Chapter 18
Employee Stakeholders: Privacy, Safety, and Health
LEARNING OUTCOMES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Articulate the concerns surrounding the employee’s right to privacy in the workplace.
Identify the advantages and disadvantages of polygraphs, integrity tests, and drug testing
as management instruments for decision making.
Discuss the right to safety and the right to know, and summarize the role and
responsibilities of OSHA.
Elaborate on the right to health and safety in the workplace, with particular reference to
violence in the workplace, smoke-free workplaces, and family-friendly workplaces.
TEACHING SUGGESTIONS
INTRODUCTION – This chapter continues the discussion of employees’ rights in the workplace
with particular emphasis on privacy, safety, and a healthy work environment. Managers must
address these issues in order to meet employees’ needs and to treat them fairly as legitimate
stakeholders of the firm.
KEY TALKING POINTS – Historically, employees have often been treated as secondary
stakeholders, behind owners, senior managers, and customers. As the stakeholder perspective of
management gains footing and managers recognize the looming shortage of qualified workers
(due to impending retirement of the baby boom generation), this attitude is changing to some
extent. Although managers are seeing the need to treat workers fairly and to address many of the
issues that workers find important, the global recession has slowed the progress that employees
were making in this area.
This chapter addresses three important employee issues—the rights to privacy, safety, and
health. As discussed earlier in Chapter 9, “Business Ethics and Technology,” employees’ right
to privacy is severely restricted in the workplace. Advances in technology have made
monitoring employees’ locations and behaviors much easier and cheaper. Balancing the
employees’ right to (or at least desire for) privacy and the employer’s right to (1) know what
workers are doing and (2) supervise those activities will be an on-going dilemma for managers.
The workplace is often a dangerous place for employees, due to aspects of the work itself (e.g.
exposure to chemicals or operation of machinery) and risks imposed by other workers. Add to
these risks the dangers of external threats such as criminal activities and terrorist threats, and
managers can understand why workers have legitimate concerns about their safety.
Americans are extraordinarily concerned with their health. As a country, we spend more money
and a greater percentage of our gross domestic product on health care than any other nation.
This general concern extends into the workplace, with employees demanding freedom from
Business and Society
Chapter Notes
exposure to health-damaging agents such as smoke and contagious diseases. Although the
authors do not highlight concerns over employees’ mental health, they are also demanding ways
to reduce stress, have access to mental health professionals, and balance their work and personal
lives. Work/life balance is becoming an increasingly important issue for employees and their
managers, and students often identify with this concern. Many students are trying to balance
school, work, extracurricular activities, and family life—they are well aware of the pressures of
trying to “have it all.” Cynthia Thompson, at Baruch College, has published a work/life balance
exercise that may be useful for students, Managing the Work-Life Balancing Act: An
Introductory Exercise (Journal of Management Education, April 2002, Vol 26, No 2, pp. 205220).
PEDAGOGICAL DEVICES – In this chapter, instructors may utilize a combination of:
Cases:
Nike, Inc. and Sweatshops
Chiquita: An Excruciating Dilemma Between Life and Law
After-Effects of After-Hours Activities: The Case of Peter Oiler
Ethics in Practice Cases:
Give Me What I Want or I’ll Tell the President!
How Ethical Values Vary
Spotlight on Sustainability:
It’s All Connected
Power Point slides:
Visit http://academic.cengage.com/management/carroll for slides related to this and other
chapters.
LECTURE OUTLINE
I.
RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN THE WORKPLACE
A. Collection and Use of Employee Information by Employers
B. Integrity Tests
C. Drug Testing
1. Arguments for Drug Testing
2. Arguments against Drug Testing
3. Guidelines for Drug Testing
4. State and Federal Legislation
5. Employee Assistance Programs
D. Monitoring Employees on the Job
1. What Can Be Monitored?
2. Effects of Being Monitored
E.
Policy Guidelines on the Issue of Privacy
II.
WORKPLACE SAFETY
Business and Society
A.
B.
C.
D.
Chapter Notes
The Workplace Safety Problem
Right-to-Know Laws
The History of OSHA
1. Nitpicking Rules
2. Spotty Record
3. A Rejuvenated OSHA
4. The Future of OSHA
Workplace Violence
1. Who Is Affected?
2. Prevention
III.
THE RIGHT TO HEALTH IN THE WORKPLACE
A. Smoking in the Workplace
1. Corporate Responses
B. The Family-Friendly Workplace
1. Family and Medical Leave Act
IV.
