Work, privacy, and autonomy - Essay Example

1. Lippke maintains that privacy is valuable because of its relation to autonomy and (following Joseph Kupfer) highlights two ways in which privacy contributes to autonomy. Explain the connections between privacy and autonomy. Do you agree that autonomy is the reason privacy is valuable? According to Lippke (1989), autonomy is the capacity of an individual to choose what his objectives in life will be and what means he/she will utilize to achieve these objectives, using the reason and intelligence he/she possesses.

Every aspect of a person’s life becomes subject to the person’s autonomy. Privacy, on the other hand, involves two things. First is control of information about ones self, and the other, some control over who can experience or observe the person. An example given is that privacy in relation to a spouse is different from privacy in relation to an employer. As proposed by Kupfer, privacy and autonomy are related to each other in that autonomy requires an awareness of control over one’s relationship with others, which is part of the essence of personal choice.

Privacy contributes to autonomy because it provides he individual control over whether or not he/she will allow somebody else to be part of his/her experiences. Further, Lippke and Kupfer argue that autonomous individuals are those that have the capacity for it, a developed autonomous self-concept. If the individual cannot develop his autonomous self-concept, then he/she is not autonomous. Lack of privacy prevents or inhibits the development of such autonomous self-concept. I agree that both autonomy and privacy are valuable.

Autonomy can be likened to a person’s independence or capacity for independent choices. Like in the relationship of a parent and child, it is deemed necessary for the parent to develop independence in a child as part of the preparation for responsible adulthood. And among the ways of nurturing this independence, aside from a parent’s mentoring, is by respecting the growing child increasing rights to privacy. In the workplace, I believe that the employees’ rights to privacy must be maintained and upheld.

After all, there are advantages to both employee and employer by maintaining employee autonomy. Most organizations today desire employees who are initiative, resourceful and require minimal supervision. However, the scope of employee privacy rights in the workplace needs to be defined and accepted by both employer and employee as part of the exercise of freedom of contract. 2. Relying on a contractual model of employer-employee relations some writers like DesJardins and Brenkert use the concept of “job relevance” to restrict the information employers may justifiably gather about employees.

What are Lippke’s reasons for rejecting this approach? Are you dissuaded by his arguments? Lippke offers a number of reasons for rejecting the approach of restricting the information that employers may justifiably gather about employees to job relevance as part of the contractual model of employer-employee relations. He argues that the contractual model has a crucial imbalance of power between employer and employee. Workers need jobs more desperately than employers need specific workers, because there are intrinsically more prospective employees than there are jobs.

The imbalance of power restricts one employee from exercising or demanding his/her right to privacy for fear of the loss of a job opportunity, because another prospective employee may be more willing to forego his/her right and therefore take the job instead. Lippke further argues that the contractual model suggests an equality that actually does not exist. Another argument by Lippke rejecting the approach is that the concept of job relevance may be impossible to define, as even information on political or religious persuasion may be job relevant if the job requires workers to closely work together, where shared persuasions would be an advantage.

Still another argument is that the job relevance approach proposed by DesJardins and Brenkert is not tied to moral values and may result in employees not wanting to explore new ideas and experiment on new methods for fear of future repercussions related to job-relevant information about them. There is also the danger of incorrect inferences that an employer may make because of information gathered. I am sympathetic with Lippke’s reasons for rejecting the job-relevance approach proposed by DesJardins and Brenkert.

However, I do not totally reject the concept of using job relevance as the fundamental basis for determining what types of information may be gathered by employers regarding their employees along lines mindful of moral and ethical practices. Information on sexual preference may be job relevant from a psychological or behavioral point of view in terms of employee motivation and management, but it may not be relevant as a basis for discriminating on who are qualified for hiring and not. Special care, therefore needs to be taken by employers in evaluating whatever information they gather whether or not these are relevant to the job, or whether or not the information was required or merely available. 3. By contrast with the contractual model, what are Lippke’s reasons both for opposing employers’ acquiring certain sorts of information and for objecting to certain methods of gathering it?

