BUSINESS ETHICS

Taranaki Daily News, 16 May 1932, Page 9

BUSINESS ETHICS

EMPLOYER A$D employee. THE CHRISTIAN VIEWPOINT. Dunedin, May 14. The adoption of a Christian viewpoint in approaching questions of relationships between employer and employee was urged by Mr. C. E. Jones, of Christchurch, in a brief and breezy address to the Rotary Conference today. What was the good of rotary ethics, trade associations, and buyer and seller organisations unless employees were trained to carry out principles? asked Mr. Jones. The employees of to-day were future Rotarians and it was a duty of employers to inculcate in them zeal, enthusiasm, integrity, loyalty and business ethics. One business man who had given his salary two cuts had shown a profit on the year’s operations and had divided the balance among his eight employees. He was not a Rotarian, but there were better men outside the movement than in it. Let no man presume to give good advice to others unless he first gave counsel to himself. The International President could not have paid a visit at a worse time, the worst in New. Zealand’s history. He should not go. away with the impression that New Zealand was a hotbed of communism, as at its heart the. Dominion was loyal, sound and lawabiding. No petsdn in New Zealand was secure in his position, and on every hand was demanded patience,' tolerance and goodwill. The problem of relationship between employer and employee had to be attacked from a Christian point of view. Religion could not be kept out. When they asked • “am I my brother’s keeper?” the only answer was that they should do unto others that which they would have done unto themselves. If that principle were carried out in its entirety half the problems of the em-ployer-employee relationships would disappear. y One of the most disturbing things between master and man was the desire of employers to use their employees for their own ends. Firms which treated their employees well were rewarded with service and loyalty. He gave an instance of deep loyalty in a North Wales factory where the sons and daughters of the founder of the firm had established personal relations with nearly all the employees. Employers either made or broke their employees. The minds of the young were plastic and the employer’s commercial morality and character would be absorbed ’by the young employees. Employers could uot count the cost of unethical action and lies exposed to their employees. He believed that since Rotary was introduced a better commercial life had been found in New Zealand.

A few years ago New Zealand was suffering from a dearth of domestics because of the sins of past mistresses. The mistress should get away from the “slavey” business and treat domestics as human beings.