The moral issue in this case is when Carla Lombard heard the news from Tom Walters’s ex-wife- Frances, knowing that Tom had AIDS, she did not really worry about Tom but she felt sad. In fact if Tom has AIDS or not, Carlo still can promote Tom to be a manager of one of the branch shop, but she cannot fire Tom because of his illness. It’s illegal if Carla fire Tom. Carla must be considerate because Tom has right to not disclose his health privacy because it is his personal issue.
Carla is now facing difficulty on questioning whether she should continue employs Tom. If the customers find out that Tom has AIDS and they will boycott her bagels shop; but if Carla fire Tom because of his illness, is illegal and Tom can accuse Carla and bring her to the court. Tom’s rights are at the stake if Carla would really take the action of fire him because of not disclose his illness. Carla uses Kantian approach because she based in her sense that ought to ask Tom regard his illness instead of finding all evidence to prove Tom had AIDS before she ask Tom.
It is not wrong for Carla to ask Tom about his health. As a person-in-charge of the bagels shops, based on the case, Carla has the right to ask and she ought to ask Tom about his health. In this case, Carla used ethics of care. Care Principle is the morally correct action where one that appropriately cares for the people with whom you have relationships.
The relationship between Carla and Tom is employer and employee. Carla shows her caring to Tom by asking him about his situation. If Carla didn’t appreciate the relationship between her and Tom, as a company, she can check Tom’s medical profile by conducting a physical and medical examination to their employees. Carla can question Tom why he didn’t disclose his illness and force Tom to answer.
Suppose Tom has AIDS, Carla should have a personal chat time with Tom about his feeling and what he plan to do next. As an employer, Carla has the responsibility to know what his employee’s thought and needs. An employee’s HIV status is a job related issue. This is because an employer needs to know his or her employee’s health condition so that he or she can make the job arrangement more appropriately.
Besides, if the employer know well of his or her employee’s health condition, the employer can give more rest day or allowance for the employee to consult with the doctor or have more time to recover up him or herself to come back to work again. It is not a factor Carla should decide whether to promote Tom based on his health condition. Instead, Carla should trust Tom that he has the ability to do well on his job although he has AIDS. The co-workers should respect Carla’s decision whatever is it because she is the employer and her decision is making based on several consideration.
To answer this question, we have to know the maturity of the public on this issue. For the public who are well educated and caring, they know that direct contact with the employees who have AIDS will not be transmitted HIV virus to them. Instead, maybe the public will give more concern to this employee and respect their work spirit and their will to survive.
But for those public who are ill informed about this, they will see the employees who have AIDS like a monster. They will keep avoiding them. The company should well inform the public about they are safe to consuming the company’s product. Besides, the company might re-arrange the employees who have AIDS to another job scope that have less direct contact with the customer.
Yes, companies should develop programs or policies that deal specifically with AIDS. They should have prevention and treatment campaigns. Companies should let employees know well informed about AIDS, so they can understand clearly how the virus is transmitted and what and how interactions are safe. The large corporations need to develop AIDS-awareness programs. AIDS should be treated no differently than any other disease because we have to respect confidentiality and follow the human right.
Tom has the moral obligation to disclose his medical condition to Carla. As an employee should be honest and should not hide the truth from his or her employer. Because when customers know one of the company’s employees has AIDS, the customers will loss of confidence to the company and scare to be influenced, and finally because of the employee, the company’s image will be downslide and its profit margin will drop.
So, Tom has to disclose his medical condition to Carla early, to let Carla rearrange Tom’s work position that will not affect the company profit. Yes, when a job applicant has a chronic, potentially debilitating medical condition, he or she should reveal that fact before being hired. Because when the company knows the job applicant has a chronic, the company will arrange him or her to a right work position. Besides that, the job applicant maybe will get the better medical offer from the company. It would be wrong not to mention the disease to the interviewer inquires about the applicant’s health.
