practice case 3

1

Chapter 8

The Workplace (1): Basic Issues

I. Introduction (NIB-Chapter Introduction) A. Opening Case Comments (NIB-Chapter Introduction)

1. Traditionally, the obligations between a business organization and its employees can be boiled down to “A fair wage for an honest day’s work.”

a. Business’s primary, if not sole, obligation to its employees was to pay a decent wage.

b. In return, employees were expected to work efficiently and to be loyal and obedient to their employers.

2. As the opening case illustrates, however, today’s workplace philosophy is much more complex, involving social, political, and moral issues.

a. Since the issues are so complex, Shaw and Barry take four chapters to discuss the major issues: Chapters 8 – 11.

3. Chapter 8 examines the following topics: a. The state of civil liberties in the workplace. b. The efforts of some successful companies to respect the rights and moral dignity

of their employees.

c. Moral issues concerning personnel matters such as hiring, promotions, discipline and discharge, and wages.

d. The role and history of unions, and the moral issues raised by them. B. Chapter Learning Objectives (NIB) – After completing this chapter students should be able

to:

1. Address some of the more frequent concerns that employees encounter in the workplace today-erosion of civil liberties, job tasks, working conditions, wages, and

promotions.

2. Understand the historical factors that affect the tension that exists today between employers and employees, especially with regard to the rise of authoritarianism in the

workplace.

3. Appreciate the ways in which various legal doctrines are employed to balance the competing claims of employer and employee.

4. Consider the ethical aspects of personnel policies and procedures such as hiring, promotions, discipline, and wages.

5. Understand employees’ attempts to balance power through collective bargaining and union tactics.

II. Civil Liberties in the Workplace (§ 8-1) A. Overview (§ 8-1)

1. Employees have all sorts of job-related concerns. a. Generally speaking, they want to do well at their assignments, to get along with

their colleagues, and to have their contributions to the organization recognized.

b. In addition, they are concerned about the way their organizations treat them. c. Frequently they find that treatment to be morally deficient and complain that the

organizations for which they work violate their moral rights and civil liberties.

2

2. David Ewing, former editor of the Harvard Business Review, sees two historical factors behind the absence of civil liberties and the prevalence of authoritarianism in

the workplace:

a. First, the emergence of professional management and personnel engineering in the early 1900s promoted workplace authoritarianism.

1) The term “authoritarian” is characterized by or favoring absolute obedience to authority, as against individual freedom.

2) Workplace authoritarianism can then be defined as the habit of conduct, thought, and speech expressing total submission to rigid principles and rules

of the workplace.

b. Second, the adoption of the common law doctrine of employment-at-will. 1) Under the employment at-will doctrine, employers can discharge

employees without cause (i.e., they can fire workers for good, bad, or no

reasons).

2) Contract employees are not at-will employees (approximately 10% of present American workers).

3) Because of the harshness of this doctrine and the advantages the employer now has over employees, several exceptions have been made. The four most

important exceptions for purposes of this course are the following:

a) Statutory – Exceptions where laws prohibit terminating employees for particular reasons (e.g., The Wagner Act of 1935 prohibiting

employers from firing workers because of union membership or union

activities and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting employers

from terminate employees based on race, color, national origin,

religion, and sex/gender).

b) Implied Contracts – Exceptions caused by the subsequent creation of a contract by the employer (e.g., “On a performance evaluation review

the employer tells an employee that he or she has a job for life”).

c) Public Policy – Exceptions that would violate the “public good”(e.g., Terminating an employee for refusing to perform an illegal act).

d) Constitutional Protections of Public Employees – Public sector employees enjoy limited constitutional protections on the job and can

be fired only “for cause” (Discussed in the next section).

B. Current Trends (§ 8-1a) 1. The law seems to be moving away from the doctrine of employment-at-will.

a. More federal and state statutes are being passed preventing termination of employees for various reasons, but especially for retaliation for employees

asserting statutorily protected rights as well as bringing to light the wrongdoing of

their employers (i.e., whistle-blowing).

b. More nonstatutory exceptions to the employment-at-will-will doctrine are being recognized by federal and state courts.

