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CHAPTER 8
The Workplace (1): Basic Issues
Learning Objectives
After completing this chapter students should be able to:
Address some of the more frequent concerns that employees encounter in the workplace today—
erosion of civil liberties, job tasks, working conditions, wages, and promotions.
Understand the historical factors that affect the tension that exists today between employers and
employees, especially with regard to the rise of authoritarianism in the workplace.
Glossary
1. boycott: When workers or their supporters refuse to buy from a company to support workers
who have a grievance with that company.
2. civil liberties: Our moral rights that aren't always protected by the law.
3. corporate campaign: When unions enlist the cooperation of a company’s creditors to pressure
the company to allow its employees to unionize or to comply with other union demands.
4. due process: The principle that a person's moral or legal rights must be respected. Due process
Chapter Summary Points
1. Shaw and Barry agree that we have moral “civil liberties” in the workplace. Writers such as
David Ewing believe that too many corporations routinely violate the civil liberties of their
employees. Historically, this authoritarianism stems from (a) the rise of professional
management and personnel engineering and (b) the common-law doctrine that employees can be
discharged without cause (“employment at will”).
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4. Misleading job descriptions and inaccurate job specification can injure applicants by denying
them information they need to reach informed occupational decisions.
5. Ordinarily, questions of sex, age, race, national origin, and religion are non-job related and thus
should not enter into personnel decisions. Discrimination against the disabled is now expressly
forbidden by law. Screening on the basis of language, physical appearance, lifestyle, or
ill-considered educational requirements may also be unfair.
8. A key issue in promotions is whether job qualification alone should determine who gets
promoted. Seniority, or longevity on the job, is not necessarily a measure of either competency
or loyalty. The challenge for management is to accommodate its twin responsibilities of
promoting on the basis of qualifications and recognizing long-term contributions to the company.
9. Inbreeding, or promoting exclusively within the organization, presents challenges similar to those
presented by seniority. Nepotism—showing favoritism to relatives or close friends—is not
always objectionable, but it may overlook managerial responsibilities to the organization and may
result in unfair treatment of other employees.
10. Most moral issues in employee discipline and discharge concern how management carries out
these unpleasant tasks. Just cause and due process are necessary for fair treatment. Due process
requires that there be procedures for workers to appeal discipline and discharge. To ease the
trauma associated with discharge, employers should provide sufficient warning, severance pay,
and perhaps displacement counseling.
Teaching suggestions
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It can be useful to help students analyze the arguments and assumptions in this chapter. This can lead to
questions, discussion, and debate. This chapter mainly discusses (a) how employers should treat
employees and applicants, and (b) the moral implications of unions. Not every argument presented in this
chapter is obvious or uncontroversial. Instead, some of the arguments presented are philosophical and it
can be a good idea to analyze them in class. Some analysis and questions will be provided here.
1. Civil liberties – Shaw and Barry agree that employees and applicants have moral rights that should be
protected beyond what the law requires, but they didn't attempt to justify this position. This leaves us
with several questions: One, do we have civil liberties beyond what the law gives us? Utilitarianism could
imply that we have a right to anything that is necessary for our happiness and every moral theory agrees
2. Decisions made by employers – There are many occasions when employers should take morality into
consideration because their decision can help or hurt people. For example, their decisions to hire, dismiss,
discipline, and promote workers. Such decisions should be made with the interest of both the company
and the workers in mind, and decisions that can harm the company or workers are generally unjust. For
example, promoting workers based on seniority, nepotism, and inbreeding are often unjust because they
don't always reflect qualifications (factors that will benefit the company). Such decisions can harm the
company as a result. The most qualified employees are those that can benefit the company the most.
Shaw and Barry don't spend a lot of time arguing for these facts, but they do give intuitive support—it
seems like common sense to agree with many of their conclusions. It seems unfair for a company to refuse
3. Wages – The amount employees are paid pits the interests of workers against that of the company, and
many companies simply assume that they should pay workers the least amount possible. Shaw and Barry
insist that employees should be paid “fair wages” based on several intuitive criteria. For example,
employers should consider how much other workers make for doing “comparable work.” Management
4. Unions – Employers have more power when negotiating than workers. Very few people are
self-sufficient farmers. We rely on the education, resources, and machines made available by others; and
we have to find a way to make money to survive. Additionally, disorganized workers tend to be willing to
work in poorly paying and unsafe work. Labor unions exist to empower workers by helping them
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organize. One worker who demands a higher wage alone will be out of the job, but hundreds of workers
who demand higher wages are much more likely to get what they want. None of this implies that workers
should join unions or that employers who pay low wages are immoral. Even so, it's understandable why
workers would want to unionize.
Questions for Discussion
1. Shaw and Barry believe that companies should respect the civil liberties of their employees. But why
accept this? Although Shaw and Barry do not define “civil liberty,” a common definition is that civil
liberty is the liberty to exercise those rights guaranteed by the country or culture in which one lives.
However, like other philosophers Shaw and Barry distinguish between what is moral and what is legal,
and in chapter 1 they argued against ethical relativism. Thus, they need to show that the civil liberties in
question are not just rights that we happened to be granted by our legal system or culture, but rather that
those civil liberties are ones that, morally, we ought to have. Can this be done?
Moreover, what of due process? One needs, it seems, to argue that employees have a moral right to due
process, not just a legal right. Can this be done?
4. Shaw and Barry list a number of factors that bear on the fairness of the wage that a worker is paid. How
helpful are the guidelines they suggest? Can we always answer the question of whether a particular wage
is fair or unfair?
5. Libertarians would say that it is wrong for any government or group of people to require that a
company pay its workers a minimum wage. Why? How would a utilitarian look at the issue of minimum
wage? A Kantian?
6. Is it morally permissible to make membership in a particular union a prerequisite for employment?
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Additional Resources for Exploring Chapter Content
Internet Resources
AFL-CIO Website
http://www.aflcio.org/
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