Employees Flashcards
Employees as stakeholders
A key representative of the firm
In some cases even own it in cooperatives or through employees shareholding trust (John Lewis/ Waitrose)
A key asset or even most important ‘resource to the corporation
Employer - employees relations
Embedded in HRM
- 2 ways of conceptualising their employees. 2 points on either end of a spectrum
Hard model: strict, high job insecurity(0hour contract), employees as a cost to minimises, just a number on spread sheet. Employees as means to an end (achieving sustainable competitive advantage)
Soft model: employees are asset to be developed and nurtured. Invest heavily in training, safety, opportunity, internal monitoring . If issues then try intervene positively.
Ethical issues in HRM
people are resources that should be managed in a way to maximise efficiency and minimise costs and that compete with other resources.
Firm deploys labour to achieve various ends but humans deserves respect and dignity (have their own goals)
‘Not to treat humans as ONLY a means to an end’ - Kants second maxim 2
Key ethical issues in HRM (Crane and Matten)
Employee privacy Discrimination Sexual harassment Employment security Employee participation (this can be in case of anything you feel as unfair eg some get breaks cause they smoke whilst others don’t) Favouritism in promotion, hire or pay
How do we safely report these issues?
Are you safe at work? (Eg lorry drivers get enough sleep)
Mays be able to reasonably control some of these things
Ethical challenges of globalisation
Sense of what is right and wrong is no longer uniform if globalised.
Takes western companies to countries with little or no employment regulations/inspections
Labour conditions, wages rates, insurance, security, child labour
Legal vacuum - demands discretionary responsibility. - global govs gaps (no legislation to hold MNC to account.)
Employees rights viewed differently in different countries (everyone deserves right to safe and healthy environment. Losses can be incurred if safety and health affected)
PR storms, crisis
Sweatshop ban (Vietnam / Thailand) Workers are operating under extreme label of hard labour
Race to bottom
Through customer demand for lows costs and shareholders wanting profit, the companies for lowest labour.
Labour is now very challenging position
Down hill - at some point labour is near point of slavery
Race to bottom companies
Western firms increasingly source through global supply chains
- low cost production
- less regulation costs
- tax benefits
Outcome= lower costs often accompanied by sweatshop conditions
- poor labour conditions
- less environmental protection
- lower standard of health and safety
This comes as labour makes up 80% of business costs - primarily Nikeedamples
Race to bottom governments
Developing countries are desperate to attract FDI:
- cut employer regs - loosen social social safety net - fail to enforce regulation - tax benefits - ‘do what you like’
Govs effectively competing by lowering labour thresholds to make them more attractive to MNCs in comparison to their neighbouring company.
However good research done to suggest that good governance and better performance with regard to the human development index and environmental sustainability index were found to attract fdi inflows
Extreme labour exploitation (Crane)
Use of slaves is typically viewed as an obsolete form of pre modern labour practice that’s has been surperseded by more legitimate and human practices.
However slavery is not simply a feature of economic history, it persists in various forms and contexts in modern trafficking and forced labour
Never went away just didn’t talk about it for a long time
Enabling contextual conditions
- industry context
- socio-economic context
- geographic context
- cultural context
- regulatory context
Industry context
Typical examples: agriculture, mining and extraction, construction, brick making and carpet wearing and sex work
Slave like practices known in construction and tea leaf picking
Need for high labour numbers but low supply can cause high labour intensity - not a large supply and consistent so sometimes pick and steal people, lock them in - so guarantees labour, in tea plantations - 30,000 workers on field and sleep there too
Falling profit and rising costs forces employees to push labour cost towards zero
Send industry is already often illegal and illegitimate and tends to hide operations from regulators
Social-economic context
Extreme poverty: lack of alternative work locally, fuelled by immobility
High unemployment: need to survive is a key push factor, readily accept poor terms and conditions of contract
Education and awareness: no education limits job choice, low awareness of the the slavery practices they are entering
Geographic context
Geographic isolation: many forms of basic industry such as agriculture, forestry and mining are location specific. Where the location is isolated from the main sources of labour a high demand/low supply in market for labour is created. Forcing smaller operations toward zero labour cost
Distance from home: physical, political and psychological distance from the usual home place of enslaved workers has the effect of establishing control and heightening dependence. Less likely to attempt to escape cause of high cost, complex restrictions.
Cultural context
Traditions: in some countries ‘bonded labour is a long standing issue rooted in custom and tradition. (Gender and age preferences)
Entrenched: string hierarchical stratification exists. Eg ages, class- tolerated. Woman and children over represented in sec industry
Class or ‘caste’ systems may explain why an estimated 80% of India’s bonded labourers are Dalits
