Why is Understand the Legal Environment is Important?
The importance in understanding the legal environment is significant for moral, ethical, and legal reasons attributes and aspects to the company. It also affords the opportunity for a human resource department. It also prepares the company for any potential liabilities the business may have be obligated to pay. To understand the legal ramifications and regulations that need to be followed both by the employer and the employee clear lines in the sand can be drawn. There is a reason for these legal developments by previous experiences of a business (Gomez-Meija, Balkin and Cardy 2016, 112).
“Doing the Right Thing.”
From my experience this has been a catch phrase spoken in the military but not practiced. The only reason I mention it in this blog is because I have personally witnessed to the term “talk is cheap.” We can use our moral compasses to determine right from wrong but from a legal standpoint this has the possibility of walking a figuratively speaking tightrope. Our moral compass should not determine what the law reads but a human resources department should understand that their opinion of right from wrong should not dictate what is written in legislation. This is a depabate currently in the U.S. Supreme court on the philosophy of law and where it should be modified to moral and ethical reasons rather than taking the written laws at face value.
Challenges to Legal Compliance
Legal compliance is something that in my opinion a human resource department should probably designate someone specifically to fully understand. Since the human resource department is responsible for understanding those laws I think it is a practical opinion.
One of the challenges that human resource department face is attributed to bad management practices. For example, if the manager does not have a record of poor performance they have no legal grounds to let go of the employee. The manager did not keep good records therefore human resources could not try to fix the problem in a legal sense. There are conflicting strategies for legal implementation which also creates an additional challenge to human resource department (Gomez-Meija, Balkin and Cardy 2016, 113).
Equal Employment Opportunity Laws
These are the five most important laws that try to ensure equal employment opportunities:
- Equal Pay Act of 1963 – This law prohibits any discrimination in pay between males and females performing the same job in an organization.
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – This law prohibits employees from selecting employees based off of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
- Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 – This prohibits discrimination against potential employees over the ages of 40
- American with Disabilities Act on 1990 – Prohibits the discrimination of individuals with disabilities who can still perform essential functions.
- Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Act of 1974 – Prohibits the discrimination of Vietnam era veterans and provides affirmative action requirements for federal contractors.
Chapter 15: Working with Organized Labor
Why Do Employees Join Unions?
I have heard constant reference to organized labor such as unions so why is it that people join unions? There are typically four primary reasons employees join the organized labor union .(Gomez-Meija, Balkin and Cardy 2016, 493):
- The employee is no satisfied with a particular aspect of their employment
- They lack getting any help from management to make needed change
- They believe that their pay and benefits are noncompetitive
- They see joining a union as possible getting the support they could not receive outside a union.
All of those reasons to me can be attributed to the distrust of the organization in that the employee feels that they need some kind of support system. Perhaps fighting the problem on their own is not working so they seek group or in another word union refuge.
Labor Relations in the USA and in other Countries
Labor relations within the United States falls in to six primary categories:
- Business unionism
- Union structured by a particular type of job
- Focusing on group bargaining
- The use of labor contracts
- Adversarial nature of labor-management relations and reducing union membership
- Growth of a union in a public sector
Labor relations globally but specifically in Germany and Japan have odne much better in having a degree of cooperation between unions and management. However, some believe that economical pressure is straining labor management relation sin those countries today.(Gomez-Meija, Balkin and Cardy 2016, 499).
Labor Relations Strategy and Management
This is the underlining plan for dealing with labor unions. There are two ways that a company can implement a strategy
- Union Acceptance – Companies that view unions as their employees legitimate representatives and accept bargaining as a correct method for establishing workplace rules
- Union- Avoidance – These companies use either union substitution or union suppression to keep other unions away from the workplace.
Impact of Unions on Human Resource Management
The impact is significant from union formation in a multitude of ways. One of our first triggers in our international business course was directly related to this chapters subject matter. We watched a Netflix documentary about windshielf company that feared the formation of a union with its CEO being from China and having a negative impression of what unions represent
Management can anticipate that any formation of unions can have an affect on ever major aspect of their human resource department.Staffing decisions will be heavily influenced as seniority generally becomes the priority rather than merit. This concept I wholeheartedly disagree with. Individual performance appraisals are severly hindered as well.
I understand the reason but I do not agree that a manager should be forced to put up with one. In my opinion there is a contractual agreement between employee and employer and if those agreements are not met both parties have an agreement to cease their contract together. This should make it so that if a employee is not satisfied in the workplace they have the option to leave voluntarily rather than run to a symbolic mother that seems to be to be union organizations.
Case Study #1: Avoiding Workplace Discrimination Against Employees with Natural Hairstyles
At the moment only seven states in the USA have laws again workplace discrimination based on employees’ natural hairstyles. In my opinion not enough at all. I have also seen this kind of discrimination.
I fully acknowledge that there is a difference between looking professional and messy. However, certain factors must be taken into account before making anykind of managerial decision. One of those factors being if the hair looks natural enough to be deemed professional while also considering the employees race.
I understand that there needs to be a focus on professional appearance but also think it hinders managers from basing their professional preferences on merit rather than appearance.
Case Study #2: Unions Push for Working from Home Rights
The article I am using for this second case study is providing an example of a union in operation in current events. In the article it states that the union is trying to ensure that employees would be paid an allowance to cover all job-related expensed to ensure the shift away from offices is fair. This would include any expenses spent for water, electricity, gas, telephone and internet bills.
If I am completely honest with myself and this blog this seems like nothing but a greedy way for people to try to suck out of their employer. In these current times businesses are already struggling to survive and don’t need an additional internal influence to put them into more financial trouble. The employees get to work from home and they should already should see that as a means of saving money as transportation to and from work is no longer required.
References
Bloomberg Law. 2020. Avoiding Workplace Discrimination Against Employees with Natural Hairstyles URL: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/avoiding-workplace-discrimination-against-employees-with-natural-hairstyles Accessed: 16 November 2020
Coughlin, M. 2020. Unions Push for Working from Home Rights URL: https://www.newcastlestar.com.au/story/7015453/unions-push-for-working-from-home-rights/?cs=7307 Accessed: 16 November 2020
Gomez-Mejia, L.R. Balkin, D.B. & Cardy, R.L. 2016. Managing Human Resources. Global 8th ed. Pearson. London.
Trigger 1 