two page short essay question on business and society, about tax on paycheck
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chap015_lw_20171.pptxChapter 15
Employees and the Corporation
Copyright © 2017 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Copyright © 2017 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
Understanding workers’ rights to organize unions and bargain collectively.
Knowing how government regulations assure occupational safety and health and what business must do to protect workers.
Evaluating the limits of employers’ duty to provide job security to their workers.
Analyzing employer obligations to pay workers fairly and how pay policies can contribute to income inequality.
Appraising the extent of employees’ right to privacy, when businesses monitor employee communications, police romance, test for drugs or alcohol, or subject employees to honesty tests.
Debating if employees have a duty to blow the whistle on corporate misconduct, or if employees should always be loyal to their employer.
Ch. 15: Key Learning Objectives
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Employees are an important market stakeholder
Responsible for carrying out the work of the company
Dependent on the employer for their livelihood
Nature of the employment relationship conveys rights and duties on both sides.
Right: someone is entitled to be treated a certain way; they confer duties on others.
The Employment Relationship
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Rights and Duties of
Employees and Employers
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Employees in the United States enjoy important legal guarantees. They have the right to:
Organize and bargain collectively
A safe and healthy workplace
Job security
Workplace Rights
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Employees have a fundamental legal right to organize labor unions and to bargain collectively with employers.
Workers have a right to hold an election to decide which union will represent them.
Labor unions: Organizations that represent workers on the job.
Labor unions have the right to negotiate wages, working conditions, and other terms of employment.
Employers are required to bargain with unions in good faith.
If agreement cannot be reached, a strike might occur.
Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
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Influence of labor unions has varied during periods in U.S. history:
In 2014, the median weekly pay of full-time workers who were members of unions was 27% higher than that of nonunion workers.
In 2014, only about 11% of all U.S. workers were union members.
The percentage was higher, 36%, in government employment (7% were unionized).
In the wake of the Great Recession, elected officials in several states sought to weaken unions by limiting the rights of public sector workers.
Example: In 2015, Wisconsin joined 24 other states in adopting right-to-work law
Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
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Unionization Rates
in Selected Industrialized Countries
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Ergonomics: adapting the job to the worker, rather than forcing the worker to adapt to the job.
Annually, slightly more than 3 million workers in private industry are injured or become ill while on the job (U.S. Department of Labor).
Occupational Safety and Health Act, passed in 1970, gives workers the right to a job “free from recognized hazards that are causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm.”
This law is administered by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA).
Since the agency’s creation in 1970 the overall workplace death rate has fallen by more than two-thirds.
The Right to Safe and Healthy Workplace
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Since late 1800s, the legal basis for the employment relationship has been employment-at-will.
Employment at will is a legal doctrine that means employees are hired and retain their jobs “at the will of” (i.e. at the sole discretion of) the employer.
However, equal employment opportunity and other laws prevent discriminatory terminations.
The Right to a Secure Job
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Many union contracts say employees can be fired only “for just cause,” and workers have a right to appeal the employer’s decision through the union grievance procedure.
European countries and Japan have laws that extend “just cause” protections to all workers (not only for union members).
Cultural values, traditions, and norms of behavior also play important roles.
Social contract: the implied understanding between an organization and its stakeholders. This is not a legal contract, but rather a set of shared expectations.
Should companies have strong or weak bonds with their employees?
The Right to a Secure Job
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How should wages be determined? What is fair?
What responsibility if any does business bear for the sharp differences in life circumstances between those at the top and bottom of society?
What is the relationship between inequality and wages?
Special Issue: Wages and Income Inequality
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What can companies do to address income inequality?
Increase wages of their employees
Reduce pay differentials within their organizations
Living wage: Wage “that enables workers, for their labor during a standard work week, to support half the basic needs of an average-sized family, based on local prices near the workplace” (Ethical Trading Initiative).
Companies that adopt such a “good jobs” strategy reap benefits from doing so.
Special Issue: Wages and Income Inequality
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An important right in the workplace as elsewhere, is privacy.
Privacy rights: primarily protecting an individual's personal life from an unwarranted intrusion by the employer.
Key workplace issues where privacy dilemmas often emerge include electronic monitoring, office romance, drug and alcohol abuse, and honesty testing.
