Employee rights and responsibilities

Ethics -- Employee and Manager Rights

The American legal system provides a legislative ground for ethical protection in the workplace. In the constant push-and-pull at the heart of a capitalist economy in a republican regime, the moral equity of protection extends to both the manager and the employee. While changing political tides in Washington proffer an ever-shifting interpretation of these laws and new focus on which party is most accommodated, at the heart of all ethics issues in the workplace is its legal guidepost. Frequently, the employee is first to lose protection in the decision-making process, evidenced most broadly by the ethical framework at play in the Enron/Arthur Anderson scandal.

Despite a national awareness that the worker needs protection against the natural hierarchy of a capitalist workplace, the Constitution holds now application inside the confines of office halls. In the 18th Century, the Bill of Rights amended the Constitution, the government was seen as the real threat to the average American, not an employer; yet, as the American Civil Liberties Union and other unions that push for the employee rights' recognition so critical to a successful economic society, today that threat has changed; no longer does the government pose as auspicious a threat as presented by employers who can whittle away presumed rights in the workplace that degrade the natural liberties of a worker. "Rights can be seen as claims that individuals have against others to be treated in certain ways or to receive specific goods," and while outside the office walls these rights might be inalienable, inside the workplace the juxtaposition of the worker and the manger put these liberties into quick relief. (114)

Milton Freidman synthesizes the relationship between the various hierarchies as a series of responsibilities and benefits. He focuses on the requisite bow of a manager to an owner that, later, defines that manager's relationship to the employee as quotidian matters are dealt with an a system of decision making established.

"In a free-enterprise, private property system a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct responsibility to his employers. This responsibility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to the basic rules of society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom ... [T]he key point is that, in his capacity as a corporate executive, the manger is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation ... And his primary responsibility is to them." (115)

The Enron case illuminates this view as far too simple. While a business manager is just an employee of the owner, he also has professional responsibilities that extend beyond his stockholders and to the very people who make the creation of that stock possible: the workers. Sharon Watkins embodied this important facet of the workplace ethics paradigm when, as a vice president and accountant, she described to Kenneth Lay that "managerial responsibilities may sometimes conflict with professional responsibilities." (115)

Nevertheless, what is clear is that the responsibilities that define employee and employer rights are a product of the nature of the relationship between the employer and the employee. United States law is underlined by Friedman's assertion, a narrow view of employee responsibilities, but in the United Sates, legalities extend the responsibilities and rights of the agent-principal concept to guide a the construction of an equitable relationship between both parties. Historically, this corollary has established the employers as the principal, while employees are hired to perform the responsibilities of that principal. "While this 'fiduciary' relationship creates responsibilities on both sides, the primary responsibilities lie with the employee who ows the employer duties of loyalty, obedience, and confidentiality among others." (115) This simplistic relationship at the heart of American law puts the employee in a position of unease, which historical unifications of workers and massive movements for social justice as well as lobby groups and workers' unions have sought to amend.

At the heart of the matter, the "servant's responsibility is to obey the employer's direction and the employer's responsibility is to pay the agreed-upon wages." (116) The law allows for a step further, adding that agents owe legal duties of "loyalty, trust, obedience, and confidentiality." (116) The hackneyed character to this relationship is undeniable. If the primary responsibility of the worker is to his boss, modern American society would conclude that the principal owes the agent the same respect provided by the Constitution to the citizen in his private life. The rosey pages of the Financial Times and the crinkled sheets of the Wall Street Journal warn of stories where employers have neglected their inherent responsibility to their workers, American to American, and have subjected them to the unfair treatment and ultimate downfall witnessed in the loss of 401k plans in the Enron scandal. Furthermore, employees in the private sector who are not unionized can face dismissal without due process, be subjected to urine drug tests at risk of losing their job, and even the subject of secret digital and technological monitoring.

Managerial positions hold great responsibility to both their owners (be they small-business individuals or stock holders in multi-national corporations) and their workers. Friedman purports that their responsibilities to their owners are summarized by attending to their leader's desires, largely, "to make as much money as possible." ( 119) But in the modern sphere of stock holders, the concept of "owners" could extend back to the workers, as it did in Enron, whose 401ks consist of shares in the company's stocks. As such, they have the right to know exactly the nature of the business, allowing for a new range of responsibilities and rights at both levels. At the same time, the role of the manager is further complicated.

"Every decision that a business manager makes imposes costs on someone." (121) Every decision that manager makes puts one opportunity at odds with another, and in choosing to make any decision, the manager is forced to choose one option over another, subjugating one party to the other. The ethical realm of the decision-making process for the manager extends to impose costs that serve two ends: fiscal stability and protection of understandable employee rights. Many times, these decisions are put to the test when conflicts of interest emerge. "Conflicts of interest occur when the personal interest of mangers interfere with the professional judgments of managers." (121) Andrew Fastow at Enron is an example of when interest is conflicted, since his personal interests and professional responsibilities were at odds. "I is difficult to believe that Fastow was representing the best interests of Enron stakeholders in these negotiations." (121)