Ethical Issues

Ethical Issues

The main ethical issue in the movie, “Up in the Air,” was the fact that this company that Bingham and his peers worked for, got paid to fire another companies’ employees. In my opinion, this issue is completely unethical. I don’t think there are any companies who would do this for a living. The way that this profession was portrayed, was that the more people who got fired, the more profits the firm made. So, in essence they took pride in firing others.

In my opinion, if a company either makes a decision to downsize, or is required to by their corporate office, the manager of each employee to be fired, should be doing the work. When people loose their jobs, they would like to feel appreciated, the only reason they are being fired because there are just not enough funds to support them in the company any longer. There are ways to solve this solution; managers can make their employees feel a little better by telling them about the situation that is going on in the company and why they are being fired. By hiring an outside company to do this work, it creates a very impersonal atmosphere, in which no one will feel comfortable. All in all, when it comes to firing employees, the company they work for, and not an outsider should do it.

The second ethical issue I came across was the issue between balancing work and home life. In this movie, Bingham mentioned that he spent 322 of the last 365 days on the road. He did not have a home life at all. He went from one client to the other, from one state to the next, on a daily basis. This is clearly unethical for a company to expect such work from their employees. It is significant for some people to have the time at home away from their work. It is important for people to have a life that doesn’t only involve work. The unfortunate thing was, Bingham enjoyed being on the road. I am unsure of the reason why he liked being on the road, maybe because he didn’t have a wife or kids, and this made it easier for...