Sunday, January 23, 2011

Chipotle Mexican Grill Unethical Illegal Employees

A well-known chain restaurant around the United States, Chipotle Mexican Grill, has recently faced crucial ethical issues at many branches in Minnesota. Specifically, a downtown Minneapolis restaurant was audited for the first time for illegal employee immigration. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) requested official documentation for the Minnesota restaurant employees to prove that they are legal citizens. During the first attempt, Chipotle allegedly submitted documents that seem to be illegitimate and counterfeit. ICE offered a second chance to allow employees to submit new documents and clarify any errors. After firing a number of employees from the franchise, protesters disapproved of the unethical conduct of Chipotle outside of a downtown restaurant. Unfortunately, there was never any report of the final amount of employees who were let go or suspected of having fraudulent documents at the 50 Minnesota restaurants.

The article in Wall Street Journal also notes that Chipotle is well-known for buying meet from local farmers who are unsanitary since they do not use antibiotics in their chicken nor pen their pigs. Yet it seems very hypocritical that Chipotle is well-known for conducting business with the philosophy of “food with integrity.”

Overall, it is clear that Chipotle is dealing with an ethical issue of whether it is appropriate to give illegal immigrants an opportunity to work and survive in America. On one hand, one’s personal ethics may cause one to believe that illegal immigrants suffer from not finding employment successfully. Therefore, it is wrong for Chipotle to just lay off the suspected illegal employees and denying them a chance to work a steady job to feed their families. On the other hand, business ethics affects the decision of Chipotle because by law it is illegal to employ non-citizens which could greatly affect the company. Now Chipotle’s unethical behavior may penalize the company in ways such as their profit or consumers at the food chain. This article provides a clear example to how businesses must commit to specific ethical practices in order to maintain legal compliance throughout their industry.

The Marriott Bans Adult Films in New Hotels

After years of discussion, one of the USA's leading hotel groups, Marriott International, has announced its decision to ban access to adult movies in the new hotel rooms it will be opening within the next few years. The Marriott plans to install new internet-based in-room entertainment technology in its hotels which will no longer provide adult entertainment. These measure will be taken because there is no certainty whether safeguards exist to prevent children from being exposed to the inappropriate material.


The article in USA Today also notes the dramatic decline in revenue from pay-per-view movies. Because of this, its seems that banning adult films is becoming a trend that many leading hotel groups are following. As spokeswoman for Omni Hotels, Caryn Kboudi put it, “The ownership decided that it was not a way that [they] wanted to make money”.


It seems that while these hotel industries are certainly trying to find ways to increase their revenue, they have established that they greatly value maintaining a family-friendly image. I anticipate that the Marriott's display of ethical values (especially those regarding moral concerns in child development) will surely attract more customers; most probably families. Not only has the establishment raised some ethical concerns in hotel management, but it has seemingly opened itself exclusively to families with children, meaning larger groups of customers demanding bigger rooms at higher rates. Overall a very wise decision on the behalf of Marriot International.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/hotels/2011-01-21-hotelporn21_ST_N.htm?csp=webslice

Ethical Issues of Gambling

The basic ethical issue of casinos is related to gambling addiction. Addiction to gambling can be as much of a problem as drug addiction or alcoholism. However, in the modern society, the ethical issues are accompanied with some bigger problem, such as organized crime, neurobiology, suicide, divorce, religion, or even death. The recent rise in popularity of online gambling and gambling to raise funds for charitable organizations poses many social and ethical issues.

First, the recent increase in popularity of online gambling just make the issues much more serious. The option to gamble online just decreases the addict's ability to resist the urge to engage in the addictive behavior of gambling. Moreover, the availability to fund the activity through online bank transactions and credit cards contributes to addictive online gambling. For example, if an addict goes to a casino with cash in their pockets then they will only use the money that is available to them. On the other hand, if an addict gambles online and uses a credit card then they may keep less control of how much money they are spending or even losing. Furthermore, the availability of easy gambling opportunities in the community raises special problems for someone struggling with the addiction.


