire coalminers had been driven to protest against the constant
reductions brought about by the sliding scales, and some of the
leaders of the Lancashire cotton operatives hesitated in their
advocacy of the legal day; finally, not until a powerful section of the
miners opposed any further extension of the Mines Regulation Acts,
and a section of the engineers and building operatives began to
advocate the legal fixing of their own labour day—do we find it
declared that “the two systems cannot co-exist; they are
contradictory and opposed.” [504]
In more than one direction, therefore, the depression of trade was
bringing into prominence wide divergences of opinion upon Trade
Union policy. But the adverse industrial circumstances of the time
were revealing, in certain industries, a more invidious cleavage. As
manufacturing processes develop and change with the progress of
invention and the substitution of one material for another—iron for
wood in shipbuilding, for instance—the skilled members of one trade
find themselves superseded for certain work by the members of
another. A modern Atlantic liner, practically a luxuriously-fitted,
electric-lighted floating hotel, built of rolled steel plates, would
obviously not fall within the work of a shipwright like Peter the
Great. But the old-fashioned shipwright naturally refused to
relinquish without a struggle the right to build ships of every kind.
The depression of 1879 was severely felt in the shipbuilding and
engineering trades, every one of which had a large percentage of its
members unemployed. The societies found, as we have seen, the
out-of-work donation a serious drain on their funds, and were
inclined to look more narrowly into cases of “encroachment” upon
the work which each regarded as the legitimate sphere of its own
members. Disputes between Union and Union as to overlap and
apportionment of work become, in these years, of frequent
occurrence; and to the standing conflict with the employers was
added embittered internecine warfare between the men of one
branch of trade and those of another. The Engineers complained of
the monopoly which the Boilermakers maintained of all work
connected with angle-iron. The Patternmakers protested vigorously
against the Carpenters presuming to make any engineering patterns.
At Glasgow the Brassfounders objected to the Ironmoulders
continuing to make the large brass castings which the workers in
brass had at first been unable to undertake. The line of demarcation
in iron shipbuilding between the work of a shipwright and that of a
boilermaker was a constant source of friction. The disregard of the
ordinary classification of trades by the authorities of the Royal
Dockyards created great discontent among the Engineers, who saw
shipwrights put to do fitters’ work, and Broadhurst brought the
matter in 1882 before the House of Commons.[505] Nor were the
disputes confined to the puzzling question of the lines of
demarcation between particular trades. In 1877 the recently formed
Union of “Platers’ Helpers” complained bitterly to the Trades Union
Congress that the whole force of the Boilermakers’ Society had been
used to destroy their organisation. The Platers’ Helpers, it may be
explained, constitute a large class of labourers in shipbuilding yards,
who are usually employed and paid, not by the owners of the yards,
but by members of the Boilermakers’ Society. In the building trades
numerous cases of friction were occurring between bricklayers and
masons on the one hand, and the builders’ labourers on the other.
The introduction of terra cotta led to a whole series of disputes
between the bricklayers and the plasterers as to the trade to which
the new work properly belonged. Disputes of this kind were, of
course, no new thing. What gave the matter its new importance was
the dominance of the great trade friendly societies in the skilled
occupations. The loss of employment by individual members became
in bad times a serious financial drain on Unions giving out-of-work
pay. In place of the bickerings of individual workmen we have the
conflicts of powerful societies, each supporting the claim of its own
members to do the work in dispute. “When men are not organised in
a Trade Union,” says the general secretary of a large society, “these
little things are not taken much notice of, but the moment the two
trades become well organised, each trade is looking after its own
particular members’ interests....” [506]
We have in our Industrial Democracy analysed the history, character,
and extent of this rivalry among competing branches of the same
trade. Here we need do no more than record its result in weakening
the bond of union between powerful sections of the Trade Union
world. The local Trades Councils, which might have attained a
position of political influence, were always being disintegrated by the
disputes of competing trades. The powerful Shipping Trades Council
of Liverpool, for instance, which played an important part in Samuel
Plimsoll’s agitation for a new Merchant Shipping Act, was broken up
in 1880 by the quarrel between the separate societies of
Shipwrights, Ship-joiners, and House Carpenters over ship work. The
minutes of every Trades Council, especially those in seaports, relate
innumerable well-intentioned attempts to settle similar disputes,
almost invariably ending in the secession of one or other of the
contending Unions. These quarrels prevented, moreover, the
formation of any effective general federation. An attempt was made
in 1875 by the officers of the Amalgamated Engineers’,
Boilermakers’, Ironfounders’, and Steam-Engine Makers’ Societies to
establish a federation for mutual defence against attacks upon the
Nine Hours System. After a few months, the disputes between the
Engineers and Boilermakers on the one hand, and between the
members of the Amalgamated Society and the Steam-Engine
Makers’ Society on the other, led to the abandonment of the
attempt.[507] A similar movement initiated by the Boilermakers in
1881 equally failed to get established. [508]
Wider federations met with no better success than those confined to
the engineering and shipbuilding trades. The Trades Union Congress
repeatedly declared itself in favour of universal brotherhood among
Trade Unionists, and the formation of a federal bond between the
different societies. But the inherent differences between trade and
trade, the numerous distinct types into which societies were divided,
the wide divergences as to Trade Union policy which we have been
describing, and, above all, the rivalry for members and employment
between competing societies in the same industry, rendered any
universal federation impossible. After the Sheffield Congress in 1874,
representatives of the leading Unions in the iron and building trades
set on foot a “Federation of Organised Trade Societies,” which all
Unions were invited to join for mutual defence. But the Cotton-
spinners, with their preference for legislative regulation, refused to
have anything to do with a federation which contemplated nothing
but strike benefits. The whole scheme was, indeed, more a project
of certain Trade Union officials than a manifestation of any general
feeling in favour of common action. Each trade was, as we have
said, working out its own policy, and attending almost exclusively to
its own interests. Under such circumstances any attempt at effective
federation must necessarily have been still-born. Nevertheless the
Edinburgh Congress of 1879 called for a renewed attempt; and the
Parliamentary Committee circulated to every Trade Union in the
kingdom their proposed rules for another “Federation of Organised
Trade Societies,” To this invitation not half a dozen replies were
received.[509] At the Congress of 1882, when the resolution in favour
of a universal federation was again proposed, it found little support.
The representatives of the local Trades Councils urged that these
bodies furnished all that was practicable in the way of federation.
Thomas Ashton, the outspoken representative of the cotton-
spinners, was more emphatic. “For years,” he said, “the
Parliamentary Committee and others had been trying to bring about
such an organisation as that mentioned in the resolution, but it had
been found utterly impossible.... It was all nonsense to pass such a
resolution. It was impossible for the trades of the country to
amalgamate, their interests were so varied and they were so jealous
with regard to each other’s disputes.” [510]
The foregoing examination of the internal relations of the Trade
Union world between 1875 and 1879, though incomplete,
demonstrates the extent to which the movement during these years
was dominated by a somewhat narrow “particularism.” From 1880 to
1885 the various societies were absorbed in building up again their
membership and balances, which had so seriously suffered during
the continued depression. The annual Trades Union Congress, the
Parliamentary Committee, and the political proceedings of these
years constitute practically the only common bond between the
