You-tube user SOASJapanSociety has requested my help in the following situation. The Student Union at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, has mounted a campaign to oust the company responsible for food catering, Sodexo, for ethical reasons. Sodexo has been the target of boycotts in the past, and might not be entirely without blame. But should the student union prevail, many people will lose their jobs, and some of them, as immigrants, will also lose their right to remain in England legally. SOASJapanSociety wishes to intercede in their favor, during a 3 minute motion before the student union, and has asked me for help formulating his speech.

Answer:
The student union should be commended for trying to make an ethical stand, but must realize its current method is unethical, for as long as it sacrifices precisely those who have the most to lose, and the least to blame. The student union should be commended for rousing itself out of tolerance and into choosing a course of action, but must realize its current course of action is worse than tolerance. Tolerance and inaction, while unacceptable, results in a blamable corporation. The current course of action still results in a blamable corporation, plus an assortment of broken lives, and should be even less acceptable.

Deciding to sacrifice in the name of a worthy cause, is simply not noble nor moral, when its someone else who is being sacrificed.

Ethics, the very basis for this campaign, does not exist in a vacuum, but rather in function of its benefit as measured by what is reasonably best for the most. Is it truly ethical for the student union to take the livelihoods of people other than themselves, and hurl them as it were, like projectiles, to score a symbolic blow against Sodexo, to chip off financially, at best, the surface of a multinational corporation? The student union must be made to see alternative options that require no sacrifice, or at the very most, self-sacrifice. Example: would the student union agree to create its own catering services company, hire all the current Sodexo workers to it, and manage it itself as it sees fit? That would constitute an even larger symbolic blow against Sodexo, but it would not sacrifice any innocent livelihoods in the process; on the opposite, it may even enhance them. It may even be the start of a wave of ethical alternative organizations, run by people who back their words and beliefs with actions.

It is extremely easy to claim the high moral ground when the real cost is paid by others. But the true high moral ground belongs to those who roll up their own sleeves, match their words with actions, and work for the wellbeing of others, especially those who are the most vulnerable, and in direst need of protection.

Thank you for the interaction.
Goodbye.