Workplace Issues & Employee Rights – Cheap Research Essays

Analyze either Case 6.2 “Freedom to Fire” or Case 6.3 “Speaking Out About Malt” In your answer deal with some of the discussion questions listed at the end of the case, plus any other issues that seem important. (Unit 9)

Order Description
Suggested length for each assignment is 750-1000 words. Additional research beyond course readings and materials is not required, although some may find it helpful for some questions. You are expected to reference quotations from course materials. I’m not picky about format as long as it’s easy for me to locate and check them.
Workplace Issues & Employee Rights
The next two units deal with what could be termed “human resources ethics” – workplace issues concerning the fair treatment of employees. What ethical and legal constraints are there on the hiring and firing of workers? What rights should employees have in the workplace? What about discrimination against women and minorities? What accommodations should be made for people with families, and how does childbearing impact women’s advancement? These are all topics in this unit. The next unit will deal with the controversial issues of affirmative action and sexual harassment.
The main reading for this unit is a chapter from Shaw & Barry. This is the same text we used in Unit 6 for Professional Ethics, and you will notice a similar format. There is a textbook treatment of workplace issues (p.177-199), followed by Cases 6.1- 6.5 (p.199-208), followed by articles on Employee Rights and Employment at Will (p.208-214). You will notice the course notes treat these topics in very different order than the text, because I prefer to deal with them in the historical sequence in which they arose.
Learning Outcomes
After completing this unit you will be able to:
• Define employment at will, and explain how we’ve moved away from it with the right to unionize, the right to non-discrimination, non-harassment, etc.
• Consider what additional rights (such freedom to speech and privacy) employees should have.
• Develop one’s philosophy of the role of work in our life, whether as a vocation or means to the end of making money, and whether consumerism can compensate for unfulfilling work.
• Consider on the impact of increasing work hours on family life, women’s childcare responsibilities on their careers, and the ethics of family-friendly programs.
Readings
Shaw, William, and Vincent Barry (1995), “The Workplace(1): Basic Issues,” from Moral Issues in Business, 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, p.259-296.
Boatright, John (1997), “Women and Family Issues,” from Ethics and the Conduct of Business,” 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, p.229-235.
Tittle, Peg (2000), “Case Study – Safeway’s Jewelry Policy,” from Ethical Issues in Business: Inquiries, Cases, and Readings. Peterborough: Broadview Press, p.266-267.
Web Resources
EEOC’s Politically Correct Crusade Against Hooters a Wasted Effort, Nation’s Restaurant News, December 4, 1995
Jean Hollands’ website
Film
Her Brilliant Career
42 min, 2005 – Distributor: Cinefete
Synopsis: Whenever power and money come together, no matter what the profession, women still remain notably absent. Although women make up more than 45 per cent of the labour force in Canada, less than half of all public corporations have any women on their boards. What is it about women that block their progress? Male groups strive to drive out or drive down women who do not adopt the values and behaviour of masculine identity in the workplace and then recoil in horror at those survivors who have become so masculinized in economic and organizational behavioral terms that their variance from the female stereotype is treated by the organization as deviant. This program examines discrimination in the workplace and politics and introduces the viewer to a controversial program for women executives. Jean Holland has developed a unique workshop in California that aims to help ambitious female executives get ahead. She calls it the Bully Broads program. It’s all about women modifying aggressive behaviour to make it in a man’s world. She whips her female firebrands into shape, the theory being that once they’ve graduated from her course they’ll be more successful in navigating the male dominated corporate culture from which they came. Although some women attack the program as anti-feminist, Holland claims 85% of her graduates get promoted within one year of finishing the program.
Glossary Terms
• Bill of Rights
• Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications (BFOQs)
• Employment at Will (EAW)
• Nepotism
Persons of Note
• Ewing, David
• Schwartz, Felice
Due Date Reminder
Assignment 2 is due in week 9. Check the Roadmap for details. Assignment 3 is due in week 11, but if you have done the first two assignments you can skip it because you only have to do 2 of 3.