Lippke cites a number of reasons for opposing the employers’ acquisition of certain sorts of information and for objecting to certain methods of gathering them. One opposition is that the process of acquiring information may produce both job relevant and irrelevant information. An example is the urine test to check for drug or alcohol abuse. Lippke argues that use of alcohol or drugs on the job may be job-relevant but arguably may not be so, off the job. Similarly, polygraph tests may provide job-relevant information, but there are arguments as to the accurateness of interpretation of such tests in relation to job relevance.

Another opposition posed by Lippke is that the methods used are too intrusive and come to close to physical and psychological boundaries of morality and ethics. Lippke further argues that these methods produce negative effects on employees. It only reinforces the notion of imbalance of power in the work environment between employer and employee contrary to the spirit of free contract. The methods imply that employees cannot be trusted to act responsibly, thereby undermining the employees’ sense of trustworthiness, which have negative repercussions not only for the employee but the employer as well.4. Do you agree with Lippke that there is a grave imbalance in power between employers and employees and that the workplace is characterized by authoritarian management structures that deprive employees of much of their autonomy?

What are the implications of viewing privacy rights in this context? I agree with Lippke that there is an imbalance of power between employers and employees. But the gravity of this imbalance varies from organization to organization. I agree that although free contract dictates equality between the contracting parties, the nature of the employer-employee relationship intrinsically encourages employers to exercise their powers more than how it encourages employees to restrict the exercise of such employer powers or to prevent their non-exercise of their own powers.

This has naturally been brought about by the reality of a lot more prospective employees than there are jobs to be had. However, with different organizations exercising different management styles, the gravity of imbalance of power is also mitigated. Authoritarian and autocratic organizations tend to have graver power imbalance than those using more democratic approaches (Grzeskowiak, 2008). With the increasing practice of employee empowerment, the imbalance of power is reduced. In this context, employee privacy rights are better upheld in democratic organizations than in authoritarian ones.

A mitigating factor for prospective employees is the continued existence of their right to reject employment. Organizations which have experienced negative effects due to practices which are generally unacceptable to the majority of employees have experienced the need to change their practices and utilize less autocratic and more democratic and humanitarian ones. 5. How does Lippke respond to the argument that the property rights of owners and stockholders should take precedence over the privacy rights of employees?

Do you agree that the existing organization of work contributes significantly to problems like drug use and dishonesty? Lippke contends that property rights should not be linked with privacy rights because they are based on different perspectives. Property rights somehow give the holder control over others lives. Privacy rights only give the holder control over his/her own life. Respecting privacy rights does not provide the individual increased control over the lives of others. According to Lippke, the current situation in the United States is that property rights of employers are already institutionalized.

His arguments regarding property rights involve those that will preserve it, increase it or curtail it. Lippke suggests that voting in favor of the precedence of employer property rights over the privacy rights of employees will only increase the already entrenched and sometimes abused employer property rights to the further detriment of the employees’ quest for autonomy. Another way that Lippke responds to the notion of precedence of property to privacy rights is that a vote in favor of this notion will exonerate employers from blame for generating irresponsible employee behavior and that defenders of privacy rights are portrayed as condoning dishonesty, drug abuse and other negative qualities.

I do not agree that generally speaking, the existing organization of work significantly contributes to problems like drug use and dishonest. In severe instances, and probably in some organizations, work conditions may indeed contribute to problems like drug use and dishonesty. However, with the increasing awareness of how certain practices produce more negative results than good, which are detrimental to the organization, the organization itself adjusts and corrects it practices to prevent further business deterioration.

Moreover, I personally believe that dishonesty and substance abuse are both detrimental not only to an individual’s career but also to a business’ success. I therefore tend to support information gathering related to these concerns. However, I also firmly believe in the right to privacy. It is therefore incumbent upon business managers, specially human resource professionals to be competent in determining what information needs to be gathered and what methods should be used to gather them, those not violating moral and ethical boundaries of personal privacy.

ReferencesGrzeskowiak, G. (2008). Management styles. Retrieved 24 November 2008, from http://www.medhunters.com/articles/managementStyles.htmlLippke, R.L (1989). Work, privacy, and autonomy. Public Affairs Quarterly 3.