Making an Ethical Decision - Essay Example

Mary and her colleagues should not have agreed with the decision because considering individual circumstances, 6 months are not an unfair amount of time to expect to be out on maternity leave. This is because, among other reasons, it is in the best interest of their children for them to take longer leave. According to a study carried out by the economic journal in 2005, children of American women who resumed work within 12 weeks were more likely to have cognitive and behavioral issues (Lerner 2011).

This is because despite the fact the fact most mothers will have physically recovered from the childbirth in under this time. There are a myriad of psychological factors that need to be factored in such as time spent with the children. There is at present, sufficient medical evidence to indicate that a mother spending short periods of time with their newborns is a leading contributor of infant disorders and even death (Lerner 2011). While giving brief leave may appear to make economic sense to employers in terms of increasing the mother’s time at work, ergo, productivity at closer scrutiny, it is likely to be counterproductive.

This is because nursing mothers who are also working are more prone to stress depression and frustration (Melnick 2011) and as such may not be the best of workers. Pursuant to management’s turn down, there are several avenues the employees can consider some more radical than others. One cause of action would be to try to renegotiate with management and, attempt to come up with a compromise. This could involve offering to shortening their time off or even providing statistical evidence. That is if any can be found, that women given time off will ultimately be better workers.

Alternatively they could take activists routes and through their union take assertive actions like striking or suing management. The situation has several stake holders primarily of course, are the women employees particularly those who plan on having children in posterity. Nonetheless, the whole firm including management and fellow workers as long clients has a stake in this. This is because if the women’s claims are correct, the productivity of the company would go up in the long run if their demands are met.

In case they decide to go on strike, the whole firm and clients will be affected directly or indirectly. Furthermore, other companies in the area and/or country will be affected since not many companies give their employees that much time off with the average time being less than 3 months, which is the amount of time the national Family Leave Law allocates (Lerner 2011). In case Mary’s efforts are successful it would spur others to follow suit and as such a large part of the labor industry may feel the impact.

In fact, Melnick posits that six months is ideal because according to research after about this period, work did not translate to poor parenting (Para 3). Management could try to settle the problems in several ways. Herein, two significant ones will be considered. For one, they could like it had been suggested of the women try to come to some compromise, this way they could offer an increment of time off to what they consider reasonable and try to convince them to take the deal. Alternately, management could avail daycare facilities within the premises of the firm for nursing mother’s time off with their kids.

While management may find this an expensive venture, assuming they rejected the initial petition for financial