3

2. Moral Arguments concerning Employment-at-Will: a. Those that morally support employment-at-will embrace it on utilitarian grounds.

1) Employers basically argue that it promotes efficiency because it promotes strict discipline and the firm maintenance of management prerogatives; in

addition, they do not have to worry about justifying every termination of an

employee which uses valuable resources

2) They also deny that employers have any obligations to their employees beyond those specified by law or by explicit legal contract.

3) They view employees as lacking any meaningful moral rights, seeing them as expendable assets, as means to an end.

b. Those morally against employment-at-will basically attack it on Kantian grounds. 1) Seeing employees as “means to an end” violates Kant’s Categorical

Imperative.

2) They also point to modern human resource management theory and years of evidence showing that employers who respect employee rights and ensure a

fair workplace tend to outperform others (see the next section).

3) Thus, the employment-at-will doctrine cannot even be supported on utilitarian grounds because it does not lead to more efficiency.

C. Companies That Look beyond the Bottom Line (§ 8-1b) 1. Although under no legal compulsion to do so, a small but growing number of

companies encourage employee questions and criticisms about company policies

affecting the welfare of employees and the community.

2. Union contracts frequently require companies to set up grievance procedures and otherwise attempt to see that their members are guaranteed due process on the job.

Some enlightened nonunionized companies have done the same.

3. Not only is it a moral duty of companies to respect the rights and dignity of their employees, in particular by acknowledging their civil liberties and guaranteeing them

due process, but doing so can also work to the company’s benefit by enhancing

employee morale and, thus, the company’s competitive performance.

a. As mentioned in Chapter 1 and elsewhere, whether one is speaking of companies or of individuals, acting morally is generally in one’s long-term interest even

though there is no guarantee that one will always benefit by doing the right thing.

b. However, people or organizations that worry about whether doing the right thing will profit them or who act fairly and treat people decently only because they

believe that doing so will advance their self-interest are unlikely to enjoy the

benefits that accrue to those whose lives are generally covered by moral principle.

c. People or businesses to act ethically only because they believe it will pay off are likely to act unethically when they think that it will not pay off.

4. So far, this chapter has affirmed that the workplace should provide an environment in which employees are treated fairly and their inherent dignity is respected.

a. For this to occur, fair personnel/human resource management policies and decisions must be based on criteria that are clear, job-related, and applied

equally.

b. In human resources management, job-related means that there must be a relevant link between the policy and job performance.

4

III. Hiring (§ 8-2) A. Overview (NIB-§ 8-2)

1. A basic task of the employer or personnel/human resources manager is hiring. a. Hiring can be either internal or external. b. It is an extremely important human resource management process because it can

lead to competitive advantages or disadvantages.

c. In addition, failure to properly perform the task can lead to potential legal liability under the doctrine of negligent hiring..

2. One useful way to approach some of the moral aspects of hiring is to examine the principal steps involved in the process: screening/recruiting, testing, and interviewing.

B. Screening/Recruiting (§ 8-2a) 1. Screening, better known as recruiting, is the process of contacting job candidates and

screening those who apply so that the organization ends up with a qualified applicant

pool.

a. Recruiting can be either internal and/or external. b. It is not the same as selection.

2. Recruitment begins with a job description and a job specification. a. A job description lists all the pertinent details of the job, including its duties and

responsibilities.

b. A job specification describes the minimum qualifications an employee needs, such as knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs). They also include the working

conditions and physical requirements of the job.

3. Wrongful Discrimination – One of the main legal and moral concerns in screening is to avoid wrongful discrimination.

a. For several decades, the law has forbidden discrimination against individuals on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex/gender, age, disability, and

military service.

1) Obviously, purposely violating any of these laws would be unethical. 2) Morally, with some exceptions listed below, these factors are not job related

and should not affect hiring decisions. It also raises the moral question of

equality.

