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Employee Rights |
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Employee rights are any rights which refer to the status
of being an employee. These rights may be moral or legal.
These rights include some of the professional rights such as the right to
disobey the unethical instructions and the rights to express their
dissatisfaction on the company policies without any bad effects from the
employer side. It also implies all the basic human rights which are
reasonable to the employment situation such as the right of not to be
discriminated against.
Employee rights also have the institutional rights
which occur safely out of an employee's contracts created by
organizational policies or contracts. These rights are considered as
"Contractual Employee Rights". The rights to receive a
salary of a certain amount, right to receive some benefits from the
company such as periodic increments in the pay and profits sharing etc,
are some of the examples of contractual employee rights.
Another form of employee's rights is called as
"Non Contractual Employee Rights". These rights can occur
even if not formally recognized in the specific contracts or company
policies. These rights constitute the right to choose outside
activities, right to employer confidentiality, right to due process from
employer and right to non discrimination and absence of sexual harassment
at the work place.
FOUNDATIONS/BASES/PRINCIPLES OF PROFESSIONAL RIGHTS
Professional rights and duties can be justified by
reference to ethical theories such as Rights ethics, Duty ethics and
Utilitarianism.
(i) Right Ethics
Right theories emphasize "the human moral rights as
one of the fundamental grounds of morality". This theory
derives the right of professional conscience from a basic human right to
follow legitimate interests which implies a right to follow moral
obligations. Right theory also indicates that the general publics
have human rights to be warned of dangers to their safety due to
technological innovations/findings. Public rights make a basis for
considering the rights of professionals indirectly.
(ii) Duty Ethics
As per duty theory, the employers have a duty not to harm
the public by placing barriers in the works of the engineers who try to
meet their obligations to the public.
As per this theory, the employers have an obligation to
the engineers, not to use the forces which would create compromise of
personal moral integrity. No employer has the right to threaten
engineers with the loss of jobs for refusing to work on projects which
create damages to the public.
(iii) Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism theory argues that the greatest good is
promoted only by allowing engineers to follow their obligations to the
public. Rule-utilitarian tries to establish the best rule or policy
in regard to the employee's rights in order to promoting the public good.
Act-utilitarian should look at each and every situation whether and how
far the professionals should be permitted to exercise their consciences in
following their duties to the public.
Choice of Outside Activities
All the employees have the right to pursue non-work
activities of their own choice without coercion or compulsion from
employers. This is also a part of the human right of employees to
pursue legitimate interests without any interferences from the employers.
But there are some bad violations of this right as it has not been
protected by any law. For instance, an employer can scold heavily or
threaten his employee when he tries to involve in outside activities and
also an employer can slash out or fire by words his employee when he does
some activities which harm the image of the company.
In order to protect the public image, an institution can
put some limits on the employees' rights to engage in outside activities
which are listed as below, Privacy
It is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and
personal affairs out of public view, or to stop information about
themselves from becoming known to people other than those whom they choose
to give the information. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity
although it is often most highly valued by people who are publicly known.
Privacy can be seen as an aspect of secutity—one in which trade-offs
between the interests of one group and another can become particularly
clear.
The right against unsanctioned invasion of privacy by
the government, corporations or individuals is part of many countries'
laws, and in some cases, constituions or privacy laws. Almost all
countries have laws which in some way limit privacy, for example taxation
normally requires passing on information about earnings. In some countries
individual privacy may conflict with freedom of speech laws and some laws
may require public disclosure of information which would be considered
private in other countries and cultures.
Privacy may be voluntarily sacrificed, normally in exchange for
perceived benefits, but often with little benefit and very often with
specific dangers and losses. An example of voluntary sacrifice is entering
a competition; a person gives personal details (often for advertising
purposes), so they have a chance of winning a prize. Another example is
where information voluntarily shared is later stolen or misused such as
inidentity theft.
Right to privacy of employees means the right to stop access to and use
of information about oneself i.e., the employers should not interfere into
the private life of their employees. This right is also limited in
some cases by employer's rights. The following examples will show
the function of employers' conflict with the right of employees' privacy.
* Before appointing an employee for the post of
cashier, the employer can ask questions about their criminal records. Some of the above mentioned examples sometimes may be misused by the
employers in order to manage the organization effectively. The
unwanted interference of the employers is said to be morally problematic
and need some type of justifications.
For instance, a company may stick tiny microphones on
the identity cards of its employees without informing them, so that the
employer will be able to hear what they talk and where they are.
This activity upsets the workers and the employees would object to the
tricks made by the employer. But at the same time, if they are fully
communicated about the device at the time of their appointment that the
device is to be used as a condition of employment, the employees may not
be in a position to object.
According to the viewpoint of utilitarian, such
activity would make the worker unhappy and it would lead to a general
anxiety among the employees. Their conversational flow would be
affected. The use of such device would ruin the trust of the
employer. It would also lead to some kind of harassments.
According to duty ethicist, this kind of activity
breaks the duty to respect the people and demoralize them. The
intimate relationships may be affected and the personal freedom of
employees may also be affected.
So, the right to privacy is limited by the legitimate
actions of employers' to obtain and use information of employees only for
effective management of the organization. But this information
should not be informed to the outsiders. Then only the trust
relationship between employee and employer can be maintained.
Right To Due Process
It is the right to fair procedures in order to safeguard
the exercise of other rights. This right provides fair procedures in
firing / slashing, demotion and taking disciplinary actions, There are two
procedures in implementing the right to due process.
* Written explanations are owed to employees who are
discharged, demoted or transferred. The reasons for their
punishments should be clearly informed to them in a written format. Government employees and labor union members have these procedures.
And for private companies, they establish their own procedures. Conclusion
The rights of employees are summarized as below.
Employees are entitled to: Employees are expected to: References |
