BE-AR4

PHI 6301, Business Ethics 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit IV Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

4. Evaluate current ethical issues in business. 4.1 Discuss a contemporary issue related to employee rights in business.

Course/Unit Learning Outcomes Learning Activity

4.1

Unit Lesson Chapter 6 Article: “Social Media, Employee Privacy and Concerted Activity: Brave New World

or Big Brother?” Article: “Drug Testing and The Right to Privacy: Arguing the Ethics of Workplace

Drug Testing” Unit IV Article Review

Required Unit Resources Chapter 6: Moral Rights in the Workplace In order to access the following resources, click the links below. Mello, J. A. (2012, September 1). Social media, employee privacy and concerted activity: Brave new world or

big brother? Labor Law Journal, 63(3), 165–173. https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dire ct=true&db=bsu&AN=80170929&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Cranford, M. (1998, December). Drug testing and the right to privacy: Arguing the ethics of workplace drug

testing. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(16), 1805–1815. https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dire ct=true&db=bsu&AN=12146315&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Unit Lesson For many of us, work is a top priority and a significant part of our lives, leaving little time for leisure or rest. For better or worse, many of us need to work to support ourselves or to use the proverbial phrase, work for a living. Since we must work, our rights, while engaging in work activities, are essential. It could rightly be said one of the most important aspects of business ethics, therefore, is the rights of workers both inside and outside of the workplace. One of the first things to note during this lesson is the need to differentiate the concepts of moral, legal, and contractual rights in the workplace. DesJardins (2020) discusses these topics to some extent. First, let’s provide a definition and examine moral workplace rights, or what is also referred to as employee rights. These types of rights may overlap with legal rights in the context of work and employment. According to DesJardins, there are three senses of moral or employee rights commonly found in the business arena. First, there are legal rights granted to employees and predicated upon judicial or legislative rulings (often referred to as federal and/or state laws); these types of rights include employees having equal opportunity, a right to a minimum wage, collective bargaining rights as part of a union; and finally, an environment that is free of sexual and other types of harassments. Secondly, there are employee rights that often refer to goods

UNIT IV STUDY GUIDE

Workers’ Rights, Employer-Employee Responsibilities, and Workplace Privacy

PHI 6301, Business Ethics 2

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that employees are granted because of their contract agreements with employers. These types of rights might refer to paid holidays, pension funds, health care packages, and/or similar things. Thirdly, employee rights could refer to entitlements to which employees have a claim independent of either their contractual or legal rights. These types of rights would derive from respect owed to them merely by virtue of the fact they are human beings. Even though the above employee rights are important in and of themselves, what DesJardins may be most concerned about, and for that matter, we may be too, is the third type of moral rights that are independent of both legal and contractual recognition. To amplify the relation between legal and contractual rights, both parties of an employment agreement negotiate over the conditions and terms of work; the employer proposes wages, working conditions, and benefits with the return of worker production, while employees offer abilities and skills asking for wages and benefits in return. The point of the above remarks is that moral rights are well beyond the scope of bargaining mechanisms between employer and employees; unlike legal rights, employee or moral rights are justified by moral and not by legal or contractual considerations (DesJardins, 2020). Hence, employee rights in this sense ought to be understood also as goods employees are owed within the workplace environment and establish the foundation and conditions of employee-employer relations. DesJardins is adamant on presenting the concept of moral rights in the workplace in the liberal tradition— freedom, independence, liberty, and equality, and how it sets much of the framework for such rights that lie outside of the sphere of both legal and contractual rights. Many of you may rightly wonder about the concept of moral rights in the business arena other than legal or contractual rights. To clarify this matter and to give an example, DesJardins refers to the philosopher Norman Bowie (1998), who had an article published in 1998 titled, “A Kantian Theory of Meaningful Work.” In the article, Bowie sets out to give a liberal theory of work in the context of Kantian ethical theory. Bowie argues meaningful work ought to have these six characteristics:

1. Entered into freely 2. Gives the worker the opportunity to exercise independence and opportunity 3. Empowers the worker to advance rational capacities 4. Provides a sufficient wage for physical and mental well-being 5. Encourages moral development 6. Does not interfere with how the worker perceives of happiness

What is particularly interesting is the last point, since society often implicitly tells us happiness consists of attaining material goods, upon which consumer capitalism is predicated. The six points that Bowie gives as moral rights are indeed much different than the rights commonly attributed to legal rights, contractual rights, and entitlements often talked about when it comes to the types of rights between employers and employees. The topic of freedom of expression will now be discussed in the context of the workplace. Though DesJardins (2020) elaborates on this topic to some extent, the topic ought to be amplified a little bit more. One question to consider is what types of employee speech are protected at work. In more general terms, what types of rights of freedom of expression are we given while in the work setting? Skye Schooley (2020), writer for a major business website says we, as Americans, have the First Amendment right for freedom of speech, but also notes it is somewhat unclear how far this right extends into the workplace setting. It appears there are some rights workers are given, though not according to the reasons many people commonly believe. Many people may believe the First Amendment protects people’s freedom of speech in the workplace setting; however, this is not always the case. The First Amendment right may apply to public sector businesses; however, it is not directly applicable to individuals working in private businesses. Though the First Amendment may not shield an employees’ right to share contentious opinions in the workplace, managers and employers ought to be highly cognizant of state and federal laws that shield employees from retaliation.

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Another important question to address is whether a worker could be fired for speech outside of the work setting. Since there have been many frequent protests and other types of civil unrest in recent years, the usage of social media can lead to several gray areas for employers. In many cases, yes, an employer can fire an employee because of speech outside of the workplace so long as the speech is not protected from the First Amendment, anti-discrimination laws, anti-harassment laws, and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) or whistleblower protections (Schooley, 2020). For example, one may not be allowed to fire an employee because of not providing for the safety of workers due to protections of the NLRA, although there may be grounds for worker termination with respect to one who posts trade information online. Another relevant consideration is public conduct, public speech, and political protests where these rights are protected in some states but not in others. For instance, some states allow employers to terminate an employee for attending a political protest; whereas, some states do not. Employees should be quite cautious regarding all aspects of freedom of expression both inside and outside of the workplace setting, since they may not realize company policies are being violated on social media, and the same goes for public speech and political protests as well.

References Bowie, N. E. (1998, July). A Kantian theory of meaningful work. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(9/10), 1083–

1092. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/kantian-theory-meaningful- work/docview/198097023/se-2?accountid=14375

DesJardins, J. (2020). An introduction to business ethics (6th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

https://online.vitalsource.com/#/books/9781260687354 Schooley, S. (2020, August 11). What employee speech is protected at work? Engage PEO.

Suggested Unit Resources In order to access the following resources, click the links below. The below article by Bowie gives a robust discussion on Immanuel Kant’s idea of meaningful work and whether it may be applied to the contemporary work setting. Bowie, N. E. (1998, July). A Kantian theory of meaningful work. Journal of Business Ethics, 17(9/10), 1083–

1092. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/kantian-theory-meaningful- work/docview/198097023/se-2?accountid=33337

The following article focuses on precarity and the right to work and the right to retire. Estes, C. L., & DiCarlo, N. B. (2019). The right to work and the right to retire: A political economy perspective

on precarity. Generations: Journal of the American Society on Aging, 43(3), 29–34. https://libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?dire ct=true&db=a9h&AN=139338232&site=ehost-live&scope=site