3) But employers must also be careful not to unintentionally violate the spirit of the law, especially through poorly worded job advertisements.

b. Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications (BFOQ) – A bona fide occupational qualification allows an employer to “legally and morally discriminate” in some

limited circumstances.

1) Race or color can never be a BFOQ. 2) Customer preferences cannot be used to validate a BFOQ. 3) Sex/gender can be a BFOQ for authenticity purposes (e.g., hiring a male to

model men’s clothing) or morality purposes (e.g., hiring a woman for a

woman’s locker room attendant).

4) National origin, religion, age, and disability can be a BFOQ for authenticity purposes only.

5

c. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) – The ADA prohibits employers from discriminating against a qualified disabled applicant or employee. It also requires

employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for an employee or a job

applicant with a disability as long as doing so does not inflict “undue hardship”

on the business.

1) Although the general moral imperative here is clear, in practice applying these concepts and making the appropriate determinations can be difficult

because the situations are not always clear-cut.

2) Whether a reasonable accommodation causes an undue hardship must be determined on a case-by-case basis.

4. Language, physical appearance, lifestyle, educational requirements, and gaps in employment history are other common areas of unfair treatment of job applicants.

C. Testing (§ 8-2b) 1. Tests are an integral part of the hiring process, especially in large firms—often

designed to measure the applicant’s verbal, quantitative, and logical skills.

2. To accurately predict job performance, a test must be both reliable and valid. a. Test reliability refers to whether test results are replicable—that is, whether a

subject’s scores will remain relatively constant from test to test.

b. Test validity refers to whether test scores correlate with performance in some other activity—that is, whether the test measures the skill or ability it is intended

to measure and to whether the test accurately predicts job performance.

c. Problem Area: Culturally biased tests that are valid for one group of persons but not another group.

D. Interviewing (§ 8-2c) 1. Moral issues in interviews usually relate to the manner in which they are conducted.

a. Interviewers should focus on the humanity of the candidate and not allow biases, stereotypes, and preconceptions to color the evaluation.

b. Proper training of interviewers eliminate most of these problems. 2. The interview method can also affect its validity and, therefore, it is job relatedness.

a. The Nondirective Interview – The nondirective interview allows maximum freedom to the interviewee to determine the course of the interview. Because of

this, it generally has the lowest validity of all the different types of methods.

b. The Structured Interview – In response to EEO requirements and a concern for maximizing the validity of interviews, the structured interview uses a standard

set of questions (based on job analysis) and an established set of answers for

rating applicants.

c. The Situational Interview – The situational interview is similar to a structured interview, but it gives applicants a hypothetical situation and asks them how they

would deal with it. As with the structured interview, there are preestablished

benchmark answers for rating applicant responses.

E. Conclusion (NIB-§ 8-2e) 1. The recruitment process provides the organization with a qualified applicant pool. 2. The selection process narrows down this qualified applicant pool to the person or

persons ultimately chosen for the job through testing, interviewing, and other selection

criteria.

6

3. All aspects of these processes must be legal; in addition, they must also be clear, job- related, and equally applied to all applicants to be moral.

IV. Promotions (§ 8-3) A. Overview (NIB-§ 8-3)

1. In human resource management, the process for promoting a person is considered a selection decision which involves the recruitment process and selection process

discussed above.

a. A promotion can be defined as an elevation to a higher position or rank. b. Many organizations adopt a “promotion from within” policy whereby persons

within the organization are given first preference for the promotion.

c. Promotions from within require internal recruiting. 2. Since promotions are a form of selection, the same legal and moral rules discussed in

the previous section apply.

a. Job qualifications remain a crucial factor in promotion decisions. b. In addition, criteria used in the promotion decision must be clear, job-related, and

equal.

c. However, unlike recruitment and selection for entry-level positions, factors such as seniority, inbreeding, and nepotism are more prevalent.

d. Organizations must ask the question, “Are these other factors fair and reasonable criteria for promotion?”

