Peter Oiler and Winn-Dixie Stores

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Introduction
Peter Oiler a truck driver at Winn-Dixie stores was terminated after 21 years working at the supermarket chain. The main reason for his dismissal was due to the fact that Peter is a transgender and was found by one of the supervisor while dressing as a woman. The president of Winn-Dixie Michael Istre, agree upon the decision to fired Peter based on the reason that he is protecting the company’s image. The process begin two years prior to the dismissal when Peter was asking his supervisor to put out a rumor about him being gay. One year later, the supervisor went to check with Peter whether the rumor still bothered him, and that is when Peter give a statement that he is not gay but rather transgender. Transgender means that a person’s feeling about their gender is different than their current anatomical sex. According to the case, Peter admit that he has no intention in becoming a full-time woman neither changing his sex. Two months before he was fired, his supervisor saw him wearing a woman’s dress while he was off-duty. Deemed as threats to the company’s image in customer’s eyes, Peter was asked to resign from his job.
Most company has set a dress code regulation that must followed by all employee with no exceptional. It stated in the article that Peter was dress accordingly when he went to work at Winn-Dixie and he has shown an above the standard work performance. To some company it is understandable that behavior and conduct outside their work must also be maintained professionally. However it is unusual that a company put a restriction and regulation on a clothing choices outside working environment. Even if it is a valid argument that a company has such rule that violate workers to wear certain dress code, firin...

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...hard with his termination. Not only his health, financial and marriage that was put in line, but his feeling towards the company that in a sense betray his loyalty. The measurement that was use by utilitarian was also considered as inaccurate. It is not possible to calculate Peter’s feeling or the firm’s shareholder’s thought. Therefore weighing the factors could be very subjective.
Also, the company’s regulation regarding dress code violation is also presented as a vague statement, because Peter is doing fine at work. In this example, the right of people who is transgender is violated because they are unable to express themselves. By also monitoring workers that is off-duty the company also violating the right of individual’s privacy. Therefore as a conclusion, the theory presented using Utilitarianism was not effective in determining which ethical stance to take.

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