The Basic Duties of Employers to Their Employees - Assignment Example

of your Lecturer 6 June, Question Please identify the basic duties of employers to their employees, and discuss which of these duties the employer failed to do, based on the documentary "A Dangerous Business: The McWane Story." Basic Duties of Employers to Employees The employer has to ensure that s/he conducts sufficient and reasonable risk analysis and review in order to identify the important pointers and issues that are vital in protecting employees (Hughes and Ferrett 16); Pay remunerations and honor elements of the employment contract; Adhere to statutory provisions and requirements for employment and ensure the health and safety of employees on the premises whilst they work (Chandler 3); An employer is responsible for training and getting an employee to work according to the principles of best practice and this must also safeguard the basic interest of the employee including his/her health and safety on the job (Hughes and Ferrett 16). Respond to the individual, social and emotional needs of employees as it is required and this includes amongst other things – pregnant and expectant mothers. Take reasonable steps to identify and eliminate discrimination of various forms (Chandler 3); The employer has a Common Law duty of subjecting employees to reasonable treatment; Employers also have the duty of ensuring that they implement fair labor standards in their operations and activities (Adamson and Morrison 409); An employer also has to make some mandatory and statutory payroll deduction that is required by law (Adamson and Morrison 410); Respect of the rights of members of the Armed Forces and to integrate them into the workforce without prejudice for their service in the US military; Voting rights of employees and their rights to various civic responsibilities must be respected by employers; Employers must respect family and health leaves that employees may require. Employers have a duty to provide proper plant and equipment that can be used to carry out various activities in the operations of the firm (Harpwood 321) Case Analysis A Dangerous Business: The McWane Story (PBS) The McWane Story included various issues which are contrary to the obligations and requirements of a good employer. This include important problems and issues with the balance between profitability and the requirement for ethics in relation to social and environmental matters that culminated into health and safety issues and major employment challenges that led to important and serious problems for the employees of the organization. These issues and problems are identified and discussed below because they have various implications for the duties and obligations of employers. Focus on Profitability Primarily, McWane was fundamentally involved in ensuring that profitability was at the center of its practice and its operations. This includes the focus on profits rather than other issues and matters like working with sensitivity and concerns for employees and workers. This led to a strong desire and a strong quest for attaining profits without concerning workers of the plant. Health Issues OSHA Rules have various requirements for employers like McWane. This includes the fact that employers are required to follow health and safety in protecting employees in dealing with their work. However, McWane’s Tyler Pipes plant was one that overlooked numerous processes and systems that was necessary to improve profitability. However, this process was limited because the firm focused significantly on profits without concerning themselves with the demands and expectations of workers. Safety was sacrificed for meeting productivity targets and for ensuring that workers continue to attain important results and important ends. This led to numerous accidents and processes that led to important processes and systems. Aggressive Expansion disguised as disciplined Management practices The management practices and processes of McWane were such that workers were required and expected to adhere to strict management practices and standards. The implication was that the managers had to overlook important employment statutes including some Common Law and other legal requirements for the regulation of employee relationships. Accidents and issues relating to inattentiveness due to overwork The use of harsh and strict standards and expectations for workers and the quest for productivity created a system where there was the need for workers to overwork beyond the statutory standards and legal requirements. Hence, workers had to work extremely hard and for long hours. This culminated in major accidents and issues that created problems for workers and this led to a poor result and a poor attitude towards workers and employees’ quest to prevent accidents. These accidents created major problems and major issues that workers could not do to promote the rights of employees. Refusal to pay compensation and argument against paying compensation to injured workers: Poor compensation plans – No injury was legitimate The employer has the duty to ensure that they pay accurate compensation to injured workers in the process of work. This led to a major situation where many workers had accidents but their compensation claims failed because the employers were not willing to pay these forms of compensations. This was against the laws on employee relations and workers had to pay for their own injuries. Recruiting ex-convicts and Cheap Labor Employers have a duty to ensure that they recruit the right people and the right workers. This is because there are regulations on how to keep the demand and supply of labor in the right framework. However, due to the fact that most workers with options could find other jobs because of McWane’s harsh work conditions they sought cheap labor. This include the employment of ex-convicts and possibly, illegal immigrants as a way of cutting down costs and cutting down their obligations to workers. Criminal liability for the company’s attitude McWane was of a highly defensive posture and was willing to promote its profitability at the expense of workers. This is evidenced by the fact that they hired a strong legal team