B. Seniority (§ 8-3a) 1. Seniority refers to longevity on a job or with a firm.

a. Frequently job transfers or promotions are made strictly on the basis of seniority, but problems can occur with this promotion method.

b. Longevity on the job is not necessarily a measure of competency or loyalty. 2. Because work situations vary, specifying what part, if any, seniority ought to play in

promotions seems impossible—all the more reason, therefore, for management to

consider carefully its seniority policies.

a. The challenge is to promote the most capable and qualified candidates while also recognizing long-term contributions.

C. Inbreeding (§ 8-3b) 1. Inbreeding deals with both promoting exclusively from within the firm and externally

hiring persons with the same demographic characteristics (e.g., the same race, the

same national origin, the same sex/gender, and/or the same educational background).

2. Problems: a. It can lead to job discrimination (see Chapter 11). b. It can lead to conformity of ideas without a counterbalance of new ideas.

D. Nepotism (§ 8-3c) 1. Nepotism is the practice of showing favoritism to relatives and close friends. 2. Not all instances of nepotism raise serious moral concerns such as when a firm is

strictly a family operation and has as its purpose providing work for family members.

7

3. However, outside these few situations, showing favoritism to relatives and close friends does not treat candidates equally.

a. It can also hurt company morale, breed resentment and jealousy, and create problems with regard to future placement, scheduling, or dismissal of the person.

b. It can make him or her an object of distrust and hostility within the organization and even discourage qualified outsiders from seeking employment with the firm.

V. Discipline and Discharge (§ 8-4) A. Overview (NIB-§ 8-4)

1. For an organization to function in an orderly, efficient, and productive way, managers and human resource management departments establish guidelines for employee

conduct based on such performance factors as punctuality, dependability, efficiency,

cooperativeness, and adherence to the dress code and to other rules.

a. Discipline in the employment context can be defined as taking punitive action against an employee for violation of work rules (e.g., verbal warnings, written

warnings, suspensions, and firing).

b. Discharge in this context is referred to as “firing.” 2. From a moral point of view, discipline and discharge raises concerns about fairness,

non-injury, and respect for persons in the way the discipline process and/or discharge

process is administered.

B. Two Basic Principles (§ 8-4a) 1. To create an atmosphere of fairness, one in which rules and standards are equally

applied, the principles of “just cause” and “due process” must operate.

2. Just cause requires that reasons for discipline and/or discharge deal directly with job performance.

a. Distinguishing between a job-related and a non-job-related issue is not always easy and can be controversial.

b. In addition, a problem arises when an employee’s off-the-job conduct reflects negatively on the organization (see Chapter 9 on privacy).

3. Due process refers to the fairness of procedures an organization uses to impose sanctions on employees.

a. Of particular importance is that the rules be clear and specific, that they be administered consistently and without discrimination or favoritism, and that

workers who have violated them be given a fair and impartial hearing.

b. Due process requires both the hearing of grievances and the setting up of a step- by-step procedure by which an employee can appeal a managerial decision.

C. Dismissing Employees (§ 8-4b) 1. It is useful to distinguish among four types of discharge:

a. Firing is for-cause dismissal—the result of an employee’s violation of a work rule or rules (e.g., employee theft, gross insubordination, multiple instances of

showing up late for work).

b. Termination results from an employee’s poor performance. c. Layoff usually refers to the temporary unemployment due to lack of work. d. Position elimination designates the permanent elimination of the job as a result

of workforce reduction, plant closing, or departmental consolidation.