You should start thinking about an essay topic now and doing any necessary research, since essays are due in week 12.
Required Readings
________________________________________
Shaw, William, and Vincent Barry (1995), “The Workplace(1): Basic Issues,” from Moral Issues in Business, 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, p.259-296.

Boatright, John (1997), “Women and Family Issues,” from Ethics and the Conduct of Business, 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, p.229-235.

Tittle, Peg (2000), “Case Study – Safeway’s Jewelry Policy,” from Ethical Issues in Business: Inquiries, Cases, and Readings. Peterborough: Broadview Press, p.266-267.
Unit Nine: Workplace Issues & Employee Rights
9.1 Employment at Will and its Limits
(Shaw & Barry, p.260-262, p.293-296)
The traditional free-market capitalist doctrine on employment policy is Employment at Will. We will look at it and how it has been eroded or limited by the rise of unions, anti-discrimination law, and other regulations governing employment law.
Employment at Will (EAW) – in the absence of a specific contract, an employer may hire, fire, demote, or promote any employee (Shaw & Barry, p.293).
• It is defended on the basis of property rights, the freedom of owners and managers to do what they want with their business.
• This would be reasonable in a condition of rough equality, or a 19th century world of small farmers, tradesmen, and merchants.
• But we live in world where giant corporations dominate whole industries, a world of employees and bosses. In such a context EAW does not promote equal freedom since owners and managers are in positions of much greater power than workers.
• Firing is a black mark on a worker’s record and a barrier to getting a new job. And some grounds for dismissal are unjust.
• If a few corporations control an industry, and they are run by a single ethnic group (e.g. White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) that practices discrimination, the negative social impact is huge.
Utilitarian perspective
Most people work for others. They are employees, so it is in their interest to have some protection from arbitrary power. Even the majority of managers work for others. Furthermore, having a job and being treated decently in the workplace are vital human interests. Employees who are abused generally suffer more loss of utility than their bosses gain. Thus there is a strong case, based on the Greatest Happiness Principle, for limiting Employment at Will in our society.
Rights Perspective
Rights developed as a way of limiting the power of the monarch (Magna Carta) or the state (US Bill of Rights). To protect the individual employee in today’s world, they need to be brought into the workplace and used to limit the power of corporations.
Unit Nine: Workplace Issues & Employee Rights
9.1.1 Right to Join or Organize a Union
(Shaw & Barry, p.273-279)
Unions are a means of balancing power between workers and management, especially when workers are low skilled and easily replaced. They fought for higher pay and better working conditions, but also represent the first major challenge to Employment at Will. The US Wagner Act of 1935 curtailed EAW. It banned employers from interfering with workers trying to organize a union, or treating union members differently from non-union employees, or firing workers for going on strike. In Canada, labour law is a provincial responsibility, and many provinces drafted laws that followed the Wagner Act in protecting unionists from discrimination or reprisal, and establishing the right to collective bargaining. Unions in turn protect their members from arbitrary termination.
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9.1.2 Right to Non-Discrimination
(e.g. on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation)
Unions protected the working class, especially those employed in manufacturing. But what of racial minorities, women, and the disabled? Here the remedy has been anti-discrimination laws, which forbid employers from discriminating on a list of prohibited grounds.
The movement towards such laws began with the Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King, which sought to end segregation and discrimination against blacks.
The US Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a watershed in this cause, It outlawed employment discrimination on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin. Similar laws were adopted in Canada and other Western countries, and age, disability, and sexual orientation found their way into the list of prohibition grounds for discrimination.
Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications (BFOQs) – these are job specifications to which civil right law does not apply (Shaw & Barry, p.265). This concept exists to sort out criteria on which it is reasonable to “discriminate” from criteria which are prohibited.
• It is reasonable to prefer females as lingerie models or women’s locker room attendants, on the grounds of authenticity and modesty.