as a means of protecting the firm from issues and problems. This leads to a situation where they find the best legal brains to prevent liabilities and attain an end that is against the legal system that protects employees rather than employers. Question 2; Please identify the basic areas of civil rights in the employment arena, and discuss how businesses/government violated the civil rights of individuals in the following cases: Jensen v. Eveleth Taconite Corporation; Velez v. Novartis; Lewis v. City of Chicago; Ricci v. DeStefano; and Fink v. MXenergy (EEOC complaint). Please use the IRAC form to discuss the cases. Civil Rights in the field of employment relates to guaranteeing the basic and fundamental rights of workers and employees. This include the fact that there is the need to spread some important and fundamental elements and aspects of the Civil Liberties and basic rights of people in America who are employed in various jobs and organizations around the country. Civil Rights has its roots in the African-American movement that sought to campaign for equality and fairness amongst all Americans. This led to the rules presented by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) and several other entities that sought to create a system of protecting the rights of all persons in the United States of America. The EEOC sought to eliminate employee discrimination in the workplace and also find ways of getting workers to air their grievances and deal with issues and problems relating to their work and various forms of discriminations they encounter in course of carrying out their work and activities. In analysis, of cases by the EEOC, there is the need for the facts to be examined to identify if the act in question seeks to have a negative impact on a given person who belongs to a class of persons that is reasonably targeted by the alleged perpetrator. In defining whether the act was targeting a specific class of persons, there is the need for the analysis of the situation and circumstances in relation to various laws and various rules that are made to protect specific classes of people in the community. This includes: 1. Race, Color, National Origin and Religion; 2. Gender Discrimination; 3. Sexual Harassment; 4. Age Discrimination; 5. Disability This creates a system and process within which rules are presented and made to protect different classes and different groups of people in order to preserve their rights and protect their activities and inclusion in the society. This is also done through various positive actions like affirmative actions that are meant to reverse past discrimination and promote inclusion and the building of proper and appropriate practices. Various cases have come up that provide a system of legal precedence that guide and show employers how to deal with situations due to the rulings that came their way. Jensen V Eveleth Taconite Corporation In this case, there was a female employee who was employed in 1975 and she endured various levels of hostile behavior that relates to sexual harassment, abusive language, threats and stalking which continued for almost a decade. The woman in question and other women alerted the Minnesota Human Rights Department of their situation and circumstance and sued for post-traumatic stress. This culminated in a series of cases that led to important rulings that set the precedence that businesses are required to protect various workers from sexual harassment and this is meant to promote the important issue of justice and protection of the fundamental rights of workers, particularly female workers to work without being harassed and treated inappropriately in the work place. Velez V Novartis This case fundamentally tested the premise of whether a class of workers in an organization could sue collectively on the grounds of some kind of sex-oriented or social process that negatively impacts on operations. There was a general discrimination towards female workers who got pregnant. Based on a class action suit, the case culminated in a US$175 million damage that was presented to 5,600 female workers who were negatively impacted by the practice of discrimination against female workers in Novartis. Lewis v. City of Chicago The issue was whether there was an indirect discrimination against various African-American workers or not. According to the facts of the case, the City of Chicago had a 66% pass mark for applicants. The City authorities arbitrarily set up a high standard of 89% as pass mark which segregated those who passed. This created a higher class of applicants and a lower class of applicants. As a result of this, some African-American applicants were not offered jobs. The court held that the African-Americans were victims of indirect discrimination because the higher score (89%+) provided automatic employment for all. However, the African-Americans who got between 66% and 89% were often refused job offers. This was held to be a systematic tool and approach meant to exclude African-Americans from the job. Hence, the case of indirect discrimination in the workplace indicated that workers could not be systematically excluded through some kind of negative scheme. Ricci v. DeStefano In this case, there were some White officers and one Hispanic officer of the New Haven Fire Fighting unit who were qualified for promotions. They took a test with other applicants but were refused a place in the promotion slot because they gave preference to non-White people because of the need for inclusion and positive discrimination or affirmative action. The court held that once the organization stated that they were going to promote on the basis of the success and inputs made by participants in the examination to be held, it was wrong for any of the successful applicants to be denied the right to promotion because of the affirmative action of the entity. Fink v. MXenergy (EEOC complaint) This was a case of discriminatory dismissal and unfair dismissal. According to the facts of the case, Ms Fink was a hardworking employee who always got positive reviews in her job. After going through a medical check and a medical evaluation, it was apparent that she was going to have a breast cancer and a breast