Boeing is fighting a battle and trying to find the balance between the regulation of work and the inhibition of work. A lot of the code reviews sounded like they were preventing progress being done and creating hurdles for these companies and programmers to jump over instead of steering them and making sure they stayed on course. However, some of the regulations put in place did seem to ensure that the company was not mishandling their finances.
These workers were ethical of leaking the information to the public however Boeing was rightful in firing them. The reports stated that the employees tried to make their reports internally but their efforts didn’t produce any results or changes. If the Boeing employees did all they could within the system to try and change it and there were no other solutions to remedy the situation, then they were correct in exposing the wrongdoing to the general public.
Boeing should be allowed to make any decisions regarding their employees that they want. The fact that they did not try to go to the proper authorities first in order to correct the wrongdoing Boeing was making shows that they were more concerned with creating a problem instead of trying to create a solution. By firing these employees Boeing is setting a precedent that they are discouraging their employees from bringing up issues they may see. Hopefully this scandal helps Boeing change how they handle claims such as these but still encourage employees to internally report if they see any issues that arise.
Whistleblowers that try to expose wrongdoings through media create vulnerabilities in the company. It may be naive of me to say but I think there are processes in place and authorities who are properly equipped to handle the situation. In some cases media should be used as a last resort but to me giving protection to all Whistleblowers seems like it would do more harm than good. There are many ways legislation such as this could be taken advantage of so by keeping the process clear and making sure that process is effective, whistleblowers should get an opportunity to speak out just not to the media.
The problem with whistleblowing is that it is done for numerous reasons. Some people believe that the information they are in possession of should be shared and that discretion should not be left up to them. Revealing the information of wrongdoing should be something that is reported to the authorities and not the general public.
CSE 40175 Ethics Blog 