The New York Stock exchange recently saw high-end tech companies drop in value as investors turned away from the big electronic sellers to smaller ones. This could signal a desire that mirrors consumers’ movements.

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The electronic leaders in social media, such as Facebook, and hardware, like Apple and Microsoft, both felt a significant fall in the market that translates to billions of dollars lost in the New York Stock Exchange.

There are several possibilities as to the cause of this event; namely: that investors are looking towards smaller companies that face less taxes and have the possibility of large growth, and that, in the case of the new iPhone, there is wavering demand for what consumers are realizing is overpriced.

Apple decided to make a bold move by releasing two new handheld mobile telephones this fall in the form of the iPhone X and the iPhone 8, to lukewarm reception, according to social media. Perhaps the reason for this is the pricetag, which goes all the way up to under $1260CAD for the iPhone 8 and $1529CAD for the iPhone X. Consumers are hesitant to drop such a large amount of money on technology that is not groundbreaking or necessary.

Reasons like this are why investors have recently moved out of high-end technology businesses on a relatively large scale. New editions of hardware, or Facebook updates, leave consumers and apparently investors too wondering what is new and why it’s worth it.

At the same time, new exciting small technology companies are growing, such as the Essential Android, which is much cheaper than the iPhone and has generated excitement garnering a $1 billion evaluation and $300 in investments from companies such as Amazon.

This may be why investors feel pressure to avoid further time and money spent with high-end technology giants, and at the same time consumers feel out of touch with the ever-increasing prices and ever-decreasing inspiration that is occasionally sensed from Apple, among others.

Recently, the union for rail workers in Canada gave in their 72 hour notice that they would be conducting a strike.

The idea of unionization as a topic of business ethics consists of two main viewpoints. On one hand, the rail workers are protecting not just their wages but their job security when they join a union. As a form of self-preservation, it makes sense why so many unions are created and utilized across the world.

https://twitter.com/TeamstersRail/status/868589771387490306/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbc.ca%2Fnews%2Fcanada%2Fsaskatchewan%2Frail-workers-strike-mandate-saskatchewan-1.4134672 

On the other hand, from the business’ point of view, a worker’s union makes it much more difficult to run an efficient and profitable business. To no longer have the power to treat each employee as their own individual with regards to wages and job security is a large swing of power between employee and employer. It detracts from the autonomy of capitalist economies.

However, this is a complex ethical issue raised in the business setting. It raises the imperative question: how much power should the employee have relative to the employer? There could not be an employee if not for an employer, yet the opposite is also true.

At its core, unions were designed to prevent the business from being able to fire an employee at their own discretion. It saw to include the government in the business transaction occurring and give rights to the employee so that they could not be discriminated against. In other words, it saw to make things more fair for the employee.

What is fair in business? Or, more importantly, is there fairness in business at all? Wall Street would say not at all; that business is a dog eat dog world where it is survival of the fittest. The fundamental idea of unions, though, suggest that business could be fair and employee and employer could meet at a fair median of job security.

In conclusion, the union of rail workers on strike is only one example of many. Businesses in the 21st century especially must set clear guidelines of interaction with their employees in order to avoid large-scale disagreements such as the one reported on CBC.

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