issue. Shortly afterwards, Ms Fink got a negative review and two months afterwards, her appointment was effectively terminated and a replacement was made with a different worker hired in her stead. Ms Fink sued for discrimination on the basis of her sex and unfair dismissal. The facts indicate that Ms Fink’s termination was unfair because she got the qualified review because the circumstances were construed in a negative light due to the desire to dismiss such a worker. This shows that there is the need for her to be accommodated in the job as an intrinsic part of the job, rather than a disposable person who can be dismissed as per circumstances and situations that comes up. Question 3; Please discuss the business decisions which ultimately lead to the economic crisis which precipitated the Great Recession, and explain whom you believe to be the "villains" and the "heroes" of the crisis. Please use your text, the lectures, the documentary "Inside the Meltdown" and the article on credit default swaps to support your argument. In order to conduct a discussion on this topic, we will restrict our analysis to the Global Financial Crisis or the Credit Crunch that occurred between 2006 and 2010. This is a situation where housing prices fell significantly and numerous processes and numerous circumstances that caused serious financial situations in the country. The Great Recession is a situation that occurred in a context of providing massive loans in order to provide property and buildings that are used in providing people with the right to own property at high interest rates. Therefore, the banks and other financial intermediaries concentrated on promoting and enhancing the loans that were given to consumers and other members of the society. The aim and objectives of these financial intermediaries was to gain more interest from consumers in order to deal with the needs and expectations of workers. This helped the banks and financial institutions like JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers to appear as great and high performing entities. Hence, as the healthy figures were produced and the US war against terrorism caused major slumps, the rating agencies continued to maintain positive and improved figures that continued to mislead members of the public. As this practice went on, the financial institutions that benefited from higher and better profitability figures continued to present financial statements that presented a misleading figure. Meanwhile, the United States continued to take loans and monies poured into the economy by nations that were providing high sovereign debts. This includes countries like China that was trading at a huge balance of payment balance against the United States. Other countries like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia continued providing loans to the United States as a sovereign government loan. However, as things changed and negative processes and poor conditions occurred, there was the need for the rating agencies like Standards and Poors and Moody’s to downgrade the US government’s rating, they continued to maintain a positive image and a positive view of the United States of America. Therefore, when the realities came to the fore and an investigative taskforce was set up to investigate misstatement by sensitive entities like JP Morgan Chase, Lehman Brothers and other financial intermediaries, the realities came up and the fact that most property loans were not valid caused mortgages and property loans to be devalued. This caused most homeowners to lose their homes and this caused the United States government to make adjustments and major emergency cuts in order to survive. This is because with a huge reliance on sovereign debts, the United States was going to have to face a rating degradation and this was going to have a negative view of the US as a secured destination for investment and this was going to have long-term effects. Therefore, the US government had to tighten its spending processes and force certain entities to make sacrifices. The crackdown on spending caused many firms to make major cuts. This caused the lay-off of numerous workers and the next impact was that there was a major reduction in employment. Also, there were major cuts to different sectors of the economy. To ensure survival, the US Central Bank had to engage in various quantitative easing that enabled the government to print more money and also provide some kind of reliefs to entities and banks to stimulate the economy. This enabled the US government to cut down on spending and raise money that was necessary to bring the economy back to its former position. The pain players that played various roles include the greedy and the demanding financial intermediaries that got commission from selling interest bearing property loans like mortgages. Their greed and desire to make money caused them to sell bonds to entities that did not deserve to get those loans. The second category includes the regulatory agencies that did not take reasonable steps to force such entities to account for their actions properly. The third category was the “independent” rating agencies who played according to their tone and rated various entities in an undeserving manner. Finally, the US government had to respond to the situation by way of coming up with numerous cuts and numerous arrangements that allowed the nation to reduce spending. This is because the country was not in a position to respond to the financial crisis by injecting money to the economy. Rather, they were able to make systematic cuts that had various impacts like creating mass unemployment and reduction of welfare spending. This was meant to eliminate sovereign debts and create strategic financial injections into the economy to stimulate it and bring it back to life. Bibliography Adamson, John and Amanda Morrison. Law for Business and Personal Use. Mason, OH: Cengage, 2010. Chandler, Peter. Wauds Employment Law. London: Kogan Page, 2012. Harpwood, Victor. Modern Tort Law. London: Routledge, 2012. Hughes, Phil and Ed Ferrett. Introduction to Health and Safety at Work. New York: Elsevier, 2010. PBS Frontline: A Dangerous Business. Dir. Bowden Dave. PBS. 2011. Read More