Case Study

312 PART FOUR THE ORGANIZATION AND THE PEOPLE IN IT

"That's not true," Mary replied, "I'm no troublemaker, and I have always worked hard for Whitewater, But I do think they and the other companies are wrong to market malt liquor the way they do, It only makes a bad situation worse," ,

The next day Mary met witll Ralph jenkins and tOld, him that she felt Whitewater was "invading," as she put it, her nghts as a citizen, In fact, she had been invited to speak about wine and beer marketing at a local higll school as part of Its antidrug campaign, She intended to keep her speaking engagement and would not subject her remarks to company censorship,

Jenkins listened but didn't say much, simply repeating what he had already written in his memo, But two days later ~ary received what was, in effect, an ultimatum, She must either conrom with his original order or submit her resignation,

2. Is your answer to question 1 affected by whether you d? agree or disagree with the views Mary DavIs expresse , Should there be any limits on an employee's freedom of

3. expression? If not, why not? If so, under what crcurn- , stances is a company justified in restricting an employee s right to speak out?

4. Tile case presentation doesn't specify whether the newspaper article identified Mary Davis as an employee of Whitewater, Is that a relevant issue? Does It matter what position in tile company Mary Davis holds?

5. What do you think Mary Davis ought to do? What mora! considerations should she weigh? Does she have conflIct- ing obligations? If so, what are they?

6. Is the company right to be worried about what Mary Davis Willes or says, or is the board of directors exaggel'atlng the ? potential harm to Whitewater of her discussing these Issues, Assume a CEO like Ralph Jenkins is legitimately worried

7. mat an employee is making damaging statements about the company, How should the CEO handle the situation? Is discharge or some sort of discipline called for? Should the company adopt a formal policy regarding employee speech? If so, what pOlicy would you recommend?

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Do you think Mary Davis acted irresponsibly or disloyally? 1. Does Whitewater have a legitimate concern about her

speaking out on this issue? Does the company have a , ? right to abridge her freedom of expression,

CASE 8.4 .....................

Have Gun, Will Travel ... to Work

ORGANIZATIONAL THEORISTS AND EMPLOYEE advocates frequently emphasize the importance, from bot~ a

i moral and a practical point of view, of companies' respecting : the rights of their employees, Many employees spend long ~ hours at work and remain tethered to the Job by phone or .i computer even when they are off-site; not just their careers

but also their friendships, social identity, and emotional lives are tied up with their work, All the more reason, i~ seem~, that companies should recognize and respect their ~or~~ Political and legal rights, But enshrined in our Constitution

' 'd' , ns of the one right that frequently gets overlooked In ISCUSSIO workplace: the right to bear arms,aa

In 2002 Weyerhaeuser, the Seattle-based timber-products company, fired several employees at an Oklahoma plant who were discovered to have violated company policy by keeping gun? in their vehicles, Their dismissal provoked a response from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun-rights advo- cates, which since then have been lobbying for legislation that would make it illegal for Companies to bar employees from leav- ing guns in their cars in company parking lots, Although no state requires companies to allow workers to carry weapons into the workplace, four states have passed laws guaranteeing them the right to keep guns in their cars, and several other states are weighing whethel- to follow suit. Gun advocates argue that licensed gun owners should have access to their weapons in case tfley need them on tfle trek to and from work, If an employer can ban guns from workers' cars, "it would be a wrecking ball to tile Second Amendment" of the U.S, Constitution, says Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of tfle NRA,

Brian Siebel, a senior attorney at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, thinks otherwise. He sees these laws as "a systematic attempt to force guns into every nook and cranny in society and prohibit anyone, whether it's private employers or college campuses, , , from barring guns from their premises," But that's not how UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh looks at it. "It's part of the general movement," he says, "to allow people to have guns for self-defense not only at home, but in pUblic places where they're most likely needed," For Ilis part, LaPierre oUre NRA contends that the legal right of people to have guns for personal protection is largely nullified if employers can ban guns from the parking lot. "Saying yOU can protect yourself with a firearm when you get off work late at night," he argues, "is meaningless if you can't keep it in the trunk of your car when you're at work,"

Interpreting the Somewhat ambiguous language of the Second Amendment is not easy, It only says, "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed," All jurists agree, however, that the Second Amendment does not make all forms of gun control unconstitutional and that, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, it places restrictions only on What government, not private parties, may do,

In particular, the Second Amendment does not give gUn owners a constitutionally protected right to carry their

CHAPTER EIGHT THE WORKPLACE (1): BASIC ISSUES 313

weapons onto somebody else's private property against the wishes of the owner, "If I said to somebody, 'You can't bring your gun into my house,' that person's rights would not be violated," explains Mark Tushnet, a Harvard law professor, For tllis reason, the American Bar Association sides with business owners and endorses "the traditional property rights of private employers and other private property own- ers to exclude" people with firearms, Steve Halverson, pres- ident of a Jacksonville, Florida, construction company agrees that business owners should be allowed to decide whether to allow weapons in their parking lots, "The larger issue is property rights," he says, "and whether you as a homeowner and I as a business owner ought to have the right to say what Comes onto our property," However, Tennessee state senator Paul Stanley, a Republican Sponsor of legislation requiring that guns be allowed in company parking lots, begs to differ, "I respect property and business rights," he says, "But I also think that Some issues need to overshadow this, , , , We have a right to keep and bear arms," Other gun advocates think that the property-rights argument is a red herring, Corporations are not individuals, they argue, but artificial legal entities, whose "rights" are entirely at the discretion of the state, What's really going on, they think, is that Some Companies have an anti-gun politi- cal agenda,

Property rights, however, aren't the only thing that Compa- nies are concerned about. Business and other organizations have a widely acknowledged duty to keep their workplaces- and their employees-as safe as Possible, and that means, many of them believe, keeping their campuses free of weap- ons, There are more than five hundred workplace homicides per year; in addition, 1,5 million employees are assaulted at work, many of them by cOworkers or former employees, Having guns anywhere in the vicinity, many employers worry, can only make volatile situations more deadly, "There's no need to allow guns [into] parking lots," says the Brady Center's Siebel. "The increas_ed risks are obvious," Steve Halveson drives that point home, too, "I object to anyone telling me that we can't, , , take steps necessary to protect our employees," For him it's no different from banning guns from his construc- tion sites or requiring workers to wear hard hats, "The context is,worker safety, and that's why it's important."