The unethical practices of big business are BIG NEWS! Many a paper and news magazine, has been sold lately by reporting on the crimes and treachery born in the boardroom. However, while the Enrons and Andersens of this world, will hang forever in the halls of infamy, many a similar tale goes untold, unethical behavior (or out-ethics as we term it) pervades at all levels from the Corporate CEO to the janitor.

Per the FBI and US Chamber of Commerce, companies throughout the US lose about $2 billion per month from corporate espionage, 95% of which goes undetected or is kept on the quiet. And while in the past, diving through company dumpsters was a primary tool, the face of corporate espionage has changed remarkably. A Silicon Valley software company, suspecting a mole on their payroll, sweeps the premises for bugs and finds them. Meanwhile, luggage is secretly searched at airports and laptops stolen, all in an effort to find information. And while a survey of CEOs by the American Society for Industrial Security pinned the figure for corporate espionage at the much higher figure of $6.6 billion per month, no figure exists for the countless newly hired employees whose first day on the job is spent downloading the secrets of prior employers.

In other areas, corporations are found to be misleading investors, millions are siphoned out from companies into private hands, and while the Securities and Exchange Commission may bring corporate giants to “justice”, more than a few cynics have noted how white-collar justice rarely leads to a cell. And for the investor whose life savings are no more—there will never be justice.

Closer to home, in our local workplaces and through our associations, while out-ethics may not be big news, unfortunately, it often appears to be the norm. What an owner defines as unethical, another defines as “acceptable” or even “a perk”. Common examples include: discussing confidential company financial matters with unauthorized people; covering up absenteeism for co-workers; taking credit for the work of others; “borrowing” company supplies for use at home; cutting corners on quality; deliberately underbidding then adding costs as the job proceeds. Companies are increasingly shocked when they take the time to review their server logs (a device which records all internet activity on a computer network). A business finds half its staff was looking at porn sites from their desktops while others send e-mail messages which are an open invitation to a sexual harassment suit—all during company time, all while earning a company wage.

Handlings in general take either of two routes (neither right): Out-ethics situations are perceived as “petty” and overlooked. So begins the downward spiral: lateness becomes absenteeism, perks become theft, the single offense becomes the pattern. The other route is the business world’s summary “justice”—“You’re fired!”

Both solutions are unworkable, compounding either the spread of out-ethics in the company or within the individual. And so we have the scene which is today’s workplace.

However, regardless of all this, business does go on, production occurs and there are many, many honest, hard-working individuals.

Here is where we have the greatest crime of all, the greatest injustice. The show is kept on the road by the hardworking, the responsible and the honest; they carry the burden of the unethical behavior of others: the worker on the assembly line who corrects the bad product, the manager who handles the upset customer, the associate who makes good on a partner’s broken promise.

So what’s missing from the picture? No effective technology of ethics is being applied. An executive or employee has not got the tools to pull himself up out of the mud, dust himself off and get onto the straight and narrow. As a result situations escalate and “justice” is applied—often incorrectly.

For thousands of years man has tried numerous systems of ethics and justice with the earliest recorded code of law coming from King Hammurabi’s of Babylon circa 1700 BC. One might expect man to have advanced further, however three and a half thousand years later (circa 1700 AD) we find on one side of the Atlantic the Spanish Inquisition in Europe while on the other the Salem Witch Trials in the United States both redefining justice in their own terms of bigotry and hidden agendas. Right up to today systems of ethics and justice, lacking fundamental principles and a precise technology have allowed situations to escalate and then have wreaked punishment and misery all in the name of justice.

Through more than a quarter of a century of research and testing, L. Ron Hubbard developed the first ever effective technology of ethics. To understand the magnitude of his discoveries one need only look at the misery, war and havoc created for a lack of proper ethics and justice.

For the first time ever an individual has exact tools to put himself onto the straight and narrow. And the group has procedures which protect its members without wreaking injustice on the accused. As Mr. Hubbard noted in his article, The Basics of Ethics: “This is a brand-new discovery, before Scientology it had never before seen the light of day, anywhere. It marks a turning point in the history of philosophy. The individual can learn this technology, learn to apply it to his life and can then put his own ethics in, change conditions and start heading upwards toward survival under his own steam.” And he went on to state in his article, A New Hope for Justice: “The thought of using justice to straighten up the individual and safeguard society doesn’t seem to have occurred to anybody... Tolerance, mercy, understanding and the actual handling of the individual by decent and effective ethics technology is a new hope for justice.”

L. Ron Hubbard’s technology and system of ethics and justice has been sorely missing from the modern workplace. Now, in groups across the globe, WISE Member Charter Committees are bringing these solutions and the resultant sanity to today’s business world. They are truly providing a new hope for justice and a path to prosperity for all.