SUMMARY
SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Students should recognize that their answers to these discussion questions should be well
reasoned and supported with evidence. Although some answers will be more correct than others,
students should be aware that simplistic answers to complex questions, problems, or issues such
as these will never be “good” answers.
1.
Privacy means the right to keep personal information secret if I so choose; to have the
ability to approve or deny any collection of information about me; to not have information
about me shared with anyone without my knowledge and consent; and to not be contacted
without my invitation (e.g. telemarketing, spam, and Internet advertising). At the very
minimum, companies should not share any personal information to outsiders, or even to
insiders who do not have a need to know. Personal information should only be shared for
purposes to which it is relevant (i.e. medical information should not be shared with people
making decisions about work assignments). It is not reasonable to expect that employers
will not (or should not, for that matter) monitor employees’ locations and activities. By
definition, the management function entails control, which necessitates monitoring.
2.
The polygraph’s strengths all depend on its accuracy, which is subject to some question. If
the polygraph is accurate, it can solve an age-old problem—how to distinguish between the
truth and a lie. This has obvious benefit to managers, who need to know the truth. The
major weakness of the polygraph is that it is not 100 percent accurate. Some studies have
reported a 50 percent error rate, which is completely unacceptable. If managers are relying
on a polygraph to reveal “the truth,” they will be basing their decisions on faulty
assumptions. Because of problems inherent in use of the polygraph and the importance of
decisions based on it, I don’t think it should be used at all.
Business and Society
Chapter Notes
3.
The primary benefits of integrity testing seem to be its ease of administration and low cost.
Weaknesses include invasion of privacy and unreliability. If integrity tests are indeed
unreliable, their use should be limited. If they are used, it should only be in cases where
the work involves an important public trust, such as having control over life-and-death
matters (e.g., a bus driver or an airline pilot).
4.
Technology has provided employers with cheap and easy means to monitor employees
virtually all of the time. On the other hand, access to technology at the workplace also has
increased employee abuse of employer resources, necessitating some of the monitoring.
As a result, workplace privacy is virtually non-existent. This further exacerbates the power
imbalance between employer and employee, making the social contract even more of a
master/servant relationship, rather than a contract between equals. It also changes the
social contract between the employer and employee because employees are more willing to
switch jobs for various reasons, including lack of privacy.
5.
It is necessary to first clarify that it was not the 9/11 attacks, in themselves, that affected
workplace privacy. Rather, it was our chosen response to those attacks that affected
workplace privacy. Lead by passage of the USA Patriot Act, privacy issues have taken a
backseat to security concerns. Workplace privacy has likewise been diminished.
Reducing workplace privacy has actually been difficult to accomplish, simply because it
was virtually non-existent to begin with. The long-term implications reside more in the
political realm than in the workplace. Privacy has never existed to a large extent in
business, but as citizens, our right to privacy in our homes and personal lives has been
trampled.
6.
The two most important privacy policy guidelines are first, to obtain informed consent
from employees and applicants before acquiring information about them, and second, to
set controls so as to avoid casual and unauthorized spread of information. Companies need
to obtain employee and applicant consent before gathering personal information, not
because they are legally required to do so, but because it informs employees and applicants
of employer expectations and protects the employer in the event that an employee or
applicant contests the collection of personal information. Second, employers need to be
sure that appropriate controls are in place regarding employee privacy because the
unauthorized use of employee information could subject the company to legal liability and
decrease employee morale.
7.
With violence in the workplace, there seems to be less need for privacy, because the
perpetrator is putting employees’ safety at risk. They should therefore be informed of the
concerns. Violence is also a health issue because employees’ physical and emotional
conditions could be harmed. Finally, due process is an issue in workplace violence
because the perpetrator’s story should be heard and investigated. Just because one person
was violent does not necessarily mean that s/he is to blame or that someone else was not
involved as well. Due process issues fall under the rubric of procedural justice, which is a
basic human right, regardless of context.
Business and Society
Chapter Notes
GROUP ACTIVITY
Divide students into eight groups. Have all students read the background information for ABC
Trucking Company below. Designate a committee assignment for each group. The various
committees will address privacy, safety and health issues for ABC Trucking Company.
Specifically, each committee should address the questions listed below their committee
assignment. While each group is responsible for the questions listed under their assigned
committee, the instructor should distribute the questions to be addressed by each committee to
every student. Once the committees have addressed their assigned issues, they should share their
ideas with the entire class. This will enable all students to review the major issues in the chapter.