isolated and often hostile sections. In all industrial matters the Trade
Union world was broken up into struggling groups, destitute of any
common purpose, each, indeed, mainly preoccupied with its
separate concerns, and frequently running counter to the policy or
aims of the rest. The cleavages of interest and opinion among
working men proved to be deeper and more numerous than any one
suspected. In the following chapter we shall see how an imperfect
appreciation of each other’s position led to that conflict between the
“Old Unionists” and the “New” which for some years bade fair to
disintegrate the whole Labour Movement.
FOOTNOTES:
[442]Address of Alexander Macdonald to the Leeds Conference,
1873. Alexander Macdonald, the son of a sailor, who became a
miner in Lanarkshire, was born at Airdrie in 1821, and went to
work in the pit at the age of eight. Having an ardent desire for
education he prepared himself as best he could for Glasgow
University, which he entered in 1846, supporting himself from his
savings, and from his work as a miner in the summer. Whilst still
at the University he became known as a leader of the miners all
over Scotland. In 1850 he became a mine manager, and in 1851
he opened a school at Airdrie, an occupation which he abandoned
in 1855 to devote his whole time to agitation on behalf of the
miners. On the formation, in 1863, of the National Union of
Miners, he was elected president, a position which he retained
until his death. Meanwhile he was, by a series of successful
commercial speculations, acquiring a modest fortune, which
enabled him to devote his whole energies to the promotion of the
Parliamentary programme which he had impressed upon the
miners. He gave important evidence before the Select Committee
of 1865 on the Master and Servant Law. In 1868 he offered
himself as a candidate for the Kilmarnock Burghs, but retired to
avoid a split. At the General Election of 1874 he was more
successful, being returned for Stafford, and thus becoming (with
Thomas Burt) the first “Labour Member.” He was shortly
afterwards appointed a member of the Royal Commission on the
Labour Laws, and eventually presented a minority report of his
own on the subject. He died in 1881. A history of the coal-miners
which he projected was apparently never written, and, with the
exception of numerous presidential addresses and other
speeches, and a pamphlet entitled Notes and Annotations on the
Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1872(Glasgow, 1872, 50 pp.), we have
found nothing from his pen. A eulogistic notice of his life by Lloyd
Jones appeared in the Newcastle Chronicle, November 17, 1883,
most of which is reprinted in Dr. Baernreither’s English
Associations of Working Men, p. 408.
[443]Address to the Miners’ National Conference at Leeds, 1873.
[444]The Conference appointed a sub-committee to compile and
publish its proceedings, “a thing,” as the preface explains,
“altogether unparalleled in the records of labour.” And indeed the
elaborate volume, regularly published by the eminent firm of
Longmans in 1864, entitled Transactions and Results of the
National Association of Coal, Lime, and Ironstone Miners of Great
Britain, held at Leeds, November 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14, 1863,
with its 174 pages, its frontispiece representing the pit-brow
women, and its motto on the title-page extracted from the
writings of W. E. Gladstone, formed a creditable and impressive
appeal to the reading public.
[445]For this militant Chartist (1805-79), see Life of Joseph
Rayner Stephens, by G. J. Holyoake, 1881.
[446]Transactions and Results of the National Association of Coal,
Lime, and Ironstone Miners of Great Britain, held at Leeds,
November 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14, 1863, p. 14.
[447]Transactions and Results of the National Association of Coal,
Lime, and Ironstone Miners of Great Britain, held at Leeds,
November 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14, 1863, p. 17. In
Northumberland and Durham the hewers very largely work in two
shifts, whilst there used to be only one shift of boys.
[448]Section 29 of Mines Regulation Act of 1860.
[449]Normansell v. Platt. John Normansell, the agent of the South
Yorkshire Miners’ Association, stands second only to Macdonald as
a leader of the miners between 1863 and 1875. The son of a
banksman, he was born at Torkington, Cheshire, in 1830, and left
an orphan at an early age. At seven he entered the pit, and
when, at the age of nineteen, he married, he was unable to write
his own name. Migrating to South Yorkshire, he became a leader
in the agitation to secure a checkweigher, which the local coal-
owners conceded in 1859. Normansell was elected to the post for
his own pit, and rapidly became the leading spirit in the district.
After the lock-out of 1864 he was elected secretary to the Union,
then counting only two thousand members. Within eight years he
had raised its membership to twenty thousand, and built up an
elaborate system of friendly benefits. Normansell was the first
working-man Town Councillor, having been triumphantly elected
at Barnsley, his Union subscribing £1000 to lodge in the bank in
his name, in order to enable him to declare himself possessed of
the pecuniary qualification at that time required. On his death the
amount was voted to his widow. Normansell gave evidence in
1867 before the Select Committee on Coal-mining, and before
that on the Master and Servant Law, in 1868 before the Royal
Commission on Trade Unions, and in 1873 before that on the Coal
Supply.
[450]The best and indeed the only exact account of these cotton
lists is that prepared for the Economic Section of the British
Association by a committee consisting of Professor Sidgwick,
Professor Foxwell, A. H. D. (now Sir Arthur) Acland, Dr. W.
Cunningham, and Professor J. E. C. Munro, the report being
drawn up by the latter. (On the Regulation of Wages by means of
Lists in the Cotton Industry, Manchester, 1887; in two parts—
Spinning and Weaving.) See History of Wages in the Cotton Trade
during the Past Hundred Years, by G. H. Wood, 1910; A Century
of Fine Cotton Spinning, by McConnel & Co., 1906; and Standard
Piece Lists and Sliding Scales, by the Labour Department of the
Board of Trade, Cd. 144, 1900.
The principles upon which the lists are framed are so complicated
that we confess, after prolonged study, to be still perplexed on
certain points; and though Professor Munro clears up many
difficulties, we are disposed to believe that even he, in some
particulars, has not in all cases correctly stated the matter. We
have discussed the whole subject in our Industrial Democracy.
[451]Bolton and District Net List of Prices for Spinning Twist,
Reeled Yarn or Bastard Twist, and Weft, on Self-actor
Mules(Bolton, 1887; 85 pp.).
[452]Birtwistle was, in 1892, at an advanced age, appointed by
the Home Secretary an Inspector in the Factory Department,
under the “particulars clause” (sec. 24 of the Factory and
Workshops Act, 1891), as the only person who could be found
competent to understand and interpret the intricacies of the
method of remuneration in the weaving trade.
[453]Beehive, February 23, 1867. The circular announcing the
resolution is signed by the leading officers of the Cotton-spinners’
and Cotton-weavers’ Unions of the time.
[454]Report of the Parliamentary Committee to the Trades Union
Congress, January 1873.
[455]Circular of December 11, 1871, signed on behalf of the
preliminary meeting by Thomas Mawdsley—not to be mistaken
for James Mawdsley, J.P., a subsequent secretary.
[456]Thomas Ashton, J.P. (died 1919), then secretary of the
Oldham Spinners, often made this statement. On the 26th of May
1893 the Cotton Factory Times, the men’s accredited organ,
declared, with reference to the Eight Hours Movement, that “now
the veil must be lifted, and the agitation carried on under its true
colours. Women and children must no longer be made the pretext
for securing a reduction of working hours for men.”
[457]Speech at Trades Union Congress, Bristol, 1878.
[458]“From what I have heard,” writes Professor Beesly in the
Beehive, May 16, 1874, “I am inclined to think that no single fact
had more to do with the defeat of the Liberal Party in Lancashire
at the last election than Mr. Fawcett’s speech on the Nine Hours
Bill in the late Parliament.”
[459]Report of Trades Union Congress, Sheffield, January 1874.
[460]John Burnett, who was born at Alnwick, Northumberland, in
1842, became, after the Nine Hours Strike, a lecturer for the
National Education League, and joined the staff of the Newcastle
Chronicle. In 1875, on Allan’s death, he was elected to the
General Secretaryship of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.
He was a member of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades
Union Congress from 1876 to 1885. In 1886 he was appointed to
the newly-created post of Labour Correspondent of the Board of
Trade, in which capacity he prepared and issued a series of
