Employee fights Ethics Charge

          Ethical violations may result in a person losing their job. This is exactly what happened to Miss Carmen Martinez of Seattle, Washington. She worked at a South Park Community Center which is located within viewing distance from her home. She worked there for 11 years until she was fired in October 2014, although the article did not specify the position she held at the establishment.

          She faces three charges before the city’s Ethics and Elections Commission. Martinez had the city pay her uncle for "instruction," according to the charging document. In another charge, it was alleged she "verified performance of community service hours," of her nephew. The last charge shows that she is accused of successfully applying for a Major League Baseball youth sports grant under the city's umbrella, without disclosing the main team involved, which was found to be named “Banditos Baseball”, a private team that lists her uncle as general manager and herself as the director.

          According to the report, Martinez does not dispute the charge. She believes the violations are a mistake, but not enough to be fired and lose her job. She believes the real reason she was fired was more discriminatory and based in retribution for a previous whistleblower complaint. "I'm not saying the violations did not happen," she said, "It was never, ever intended to gain anything personally for this. It was all with intent for the good of my heart. She also stated, “for some reason, somebody wanted me out of South Park." "For some reason, the parks department is not interested in having Hispanic people working in this community center."

          It was reported that Martinez received numerous accolades during her time at the establishment. After her departure, the neighborhood association trying to help employed a petition on Change.org that garnered more than 300 signatures.

Ethical behavior requires compliance. Ethical behavior also means recognizing, in any business situation, what is right, and what is wrong and then doing the right thing.

          Could it be that Martinez failed to determine right from wrong? We learned in Chapter one the value of Morals and Ethics. Morals as we know are the rules we follow, the values we have. Ethics is the theories about those rules we follow and it questions and justifies the rules we live by. Having the Code of Ethics signals the world that we stand by our values, understand them and ready to not only act on them but defend them with both words and deeds.


References:

Former Seattle parks employee fights ethics charges. (n.d.). Retrieved April 2, 2015,from http://www.king5.com/story/news/local/2015/03/11/seattle-parks-ethics-violation-charges/24745939/

Rosenstand, N. (2013). The moral of the story: An Introduction to Ethics (7th ed.). New York:McGraw-Hill