Two pages

Chapter 17

Workers’ Rights and Duties Within a Firm

Employee Civil Rights And Equal Treatment

Civil rights are legal rights that entitle each person covered by them to certain treatment or that guarantee noninterference in their acting in certain ways.

● Civil Rights on the Job On the job, workers have the right to equality of treatment. They should receive equal pay for equal work, regardless of sex, race, or religion. ● The Right to Treatment with Respect

Because workers are human beings worthy of respect, they should not be treated like slaves

THE RIGHT TO A JUST WAGE The right to life, respect, and employment demand that people are paid good wages. However, many people have different opinions on what constitutes a good wage. While some believe that wages should be determined by the market, much like the price of a good, others insists that this cannot be done without providing a justification.

According to Marx, there cannot be a fair wage because wage labor thrives on exploitation. Thus, to achieve fairness, it is wage labor that must be discarded and replaced with something better. Since Marx views are on the extreme, replacing them with concepts that better explain the problems of wage differentiation is the only solution. This will do away with the pure market approach to wage labor issue. However, this theory will still include the market as one of the factors to influence labor wages.

Employee Duties

● Employees are morally obligated to obey moral law and are legally obliged to obey the civil law at work

● Obligated to fulfil the terms of their contracts ● Must consider the interests of the firm they are working for ● Managers of companies are also employees are their

obligation is to manage efficiently and fairly. ● Managers often emphasize the obligations of workers

much more frequently than the rights of said workers.

Worker Loyalty and Obedience

● Many companies expect obedience, and think of it as a prime virtue. ● Obedience can be justified but there are clear moral limits:

○ No one can be morally obligated to do what is immoral. ○ Loyalty is demanded by firms

● As an employee you are part of a team and you are expected to show your loyalty in a plethora of ways: ○ Relocating, refusing competitors higher offer, and defending the company.

● Loyalty in these ways is morally permissible, but not obligated.

Worker Loyalty and Obedience

● Obedience can be demanded of employees as long as what is being commanded is related to the employee's job, and is neither illegal or immoral.

● Loyalty must be developed, courage and often at time learned, it is very hard to demand the employee to be loyal

The Right to Organize: Unions

In a society looking to achieve fair wages, unions have played a very big role.

● Two contracting parties settle on an agreement which is fair for each of the parties.

● Individual workers have more choices and freedom than employees under a contractor.

● Unions activity may be limited by the government, for instance if a group of workers in a field create a monopoly of labor

The Right to Strike

Four major groups between management and government

1. Labor 2. Management 3. Government 4. General Public ● Labor and Management have the moral obligation to do what is right and to

avoid what is wrong ● Government is set to give labor and management a certain degree of security. ● General Public is all people without regard to their roles.

The Right to Strike

If employment is freely engaged in.

● The right to strike depends on if the work is whether the employer is private industry or government, the right of the worker is open to do whatever they choose.

● An exception would be depending on a worker contract.