reports on Trade Unions and Strikes. On the establishment of the
Labour Department in 1893 he became Chief Labour
Correspondent under the Commissioner for Labour, and was
selected to visit the United States to prepare a report on the
effects of Jewish immigration. He retired in 1907 and died 1914.
[461]A full account of this conflict is given by John Burnett in his
History of the Engineers’ Strike in Newcastle and
Gateshead(Newcastle, 1872; 77 pp.). A description by the
Executive of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers is given in
their “Abstract Report” up to December 31, 1872. The Newcastle
Daily Chronicle, from April to October 1871, furnishes a detailed
contemporary record. The leading articles and correspondence in
the Times of September 1871 are important.
[462]See the Times leader of September 11, 1871. This leader,
which pronounced “the conduct of the employers throughout this
dispute as imprudent and impolitic,” called forth the bewildered
remonstrance of Sir William (afterwards Lord) Armstrong, writing
on behalf of “the Associated Employers.” “We were amazed,”
writes the great captain of industry, “to see ourselves described in
your article as being in a condition of hopeless difficulty; and we
really felt that, if the League themselves had possessed the
power of inspiring that article, they could scarcely have used
words more calculated to serve their purposes than those in
which it is expressed. The concurrent appearance in the Spectator
of an article exhibiting the same bias adds to our surprise. We
had imagined that a determined effort to wrest concessions from
employers by sheer force of combination was not a thing which
found favour with the more educated and intelligent classes,
whose opinions generally find expression in the columns of the
Times” (Times September 14, 1871).
[463]Here the “International” was of use. At Burnett’s instigation,
Cohn, the Danish secretary in London, proceeded to the
Continent to check this immigration, his expenses being paid by
the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.
[464]With regard to overtime, Burnett informed us that “it was
found impossible to carry a Nine Hours Day pure and simple at
the time of the strike of 1871, and that overtime should still be
worked as required was insisted upon as a first condition of
settlement by the employers.”
[465]Meeting of London pattern-makers to seek advance of
wages, Beehive, October 21, 1865.
[466]Letter from “Amalgamator,” Beehive, January 19, 1867.
[467]The rank and file were more sympathetic than the
Executive. The machinery for making the collections was mostly
furnished by the branches and committees of the Society.
[468]An “Assistant Secretary” was subsequently added, and
eventually another. But these assistants were, like the General
Secretary himself, recruited from the ranks of the workmen, and
however experienced they may have been in trade matters, were
necessarily less adapted to the clerical labour demanded of them.
The great Trade Friendly Societies of the Stonemasons,
Bricklayers, and Ironfounders long continued to have only one
assistant secretary, and no clerical staff whatever.
[469]Question 827 in Report of Trade Union Commission (March
26, 1867).
[470]Bookbinders’ Trade Circular, January 1866.
[471]In 1892 the Amalgamated Engineers provided themselves,
not only with district delegates, like those of the Boilermakers,
but also with a salaried Executive Council. The Amalgamated
Society of Carpenters has since started district delegates, and the
other national societies gradually followed suit.
[472]Mention should here be made of the Manchester and District
Association of Trade Union Officials, an organisation which grew
out of a joint committee formed to assist the South Wales miners
in their strike of 1875. The frequent meetings, half serious, half
social, of this grandly named association, known to the initiated
as “the Peculiar People,” served for many years as opportunities
for important consultations on Trade Union policy between the
leaders of the numerous societies having offices in Manchester. It
also had as an object the protection of Trade Union officials
against unjust treatment by their own societies (see History of
the British Trades Union Congress, by W. J. Davis, vol. i., 1910, p.
89)
[473]Report of the Trades Union Congress, Sheffield, 1874. A
table printed in the Appendix to the present volume gives such
comparative statistics of Trade Union membership as we have
been able to compile.
[474]“Statement as to Formation and Objects of the National
Federation of Associated Employers of Labour,” December 11,
1873, reprinted by the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades
Union Congress. This Federation comprised in its ranks a large
proportion of the great “captains of industry” of the time,
including such shipbuilders as Laird and Harland & Wolff; such
textile manufacturers as Crossley, Brinton, Marshall, Titus Salt,
Akroyd, and Brocklehurst; such engineers as Mawdsley, Son &
Field, Combe, Barbour & Combe, and Beyer & Peacock; such
ironmasters as David Dale and John Menelaus; such builders as
Trollope of London and Neill of Manchester, and such
representatives of the great industrial peers as Sir James
Ramsden, who spoke for the Duke of Devonshire, and Fisher
Smith, the agent of the Earl of Dudley.
[475]The immediate publicity given to the agitation was due, in
the first place, to the sympathy of J. E. Matthew Vincent, the
editor of the Leamington Chronicle, and secondly, to the instinct
of the Daily News, which promptly sent Archibald Forbes, its war
correspondent, to Warwickshire, and “boomed” the movement in
a series of special articles. A contemporary account of the
previous career of Joseph Arch is given by the Rev. F. S.
Attenborough in his Life of Joseph Arch(Leamington, 1872; 37
pp.). See also The Revolt of the Field, by A. W. Clayden (1874),
234 pp.; and “Zur Geschichte der englischen Arbeiterbewegung
im Jahre 1872-1873,” by Dr. Friedrich Kleinwächter in Jahrbücher
für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 1875, and Supplement I. of
1878; “Die jüngste Landarbeiterbewegung in England,” by Lloyd
Jones, in Nathusius-Thiel’s Landwirthschaftliche Jahrbücher, 1875;
The Romance of Peasant Life, 1872, and The English Peasantry,
1872, by F. G. Heath; The Agricultural Labourer, by F. E. Kettel,
1887; Joseph Arch, the Story of his Life, told by Himself, 1898; A
History of the English Agricultural Labourer, by Dr. W. Hasbach,
1908; “The Labourers in Council,” a valuable article in The
Congregationalist, 1872; “The Agricultural Labourers’ Union,” in
Quarterly Review, 1873; “The Agricultural Labourers’ Union,” by
Canon Girdlestone, in Macmillan’s Magazine, vol. xxviii.; “The
Agricultural Labourer,” by F. Verinder, in The Church Reformer,
1892; and others in this magazine during 1891-93; Conflicts of
Capital and Labour, by G. Howell, 1878 and 1890 editions; Labour
Legislation, Labour Movements and Labour Leaders, by the same,
1902; and Village Trade Unions in Two Centuries, by Ernest
Selley, 1919.
[476]Other Labourers’ Unions sprang up which refused to be
absorbed in the National; and the London Trades Council
summoned a conference in March 1873 to promote unity of
action. Considerable jealousy was shown of any centralising
policy, and eventually a Federal Union of Agricultural and General
Labourers was formed by half a dozen of the smaller societies,
with an aggregate membership of 50,000.
[477]The Birmingham Trades Council, for instance, issued the
following poster:
“Great Lock-out of Agricultural Labourers!
“An Appeal. Is the Labourer worthy of his Hire?
“This question is to all lovers of freedom and peaceful
progress, and it is left for them to say whether that
spark of life and hope which has been kindled in the
breasts of our toiling brothers in the agricultural
districts shall be extinguished by the pressure of the
present lock-out. The answer is No! and the echo
resounds from ten thousand lips. But let us be practical;
a little help is of more value than much sympathy; we
must not stand to pity, but strive to send relief. The
cause of the agricultural labourer is our own; the
interests of labour in all its forms are very closely bound
up together, and the simple question for each one is,
How much can I help, and how soon can I do it? If we
stay thinking too long, action may come too late; these
men, our brethren, now deeply in adversity, may have
fallen victims when our active efforts might have saved
them. The strain upon the funds of their Union must be
considerable with such a number thrown into unwilling
idleness, and that for simply asking that their wages, in
these times of dear food, might be increased from 13s.
to 14s. per week. Money is no doubt wanted, and it is
by that alone the victory can be won. Let us therefore
hope that Birmingham will once again come to the
rescue, determined to assist these men to a successful
resistance of the oppression that is attempted in this
