It was reported recently that an engineer for TransCanada, Evan Vokes, has now gone public with claims that the pipeline company has been lax in the standards it applies to having its pipelines inspected.
Whistleblowing is among the most complex ethical issues in the world of business. Whistleblowers are people who demonstrate that there is ? there must be ? a limit to the loyalty of even a dedicated employee. Whistleblowers go outside the boundaries of their organization to report actual or immanent wrongdoing. They often prevent grievous harm, but in doing so they inevitably impugn the character of their organizations, and sometimes of their co-workers. And of course, there?s always the worry that the self-appointed whistleblower is actually just a malcontent bent on revenge. But such cases aside, whistleblowers perform an essential public service.
A few points are worth making about the TransCanada case in particular.
The first is that, at least as the story is told by the CBC, Vokes is the perfect whistleblower. He?s got the relevant expertise (he?s both a welder and an engineer) and he?s got a reputation for honesty and integrity. Further, Vokes carried out the whistleblowing properly: he proceeded in perfect ethics-textbook fashion by first making his concerns known to his superiors, and then escalating up chain of command. Only when it became clear that internal channels weren?t working did he go outside of the company to bring his concerns to the relevant regulatory agency.
Second, the fact that Vokes felt the need to blow the whistle suggests a failure of leadership within the company. According the the CBC?s report, Vokes made his concerns clear all the way up the corporate hierarchy, and everyone ?right up to the chief executive officer refused to act on his complaints.? A
?It?s fine? ? just like NASA?s space shuttle Challenger
The latest update to this story, of course, is that TransCanada has now temporarily shut down its Keystone pipeline, citing safety concerns.
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Source: http://businessethicsblog.com/2012/10/19/pipeline-whistleblowing-ethics/
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