Second, the charitable causes make the ethical issues even worse. Originally the purpose is nice because charitable gambling benefits religious organizations, charities and other worthwhile causes. However, the thought of gambling benefiting some worthwhile cause just lead the gambling addict to rationalize his addictive behavior and in turn lead to participation in gambling activities.

Ethics; Hotel Chains and Globalization's Darkest Secrets

This article is about a Hilton Hotel in Southwest China that was found to be operating child prostitution within their corridors. While conducting the brothels, law enforcement identified and revealed that the five-star rating hotel contained children and human trafficking victims. However, the problem is it was not the first time an underground brothel has been revealed to operating at a Hilton Hotel. In 2008, a brothel was being conducted at a Hilton Hotel in Ireland and a Hilton in Washington D.C. was named “the third most prostitution-friendly hotel in the city.”



Reoccurring events such as mentioned before create great concern of the ethical & legal responsibilities of the Hilton Hotels. Corporates must think about not only their profit and stockholders but also the stakeholders. Hotels have certain ethical and legal obligations to their guests and customers that they should always fulfill. Also, hotel employees are held to certain ethical responsibilities. These ethical standards require that hotels follow the laws and safety standards that apply to their industry.


By maintaining their ethical and responsibilities of a Hotel, the company can continue their industry for a long time and also they can earn money without obstruction of other stakeholders.

http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/tell_hilton_hotels_to_prevent_child_prostitution_in_their_hotels

Unethical Chicken Abuse May Impact Restaurant Industry

Egg production is a very important aspect of the restaurant and food industry. The Humane Society of the United States decided to place an “undercover activist” to work as an employee at an egg farm that is owned by a company called, “Cal-Maine” (The largest distributor of eggs in the country). Over just 28 days of working as an employee, the activist found the following:

1. “Birds trapped in cage wires, unable to reach food or water. Cage wires can trap hens’ wings, necks, legs and feet, causing other birds to trample the weakened animals, usually resulting in a slow, painful death.”


2. “Abandoned hens. Live birds were roaming outside their cages, some falling into manure pits.”
3. "Injuries. Birds had bloody feet and broken legs from cage wires."


4. "Overcrowding injuries. Cal-Maine crams multiple birds into one cage, giving each hen only 67 square inches of cage space — less than a sheet of paper on which to live for more than a year.”

5. "Eggs covered in blood and feces."

After reporting this information to the government, Cal-Maine responded by saying that they provide their consumers with information as to whether the eggs were produced in cages or not, and went on to explain that none of the eggs that have been recalled due to salmonella were from Cal-Maine facilities. They also went on to say “All of Cal-Maine Foods’ eggs are produced in accordance with United Egg Producers (UEP) animal care guidelines.”

Michael Greger, the Humane Society’s director for public health and animal agriculture stated that there is a new egg safety law that was implemented this past summer requires there to be “biosecurity and hygiene standards.” This is crucial because it forces the companies to take care of the issue revolving around the restaurant industry. Restaurants want to provide their companies with sanitary food that didn’t come from facilities that abuse their animals.

The question of ethics now comes into play. It is obvious that Cal-Maine is making a lot of money off of the production of their eggs, and is hesitant to put money towards providing the chickens with more suitable living conditions. Cal-Maine stated that they are already taking initiative to provide the chickens with better living quarters, but now that the media and government is watching them, they need to make changes relatively quickly. There are many stakeholders in this situation: CEO, employees, chickens, consumers, stockholders, etc. It is important for Cal-Maine to act responsibly and proactively to try to maintain a strong reputation, and provide their chickens with the most suitable living conditions, which could ultimately improve their production of eggs in the long run. Providing the chickens with such conditions might hurt the company financially in the short run, but the company must realize that they are treating their chickens in an inhumane way and providing unsanitary food into the market.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40236758/ns/us_news-environment/