Privacy in the Workplace
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New technologies enable companies to gather, store, and monitor information about employees’ activities.
A company’s need for information, particularly about its workers, may be at odds with an employee’s right to privacy.
Management justifies the increase in employee monitoring for a number of reasons:
Employee efficiency
Fear of lawsuits if employees act inappropriately
Example: Sociometric Solutions
Sensor-rich badges
Privacy in the Workplace: Electronic Monitoring
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Issue requires careful balancing between legitimate employer concerns and employee privacy.
A 2013 survey – 38% of workers said they had dated a co-worker at least once during their careers, and of these relationships almost a third had led to marriage.
Companies today often draw distinctions, permitting some kinds of office relationships and not others.
Sometimes consensual relationship agreements are required to protect against possible harassment lawsuits if the people involved later break up.
Privacy in the Workplace: Romance in the Workplace
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Drug and alcohol testing
Drug abuse costs U.S. industry and tax payers an estimated $193 billion a year.
Drug-Free Workplace Act (1988) – required federal contractors to establish and maintain a workplace free of drugs.
About two-thirds of companies test employees or job applicants for illegal substances, according to a 2015 study.
Drug testing is typically used on three different occasions:
Pre-employment screening
Random testing of employees
Testing for cause
Privacy in the Workplace: Employee Drug Use and Testing
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Pros and Cons of Employee Drug Testing
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Alcohol use and addiction causes twice the problems of all illegal drugs combined.
About 9 percent of full-time employees are heavy drinkers.
Up to 40 percent of all industrial fatalities and 47 percent of industrial injuries are linked to alcohol.
U.S. businesses lose an estimated $88 billion per year in reduced productivity directly related to alcohol abuse.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) – offer counseling, rehabilitation programs, and follow up.
Privacy in the Workplace: Alcohol Abuse at Work
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Employee theft has emerged as a significant economic, social, and ethical problem in the workplace.
A 2015 survey of large retail stores in the United States showed that almost 35 percent of all inventory losses were due to employee theft.
The retail value of goods stolen by employees was more than $15 billion.
Employee Polygraph Protection Act (1988)
Severely limited polygraph testing for employers and prohibited approximately 85 percent of all such test previously administered in the U.S.
Privacy in the Workplace: Employee Theft and Honesty Testing
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American Psychological Association notes these tests have significant potential to generate false positives.
Example: Test predicts employee would probably steal from the company, even though this is untrue.
Tests may intrude on a person’s privacy and discriminate disproportionately against minorities.
Honesty Testing Controversy
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Free speech in the workplace
U.S. Constitution protects free speech; however, does not specifically protect freedom of expression in the workplace.
Employees are not generally allowed to speak out against their employers, due to legitimate interests of the business.
Whistle-blowing: when an employee believes his/her employer has done something that is wrong or harmful to the public, and he/she reports the alleged misconduct to the media, government, or high-level company officials.
Whistle-blowing and Free Speech in the Workplace
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4 conditions must be satisfied to justify whistle-blowing:
Organization is doing (or will do) something that seriously harms others
Employee has tried and failed to resolve the problem internally
Reporting the problem publicly will probably stop or prevent the harm
The harm is serious enough to justify the probable costs of disclosure to the whistle-blower
Whistle-blowing and Free Speech in the Workplace
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Should employees have the right to criticize their employers using the company e-mail system?
Do employees have a right to criticize their employers using social media?
Do you believe an employee should be fired for using illicit drugs outside of the workplace? Would their workplace performance influence your answer?
Is it acceptable for a company to fire all workers who are smokers? What about those who only smoke off the job?
Should multinational companies be forced to pay overseas workers wages equivalent to national workers even if those wages are excessive relative to the local labor market?
How should fair labor standards be enforced? Who should be responsible for monitoring - the company or an independent body?
Discussion Questions
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What element of compensation would you value most in your first job out of college?
Salary
Vacation policy
Retirement plans
Flexible work hours
Frequent performance reviews
Job growth
Stock options
Assignment: All employees have payroll taxes deducted from their paycheck. Assume a government policy was just enacted giving all taxpayers the opportunity to designate 10% of their total federal tax burden to a cause of their choice. What would you choose and why? Be very explicit and detailed in your answer.
Discussion Questions
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