lock-out.
“The great high priest and deliverer of this people now
seeks our aid. We must not let him appeal to us in vain;
his efforts have been too noble in the past, the cause
for which he pleads is too full of righteousness, and the
issues too great to be passed by in heedless silence. Let
us all to work at once. We can all give a little, and each
one may encourage his neighbour to follow his
example. The conflict may be a severe one. It is for
freedom and liberty to unite as we have done. We have
reaped some of the advantages of our Unions; we must
assist them to establish theirs, and not allow the ray of
hope that now shines across the path of our patient but
determined fellow-toilers to be darkened by the blind
folly of their employers, who, being in a measure slaves
to the powers above them, would, if they could, even at
their own loss, consign all below them to perpetual
bondage. This must not be. We must not allow these
men to be robbed of their right to unite, or their future
may be less hopeful than their past. Let some one in
every manufactory and workshop collect from those
disposed to give, and so help to furnish the means to
assist these men to withstand the powers brought
against them, showing to their would-be oppressors
that we have almost learned the need and duty of
standing side by side until all our righteous efforts shall
be crowned by victory.
“All members of the Birmingham Trades Council are
authorised to collect and receive contributions to the
fund, and will be pleased to receive assistance from
others.
“By order of the Birmingham Trades Council,
“W. Gilliver, Secretary.”
[478]Queen’s Regulations for the Army for 1873, Article 180; the
whole correspondence is given in the Report of the London
Trades Council, June 1873.
[479]The rival Kent Union, which had become the Kent and
Sussex Agricultural and General Labourers’ Union, enrolling all
sorts of labourers, claimed in 1889 still to have 10,000 members,
with an annual income of £10,000 a year, mostly disbursed in sick
and funeral benefits.
[480]See Die Strikes, die Co-operation, die Industrial
Partnerships, by Dr. Robert Jannasch (Berlin, 1868; 66 pp.).
[481]Amid the great outburst of feeling in favour of Co-operative
Production it is difficult to distinguish in every case between the
investments of the funds of the Trade Unions in their corporate
capacity, and the subscriptions of individual members under the
auspices, and sometimes through the agency, of their trade
society. The South Yorkshire Miners’ Association used £30,000 of
its funds in the purchase of the Shirland Colliery in 1875, and
worked it on account of the Association. In a very short time,
however, the constant loss on the working led to the colliery
being disposed of, with the total loss of the investment. The
Northumberland and Durham Miners in 1873 formed a “Co-
operative Mining Company” to buy a colliery, a venture in which
the Unions took shares, but which quickly ended in the loss of all
the capital. Some of the Newcastle engineers on strike for Nine
Hours in 1871 were assisted by sympathisers to start the
Ouseburn Engine Works, which came to a disastrous end in 1876.
In 1875 the Leicester Hosiery Operatives’ Union, having 2000
members, began manufacturing on its own account, and bought
up a small business. In the following year a vote of the members
decided against such an investment of the funds, and the Union
sold out to a group of individuals under the style of the Leicester
Hosiery Society. It became fairly successful, but scarcely a tenth
of the shareholders were workers in the concern, and it was
eventually merged in the Co-operative Wholesale Society.
Innumerable smaller experiments were set on foot during these
years by groups of Trade Unionists with more or less assistance
from their societies, but the great majority were quickly
abandoned as unsuccessful. In a few cases the business
established still exists, but in every one of these any connection
with Trade Unionism has long since ceased. In later years
renewed attempts have been made by a few Unions. Several local
branches of the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives, for
instance, have taken shares in the Leicester Co-operative Boot
and Shoe Manufacturing Society. The London Bassdressers, the
Staffordshire Potters, the Birmingham Tinplate Workers, and a
few other societies have also taken shares in co-operative
concerns started in their respective trades. Full particulars will be
found in the exhaustive work of Benjamin Jones on Co-operative
Production, 1894.
[482]In one other respect the Trade Union expansion of 1872-74
resembled that of 1833-34. Both periods were marked by an
attempt to enrol the women wage-earners in the Trade Union
ranks. Ephemeral Unions of women workers had been established
from time to time, only to collapse after a brief existence. The
year 1872 saw the establishment of the oldest durable Union for
women only—the Edinburgh Upholsterers’ Sewers’ Society. Two
years later Mrs. Paterson, the real pioneer of modern women’s
Trade Unions, began her work in this field, and in 1875 several
small Unions among London Women Bookbinders,
Upholsteresses, Shirt and Collar Makers, and Dressmakers were
established, to be followed, in subsequent years, by others
among Tailoresses, Laundresses, etc. Mrs. Emma Ann Paterson
(née Smith), who was born in 1848, the daughter of a London
schoolmaster, served from 1867 to 1873 successively as an
Assistant Secretary of the Working Men’s Club and Institute Union
and the Women’s Suffrage Association, and married, in 1873,
Thomas Paterson, a cabinetmaker. On a visit to the United States
she became acquainted with the “Female Umbrella Makers’ Union
of New York,” and strove, on her return in 1874, to promulgate
the idea of Trade Unionism among women workers in the South
of England. After some newspaper articles, she set on foot the
Women’s Protective and Provident League (now the Women’s
Trade Union League), for the express purpose of promoting Trade
Unionism, and established in the same year the National Union of
Working Women at Bristol. From 1875 to 1886 she was a
constant attendant at the Trades Union Congress, and was
several times nominated for a seat on the Parliamentary
Committee, at the Hull Congress heading the list of unsuccessful
candidates. An appreciative notice of her life and work appeared
in the Women’s Union Journal on her death in December 1886;
see also Dictionary of National Biography, and Women in the
Printing Trades, edited by J. R. MacDonald (1904), pp. 36, 37.
[483]Speech quoted in Capital and Labour; June 16, 1875.
[484]It must be remembered that the words “arbitration” and
“conciliation” were at this time very loosely used, often meaning
no more than a meeting of employers and Trade Union
representatives for argument and discussion. The classic work
upon the whole subject is Henry Crompton’s Industrial
Conciliation, 1876. It receives detailed examination in the various
contributions of Mr. L. L. Price, notably his Industrial Peace(1887)
and the supplementary papers entitled “The Relations between
Industrial Conciliation and Social Reform,” and “The Position and
Prospects of Industrial Conciliation,” published in the Statistical
Society’s Journal for June and September 1890 (vol. liii. pp. 290
and 420). For an American summary may be consulted Joseph D.
Weeks’ Report on the Practical Working of Arbitration and
Conciliation in the Settlement of Differences between Employers
and Employees in England (Harrisburg, 1879), and his paper on
Labour Differences (New York, 1886). The working of arbitration
is well set forth in Strikes and Arbitration, by Sir Rupert Kettle,
1866; in A. J. Mundella’s evidence before the Trade Union
Commission, 1868; in his address, Arbitration as a Means of
Preventing Strikes(Bradford, 1868; 24 pp.); and in the lecture by
Dr. R. Spence Watson entitled “Boards of Arbitration and
Conciliation and Sliding Scales,” reported in the Barnsley
Chronicle, March 20, 1886. An early account of the Nottingham
experience is contained in the paper by E. Renals, “On Arbitration
in the Hosiery Trades of the Midland Counties” (Statistical
Society’s Journal, December 1867, vol. xxx. p. 548). See also the
volume edited by Dr. Brentano, Arbeitseinstellungen und
Fortbildung des Arbeitvertrags(Leipzig, 1890), and Zum socialen
Frieden, by Dr. von Schulze Gaevernitz (Leipzig, 2 vols., 1892).
The whole subject of the relation between Trade Unions and
employers is fully dealt with in our Industrial Democracy. For the
latest British Official reports on the subject see Cd. 6603, 6952,
and 9099.
[485]The course of prices after 1870 demonstrates how
disastrously this principle would have operated for the wage-
earners had it been universally adopted. Between 1870 and 1894
the Index Number compiled by the Economist, representing the
average level of market prices, fell steadily from 2996 to 2082,
irrespective of the goodness of trade or the amount of the
