Employee Workplace Rights - Essay Sample

There are several federal laws that safeguard the employees’ rights (Sachs 2007). These laws are applicable to all states of the United States, with the exception of the state laws giving employee protection. Some of these laws address the following. Protection of employees from discrimination based on skin color, gender, national origin during the hiring process; this law is applicable only to cases where the organization is having or will have more than 15 or more employees. Other main laws protecting the employee address protection of Americans With Disabilities (ADA), protection from discrimination based on age, fairness in labor and salaries, and the right to obtain both medical and familial leave.

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Albeit the above laws are clearly stated and are expected to be followed by all employees who fall within the provided bounds by the federal in each law, there exist controversial cases which leaves some employees rights at the workplace with the need for exceptions despite stepping on the federal law boundaries (Ball, 2010). The following are some of the main controversial issues that concern employees’ rights. Gender equality is among the critical laws established in the civil rights act of 1964(Act, 1964). This law demands that employers treat both men and women equally when assigning decisions, during payment of wages, giving promotions, and even during the hiring process. Yet the violation of this law, that is, gender inequality, still happens at the workplace. For instance, there are instances where women are given a paid maternity leave, but men are not given an equal right when a similar situation arises, couples of same-sex may decide to adopt a child but not be given a paid paternity leave. Also, there are instances where the employers give reasons why employees did not attain certain promotions at work, neglecting the likely belief that gender facilitated the employer’s decision.

Incentive pay is another controversial issue. There exist federal law addressing the employees’ right to fairness when it comes to salary and incentive pay. However, incentive pay, even after being given fairly, can lead to a situation where employees fail to coordinate and focus on personal achievements with the incentive pay in mind. Despite the existence of a well-organized incentive pay system, it might be found to be unfair in cases where only the managerial persons are given the annual bonus and rewards instead of all workers.

While there is a need by the employees to have privacy at the workplace, the issue of monitoring employees’ conversations especially through email, is done by the employees to track efficiency and productivity. Such monitoring has been around since the use of cyclometers back in the 1930s, besides tracking productivity (Mishra et al., 1998). Security, especially cybersecurity, requires as much monitoring as possible to prevent the likelihood of intrusion into the organization system through some email ignorantly opened and bots installed by a worker. Such cases have been reported to “lead a trojan horse into the secured walls of the company” it is therefore mandatory for the employees to be made aware as to serious reasons why this is necessary and almost unavoidable.

References

Act, C. R. (1964). Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII, Equal Employment Opportunities.http://blowthetrumpet.org/documents/CivilRightsActLBJ_000.pdf

Ball, K. (2010). Workplace surveillance: An overview. Labor History, 51(1), 87-106.

Mishra, J. M., & Crampton, S. M. (1998). Employee monitoring: privacy in the workplace? SAM Advanced Management Journal, 63, 4-14.

Sachs, B. I. (2007). Employment law as labor law. Cardozo L. Rev., 29, 2685https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/cdozo29&section=90