Procedural Justice at Coca-Cola - Case Study Example

Procedural Justice at Coca-Cola Procedural Justice Definition Procedural justice is a concept that relates to moral rightness, fairness and equity with respect to the procedural issues that affect employees. Procedural justice demands that there should be fair, just and transparent procedures in place in order to deal with such issues, the procedures should be the same for everyone and that these procedures should be followed in an objective manner when deciding an employee’s case (Fujishiro). The Criteria of Procedural Justice While procedural justice is easy to understand as a general concept, going into detail we discover three specific major aspects of procedural justice, these are: 1) Consistency, 2) Bias Suppression and 3) Voice. Consistency Consistency, in the context of procedural justice, refers to uniformity in the procedures used to treat employees. Consistency in procedural justice includes a number of ideas, for example: People who commit the same infractions should be treated in the same way. Certain employees should not be exempted from rules that are applied to everyone else The rules and procedures should not target merely one section of the employees. Each employee should be treated with equal respect and consideration[Tyl97]. According to the racial discrimination lawsuit, the African-American employees were vastly under-represented at the management levels and there were no African-American in the senior management of the company, aside from Carl Ware (Parker, 2006). African-American supervisors noted that they received a lower salary than the white workers they supervised and an African-American employee working in the benefits office noted that African-American employees rarely received stock options (Parker, 2006). These facts and figure provide evidence against the presence of consistency in the treatment of employees at Coca-Cola. It is possible that the management of Coca-Cola did not consistently apply the procedures for promotions, pay raises and giving stock options in the case of African-American employees. Another example of procedural injustice was recognized in Australia when, in the Mabo v. Queensland (No. 2) case (1992), the High Court of Australia ruled that the seizure of Aboriginal property that the government used to engage in, was unlawful because it did not give the aboriginal citizens the protection against property seizure that was available to White settlers (McNeil, 1996). Bias Suppression (Without Self-Interest) A bias in context of procedural justice refers to a strongly held prior belief that makes the decision making entity give inadequate consideration to one opinion or point of view and prevents the giving of an impartial, unprejudiced and objective decisions based solely on the merits of a case. The absence of bias necessitates that the person judging the case is an impartial third party, separate from both the accused and the accuser. In order for there to be procedural justice, those making decisions should be able to suppress their biases and resolve all issues in an unbiased manner. One obvious aspect of bias arises when the decision maker has a vested interest in making a certain decision, a more subtle form of bias is when the decision maker has no vested interest in making a certain decision and yet their preconceived notions affect the decisions they make. Coca-Cola is a company founded in the South. According to Hays (2004) despite having become a multinational corporation, the corporate culture at Coca-Cola was strongly colored by Southern prejudices against African-Americans (Parker, 2006). In the racial discrimination lawsuit, the African-American alleged that the environment at Coca-Cola was deeply unfavorable toward African-Americans. Linda Ingram, an African-American informational analyst who was one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, faced an example of this prejudice from her White supervisor Elaine Arnold. During a fervent discussion, Arnold admonished her, saying, “This is why you people (meaning African-Americans) don’t get anywhere” (Parker, 2006). The African-American employees were viewed as lacking in the skills and intelligence needed to work in certain areas and were thus denied opportunities to work in those areas (Parker, 2006). It is obvious from this that there was a definite institutional bias in place at Coca-Cola, against African-American employees and these employees could not be expected to trust their management to deal fairly with their grievances since the management was not able to suppress their biases against African-Americans when making decisions. Another example of procedural injustice due to bias has been observed in the United States during traffic stops by the police. It has been observed that African-Americans are stopped by the police in disproportional numbers; this has been explained to be a result of a presumption by police officers that African-Americans are likely to be criminals (Engel, 2005). Voice A major criterion of procedural justice is that all the stakeholders in a case are allowed to have their ‘voice’. This means, for example, that when an employee is accused of a misdemeanor, he or she is not immediately awarded a punishment for it but is given the chance to defend themselves and explain their point of view of the event before any judgment is applied. Having a ‘voice’ necessitates that people who speak out and complain against harassment, should be safe from retaliation from the offenders or their associates. According to the racial discrimination lawsuit, this aspect of procedural justice was not present at Coca-Cola. African-Americans who complained of the hostile environment they faced, were denounced, spied upon or were fired from their jobs (Parker, 2006). When Linda Ingram complained about the racially charged incident with her supervisor Elaine Arnold, Arnold was fired after an investigation however she had to face retaliation from her coworkers who gave her the cold shoulder (Parker, 2006). These incidents show that there was a lack of ‘voice’ at Coca-Cola since there was a general culture of hostility against those who spoke out against racial discrimination. The presence of this hostility would serve to intimidate those who may have faced racial discrimination and prevent them from speaking out and complaining about what they experienced. Another example of procedural injustice due to lack of voice is of temporary migrant farm workers in the United States, who do not have the right to vote (Martin, 2004). Conclusion A look at the alleged practices of Coca-Cola in the light of the values of procedural justice shows that if the accusations against the company were accurate, as would be suggested by the company’s willingness to settle with the plaintiffs, the African-American employees of the company were the victims of procedural injustice at the hands of the overwhelmingly White management and the company was guilty of committing volition of the values of procedural justice in all of its three major aspects. References Edid, M., (2004) Review Promise Unfulfilled: Unions, Immigration, and the Farm Workers. Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 58(1), pp.150-53. Engel, R.S., (2005) Citizens' perceptions of distributive and procedural injustice during traffic stops with police. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 42(4), pp.445-81. Tyl97: , (Tyler & Wakslak, 1997), McNeil, K., (1996) Racial Discrimination And Unilateral Extinguishment Of Native Title. Australian Indigenous Law Reporter, 1(2), 182-220. Parker, P. (2006) Keeping it Real: Race, Difference, and Corporate Ethics at Coca-Cola. In May, S. ed. Case Studies in Organizational Communication: Ethical Perspectives and Practices. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. 169-80. Tyler, T., & Wakslak, C. J. (1997). Profiling and Police: Legitimacy: Procedural Justice, Attributions of Motive and Acceptance of Police Authority. Crimnology , 42 (2), 253-281. Read More