employers’ profits. Any exact correspondence between wages and
the price of the product would exclude the wage-earners, as
such, from all share in the advantages of improvements in
production, cheapening of carriage, and the fall in the rate of
interest, which might otherwise be turned to account in an
advance in the workman’s Standard of Life. On the other hand, in
an era of rising prices, when these influences are being more
than counteracted by currency inflation, increasing difficulty of
production, or a world-shortage of supply, an automatic
correspondence between money wages and the cost of living
would be useful, if it did not lead to the implication that the only
ground for an advance in wages was an increase in the cost of
living. The workmen have still to contend for a progressive
improvement of their Standard of Life whatever happens to
profits.
[486]Executive Circular, October 12, 1874.
[487]Ibid., October 21, 1879; as to the Sliding Scales actually
adopted, see Appendix II.
[488]Miners’ Watchman and Labour Sentinel, February 9, 1878—a
quasi-official organ of the Northern Miners, which was published
in London from January to May 1878.
[489]“Should Wages be Regulated by Market Prices?” by Lloyd
Jones, Beehive, July 18, 1874; see also his article in the issue for
March 14, 1874.
[490]Lloyd Jones, one of the ablest and most loyal friends of
Trade Unionism, was born at Bandon, in Ireland, in 1811, the son
of a small working master in the trade of fustian-cutting. Himself
originally a working fustian-cutter, Lloyd Jones became, like his
father, a small master, but eventually abandoned that occupation
for journalism. He became an enthusiastic advocate of Co-
operation, and in 1850 he joined Thomas Hughes and E.
Vansittart Neale in a memorable lecturing tour through
Lancashire. A few years later we find him in London, in close
touch with the Trade Union leaders, with whom he was on terms
of intimate friendship. From the establishment of the Beehive in
1861 he was for eighteen years a frequent contributor, his articles
being uniformly distinguished by literary ability, exact knowledge
of industrial facts, and shrewd foresight. From 1870 until his
death in 1886 he was frequently selected by the various Unions to
present their case in Arbitration proceedings. At the General
Election of 1885 he stood as candidate for the Chester-le-Street
Division of Durham, where he was opposed by both the official
Liberals and the Conservatives, and was unsuccessful. In
conjunction with J. M. Ludlow, he wrote The Progress of the
Working Classes, 1867, and afterwards published The Life, Times,
and Labours of Robert Owen, to which a memoir by his son, Mr.
W. C. Jones, has since been prefixed.
[491]Beehive, May 16, 1874.
[492]This information we owe to personal friends and colleagues
of Macdonald, Thomas Burt, M.P., and Ralph Young, who, as we
have seen, differed from him on this point, and also on the allied
question of regulation of output according to demand, to be
preached by the coal-miners as well as by the colliery companies,
which Macdonald, throughout his whole career, persistently
advocated. See, for instance, his speech at the local conference
on the Depression of Trade, Bristol Mercury, February 13, 1878.
[493]A useful summary of these events is given in Dr.
Kleinwächter’s pamphlet, Zur Geschichte der englischen
Arbeiterbewegung in den Jahren 1871 und 1874(Jena, 1878; 150
pp.).
[494]Beehive, June 5, 1875.
[495]The operatives’ case is well put in the Weavers’ Manifesto of
June 1878:
“Fellow-workers—We are and have been engaged during the past
nine weeks in the most memorable struggle between Capital and
Labour in the history of the world. One hundred thousand factory
workers are waging war with their employers as to the best
possible way to remove the glut from an overstocked cloth
market, and at the same time reduce the difficulties arising from
an insufficient supply of raw cotton. To remedy this state of
things the employers propose a reduction of wages to the extent
of ten per cent below the rate of wages agreed upon twenty-five
years ago. On the other hand, we have contended that a
reduction in the rate of wages cannot either remove the glut in
the cloth market or assist to tide us over the difficulty arising from
the limited supply of raw material. However, this has been the
employers’ theory, and at various periods throughout the struggle
we have made the following propositions as a basis of settlement
of this most calamitous struggle:
“1. A reduction of ten per cent, with four days’ working, or five
per cent with five days’ working, until the glut in the cloth market
and the difficulties arising from the dearth of cotton had been
removed.
“2. To submit the whole question of short time or reduction, or
both, to the arbitrement of any one or more impartial gentlemen.
“3. To submit the entire question to two Manchester merchants or
agents, two shippers conversant with the Manchester trade, and
two bankers, one of each to be selected by the employers and
the other by the operatives, with two employers and two
operatives, with Lord Derby, the Bishop of Manchester, or any
other impartial gentleman, as chairman, or, if necessary, referee.
“4. To split the difference between us, and go to work
unconditionally at a reduction of five per cent.
“5. Through the Mayor of Burnley, to go to work three months at
a reduction of five per cent, and if trade had not sufficiently
improved at that time, to submit to a further reduction.
“6. And lastly, to an unconditional reduction of seven and a half
per cent.”
[496]Amalgamated Society of Engineers, etc., Abstract Report of
the Council’s Proceedings, 1878-79, p. 18.
[497]See The Strikes of the Past Ten Years, by G. Phillips Bevan
(March 1880, Stat. Soc. Journal, vol. xliii. pp. 35-54). We have
ascertained that the strikes mentioned in the Times between
1876 and 1889 show the following variations:
1876 17
1877 23
1878 38
1879 72
1880 46
1881 20
1882 14
1883 26
1884 31
1885 20
1886 24
1887 27
1888 37
1889 111
[498]Secret circular from the London Secretary (Sidney Smith) of
the Iron Trades Employers’ Association, December 1878;
republished in Circular of Amalgamated Society of Engineers,
January 3, 1879, and in Report of Executive Council for 1878-79,
p. 31.
[499]At Manchester, Bolton, Ramsbottom, Wrexham, Falmouth,
Aldershot, etc., the hours were thus lengthened.
[500]To the ordinary reader it may be desirable to explain that
the Unions have, in most trades, succeeded in establishing the
principle of the payment of higher rates for overtime. But in most
cases this is limited to workers paid by time, no extra allowance
being given to the man working by the piece.
It will be obvious that if a workman, ostensibly enjoying a Nine
Hours Day, is habitually required to work overtime, and is paid
only at the normal piecework rate for his work, he obtains no
advantage whatever from the nominal fixing of his hours of
labour. To many thousands of men in the engineering and
building trades the nominal maintenance of the Nine Hours Day
meant, in 1878 and succeeding years, no more than this. See for
the whole subject of “the Normal Day,” Industrial Democracy, by
S. and B. Webb.
[501]The lowest point reached in the statistics of the annual
Trades Union Congresses was in 1881, when the delegates
claimed to represent little more than a third of the numbers of
1874. These statistics of membership are, however, in many
respects misleading. The Congress of 1879 was attended by a
much smaller number of delegates than any Congress since 1872,
and the number of Unions represented was also the smallest
since that date.
[502]“Four years ago,” writes the President of the Bristol Coopers’
Society in 1878, “upwards of 40,000 workmen were in
combination in these valleys [South Wales], and to-day not a
single Union is in existence throughout the entire district.” (Paper
at Local Conference on the Depression of Trade, Bristol Mercury,
February 13, 1878).
[503]See the injunctions of the General Secretary, Monthly
Report, March 1862; Annual Reports, 1882 and 1888. Robert
Knight consistently opposed “violent fluctuations of wages, at one
time a starvation pittance, at another exorbitantly high.”
[504]Trade Unionism, New and Old, by George Howell, M.P.
(1891), p. 235.
[505]House of Commons Journals, Motion of March 14, 1882:
“That in the opinion of this House it is detrimental to the public
service, fatal to the efficiency of our war ships, and unjust to the
fitters in Her Majesty’s Dockyards, that superintending leading
men should be placed in authority over workmen with whose
trades they have no practical acquaintance, or that men should
be put to execute work for which they are unsuited either by
training or experience.” See Henry Broadhurst, the Story of his
Life from a Stonemason’s Bench to the Treasury Bench, by
himself, 1901.
[506]Evidence of Mr. Chandler, then general secretary of
Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners (Labour
Commission, 1892, vol. iii. Q. 22,014).
