^ E W S F E E DDare I disturb the universe?

At school, we are taught what's rightand what's wrong. We than spend therest of our lives ignoring, or merelyadapting, these lessons and/or put-ting up with people who do, usually atour expense and usually whilepreventing us from following theirexample. Yes, such a burden iscontemporary morality... meanwhilethere is a new publication from SocialAudit - Minding your own Business;Self-Regulation and Whistleblowing inBritish Companies.

The book has been researched andwritten by political analyst MarleneWinfield, with funding from theNuffield Foundation. In 94 well-written pages it includes: The growthof business ethics; self-regulation andemployment law; the need forwhistleblowing, and how to do it. Thisis consolidated with recommen-dations for the integration of ethicsinto the corporate framework andclarification of the law to focus onprotecting whistlebiowers, rather thancontributing to their destruction.There are also interviews with threewhistlebiowers and the results of acomplementary survey of 53 UKcompanies.

Needless to say it all makes forharrowing reading, and affirms thatfiction is fictionised reality. For everydrama involving furtive glances, darkalleys, men in raincoats and docu-ments stuffed into manilla envelopes,there is a Mr Average to whom itreally did happen. And it seems thatMr Average is the averagewhistleblower. According to an Ameri-can survey, those likely to shout'Unclean, Unclean'are not Ben Elton-idolising free-thinkers, but middle-aged family men; the epitome ofconservative - with both c's - cogs inthe machine with "long histories ofsuccessful employment" until...

With this profile of a Yes-manbecoming a This-is-wrong-man, it isseems that you cannot dismisswhistlebiowers as "misfits andtroublemakers", which is probablywhy companies retaliate with verybelow the belt vehemence. Thus, for awhistleblower waits ostracisation, vic-timisation, character assassinationand not much help from the Powersthat Be; the book cites two caseswhere Government departments

In the movies, it doesn't hurt but, in the real world, whistlebiowers usually pay the price for standing upand being counted (Photo courtesy of BFI)

apparently kissed and made up withthe blown-upon companies, while theblower was informed of his signing-ontime.

But, if companies are "traditionallyunsympathetic" to whistlebiowers,then who needs them? According tothe book's surveyed companies: "thepublic, and to some extent thecompanies themselves, rely onwhistlebiowers to protect the publicinterest, when self-regulation fails".Which is why this study calls forcompanies to "put into practice acustom-made ethical policy which issystematic, reasonably fail-safe, vis-ible to all, and to those both outsideand inside the firm. The alternativesare tighter controls from the outside,or increasing numbers of employees

who will leave the company to blowthe whistle".

But what does the 'other side' thinkof Minding your own Business? JohnBanham - Director General of theCBI, Managing Trustee of the NuffieldFoundation and author of the book'sforward - says "employees who blowthe whistle on dishonesty, wrong-doing and dangerous practices-should be encouraged and pro-tected... these people act as a safetynet". On the other hand, thePersonnel Director of an engineeringfirm feels that " I can honestly say that[in my experience], ethical issueshave never been raised. If we wereguilty of some of the wrong-doingsyou list, we would not last long in thishighly competitive industry... I think

your project is a wasted effort in themanufacturing environment. Concen-trate on more important issues".

Minding your own Business isavailable from Social Audit, PO Box111, London NW1 8XG. Price £6.50(book), £2.50 (pamphlet). AK

TAICHIOHNO

Taichi Ohno, Father of JIT, died inJune, aged 78. His concept ofdelivering components to a factoryjust in time for incorporation into themanufacturing process was the driv-ing force behind the Toyota successstory. The rest is history...

MANUFACTURING ENGINEER JULY/AUGUST 1990