Dartblog

Like most local employers, I pay my employees market wages and benefits. I don’t want to lose them to competitors. I help them to understand that the wages that they receive are fair in the open market. The people who work for my businesses work hard; they are dedicated to our customers and to providing a first-class product.

All that said, the wages that they receive, and most certainly their benefits, are far below the levels that employees receive at Dartmouth. High wages, generous retirement plans, lengthy vacations, and Cadillac medical coverage make the College a high-cost employer.

My dilemma? As an alumnus, what should I do with the percentage of my company’s profit that I allocate for charitable giving? This profit comes as much or more from the efforts of my employees as it does from my own sense of enterprise. I have three options:

• Give money to the College:
• Give money to other charities:
• Give money back to my own employees so that their level of compensation might begin to approach the salaries and benefits provided by Dartmouth.

Aren’t my employees more deserving of this money than the myriad staffers at Dartmouth, the great majority of whom never enter into contact with students?

It is one thing to give money to the College so that students have an experience similar to or even better than mine, so that faculty can do great research and then enrich students’ lives, so that the College remains beautiful and modern. But it is quite another to support back-of-the-house staffers — to use Presdient Kim’s term — who are paid far above the Upper Valley wage scale.

A speaker at the College a year or two ago referred to foreign aid as “taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries.” Is that in effect what I am doing by taking profits out of a market-place business and giving them to over-compensated Dartmouth employees?

Can anyone help me with this ethical problem?

Note: A loyal reader has written in to suggest giving employees the right to express an opinion on how the company’s charity budget should be allocated. Hah! That’s easy. Dartmouth would not get a cent. All of them would want any extra spondoolicks to go to reducing their own health insurance contribution, which is considerably higher than that paid by Dartmouth employees. That’s money right into their pockets with no tax consequence. They envy Dartmouth’s benefits plan — even if they don’t want to work at the College.