• Churches may discriminate on religious grounds when hiring a minister. It is a religious organization and the minister’s job requires him to preach the doctrines of that sect and represent it in the community.
• “thick foreign accent may properly disqualify someone from getting a customer service job. But for other jobs it is irrelevant, and thus it might be discriminatory not to hire someone on that basis.
• The BFOQs for gender and religion are few. There are no BFOQs for race or skin colour.
• There is a requirement to make “reasonable accommodations” for those with disabilities, unless this inflicts “undue hardship.”
• Companies are not permitted to rely on the preferences of their customers as a basis for discrimination: “For example the fact that for decades airline passengers were accustomed to being attended to by young female stewards and may even have preferred them could not legally justify excluding men from this occupation” (Shaw & Barry, p.265).
• Unit Nine: Workplace Issues & Employee Rights
• 9.1.3 Hooters Case
• What about restaurants who employ attractive female servers and market that as part of their brand? How is it that Hooters doesn’t get sued for discrimination? I did a search and found that in 1995 the chain was indeed found to have discriminated against men, though the case was later dropped by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. See “EEOC’s Politically Correct Crusade Against Hooters a Wasted Effort,” Nation’s Restaurant News , December 4, 1995.
• “Why would government regulators laid off by Congress give a hoot about Hooters? That was a question many people were asking last month after the Atlanta-based Hooters chain staged a rally in Washington to mock gender-discrimination charges leveled against its restaurants by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. …
• Indeed, Hooters officials argued, with a 100,000-case backlog of job discrimination allegations awaiting action, why was the EEOC apparently telling the chain to devastate its work force of scantily clad “Hooters Girls” by giving 40 percent of their jobs to male servers? And why had the agency, after a nearly four-year-long investigation, ordered the company to pay more than $22 million into a hypothetical back-pay fund that the EEOC would use to compensate men claiming to have been victimized by Hooters’ women-only server hiring policy?
• After all, hadn’t Hooters lawyer Patricia Casey explained to the agency that “the business of Hooters is predominantly the provision of entertainment, diversion and amusement based on the sex appeal of the Hooters Girls”? And hadn’t she invoked the same exemptions in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that Playboy Clubs had successfully cited in repeated court victories over similar hiring discrimination charges? … Defiant chain officials, who vowed noncompliance with the EEOC orders, pointed out that the agency’s stance was as logical as ordering Radio City Music Hall to hire male Rockettes for its famed chorus line.
• The other side of the argument, of course, is that the EEOC is merely using civil-rights statutes to ensure equal protection under the law for out-of-work men. Men have in fact lodged official complaints and sued the chain over alleged hiring discrimination.
• But critics of the EEOC suggest that the agency’s agenda is motivated by knee-jerk feminism and an unofficial policy of politically correct’ social engineering to purge the restaurant industry of perceived sexism. Certainly Hooters – some have called it the “Playboy Club for rednecks” – has angered countless feminists and sympathizers with its double-entendre brand name and obvious exploitation of young women and their lustful, male customers. …
• But do such controversies give bureaucrats license to kill a business concept? The EEOC’s hiring discrimination ruling has been interpreted by some as implying that the agency expects Hooters to abandon its Hooters Girls formula, on the rationale that it illegally discourages men from applying for jobs.
• Less vague is the EEOC’s stated position that Hooters is violating civil-rights laws as long as males do not comprise at least 40 percent of its work force. The agency also demanded that Hooters establish a scholastic fund to “enhance the skills, employment opportunities or education of males.” Bureaucracy watchdog James Bovard, writing in The Wall Street Journal, ridiculed that mandate by asking: “What sort of education program did the EEOC have in mind? Teaching the new male hirees how to flirt with burly construction workers without getting punched in the nose?”
• There are three questions for discussion concerning this case at the end of the unit.
• 9.1.4 Employment Tests
• Companies may not use Employment Tests as a subtle means of discrimination. Such tests must be valid (scores must correlate with performance in some activity) and they must be fair (not culturally biased or irrelevant to the job).