Background: ABC is a multi-regional trucking company. The company currently employs
3,843 linehaul drivers and 3,142 pickup and delivery drivers. The company ships many
products, including hazardous materials.
Committee 1
You have been asked to serve on ABC’s privacy committee. It is the committee’s responsibility
to draft a privacy policy for the company. At this initial meeting, you need to decide the
following:
(1) Will you monitor your employees’ e-mails and telecommunications?
(2) If the answer to number 1 is yes, for what purpose will you use the information? What
type(s) of information do you think the company needs to know?
(3) If the answer to number 1 is yes, do you have any concerns on how this might affect your
employees?
(4) Do you have any legal concerns? Specifically, does the Electronic Communication
Privacy Act or the USA Patriot Act apply?
Committee 2
You have been asked to serve on ABC’s privacy committee. It is the committee’s responsibility
to decide whether it will use the polygraph and/or integrity testing in connection with its hiring
process. At this initial meeting, you need to decide the following:
(1) Will the company use a polygraph in its hiring process? If so, why? Can it do so under
the Employee Polygraph Protection Act?
Business and Society
Chapter Notes
(2) Will the company use an integrity test in its hiring process? If so, why?
(3) If the answer(s) to number 1 and/or 2 is yes, what types of information do you think the
company needs from the tests?
(4) If the answer(s) to number 1 and/or 2 is yes, do you have any concerns about these tests?
Committee 3
You have been asked to serve on ABC’s privacy committee. It is the committee’s responsibility
to make decisions regarding the company’s drug testing policy. At this initial meeting, you need
to decide the following:
(1) Is the company required to conduct drug tests?
(2) If the answer to number 1 is yes, do you have any concerns about drug testing in the
company?
(3) If the answer to number 1 is yes, what guidelines would you recommend for a company
drug testing policy?
(4) If the answer to number 1 is yes, are there any potential problems with the Americans
with Disabilities Act?
Committee 4
You have been asked to serve on ABC’s safety committee. It is the committee’s responsibility to
make sure the company is compliant with state and federal laws that protect the safety and health
of its workers. At this initial meeting, you need to decide the following:
(1) What type(s) of information, if any, is the company required to provide to its employees
generally under state law(s)?
(2) What type(s) of information, if any, is the company required to provide to its employees
under federal law (OSHA)?
(3) What rights and responsibilities do the employees have under federal law (OSHA)?
Business and Society
Chapter Notes
Committee 5
You have been asked to serve on ABC’s safety committee. It is the committee’s responsibility to
determine how the company should respond to issues of workplace violence. At this initial
meeting, you need to decide the following:
(1) Is the company at an increased risk for workplace violence? If so, why?
(2) If the answer to number 1 is yes, what can this company specifically do to deter
workplace violence?
(3) Does the company need policies and procedures to address workplace violence? If so,
what should be included in these policies and procedures?
Committee 6
You have been asked to serve on ABC’s health committee. It is the committee’s responsibility
to address issues related to employee health. The company has several smokers. At this initial
meeting, you need to decide the following:
(1) Does the company need a smoking policy? If so, why?
(2) If the answer to number 1 is yes, what type of policy does the company need? What
would the policy require?
Committee 7
You have been asked to serve on ABC’s health committee. It is the committee’s responsibility
to address issues related to serious health conditions that limit employee performance. At this
initial meeting, you need to decide the following:
(1) Is the company required to comply with the Family Medical Leave Act?
(2) Does the company have to pay female employees during any maternity leave? Does the
company have to provide health benefits for such employees?
Business and Society
Chapter Notes
(3) Can truck drivers take leave to care for a sick child, spouse or parent?
(4) If the answers to 1, 2 and/or 3 are yes, does the company have to hold an employee’s job
for the employee during the employee’s leave?
Committee 8
You have been asked to serve on ABC’s work/life balance committee. It is the committee’s
responsibility to address issues related to work/life balance. At this initial meeting, you need to
decide the following:
(1) What work/life balance issues, if any, does the company have?
(2) What types of programs/benefits might the company adopt to address any work/life
balance issues noted in question 1?
(3) How will the programs/benefits listed in question 2 affect the company’s economic
viability?
INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT
Distribute the following instructions to each student:
Create a general social media policy that could be used by multiple companies. You should
consider the following questions when developing the social media policy: Will these
companies be allowed to monitor employee posts / pages on social media sites? What privacy
concerns does this raise? How should companies deal with leaks of confidential information,
material which could lead to an adverse employment decision, defamatory communications
concerning a company, etc. that were obtained through monitoring an employee’s social media
site?