Unethical secrets, lies and legal retaliation in the context of corporate restructuring in the United States

Corporate restructuring is normally analyzed with reference to economic imperatives and the inherited geographical structure of production. The economic landscape is assumed to be the consequence of private decisions made in response to these structural factors. If understanding and empirically accounting for these decisions is problematic, more difficult are judgements which might be made about the ethical nature of such decisions. Based upon three previous case studies of corporate restructuring, this paper explores the ethical implications of corporate actions taken against their workers and unions and the federal agency responsible for protecting the integrity of private pension plans. Many of these actions were conceived and implemented in secret, subverting the legitimate expectations of their employees. It is argued that strategic secrets, deployed to deceive other agents, are especially damaging to economic relationships and the effectiveness of regulatory agencies. It is also suggested that whatever the consequences of such secrets for the welfare of workers affected by corporate restructuring, these kinds of secrets attack the integrity of vital social norms like trust and cooperation.