• In Griggs v. Duke Power Company, African-American labourers who were denied promotions because of low scores on intelligence tests involving verbal and mathematical puzzles won their case, because the company could not show that such skills relate directly to job performance (Shaw & Barry, p.267).
• Unit Nine: Workplace Issues & Employee Rights
• 9.1.5 Additional Employee Rights
• Aside from the right to unionize and the right to non-discrimination, many additional employee rights have evolved and are now legally recognized. For example, there are labour laws that force employers to pay a minimum wage, and to pay extra for overtime and statutory holidays. Two important rights that come up in subsequent sections are:
• Right to Maternity, Parental, and Family Leave – that ensures that pregnant women (or their spouses) can take time off and return to their jobs, or that people can take time off to look after dependant family members.
• Right to Non-Harassment (e.g. not having to accept unwelcome sexual advances in order to gain or keep one’s job) – this protects vulnerable employees from being forced to prostitute themselves, or having to endure a “hostile work environment.” The law protects against other forms of harassment as well – racial or religious slurs and teasing, or the workplace equivalent of schoolyard bullying.
9.1.6 Promotion and Discharge
(Shaw & Barry, p.268-272)
The text also makes a few noteworthy points about the promotion and discharge of employees. In particular, look at the discussion of Seniority, Inbreeding, and Nepotism.
1. Would you agree that seniority should be balanced against qualifications and performance in making promotions? (Shaw & Barry, p.269).
2. Nepotism, the practice of showing favouritism to relatives and close friends, is clearly natural is a family business, but obviously wrong in a corporate or government setting if the person isn’t qualified. But what if your relative is also the best person for a corporate or government job? Should you not hire her purely because she is your relative and nepotism looks bad?
In the section on Discipline and Discharge, note the principles of Just Cause and Due Process in discharging workers, and the distinction between four types of discharge – Firing, Termination, Layoff, and Position Elimination.
9.2 An Employees’ Bill of Rights – David Ewing
(Shaw & Barry, p.260-262, p.290-293)
One thing to keep in mind about Ewing’s list of rights is that it is an ethical proposal, not an existing code. It is based on the extension of certain court ruling, some company’s best practices, and the principles embodied in Bill of Rights (US Constitution).
Ewing has a problem with how in most corporations, “the Constitutional rights that employees have grown accustomed to in family, school, and church life generally must be left outdoors, like cars in the parking lot. As in totalitarian countries, from time to time a benevolent chief executive or department head may encourage speech, conscience, and privacy, but these scarcely can be called rights, for management can take them away at will” (Shaw & Barry, p.261).
Thus, Ewing proposes a nine-point bill of rights for employees which I have divided up under three headings.
Freedom of Speech, Association, and Conscience
1. Right to criticize, in speech or press, the ethics or legality of management actions. This offers protection for whistleblowers.
2. Right to engage in the political, economic, or cultural activities of one’s choice after working hours, and to express views contrary to those of management.
3. Right to refuse to carry out an order that violates the common norms of morality.
In the following cases, the above rights are at issue. As you will see, courts have an uneven record of upholding them.
• Case of the chemical engineer at DuPont, fired for writing a novel critical of management. He sued and lost (p.260-261).
• Case of environmental official at Mobil, fired for refusing to perform acts in violation of federal and state environmental law. He sued and won (p.262).
• Case of Georgia real estate company that won’t hire anyone who engages in high-risk recreational activities (e.g. motorcycling, sky diving, mountain climbing). Or other companies that won’t hire anyone who drinks or smokes? (p.266).
Right to Privacy
4. Limits on surveillance without consent, the right to refuse tests that invade privacy.
5. Forbids unreasonable search and seizure in the workplace.
6. Workers can check their files, there are limits on information gathering and sharing.
7. Blacklisting is forbidden.
Procedural Rights
8. Those discharged or demoted are entitled to a written statement of explanation.
9. Employees who feel their rights have been violated are entitled to a hearing before an impartial arbitrator.
9.3 Exercise: The Role of Work in Our Lives
Here are some questions that will get you thinking about your own personal Philosophy of Work:
1. Do you believe that work is fated to be simply a means to the end of earning, which we need to support ourselves and enjoy our “real lives” outside the workplace?
