Scheduling people to work second and third shifts (evening and "graveyard") is a problem in almost every 24 - hour company. The accidents at the nuclear plants at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, and Chornobyl, Russia, and the disaster at Bhopal, India, all had one thing in common: they occurred between midnight and 4:00 a.m. These facilities had other problems, but the need for sleep simply results in unreliable workplace performance. In some cases, unable to cope with a constantly changing work schedule, workers just plain fall asleep. The same is true for pilots. Their inconsistent schedules and long flights often force them to snooze in the cockpit to get enough sleep. Perhaps even more significantly, ergonomic data indicate the body does not respond well to significant shifts in its natural circadian rhythm of sleep. There are also significant long-run health issues with frequent changes in work and sleep cycles.

Consider yourself the manager of a nonunion steel mill that must operate 24 - hour days, and where the physical demands are such that 8 - hour days are preferable to 10- or 12 - hour days. Your empowered employees have decided that they want to work weekly rotating shifts. That is, they want a repeating work cycle of 1 week, 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., followed by a second week from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., and the third week from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. You are sure this is not a good idea in terms of both productivity and the long-term health of the employees. If you do not accept their decision, you undermine the work empowerment program, generate a moral issue, and, perhaps more significantly, generate more votes for a union.

What is the ethical position, and what do you do? Justify your answer.