Construction Safety - Research Paper Example

Construction safety: The employee’s act of informing OSHA might not be lawful, but is ethically justified. Most “at-will” employers assume the rightto terminate the employees without a clear indication of the reason of termination. Employees could be terminated because of many reasons including reporting against the employer or being on leave without the employer’s consent. However, if the employee signed a contract with the employer that had a clause in it reading that the latter might terminate the former without any prior indication or disclosure of reason of termination, employer’s attempt to terminate the employee is quite lawful.

The employee might as a result claim against the undue termination. However, “An “at-will” employer - that is, an employer who reserves the right to terminate employees without cause - generally does not need to worry about such claims.” (Muskovitz, 2010). The employee’s act of informing OSHA is fairly justified since this tends to develop a culture of respect for humanity and civilization. OSHA is a statutory body that has a right to interfere with the business for good without having to gain the consent of the employers only because government has trust in OSHA’s laws and proceedings.

The employee’s attempt to inform OSHA about the unethical instructions of his employer is ethical because this would cause the employer to be careful about the OSHA considerations of his instructions. $15,000 is a big amount and OSHA could not have charged the employer this amount unless he was proved guilty of having committed a serious offense against the rules of OSHA. OSHA is meant to ensure health and safety on site and if the employee’s call to OSHA made it impose such a large fine on the employer, it means that the employee’s action was justified.

References:Muskovitz, M. (2010). Employment Terminations – How To Avoid Legal Problems. Retrieved from http://humanresources.about.com/od/legalissues/a/terminations.htm.