Article Summaries -1-2pg

Ethics in the Workplace – Sally Wheeler

Summary

The author, Sally Wheeler, makes a case for why employers need to look and treat employees as

individuals rather than as a collective whole in order to meet the diverse needs and rights of the

employee. Work-life balance and flexible working hours is used most often to exemplify her thoughts

on the need for a transition from a collective bargaining (unions) to individual bargaining. Everyone’s

needs are different, and an employer should recognize that. Wheeler believes that once we look at the

individual level, the relationship between an employee and his or her direct boss becomes the most

important; this is where ethical dialogues should take place. Based on the philosophy of Levinas, once in

a place where dialogues are taking place, both parties should focus on taking responsibility for the other

rather than just themselves. (See below for more information on Levinas’ theory).

Theory Presented in Article

Individualism: A social theory favoring freedom of action for individuals rather than state or collective

control. Wheeler uses this as the foundation of her article. She discusses individualism and how there is

a rise in individual rights, which means there must be a rise of individual dialogue. She says the move

from the collective to the individual runs parallel to the move from union representation to consultation

and participation, yet there is a price to pay for this. “…new freedom to shape and coordinate one’s own

work and one’s own life…and the risks [of doing] are shifted from the state and the economy onto the

shoulders of individuals…People are damned to individualization.”

Welfare State Structure: a social system in which a government is responsible for the economic and

social welfare of its citizens and has policies to provide free health care, money for people without jobs,

etc. Wheeler discusses the welfare state as a means to discuss individualism and how the rise of this

concept is in conflict with how the economy is structured. In the UK, “participation in work is seen as an

essential condition of citizenship,” yet there are many people who are unable to participate due to their

parental responsibility, or other similar situations. IN such case, “the entanglement of welfare benefits

with market participation exacerbates, if not causes, the juggling of care responsibilities around work by

pushing those who already have responsibilities in this area into the workplace to take employment that

is low grade and poorly waged and stigmatizing those who cannot participate or who choose not to.” In

other words, because the employer is not yet fully aligned with the rights of the individual, the

individual is forced to work around the employers demands and schedule instead of their being a

balance.

Power Relationships: The idea that one group or individual holds power over another. Wheeler

introduced this in her paper when she discussed the employee’s relationship to both the corporation as

a whole and then to his/her direct supervisor. Unlike the power relationship the employee has with the

corporation, the one he/she has with her boss is more fluid. At times, the boss has the power, and at

other, the employee does. “The reality for many employees is that the quality of their work life and any

prospects they may have for work/life balance will arise out of their relationship with their immediate or

line manager. For employees who are also managers or supervisors of other workers their enjoyment of

their job and indeed their work/life balance will come from the way in which they structure the two-way

power relation in which they find themselves; how they deal with those who they enjoy power over and

how they deal with those who have power over them. “

Levinas: The philosophy of Levinas relies heavily on face-to-face interaction. He believed that

encouraged humanity and eliminated people from distancing themselves from others and having them

become faceless in a crowd. Wheeler writes, “The organizational structure of the corporation allows

managers to distance themselves from the consequences of their decisions and to see themselves as

remote from employees as individuals.” What she suggests in her paper is that corporations adopt

more of a Levinas philosophy to help “invigorate the relationship between employee and manger.”

When a manager truly sees their employee and places more emphasis on them than on themselves, the

human element remains.

Usefulness of Article Findings

The idea of having a work/life balance is a prominent one in the UK as well as the United States. With

more women wanting careers and families, finding a way to balance both without having to sacrifice

one for the other is difficult due to the current unforgiving restrictions in the workplace. What Wheeler

presents in this article is way in which employers need to restructure their thinking, starting at the

supervisor level. Following the philosophy of Levinas causes relationships to more human and less

logical or black and white. Adopting this philosophy would likely be helpful in other areas where

dialogue and mutual respect for one another’s life priorities are necessary.