8

2. Before dismissing an employee, management should follow a rational and unbiased decision-making process and analyze carefully the reasons leading to that decision.

a. The organization must ask itself whether its treatment of the employee follows the appropriate procedures for that type of discharge.

b. In addition, the company must guard against preferential treatment. 3. Even evenhandedness and strict compliance with established procedures may not

ensure fairness.

a. Employers bear the responsibility of terminating the employment of workers who fail to fulfill their contractual obligations, but they also are obliged to terminate

these workers as painlessly as possible.

b. HRM provides many suggestions for handling the discharge of employees compassionately and humanely, ranging from the recommendation not to notify

employees of termination on Fridays, birthdays, wedding anniversaries, or the

day before a holiday, to various steps to respect the terminated employee’s

privacy and dignity.

c. In addition, employers with 100 or more employees must meet the notification guidelines of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act

(WARN).

1) WARN protects workers, their families, and communities by requiring employers to provide notification 60 calendar days in advance of plant

closings and mass layoffs.

2) Advance notice gives workers and their families some transition time to adjust to the prospective loss of employment, to seek and obtain other jobs

and, if necessary, to enter skill training or retraining that will allow these

workers to compete successfully in the job market.

3) A covered plant closing occurs when a facility or operating unit is shut down for more than six months, or when 50 or more employees lose their

jobs during any 30-day period at a single site of employment.

4) A covered mass layoff occurs when 50 to 499 employees are affected during any 30-day period at a single employment site (or for certain

multiple related layoffs, during a 90-day period), if these employees

represent at least 33 percent of the employer’s workforce where the layoff

will occur, and the layoff results in an employment loss for more than six

months.

a) If the layoff affects 500 or more workers, the 33 percent rule does not apply.

5) WARN does not apply to closure of temporary facilities, or the completion of an activity when the workers were hired only for the duration of that

activity.

6) WARN also provides for less than 60 days notice when the layoffs resulted from closure of a faltering company, unforeseeable business circumstances,

or natural disaster.

9

d. Outside of WARN’s notification requirements, what constitutes morally sufficient notice of termination depends primarily on the nature of the job, the

availability of similar jobs, and the employee’s length of service—not to mention

the type of discharge and the reasons for it.

4. Whatever the specific situation, firms have a moral obligation to terminate workers only for just cause and as a last resort, to follow due process and fair organizational

procedures, and to treat dismissed employees as humanely as possible.

VI. Wages (§ 8-5) A. Overview (NIB-§ 8-5)

1. Every employer faces the problem of setting wage rates and establishing salaries. a. From the moral point of view, it is very easy to say that firms should pay a fair

and just wage, but what constitutes such a wage?

b. Although some writers believe that a fair wage is whatever an employee is willing to accept, the moral issues are more complex than that.

2. In an ethical organization the basis of remuneration should be distributed justice, with a wage and salary system that centers on the employee’s value to the business—his or

her contribution to the organization—and not on extrinsic, non-job-related

considerations such as being a single parent or a relative of the CEO.

a. In addition, salary judgments should be made on criteria that are clear and publicly available and that are him personally or objectively applied.

B. Ethical Guidelines for Setting a Fair Wages and Salaries (NIB) 1. Consideration of the following seven factors can provide the well-intentioned business

manager with some ethical guidelines and help minimize the chances of setting unfair

wages and salaries:

a. What is the law? b. What is the prevailing wage in the industry? c. What is the community wage level? d. What is the nature of the job itself? e. Is the job secure? What are its prospects? f. What are the employer’s financial capabilities? g. What are other inside employees earning for comparable work?

2. Two final factors are of equal importance with the first seven guidelines: a. First is the issue of job performance. Some people work harder or are more

talented, and thus accomplish more for the organization. Most businesses rightly

seek to recognize and award achievement.

b. Second is the issue of how the wage agreement was arrived at. A fair wage presupposes a fair work contract, and the fairness of a work contract requires free

negotiation and the informed and mutual consent of both employer and employee.

