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3 votes
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Dairy co-operative Arla Foods has announced it will pay its farmers more money for the milk they produce if they meet new environmental sustainability targets
7 votes -
Hollywood says farewell to Chinese investment bonanza
9 votes -
Stadia is shutting down
38 votes -
A history of ARM, part 1: Building the first chip
4 votes -
How one of America’s last piano manufacturers stays alive
5 votes -
Infinited Fiber has invested heavily in a technology which can transform textiles that would otherwise be burned or sent to landfills into a new clothing fibre
3 votes -
Maersk will begin to slow the pace of its container ships to lower fuel costs after sailing at full speed to keep up with demand during the pandemic
5 votes -
High anxiety in Hollywood: “Everyone is totally drained and burnt out”
8 votes -
Family of dance musician Avicii have sold 75% of the rights to his master recordings and publishing to the Swedish entertainment company Pophouse
4 votes -
Grab – Asia's Uber – knows customers and drivers so well it can vet them for loans
6 votes -
Netflix establishes an internal games studio in Helsinki, led by former Zynga GM Marko Lastikka
6 votes -
What is SAP? (And why is it worth $163B USD)
6 votes -
Off the Mark
3 votes -
Looking for advice for starting out as a freelance software engineer
Beginning of next year I am setting out as an independent software engineering consultant. As such I am interested in hearing from others who have already done something similar! I have been...
Beginning of next year I am setting out as an independent software engineering consultant. As such I am interested in hearing from others who have already done something similar! I have been working as a developer and team lead for more than 10 years of which the last 5 have been focused mostly on the .Net stack. Now I want to expand my horizons a bit more, preferably with a new domain or another tech stack.
What are some suggestions/advice you'd give someone just starting down this path? Anything I should avoid doing? Anything I should definitely do? I suppose the specifics will vary a bit by country, but are there some general things I should be thinking about?
Oh, if you happen to have a need for a senior developer/tech lead, give me a ping!
9 votes -
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman discusses how he wants every subreddit to be its own media company and he wants to see money being exchanged from users to users and users to subreddits
35 votes -
EVGA terminates NVIDIA partnership, cites disrespectful treatment
25 votes -
Embracer's Lars Wingefors has spoken to investors about Saints Row, admitting he had hoped the game would have received a 'greater reception'
5 votes -
Can software simplify the supply chain? Ryan Petersen thinks so
6 votes -
The day the US TV industry died
9 votes -
Podimo, the Denmark-based subscription service for podcasts and audiobooks, secures €58.6 million in funding
3 votes -
We spoke with the last person standing in the floppy disk business
11 votes -
Disney chief Bob Chapek sees clear path for Hulu to merge with Disney+ once Comcast buyout is complete
6 votes -
Inside the documentary cash grab
8 votes -
Adobe in final talks to acquire Figma for $20B USD
17 votes -
A Chinese spy wanted GE’s secrets, but the US got China’s instead
11 votes -
Patagonia founder gives away the company to fight climate change
26 votes -
How mushrooms are turned into bacon and styrofoam | World Wide Waste
10 votes -
Paramount is considering shutting down Showtime and migrating its content to Paramount+
4 votes -
Bitwarden raises $100 million from PSG Equity
12 votes -
4,000 US Google cafeteria workers quietly unionized during the pandemic
12 votes -
How this Florida town became the sea sponge capital of the world | Big Business
2 votes -
The inside scoop on ice cream innovation – a Tetra Pak product development centre where future recipes and technology are tested out
6 votes -
Klarna has revealed that losses more than tripled in the first half of the year – firm has been hit by a slowdown in consumer spending
8 votes -
Once seen as experimental, a commercial wine industry in regions just below the Arctic circle is taking advantage of the warmer summers
5 votes -
How Mondragon became the world’s largest co-op
11 votes -
HBO Max and Warner Bros. Discovery seem to be on fire, and that's on purpose. The plan is to make a lot of money as cheaply as possible.
