Justice and Fairness 187
gious order contacted him and told him that workers in one of his
Mexican plants had been overcome by forklift fumes and had to be
hospitalized. ‘‘I simply didn’t believe it,’’ muses O’Neill. ‘‘But it turned
out they were right.’’
It turned out that the division president had known about the inci-
dent and had performed the required investigatory report, but he then
hid the results from the environmental safety group in corporate head-
quarters. The division president had been with the company for
twenty-eight years and had grown the business from $100 million to
$1.5 billion, but O’Neill fired him. ‘‘Firing people is not fun, but we
don’t do business this way. A company must live by its values.’’
And this is not a one-time incident of justice taking precedence over
economic gain. O’Neill’s philosophy of justice is carried out across all
business units and cultures. ‘‘We don’t pay bribes, even when it is legal
to do so,’’ he asserts. And his dedication to justice extends to other areas
as well, even when the laws of a country permit injustice. When
ALCOA made acquisitions in Hungary, many of the buildings had as-
bestos. Even though removal of asbestos was not required by law in
Hungary, ALCOA spent the money to remove it. ‘‘We don’t treat peo-
ple by what the local law is but by what logic says is the right thing; it
shows consistency of belief and action,’’ states O’Neill.^14
Two thousand years ago, another leader asserted the need to obey a
higher law—not temporary, man-made, local laws. Jesus, when asked
whether the Jews should be obeying Caesar’s laws, answered, ‘‘Render
unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s.’’
(Matt. 22:21) Leaders who are concerned with justice follow their con-
sciences, which are often ‘‘higher authorities’’ when exercised to the
fullest.
The Bible advises us that one way to rectify injustice is to ‘‘lend freely
to the poor.’’ Deuteronomy 15 advises that ultimately ‘‘there should be
no poor among you’’ but that while they exist, ‘‘I command you to be
openhanded toward... the poor and needy in your land.’’ One bank
that has taken this to heart is South Shore Bank in Chicago, which
looks like any other bank from the outside, but distributes its assets with
justice. Most banks take their deposits and convert them to credit to