The theory of a business having a morality clause is sound. By that, I mean that your company has people sign a clause saying that they will live by a certain standard of ethics that are connected to the profession and promise not to place value of money or power over that of human life. You won't fake electricity black outs that end up causing people hooked to life sustaining machines to die just do that you can make more money from them having to use other electric companies. You won't use your position of power to coerce people with less power to have sex with you. You won't falsify reports to make it look like your unsafe product is safe.
Unfortunately, it seems like that kind of morality is never discussed when people get hired. The concept of NOT using the job to screw over people (literally or figuratively) just isn't something that seems all that important. If it were, I would be fine with it. It is, after all, honorable.
Instead, most often we see morality clauses attached to people's jobs when it's about the company's religion and the person's private life. They want you to live according to their beliefs not only while you are at work, but also outside of it. If they don't believe in drinking, then they do not want you to drink. If they do not believe in sex before marriage, then they do not want you to have sex before marriage. Even if something is perfectly legal, they still want you to live by their rules or you will be fired.
I would never sign this kind of morality clause. Ever. I don't care if I agreed with everything they wanted me to abide by, I still wouldn't sign it. I believe it is a violation of my rights as a private person and quite unAmerican. People should be allowed to live by their own sense of personal morality. If they do their job well and aren't hurting anyone at your company, it's none of your business what they do when they're not there.
I know that a lot of people end up signing morality clauses because they feel like they don't have a choice. Times are hard and jobs are difficult to find. Still, I believe this is one place where we should draw the line. If you work for someone, you are there to perform tasks for them for a set number of hours. You don't owe them your whole life.
If a company asks you to sign a morality clause, I suggest you don't. Inform them that working for their company isn't worth you being a slave to their beliefs. And, again, I don't care if you believe the same way they do. That shouldn't matter. If enough good workers turn these people down, maybe they will get the hint that they need to remove this policy. Maybe they'll realize they can't bully people into acting the way they should.
Because of the job situation in our country, the average worker is at risk of having a lot of bad things happen to them. I read countless stories of people having to go to three or four interviews and jump through all kinds of hoops, just to get a minimum wage job. People are upping the standards for almost everything, requiring more and more levels of education and qualifications for jobs that do not really need this level of certification. There is a kind of bullying quality to it. Perspective employers are starting to believe they can ask anything of people who want jobs, even, as in this case, a part of their souls.
Not only would I never sign a morality clause, I would also tell the person asking me to do it that they were pretty evil. They were trying to extort behavior from me 24/7. They were trying to force me to live in a way that didn't set right with who I was. If I didn't comply, even if I was the most qualified person who interviewed for their job, they wouldn't hire me. Like I said, it's fairly evil.
I have a moral policy against working for evil people.
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