[507]Abstract Report of Amalgamated Engineers, June 30, 1876.
[508]In 1890, however, Robert Knight, who had been throughout
the foremost worker for federation, succeeded in establishing a
Federation of the Engineering and Shipbuilding Trades of the
United Kingdom, described in our Industrial Democracy, from
which the Amalgamated Society of Engineers has held aloof. A
large part of the work of the Federal Executive consisted, for
many years, of adjusting disputes between Union and Union with
regard to overlap and apportionment of work. For the whole
subject, see our Industrial Democracy, 1897.
[509]When, in 1890, the project of universal federation was
revived, the draft rules of 1879 were simply reprinted.
[510]Report of Manchester Congress, 1882; see also History of
the British Trades Union Congress, by W. J. Davis, vol. i., 1910.
CHAPTER VII
THE OLD UNIONISM AND THE NEW
[1875-1890]
Since 1875 the Trades Union Congress has loomed before the
general public with ever-increasing impressiveness as the
representative Parliament of the Trade Union world. To the historical
student, on the other hand, it has, during the last fifty years, been
wanting in significance as an index to the real factors of the Trade
Union Movement. Between 1871 and 1875, the period of the
struggle for complete legalisation, the Congress concentrated the
efforts of the different sections upon the common object they had all
at heart. On the accomplishment of that object it became for ten
years little more than an annual gathering of Trade Union officials, in
which they delivered, with placid unanimity, their views on labour
legislation and labour politics. [511] From 1885 to 1890 we shall
watch the Congress losing its decorous calm, and gradually
becoming the battle-field of contending principles and rival leaders.
But throughout its whole career it has, to speak strictly, been
representative less of the development of Trade Unionism as such,
than of the social and political aspirations of its leading members.
The reader of the Congress proceedings between 1875 and 1885
would, for instance, fail to recognise our description of the
characteristics of the movement in these years. The predominant
feature of the Trade Union world between 1875 and 1885 was, as
we have seen, an extreme and complicated sectionalism. It might
therefore have been expected that the annual meeting of delegates
from different trades would have been made the debating ground for
all the moot points and vexed questions of Trade Unionism, not to
say the battle-field of opposing interests. But though the Trades
Union Congress, like all popular assemblies, had its stormy scenes
and hot discussions, from 1875 to 1885 these episodes arose only
on personal questions, such as the conduct of individual members of
the committee or the bona fides of particular delegates. On all
questions of policy or principle before the Congress the delegates
were generally unanimous. This was brought about by the deliberate
exclusion of all Trade Union problems from the agenda. The relative
merits of collective bargaining and legislative regulation were, during
these years, never so much as discussed. The alternative types of
benefit club and trade society were not compared. The difficulties of
overlap and apportionment of work were not even referred to. No
mention was made of Sliding Scales, Wage-Boards, Piecework Lists,
or other expedients for avoiding disputes. Piecework itself, when
introduced by a delegate in 1876, was dropped as a dangerous
topic. The disputes between Union and Union were regarded by the
Committee as outside the proper scope of Congress.[512] In short,
the knotty problems of Trade Union organisation, the divergent
views as to Trade Union policy, the effect on Trade Unionism of
different methods of remuneration—all the critical issues of industrial
strife were expressly excluded from the agenda of the Congress.
For the narrow limits thus set to the functions of the Congress there
was an historical reason. Arising as it did between 1868 and 1871,
when the one absorbing topic was the relation of Trade Unionism to
the law, it had retained the character then impressed upon it of an
exclusively political body. For many years its chief use was to give
weight to the Parliamentary action of the standing committee, whose
influence in the lobby of the House of Commons was directly
proportionate to the numbers they were believed to represent.
Publicity and advertisement, the first requisites of a successful
Congress, were worse than useless without unanimity of opinion.
The deliberate refusal of the Trade Union leaders to discuss internal
problems in public Congress under such circumstances was not
surprising. Most men in their position would have hesitated to let the
world know that the apparent solidarity of Trade Unionism covered
jealous disputes on technical questions, and fundamental differences
as to policy. They easily persuaded themselves that a yearly meeting
of shifting delegates was fitted neither to debate technical questions
nor to serve as a tribunal of appeal. But these difficulties could have
been overcome. The quinquennial delegate meeting of the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers secures absolute frankness of
discussion by the exclusion of reporters; and the frequent national
conferences of miners achieve the same end by supplying the press
with their own abstract of the proceedings. The Miners’ Conference
of 1863, which we have already described, had shown, too, how
successfully a large conference of workmen could resolve itself, for
special questions, into private committees, the reports being laid
before the whole conference at its public sittings—a device not yet
adopted by the Trades Union Congress. And the London Society of
Compositors, which is governed practically by mass meetings, had,
for over half a century, known how to combine detailed investigation
of complicated questions with Democratic decisions on principles of
policy, by appointing special committees to report to the next
subsequent members’ meeting. The fact that no such expedients
were suggested shows that in these years the jealousy of most
workmen of outside interference and their apathy about questions
unconnected with their immediate trade interests, made their
leaders unwilling to trust them with real opportunities for full
Democratic discussion.
We shall therefore not attempt to reconstruct the Trade Union
Movement from the proceedings of its annual congresses. The
following brief analysis of their programmes and the achievements of
the Parliamentary Committee is meant to show, not the facts as to
Trade Union organisation throughout the country, with which we
have already dealt, but the political and social ideals that filled the
minds of the more thoughtful and better educated working men, and
the rapid transformation of these ideals in the course of the last
decade. [513]
The mantle of the Junta of 1867-71 had, by 1875, fallen upon a
group of able organisers who, for many years, occupied the foremost
place in the Trade Union world. Between 1872 and 1875 Allan and
Applegarth were replaced by Henry Broadhurst, John Burnett, J. D.
Prior, and George Shipton.[514] These leaders had moulded their
methods and policy upon those of the able men who preceded them.
It was they, indeed, aided by Alexander Macdonald and Thomas
Burt, who had actually carried through the final achievement of
1875. Like Allan, Applegarth, and Guile, they belonged either to the
iron or the building trades, and were permanent officials of Trade
Union organisations. A comparison of the private minutes of the
Parliamentary Committee between 1875 and 1885 with those of the
Conference of Amalgamated Trades of 1867-71 reveals how exactly
the new “Front Bench” carried on the traditions of the Junta. We see
the same shrewd caution and practical opportunism. We notice the
same assiduous lobbying in the House of Commons, and the same
recurring deputations to evasive Ministers. For the first few years, at
least, we watch the Committee in frequent consultation with the
same devoted legal experts and Parliamentary friends.[515] Through
the skilful guidance and indefatigable activity of Henry Broadhurst
the political machinery of the Trade Union Movement was
maintained and even increased in efficiency. If during these years
the occupants of the “Front Bench” failed to give so decisive a lead
to the Labour Movement as their predecessors had done, the fault
lay, not in the men or in the machinery, but rather in the programme
which they set themselves to carry out.
This programme, laid before all candidates for the House of
Commons at the General Election of 1874, was based, as John Prior
subsequently declared, on the principle “that all exceptional
legislation affecting working men should be swept away, and that
they should be placed on precisely the same footing as other classes
of the community.”[516] Its main items were the repeal of the hated
Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1871, and the further legalisation of
Trade Unionism. The sweeping triumphs of 1875, and the
acceptance by the Conservative Government of the proposals of the
Junta, denuded the programme for subsequent years of its most
striking proposals. There remained over in this department certain
minor amendments of law and procedure which occupied the
attention of the Committee for the next few years, and were
gradually, by their exertions, carried into effect. [517]
But one great disability still lay upon working men as such. By the
common law of England a person is liable for the results, not only of
his own negligence, but also for that of his servant, if acting within
the scope of his employment. The one exception is that, whereas to
a stranger the master is liable for the negligence of any person
whom he employs, to his servant he is not liable for the negligence
of a fellow-servant in common employment. By this legal refinement,
which dates only from 1837, and which successive judicial decisions
have engrafted upon the common law, a workman who suffered
injury through the negligence of some other person in the same
employment was precluded from recovering that compensation from
the common employer which a stranger, to whom the same accident
had happened, could claim and enforce.[518] If by the error of a
signalman a railway train met with an accident, all the injured
passengers could obtain compensation from the railway company;
but the engine-driver and guard were expressly excluded from any
remedy. What the workman demanded was the abolition of the
doctrine of “common employment,” and the placing of the employee
upon exactly the same footing for compensation as any member of
the public.
By the influence of the Miners’ National Union and the Amalgamated
Society of the Railway Servants (established in 1872) the removal of
this disability was, from the first, placed in the foreground of the
Trade Union programme. Year after year Employers’ Liability Bills
were brought in by the Trade Union representatives in the House of
Commons, only to be met by stubborn resistance from the capitalists
of both parties. Through the pertinacity of Henry Broadhurst a
partial reform[519] was obtained from Gladstone’s Government in
1880, in spite of the furious opposition of the great employers of
labour sitting on both sides of the House. The responsibility of the
employer for insuring his workmen against the risks of their calling
was, for the first time, clearly recognised by Parliament. The report
of the Parliamentary Committee for 1880 claimed that the main
battle on the subject had been fought, and that “time and
opportunity only were now wanting for the completion of this work.”
Since then the promotion of claims for compensation for accidents
has been one of the most important functions of Trade Unions; and
many of the societies, such as the Bricklayers and Boilermakers,
have recovered thousands of pounds for injured members or their
relatives.[520] But the doctrine of “common employment,” modified
by this Act, was by no means abolished. Employers, moreover, were
allowed to induce their work-people to “contract out” of the
provisions of the Act.[521] An Employers’ Liability Bill, the last
remnant of the demands of the Junta, remained, therefore, from
1872 onward a permanent item in the Trade Union programme down
to 1896.
With the exception of this one proposal the Parliamentary
programme of the Trade Union world was framed, in effect, by the
New Front Bench. Curiously devoid of interest or reality, it is
important to the political student as showing to what extent the
thoughtful and superior workman had, at this time, imbibed the
characteristic ideas of middle-class reformers.
The programme of the Parliamentary Committee between 1875 and
1885 falls mainly under three heads. We have first a group of
measures the aim of which was the democratisation of the electoral,
administrative, and judicial machinery of the State. Another set of
reforms had for their end the enabling of the exceptionally thrifty or
exceptionally industrious man to rise out of the wage-earning class.
A third group of proposals aimed at the legal regulation of the
conditions of particular industries.
Complete political Democracy had been for over a century the creed
of the superior workmen. It was therefore not unnatural that it
should come to the front in the Trades Union Congress. What
appears peculiar is the form which this old-standing faith took in the
hands of the Front Bench. The Trade Union leaders of 1837-42 had
adopted enthusiastically the “Six Points” of the Charter. Even the
sober Junta of 1867-71 had sat with Karl Marx on the committee of
the “International,” in the programme of which Universal Suffrage
was but a preliminary bagatelle. To the Front Bench of 1875-85
Democracy appeared chiefly in the guise of the Codification of the
Criminal Law, the Reform of the Jury System, the creation of a Court
of Criminal Appeal, and the Regulation of the Summary Jurisdiction
of the Magistracy—a curious group of law reforms which it is easy to
trace to the little knot of barristers who had stood by the Unions in
their hour of trial.[522] We do not wish to deprecate the value of
these proposals, framed in the interests of all classes of the
community; but they were not, and probably were never intended to
be, in any sense a democratisation of our judicial system.[523] When
the Congress dealt with electoral reform it got no further than the
assimilation of the county and borough franchise—already a
commonplace of middle-class Liberalism. The student of Continental
labour movements will find it difficult to believe that in the
representative Congress of the English artisans, amendments in
favour of Manhood Suffrage were even as late as 1882 and 1883
rejected by large majorities.[524] Nor did the Parliamentary
Committee put even the County Franchise into their own programme
until it had become the battle-cry of the Liberal party at the General
Election of 1880. The Extension of the Hours of Polling becomes a
subject of discussion from 1878 onward, but the Payment of Election
Expenses does not come up until 1883, and Payment of Members
not until 1884.
Scarcely less significant in character were the measures of social
reform advocated during these years. The prominent Trade Unionists
had been converted, as we have already had occasion to point out,
to the economic Individualism which at this time dominated the
Liberal party. A significant proof of this unconscious conversion is to
be found in the unanimity with which a Trades Union Congress could
repeatedly press for such “reforms” as Peasant Proprietorship, the
purchase by the artisan of his own cottage, the establishment of
“self-governing workshops,” the multiplication of patents in the
hands of individual workmen, and other changes which would cut at
the root of Trade Unionism or any collective control of the means of
production. For whatever advantages there might be in turning the
agricultural labourer into a tiny freeholder, it is obvious that under
such a system no Agricultural Labourers’ Union could exist. However
useful it may be to make the town artisan independent of a landlord,
it has been proved beyond controversy that wage-earning owners of
houses lose that perfect mobility which enables them, through their
Trade Union, to boycott the bad employer or desert the low-paying
district. And we can imagine the dismay with which the leaders of
the Nine Hours Movement would have discovered that any
considerable proportion of the engineering work of Newcastle was
being done in workshops owned by artisans whose interests as
capitalists or patentees conflicted with the common interests of all
the workers.
In no respect, however, does the conversion of the Trade Union
leaders to middle-class views stand out more clearly than in their
attitude to the clamour from the workers in certain industries for the
legal protection of their Standard of Life. From time immemorial one
of the leading tenets of Trade Unionism has been the desirability of
maintaining by law the minimum Standard of Life of the workers,
and it was still steadfastly held by two important sections of the
Trade Union world, the Cotton Operatives and the Coal-miners. But
to the Parliamentary Committee of 1875-85, as to the Liberal
legislators, every demand for securing the conditions of labour by
legislation appeared as an invidious exception, only to be justified by
the special helplessness or incompetency of the applicants.
Nevertheless, many of the trades succeeded in persuading Congress
to back up the particular sectional legislation they desired. The
Tailors asked, on the one hand, for the extension of the Factory Acts
to home workers, and, on the other, for compensation out of public
funds when interfered with by the sanitary inspector. The Bakers
complained with equal pertinacity of the lack of public inspection of
bakehouses, and of the hardships of their regulation by the Smoke

