EU labor law protections for international employees in member states

¶ … Contexts Law

Should Karl, Sylvia and Gabrielle benefit and be protected by European Union law? You answer by reference to what is the law and also by reference to what you think should be the law?

Law is defined as a system of certain rules, regulations, and guidelines which are generally made obligatory through certain institutions. There are different laws related to different social, economic, political, and business issues. For example there are labor laws, contact laws, property laws, trust laws, constitutional laws, administrative laws, criminal laws, tort laws, international laws, and many more. These all laws provide source of guidelines and rules which have to be followed by each and every one (Wrobleski, & Hess, 2000).

As globalization has changed the complete outlook of the each and every aspect of this world, it also has significant impact on laws and enforcement and implementation of laws. The laws followed in one part of world or in one country are not applicable and enforceable in the other country part or country. This makes it easy for the people with evil intentions to take undue benefits from this situation. In order to overcome this problem and issue the international bodies have come up with international laws and regulations. These international laws and regulations try to combat with the issues of public international laws and conflicts of law.

European Union in this regard has been proved to be most effective and efficient in coming up with European Union law. European Union law is the one and only example of a legal framework which is supranational is not restricted by the boundary or border limitations and restrictions. Under the European Union law, the member countries have mutually formed an authoritative system comprising of political institutions and courts (Chalmers, Davies, & Monti, 2010). These authoritative institutions have the power to enforce and implement laws and regulations against or for the residents of the member states. The member countries have their own set of national laws but whenever there is conflict between the both, the European Union law has precedence over the national law of the member country (Horspool, 2006).

Gabrielle should have been benefited and protected by the European Union law. There have been certain labor laws defined under the legislation of the European Union law. These labor laws define the laws and regulations which have to accepted and followed by each and every employer in the member countries of European Union. The question in the context of story was that Gabrielle was from a country which was not under the umbrella of European Union so there were chances that European Union law is not applicable here and it had been not possible to protect and benefit Gabrielle under the European Union law. But then there are some definite laws related to the international employees working in the member countries of European Union which had to be followed. According to the story, it was mentioned that it was relatively easier to hire labors from abroad as they were cheaper, work harder, and can be send back to their country whenever wanted. This reflects that Gabrielle who was an international labor was least protected and benefited by the labor law. On the contrary she should have been protected and should have been able to report the misuse and mistreatment.

Karl who was also a foreigner should have been least protected and benefited from the European Union law. But the fact which supported Karl was that he was involved in some illegal activities and was able to escape on the basis of being a citizen of a country which was not a member of the European Union. He after being involved in illegal acts was able to escape from the country. Karl should not have been protected and benefited by the European Union law, but he was benefited in this particular context as he managed to fulfill his evil intentions of killing three people. He should have been caught at any cost and should have been punished for taking law in his hand. If Karl wanted to take revenge of his sister he could have approached through proper channel.

Sylvia was protected and benefited by the European Union law, as she was the resident of the member country of the European Union. She had all protections and rights under the labor law enforced in the country. Apart from this as being the European Union commissioner of external affairs she was also benefited to interfere in the affairs of other countries and for this reason she was trying to take revenge of the murder of her role model from Karl Kasparov.

QUESTION # 2:

The characters in the Critical Contexts story are not generally filled with the milk of human kindness. What legal duties of care do they have and how would you distinguish between a legal duty of care and a moral obligation?

Obligation is defined as a requirement on an individual or a group of people to take certain kinds of actions. These obligations can be legal or moral. Obligations also vary from one person to another, from one society to another.

At times, it looks as if the action of one party or inaction of one party as negligent but whether any kind of legal claim exists is dependent upon whether a legal duty exists or not. So one needs to understand the concept of legal duty as well as moral obligation to understand and recognize the differences between the two words.

Legal Duty

Legal duty is defined as the legal obligation on a person that they are required to confirm to a standard of reasonable care at the time when they are performing some actions that might harm others. Such duties or actions might result in a civil claim and therefore an individual has to take care of these actions. If the law of the country says to take actions then the party should take such actions but if he does not then he might face legal issues (Raz, 1984).

Redundancy

When an employer cannot give insufficient work to the employee then it is fair to dismiss him. There are many rules in this domain however; the basic concept remains the same.

Substantial Reasons

There can be some other reasons as well for dismissing an employee and these other reasons can be put in the category of substantial reasons. An employer has to be careful while categorizing any reason in this category because he has to give substantial reasons for dismissing an employee to make the dismissal fair.

Role of an employer when an employee misconducts

There are certain disciplinary rules that employees should follow or how employees should behave when they are at work and these rules must be clearly defined to all the employees of the organization by the employer or the management. According to law, progressive discipline should be promoted which means one should make efforts to improve the behavior of the employees through informal advices and correction. Even after this, an employee does not try to improve his behavior and repeats his mistake again and again then the employer should give him severe warnings till the time a final warning has been issued.

In reference to the critical contexts story, it was legally fair to dismiss Bell. He was involved in practices which were against the norms and laws of working environment. He was always drunk and followed uneven working timings. Also he used to take undue advantage and serve free drinks to Charles just because of this personal relationship and personal benefits. Bill was involved in several unlawful and immoral activities which could have been harmful for the business. Hence the employer had a legal right to dismiss Bill from the job on account of indulging in practices which were against the norms and laws and which could have been harmful and dangerous for the business.

On the other hand it was legally unfair to dismiss the Mondox nannies. Muriel was accused of dismissing the nannies on the basis of their private activities and use to mistreat and misuse them. It is not legally fair to dismiss employees on the basis of their private activities which are not harming or having negative impact on the duty of the employee or on the overall business. It is not allowed to interfere in the private and personal life of any of the employee, as every employee has the right of spending his or her private and personal life according to his or her own will and wish.