The Failure of B.F. Goodrich
The brakes did however fail during the Test Flights of June 1968. Kermit Vandivier, a former B.F. Goodrich employee, accused B.F. Goodrich and their personnel of falsifying qualification tests and eithical misconduct. Because of this, Senator William Proxmire, a Democrat of Wisconsin, requested a governmental inquiry into the brake qualification testing that was conducted by B.F. Goodrich's plant in Troy. There was finally a Congressional hearing, which lasted four hours and was chaired by Senator Proxmire, to investigate the Air Force A7D Aircraft in which the brake problems were present.
Later down the road in 1972, Kermit Vandivier wrote an article that depicted his side of the incident regarding B.F. Goodrich. He basically whistle-blowed on B.F. Goodrich, but in this case he was treated as a hero who unfortunately lost his job because he did the right thing.
Ethical Issue 1: Whistle Blowing and the Firing of Vandivier:
Was it right for Vandivier to go behind the back of the managers at B.F. Goodrich and contact his attorney and later the FBI to report the events that were occurring? Was it right for him to be dismissed from the company because he revealed this information? This section will examine the events surrounding Vandivier's whistle blowing on and later firing from B.F. Goodrich.
The Whistle Blowing
Whistle blowing to upper management or outside agencies was an uncommon and risky thing to do at this time, so what made Vandivier risk his own career to report the unethical and illegal activities of his employer? The major issue that led up to his decision was the fact that once he did help create the falsified reports for his employer, he became involved in their crime of defrauding the government. Vandivier from the beginning was in a lose-lose situation, as a technical writer he was being forced to create a falsified report and defraud the government (and risk prosecution at a later time) or lose his job immediately. As a person with a family to support, he chose to falsify the report to protect his job at that point after having consulted his managers and being told he had no choice but to write the report. After hearing news that the military flight tests with the breaks caused safety issues, thus likely bringing the results into suspicion, he took action and contacted his attorney who told him he was guilty of conspiracy to defraud the government. At this point, he was either going to go to jail for not reporting the crime or lose his job for reporting it. With no other accessible people to go to in the company and no protection from legal action, he took the legal route and got in contact with the FBI in order to protect himself from additional legal trouble. After a damage control meeting with Lawson and his supervisors in which the major concerns were downplayed, Vandivier became an outcast in the company. Several months later he submitted a resignation letter with a large amount of accusations against the company in it to the head engineer of the plant, Bud Sunderman, who until this point was not involved in the case. Vandivier was quickly fired for disloyalty to the company before his resignation could go through.
Was it right for him to whistle blow against the company?
Vandivier did not have much of a choice other than to whistle blow on the company. After being forced to make the choice to create the falsified documents or lose his job, being guaranteed no protection from outside prosecution with an investigation imminent, having supervisors who did not consider their actions unethical and illegal, and having no access to the upper management, Vandivier had no other options within the company. Could he have tried harder to reach out to the upper management and get their attention? Possibly, but Vandivier states that there was no one above his immediate supervisors or coworkers that he felt he could take it to. The head engineer of his plant, Bud Sunderman, was generally disconnect from day to day activities and the corporate headquarters did not provide any means to report such offenses, so Vandivier did the only thing he could to protect himself. Normally in large companies today, there is someone (or a group) assigned to investigate allegations such as these. Being that this was 1968 and questioning the actions of supervisors was even more unacceptable than it was today, there was no such group for Vandivier did not have this option, which would be his primary means of notifying corporate headquarters. Because of the issues stated above, Vandivier did take the only option he had in order to protect himself and was right in taking the whistle blowing action he did.
Was it right to dismiss Vandivier from the company?
Vandivier was resigning from the company, so was it right for Bud Sunderman, the plant's chief engineer, to fire him immediately upon receiving his letter of resignation? T