7 votes -
When it comes to flaunting its defense industry, Stockholm is shy – and it's hurting Swedish companies and handing lucrative contracts to competitors
4 votes -
Laid-off HBO Max execs reveal Warner Bros. Discovery is killing off diversity and courting ‘Middle America’
6 votes -
MoviePass to relaunch on Labor Day in beta form with pricing ranging from $10-$30 a month
11 votes -
Embracer Group, parent company for a vast and expanding roster of studios and publishers, goes on a spending spree buying up Middle-earth Enterprises and more
9 votes -
Rare earths processor Neo Performance Materials has bought exploration rights to mine in Greenland – diversifying supplies of minerals critical for advanced technologies
6 votes -
HBO Max to remove thirty-six titles, including twenty originals, from streaming
8 votes -
The rise of the worker productivity score
19 votes -
Buy a rural hospital for $100? Investors pick up struggling institutions for pennies
7 votes -
What Twitter’s move to shutter offices signals for Big Tech
11 votes -
I'm struggling with a potential ethical violation at work; feedback needed
I have a work-related ethics question, and I thought the fine people here on tildes were perfect to give feedback. I'll try to be brief but still give all of the information. Background I work for...
I have a work-related ethics question, and I thought the fine people here on tildes were perfect to give feedback. I'll try to be brief but still give all of the information.
Background
I work for an energy utility. This company isn't a charity, but it is a non-profit. We are owned by the people who buy power from us (called "members"). We don't profit off of the electricity we sell to our members, but we do generate extra electricity to sell to other utilities (mostly to for-profit ones). Any profit we make is either set aside for future use or is sent out to the members as a check. Yes, our members actually get a check each year. This cooperative was built to serve rural communities since at that point in history profit-driven companies weren't willing to spend the money to run electricity to these communities. We cover 90% (geographically) of our state, along with portions of a neighboring state. We generate using wind, hydro, solar, coal, and natural gas. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe roughly 30%-40% of our generation comes from renewables, and we now have a dedicated team researching nuclear power (SMNR) and energy storage (which would allow us to further shift to renewables).
Context
There is a PAC (an entity that throws money at politicians in exchange for votes) for rural electric cooperatives that we participate in. This PAC can only accept donations from our members or employees. While the stated purpose is to advocate for rural cooperatives in general, I personally think that largely translates into advocating for fossil fuels.
Every year there is a 10-day period in August where they start asking us employees to donate. Anyone can donate at any time, this is just the time that they emphasize it. Leadership has REPEATEDLY emphasized that there is no pressure and that our supervisors can't see who has and hasn't donated. I've been here nearly five years, and they've said this each time. I know that under the previous CEO (he left ~10 years ago) there was pressure to donate, and that's probably why they emphasize this now.
Issue
I've discovered however that the leadership CAN see information on who has donated and how much. PAC donations are public information, and the names and amounts can be easily seen online if you know where to look. I do believe that my division leader didn't know this, though I can't really know whether the other leadership did or didn't. There's no way to know if any supervisors have looked at this data or made decisions on it. After I brought it up to my division leader he thanked me and said he will send this new information out to our division.
However, communicating this to the rest of the company is beyond his control. He's alerted the people who can do this but what they do is up to them. While my division doesn't really care who donates, I get the impression that other divisions feel differently. IT has a profoundly different culture than the rest of the company. Senior leaders say there's no pressure, but that's not neciserily the case for supervisors and managers. It's been implied to me that the teams that work in power production, transmission planning, etc still have expectations about donations.
What to do?
So here's the core ethics question: Is it unethical for senior leadership to withhold this new information about the visibility of donations from the rest of the company? The assurance of anonymity was intended to reassure us that there would be no retaliation for those who don't donate and that there would be no favoritism for those who do.
Is this just a small thing that's not really important? If this is an issue, how significant is it? It's obviously not "dumping toxic waste in the river" bad, but it still feels like it must have some level (or potential level) of impact. If this is an issue, what actions would you personally take? How much would you be willing to risk taking action on this?
Thanks in advance, I just want to do the right thing.
16 votes -
Amazon is acquiring iRobot
21 votes -
Walmart ponders streaming deal with Paramount, Disney and Comcast
3 votes -
Axios agrees to sell to Cox for $525 million in cash
11 votes