Tell the truth to clear conscience over mistreatment of employee

Question
Recently, our company had to dismiss a long serving employee — actually my driver – over false claims. Two months later, I realised that I had been misled by the accounts department and that the problem lay elsewhere. While the man was paid all his dues, I deeply feel that we owe him an apology. How should I approach him or should I let him just go?

----------------

The death penalty remains a highly emotive subject, and many countries have decided to eliminate it altogether.

Amnesty International (USA) has some chilling facts about the penalty, which the coach wishes to share with you, before answering your question.

Although half the homicide victims in the USA are African Americans, 79 per cent of those executed for homicide were convicted of killing white people.

Put another way, if you must kill, and you want to live, kill a black man in America. If you kill a white one, you will be killed.

The US General accounting office in a 1990 report found a pattern of racial disparities in sentencing and imposition of the death sentence that is racially based!

The single most reliable prediction of whether one will be sentenced to death is the race of the victim.

Studies by the reputable American Bar Association and the University of Maryland as well as the Yale Law School all support the racial nature of justice in the USA when it comes to the death sentence.

Senator Russ Feingold was forced to conclude thus: “We simply cannot say we live in a country that offers equal justice to all Americans when racial disparities plague the system by which our society imposes the ultimate punishment”. Your question has forced me to consider the whole question of morality of employers and the dictates of natural justice.

I have a great deal of sympathy for you and your driver. Let me explain.

Whereas all crimes should be punished as provided for by law, no innocent person should suffer for a crime they have not committed.

The balance between these two seemingly contradictory positions is at the heart of your question.

In some ways your question raises very basic questions about how we manage not just our criminal justice system, but how junior employees are treated at the work place.

As we have seen with respect to the black man in America, justice is but a delusion when it comes to the death penalty.