Sociology in the workplace

Sociology

Using your sociological imagination, consider structural, social barriers that may account for racial or ethnic discrimination in the workplace.

Institutionalized racism often goes unnoticed, especially by members of the dominant culture. However, there are serious structural and social barriers that may account for racial and ethnic discrimination in the workplace. As Dumaine, Overfelt, Spruell, Tanz & Whitford (2003) point out, there are still significant barriers to achieving great strides in business for non-whites, even male non-whites. Robert Johnson notes, "It's hard for African-Americans to borrow money from banks or raise money from venture capitalists," (cited by Dumaine, et al., 2003). Lack of access to financial capital is of course a preliminary structural barrier to achieving success in the workplace. The underlying social barrier is exclusion; blacks are not part of the "good old boy" club, which continues to characterize social structures in the workplace (Johnson, cited by Dumaine, et al., 2003). Racial and ethnic discrimination still do exist do to structural barriers like access to venture capital, and social barriers like the lack of access to cultural capital.

Using your sociological imagination, critique the information presented in Fortune and Money Magazine regarding race and ethnicity in the workplace. Use Blacks on the Bubble to argue that individualistic explanations alone cannot account for racial and ethnic inequality in the workplace.

As Collins (2005) points out in "Blacks on the Bubble," the structures of opportunity that currently exist for people of color are unstable and tenuous. As a result, non-white minorities have achieved little meaningful social advancement. Affirmative action programs have enabled the placement of more people of color in positions of power, but actual power remains in the hands of the dominant white culture. Fisher (2005) and Dumaine et al. (2003) point out that there are some individualistic explanations that show how racial and ethnic bias can be overcome in the workplace. However, lack of access to financial and cultural capital continues to stymie genuine equality in terms of either race or gender. Clearly, there are ways of overcoming racial bias in the workplace. Those ways involve serious uphill battles that whites do not encounter. If only non-whites have this uphill battle, then bias, discrimination, and unequal access still exists.

What is the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993? How does it impact the workplace and it's workers? What are the limitations of this act?

The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 in part protects the rights of women to take maternity leave. The Act obligates employers to provide protection to employees in need of all types of medical leave of absence. In short, the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 prohibits employers from terminating the jobs of anyone in need of a medical or family-related leave of absence. Yet as Tahmincioglu (2007) points out, pregnancy discrimination is on the rise. There are also a few limitations to the Act: "workers who are employed by firms with 50 employees or more and have worked for a company for at least 12 months have to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees for medical reasons including pregnancy," (Tahmincioglu, 2007).

Describe your idea of a family friendly workplace and see how many of your classmates would want to work at your firm. Be sure to take the following into consideration: Will your firm be profitable? Will service to your clients or customers be negatively affected by a family friendly model? Will employees without families feel the benefits discriminate against those without families?