[SML] job ethics

[Mick Alderson]

Hobbit queried:

> Without trying to lean left or right here, I have to wonder ... do the folks
> working tech at political events wind up with really mixed feelings about
> effectively contributing to people/efforts/causes that they're not personally
> in favor of?  Is it in their best ethical interests to decline such gigs,
> or is it "just a job" and everybody there is able to remain 100% mentally
> detached from whatever's going on, even if it is sometimes patently awful?
> 
> _H*

Speaking for myself, I’ve always regarded such jobs as “just another gig”. I am a stagehand. My job is to provide a service to facilitate events, not pass judgment on them. I take that back; stagehands _always_ pass judgement! :-) Besides, I am usually an employee of the venue or perhaps a contractor for such calls. It’s not my place to tell my employer who to accept as a client. Of course, with Covid19 wiping out most events of any sort since March, the question did not come up this year. 

It helps that I firmly believe, for example, in the right to speak your mind as loudly as you want SO LONG AS you extend the same privilege to everyone else, AND so long as nobody else gets hurt. (You can hurt yourself if you want.) Threats and intimidation cross the line, as that inhibits the free speech of other people. Encouraging or doing actual violence to others is simply beyond the pale.

On the other hand, while I may support your right to say what you want, no private person or entity should be FORCED to support  or enable an opinion they don’t agree with. My ethics tells me to support the rights of those I disagree with right up until they cross my personal line, i.e. when someone else is harmed, according to my definition of harm. It is your right to draw YOUR line in a different place, to follow your conscience and act accordingly. Your definition of “harm” may be different than mine. I respect that.

Yet words and actions are not without consequences. If you cannot do a gig because of your personal ethics, you must accept that there will undoubtedly be a cost. Withy luck, the cost will only be monetary.

Mick Alderson
IATSE 470
USITT Midwest Section