10

C. A Living Wage (§ 8-5a) 1. A living wage is the amount of money a full-time employee needs to afford the

necessities of life, support a family, and live above the poverty line.

a. Examples: Federal Minimum Wage = $7.25 per hour (some states are higher)

1 Adult

1 Adult,

1 Child 2 Adults

2 Adults,

1 Child

2 Adults,

2 Children

Ada, Oklahoma:

Living Wage

Poverty Wage

$6.65

$5.04

$13.51

$6.68

$10.72

$6.49

$17.58

$7.81

$23.11

$9.83

Washington, DC:

Living Wage

Poverty Wage

$11.92

$5.04

$19.98

$6.68

$16.41

$6.49

$24.48

$7.81

$30.76

$9.83

b. As can be seen from the example above, the living wage varies from community to community and family size.

c. Furthermore, the federal minimum wage level of $7.25 per hour is insufficient in most circumstances.

2. Supporters argue that employers have a moral obligation to pay a living wage, and they ground their case on the utilitarian injunction to promote human welfare, on the

Kantian principle of respect for human dignity, or on the commonsense idea that some

wages are so low as to be inherently exploitative.

3. Opponents of a mandated living wage argue that it is bad policy because it will reduce the number of jobs. They also contend that living wage advocates exaggerate the

number of employees trying to support families on the minimum wage. Moreover, if

poverty is the issue, then this problem should be addressed by government programs,

not by interfering in the marketplace and setting wages by fiat

VII. Labor Unions (§ 8-6) A. History of the Union Movement (§ 8-6a)

1. The majority of employers have opposed unions at almost every step, but unions have increased the security and standard of living of working people and contributed to

social stability and economic growth.

2. Milestones: a. 1636: First Strike over Economic Issues – Richmond Island, Maine, fishermen,

over the employer’s withholding of a year’s wages.

b. 1792: First Strike by a Permanent Union (Local) – Philadelphia Cordwainers (Shoemakers).

c. 1836: First National Craft Union – The National Cooperative Association of Journeymen Cordwainers.

d. 1866: First National Union Federation – The National Labor Union. e. 1869: First National Trade Union – The Knights of Labor f. 1886: First Successful Craft Union Federation – The American Federation of

Labor (AFL)

g. 1926: The Railway Labor Act – This legislation protects the rights of railroad employees to form labor unions, provides government mediation of bargaining

disputes, and establishes adjustment boards to resolve grievances.

11

h. 1935: The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) (A.K.A. The Wagner Act) – This legislation recognized the right of unions to exist; it encourages collective

bargaining in the private sector by protecting workers’ rights to join and form

labor unions; and it provided for certain employer unfair labor practices such as

interfering with employees trying to organize unions, from attempting to gain

control over labor unions, from treating union workers differently from nonunion

workers, and from refusing to bargain with union representatives.

i. 1937: First Successful Industrial Union Federation – Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

j. 1947: The Taft Hartley Act (amended the NLRA) – This legislation outlawed the closed shop (the requirement that a person must be a union member before

being hired); it permitted individual states to pass “right-to-work laws” which

outlawed the union shop (the requirement that a person must join the union

within a specified time after being hired); it provided for certain union unfair

labor practices; it allows the President of the United States to intervene in

national emergency strikes; and it outlawed certain types of strikes and

picketing and secondary boycotts.

k. 1955: The AFL and the CIO merged into one federation: The AFL-CIO. l. 1959: The Landrum-Griffin Act (amended the NLRA) – As a result of union

corruption and the lack of union democracy in a few unions, this legislation

enacted a union member “Bill of Rights” guaranteeing each member the right

to vote on important union policies and in elections of union officers and it

outlawed hot cargo agreements. (Hot cargoes consist of goods that are made by

nonunion workers or by a company that is being struck. A hot cargo agreement

is a union contract clause giving members the right to refuse to handle hot cargo.)

B. The Plight of Unions Today (§ 8-6b) 1. Unions are responsible, directly or indirectly, for many of the benefits employees enjoy

today.

2. But a changing economy, hostile political environment, and aggressive (sometimes illegal) anti-union policies have weakened them.

a. Private-Sector Union Density: High – approximately 35% in the mid-1950s; Today – less than 10%.

b. Public-Sector Union Density: Approximately 35% – 40% which are at its historical highs.

