I have been invited to join in the creation of a four-hour class in professional ethics as it applies to the “safety” profession. A change in the requirements to receive the designation of Certified Safety Professional (CSP) given by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) created the need for the class. A four-hour class seems to be pretty long for this topic, I wonder what it should contain. Many professional and engineering societies publish a list of “ethics” as it pertains to their profession, including the BCSP. Perhaps the BCSP’s code is a good place to start figuring out what should go into the class.
1. HOLD paramount the safety and health of people, the protection of the environment and of property in the performance of professional duties and exercise their obligation to advise employers, clients, employees, the public,and appropriate authorities of danger and unacceptable risks to people, the environment,or property.
2. BE honest, fair, and impartial; act with responsibility and integrity. Adhere to high standards of ethical conduct with balanced with balanced care for the interests of the public, employers, clients, employees, colleagues and the profession. Avoid all conduct or practice that is likely to discredit the profession or deceive the public.
3. ISSUE public statements only in an objective and truthful manner and only when founded
upon knowledge of the facts and competence in the subject matter.
4. UNDER TAKE assignments only when qualified by education or experience in the specific field(s) involved. Accept responsibility for continued professional development by acquiring and maintaining competence through continuing education, experience, and professional training, and keeping current on
relevant legal issues.
5. REPRESENT academic and professional qualifications accurately. Represent degree of responsibility in or for the subject matter in prior assignments accurately. Represent pertinent facts accurately when presenting qualifications, experience, or other information for solicitation of employment including facts
about employers, employees, associates, or past accomplishments.
6. CONDUCT their professional relations by the highest standards of integrity and avoid compromise of their professional judgment by conflicts of interest. When becoming aware of professional misconduct by another holding status with the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, take steps to bring that misconduct to the attention of the Board of Certified Safety Professionals.
7. ACT in a manner free of bias, discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, veteran status or any characteristic protected by the law of the applicable jurisdiction.
8. SEEK opportunities to be of constructive service in civic affairs and work for the advancement of the safety, health and well-being of their community and their profession by sharing their knowledge and skills.
When I think of which of these might be most important from an “ethical” point of view, I end up with few items, namely:
a) Tell those effected of dangers and unacceptable risk
b) Only do things you are qualified to do.
c) Be fair.
d) Tell the truth.
While these seem obvious and important, I wonder if while they are necessary, are they sufficient? My concern is that they all seem to be scoped within the confines of a specific job, and a specific project. Are there larger ethical considerations that need to be addressed? Is this proposed class intended to be focused narrowly on the ethics of the job description of a Safety Professional, or should we be discussing much larger and broader ethical considerations?
A possible example might be my view of the ethics of my personal business practices versus what I observe in almost all other businesses. My approach to setting prices is to make them as small as I can afford to do. I don’t mean cheapen my services and products to achieve a low price, I mean avoiding “excessive” profits. I know my overhead costs, know something about future business risks that need a financial cushion to withstand, and I know how much money I require to live in my preferred lifestyle (including planning for the future of retirement or disability). Given my needs and the business needs, I set my prices to the lowest level that will achieve my goals. I don’t change as much as I can, I charge the least that I can.
I offer my approach to setting prices as an alternative to the highly popular approach of setting prices at “what the market will bare.” This approach means that it is “good business” to change as much as possible for goods and services. There are no constraints upon profits, and that generally means that important, critical goods and services achieve a very high profit margin because people can’t do without them. Currently, these items include heath care, smart phones, automobiles and many other things that have become necessities. The “excuse” to this rather predatory business practice is that there is an “invisible hand” that automatically adjusts the relative cost of goods (and money) based upon supply and demand. Of course this is almost never the situation because the supply can so easily be “adjusted” by the supplier and many other factors influence the cost. Many other aspects enter the price setting equation but generally it boils down to charging as much as you can get regardless of the associated impacts to people and the environment. I consider this to be ethically objectionable.
I think it is important to help people understand that there are many larger, more important ethical considerations that need addressing than just their personal actions in a specific profession. The MUCH larger questions of global fairness and global impacts need to be incorporated into business and professional activities. I recognize that many (perhaps most) of the ills of society are based upon ethical (or un-ethical) practices. I wonder how much of this is caused by people not recognizing their ethical responsibilities. In fact, I wonder if there is any thing such as ethics. It is something compelling for people to follow, or is it just consider of a bunch of nice sounding words that are met when convenient.