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Case Authorship xxv

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1.7 Plan of the Book 25

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2.4 Levels of Ethical Reasoning and Moral Decision Making 86

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3.3 How to Execute a Stakeholder Analy­sis 133

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Pros and Cons of Implementing the Sarbanes-­Oxley Act 219

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5.3 Controversial Issues in Advertising: The Internet, ­Children,

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15. Neuromarketing 333

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Prob­lems with Ethics and Conduct Codes 394

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7.3 Employee and Employer Rights and Responsibilities 454

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8.6 MNEs: Stakeholder Values, Guidelines, and Codes for

About the Author 617

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Stakeholder and Issues Management Analy­sis

• An updated instructor’s manual and Power­Point slides

Objectives and Advantages of This Textbook

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occurring in their own lives, as well as with known national and

Structure of the Book

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• Chapter 7 focuses on the individual employee stakeholder and

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Case 1 Education Pushed to the Brink: How Covid-19 Is

Case 2 Classic Ponzi Scheme: Bernard L. Madoff Investment

Case 3 Cyberbullying: Who’s to Blame and What Can Be Done?

3.3 How to Execute a Stakeholder Analysis 133

Pros and Cons of Implementing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 219

5.3 Controversial Issues in Advertising: The Internet, Children,

Problems with Ethics and Conduct Codes 394

8.6 MNEs: Stakeholder Values, Guidelines, and Codes for

1. A competent, contemporary text grounded in factual and detailed

Stakeholder and Issues Management Analysis

• An updated instructor’s manual and PowerPoint slides

Case 9 Genetic Discrimination

Case 11 Uber and the Ride-Sharing Economy

Case 13 For-Profit Universities: Opportunities, Issues, and

Case 16 Opioid Crisis in America

Case 18 Boeing: The 737 “MAX-imum” Mistake

Case 19 Women on Wall Street: Fighting for Equality in

Blogger: “Hi. i download music and movies, limewire, torrent [and

movies and 126.7 billion views of U.S.-produced TV episodes every year.

big business, compared to 65 percent who express confidence in small