What does the phrase “having a life” mean to you?
Do workaholics have a life? Do the unemployed have a life?
2. Or can work (employment) become a vocation, a source of personal fulfilment and meaning? Originally the word vocation was used for people who have a calling for the ministry, though now it used more broadly for work with a sense of meaning and purpose.
What sort of work might meet such criteria? Does the very nature of some jobs preclude them from being fulfilling and meaningful?
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The view is also found in the Book of Genesis (in the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament), where human beings were cursed to earn their living by the sweat of their brow after being expelled from the Garden of Eden. In other words, wemust work to live. Some people have drawn a connection between this story and the agricultural revolution. Before agriculture, people hunted and gathered their food, but afterwards they had to labour in the fields and tend their crops if they were to eat. Most people became peasants or serfs, and the nobility looked down on manual labour.
The idea of work as a source of fulfilment and meaning is a more recent idea. It has roots in the
Protestant work ethics and is associated with more artistic or professional lines of work. Such people live to work. There work is a means of self-expression, their occupation is a source of identity. Often people must trade off income for meaningful work. Writers and artists are classic examples of this, but also many academics who don’t have full-time tenured positions. People with this view of work often give career advice such as “follow your bliss and the money will come.”
What is the Meaning of Life?
Sigmund Freud’s answer: To Love and To Work..
It would be ideal if everyone could find work that was both a fulfilling vocation and reasonably lucrative. Since this isn’t possible for many, they are faced with a choice.
If your work cannot become your vocation:
3. Is it better to sell your life energy (time, etc.) for the maximum income, and try to compensate for time at work by using the proceeds to enjoy an affluent consumer lifestyle? This is the dominant approach in our society.
4. Or to live as simply as possible, so as to reduce the amount of life energy that must be sold for pay? This is the advise of the Voluntary Simplicity movement.
Leisure time in North American seems to have declined in the past several decades. Increasing numbers report that their jobs require them to work longer or at greater speed, and many always feel rushed. The reasons for this are various:
• Rise of two-career families, both by choice and necessity.
• Downsizing in the workplace, the trend in the 1990’s towards “leaner and meaner” companies.
• Increase in average commuting time, as more people move to outlying suburbs.
• Growth of communications technology (email, cell phones) that keeps workers always on call.
The more time spent on the job, the less a strategy of “living for the weekend” makes sense. It also means you have less time for family life, another major source of fulfillment for people.
9.4 Work and Family Issues
(Boatright, Case 9:3, “The Mommy Track” )
This section is based on the ideas and proposals of Felice Schwartz, author of a controversial 1989 article in the Harvard Business Review. Schwartz raised the issue of high turnover for female managers and linked it to family issues. The statistics from the Memo in “The Mommy Track” case, cited below, come from Schwartz. They reflect trends in 1980’s America, but there is no reason to believe that they have been dated significantly by the passage of time.
• The rate of turnover in management positions is 2.5 times higher among women than among men. This is costly to companies (in terms of training costs and talent lost) and to women (in terms of equality and fulfillment).
• 90% of executive men but only 35% of executive women have children by the age of 40.
Schwartz distinguishes between “Career-Primary” women on the Fast Track and “Career-and-Family” women on the Mommy Track. Most women fall into the latter category. They don’t want to give up having children or active involvement with their children for a career. They would be willing to trade off some career growth and income for freedom from constant pressure to work long hours. Schwartz wants companies to do more to accommodate women on “The Mommy Track,” while realizing that not all women fit into that category.
Why the greater turnover rate among women?
1. Most women want children; but the burden of pregnancy, childrearing, and homemaking falls disproportionately on wives. Half of women who take maternity leave return to their jobs late or not at all.