C. Union Ideals (§ 8-6c) 1. The protection of workers from abuse gives unions a voice in important matters. 2. They redefine power relationships, making employers more dependent on their

workers.

a. A rough equality or mutual dependence results. b. One way this occurs is to the collective bargaining process—negotiations

between representatives of organized workers and their employers regarding

wages, hours, rules, work conditions, and participation in decision making that

affects the workplace.

12

3. Criticisms: a. Some critics charge that forcing workers to join unions infringes on autonomy

and the right of association.

1) Instructor’s Note: In right-to-work states, employees do not have to join unions nor do they have to pay union dues even though the union is

required to represent them. In non-right-to-work states, employees do not

have to join unions but they do have to pay a proportion of union dues since

the union is required to represent them even if they are not members. This

is referred to as an agency shop.

b. In addition, evidence suggests that companies in alliance with unions sometimes treat nonunion personnel less favorably than they treat union members.

4. Support: a. First, solidarity is important to the power struggle between employers and unions.

The more solidarity the more unions have power and, therefore, the more voice

and benefits unions can provide their employees.

b. Second, is not fair for nonunion workers to enjoy the benefits won by union members.

D. Union Tactics (§ 8-6d) 1. The tactics unions use to try to get management to accept their demands also raise

moral issues.

2. Direct/Economic Strikes – An economic strike occurs when an organized body of workers withholds its labor to try to force the employer to comply with its economic

demands (i.e., better wages, hours, and/or working conditions).

a. Because strikes and cause financial injuries to both employer and employee, inconvenience and perhaps worst to consumers, and economic dislocations in

society, they always raise serious moral questions.

b. On the other hand, sometimes workers cannot obtain justice and fair play in the workplace in any other way.

c. Austin Fagothey and Milton Gonsalves suggest the following conditions of a morally justified strike:

1) Just Cause – Strikes concerning job-related matters such as wages, hours, and/or working conditions are justified; strikes concerning non-job-related

matters such as revenge, personal ambition, and petty jealousies cannot

justify a strike.

2) Proper Authorization – For a strike to be legitimate, it must be duly authorized by the workers without coercion or intimidation.

3) Last Resort – To be justified, a strike must come as a last resort in order not to violate the basic moral principle of using the least injurious means

available to accomplish the goal desired.

d. In addition, when a strike is morally warranted it must also be morally implemented.

1) In general, peaceful picketing and an attempt by striking workers to publicize their cause and peacefully persuade others not to cross the picket

line are moral means of striking.

13

3. Sympathetic Strikes – A sympathetic strike occurs when workers who have no particular grievance of their own and who may or may not have the same employer

decide to strike in support of others.

a. Sometimes the sympathetic strike involves several groups of workers belonging to different unions but employed by the same company. Cases like these do not

seem to differ in any morally significant way from economic strikes.

b. Sympathetic strikes involving groups of employees working for different employers differ significantly from economic strikes or sympathetic strikes

against the same employer.

1) These types of strikes were outlawed by the Taft-Hartley Act even when the employer is not an “innocent victim.”

4. Boycotts and Corporate Campaigns – Beside strikes, unions also use boycotts to support their demands.

a. A primary boycott occurs when a union encourages both its members and the general public not to buy the products of their employer whom they currently

have a labor dispute.

1) Primary boycotts generally occur during labor negotiations and are a way for a union to either get management to the negotiating table or to help the

union press for its demands.

b. The term secondary boycott comes from the fact that a secondary rather than a primary employer is targeted—that is, a company that does not directly employ

the workers who are involved in the dispute.

c. A corporate campaign attempts to identify and influence members of a company’s board of directors, company lenders, customers, and/or suppliers.

1) The goal is to uncover conflicts of interest, inefficiency, waste, fraud, or mismanagement and use this information, either publicly or privately, to

win economic leverage over an employer and achieve the union’s goals.

VIII. Study Corner (§ 8-7)