Sometimes, there is no ideal solution

My mom works as a cashier in the local outlet of a national chain store. She’s a very conservative person with strong religious beliefs.

Recently, the store began one of those fundraising campaigns, with proceeds going to a local women’s shelter; every customer is asked to donate $2.

Unfortunately one service the shelter provides is abortion counselling, and mom is a strong pro-lifer. So she refuses to collect the money. The store manager is sympathetic, but says there’s no choice: she either has to ask for the $2 or be laid off until the campaign ends. Ethically, who’s right? Everybody.

While neither I nor most Canadians share your mom’s convictions on abortion, that’s beside the point. She has the right to hold that position and full marks for having the strength of conviction to put her money where her mouth is. That’s an increasingly rare quality.

The problem, unfortunately, is that the store is doing nothing wrong, either.

I’ve written before about ethical dilemmas associated with these point-of-sale campaigns. Back in 2013, for example, I said: “these programs have great ‘bang for the buck.’ Businesses are forever being asked to support worthy causes. By running a program like this, businesses appear to be supporting a cause but it costs little or none of their own money. The donations come from you, but the business gets the glory. Photo op: ‘John’s Jalopies presents a cheque for $3,000 to the local hospital.’ Except it’s not actually John’s money — it’s the sum of the $5 donations cus- tomers gave when they got their oil changed.

That said, as long as the funds raised are actually going to the designated charity and the business is not claiming a tax deduction for donations really made by consumers, there’s nothing wrong with campaigns such as this. Indeed, many non-profits would tell you that without dollars these campaigns generate, they couldn’t continue their work.

It should also be noted that, notwithstanding your mom’s qualms about the abortion-counselling aspect, the need for local women’s shelters remains huge and, in today’s conservative political climate and tight economy, dollars for their work are hard to come by. So it’s tough to fault a business that throws its support behind such ventures.

Which leads to an unsolvable problem.

The business has a right to demand that their employees collect the money; the campaign is neither illegal nor immoral, so requiring employees to ask for the donation is a reasonable job expectation. Many businesses have “scripts” they expect cashiers to recite to every customer; this is merely one such.

Your mom, on the other hand, has every right to refuse as a matter of conscience; such principled resistance has an important place in the human narrative.

It sounds like her boss, by offering a layoff until the campaign is over, is trying to strike a reasonable compromise and it’s one your mom may have to accept. That may be the “money” she has to put where her mouth is.

Back when I started writing this weekly column, a wise friend said, “The toughest questions will involve disputes in which everyone is trying to do the right thing.” This is one, and there’s no perfect solution. Send your questions to star.ethics@yahoo.ca.