The practical view of employee rights

Advocates of employee rights, relying upon moral and legal perspectives, have used moral appeals and the threat of legal sanctions to persuade managers to act responsibly. Drawing on a behavioral perspective and analyzing interviews and literature about employee complaints, this paper develops the practical view. This view emphasizes employees' perceptions of their rights, as represented by eight broad categories of asserted rights, and the subtle costs that employees can impose when their standards of proper treatment are violated. While important differences between the behavioral, legal, and moral perspectives are identified, a general standards-setting framework is presented that indicates the complementarity of the three perspectives and the advantages of a multidisciplinary combination.     

The family and medical leave act of 1993: Employee rights and responsibilities,employer rights and responsibilities

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) was signed into law on February 5, 1993 after approximately eight years of controversial discussion in Congress. The FMLA provides up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for eligible employees for the birth or placement for adoption or foster care of a child, to care for a child, spouse, or parent with a serious health condition, or for the employee’s own serious health condition. The Act is intended to help individuals balance their home obligations with their work obligations. This article highlights both employee rights and responsibilities afforded by the FMLA and employer rights and responsibilities under the Act.     

An alternative employee rights paradigm: Labor process theory

A dialectical relationship exists between the capitalist desire for accumulation of wealth and profits, and the rights of employees. Labor process theory exposes facets of the fundamental incongruity between the interests of employers and workers in a capitalist political economy. An analysis of employee rights through the labor process framework facilitates the potential for human emancipation by illuminating the ideological, political, and economic sources of domination and repression that are embedded in the capitalist system. In this article, three core elements of labor process theory—the social relations of production, the managerial control imperative, and the restructuring of work—are used to highlight ways in which organizations maintain their hegemonic position. This exposé offers the basis for an alternative paradigmatic view of the employment relationship and informs our thinking of how employee rights are impacted, and often tempered, in work organizations. Portions of this article were presented by both authors at the 12th Annual International Labour Process Conference March, 1994 in Birmingham, England.     

Towards an assertion perspective for empowerment: Blending employee rights and labor process theories

Employee Rights Theory (ERT) and Labor Process Theory (LPT) are two major bodies of knowledge in contemporary social science committed to empowering employees in the workplace. Despite their seemingly common goals, the two have emerged almost independently of each other. The current article compares and contrasts these perspectives and suggests that empowerment can be better understood and fostered by drawing on ERT and LPT simultaneously. Specifically, a synergistic view suggests that empowerment occurs when individuals are willing and able to assert their interests and rights in a given situation. This assertion perspective to empowerment emphasizes the interaction of micro- and macro-level processes, a combination of conflict and cooperative strategies, use of the rights rhetoric to incite action, and the role of emotions in stimulating and/or preventing change.     

Work Values and Preferences for Employee Involvement in the Management of Organizations

This study has 3 objectives: to develop a scale to measure preferences for involvement in management (PIM), to examine if PIM are related to work values (altruism, pride in craftsmanship, collectivism, and individualism), and to examine if PIM are affected by a bundle of work values. Data are taken from 749 participants to develop a psychometrically appealing scale for measuring PIM. Using the universalistic perspective, we predict a positive relationship between PIM and altruism, pride in craftsmanship, and collectivism, and a negative relationship between PIM and individualism. Using the synergistic perspective, we hypothesized that PIM are likely to be positively affected by a bundle of work values. Our results support the universalistic perspective because PIM are positively related to altruism, pride in craftsmanship, and collectivism, and negatively related to individualism. Our results did not support the synergistic perspective. In the final section of the paper, we outlined the implications of our results for organizational practice and public policy.     

A comparison of blue- versus white-collar grievance behavior: A field assessment

This study examines the differences between blue-collar and white-collar employees with respect to grievance behavior in the work place. Specifically, the grievance-filing behavior of blue-collar and white-collar bargaining unit workers-members of the same union local-were compared with respect to number of actions, their severity, and their outcomes. Analyses of these grievances (n=604) indicated gross differences in the grievance-filing activity of these groups. These groups are, however, invariant with respect to severity or outcomes of the contested issues.     

Employee rights and organizational forms: An integrative framework for research

The goal of this study is to stimulate thought and provide initial direction for theory development and empirical investigation in regard to proposed linkages between employee rights concerns in the work environment and organizational forms. A review of pertinent literature on the subjects of organizational forms and employee rights is presented, in which a summary and critique of the current state of theory and research is emphasized in relation to those components of the two subject areas that are most relevant to the aims of the study. Following this review, the article undertakes a synthesis and integration of existing work, bringing together two scholarly fields of inquiry that have not been incorporated previously, and providing suggestions to establish critical associations and fill conceptual gaps. In this respect, the study constitutes a “first step” in the development of an orientation that accentuates the complementarity of perspectives concerning employee rights and organizational forms.     

Human Resource Management and Fortune's Corporate Reputation Survey

This study investigates the relationship between human resource objectives and Fortune's corporate reputation score. Questionnaires were received from 83 human resource executives of companies measured in Fortune's survey. The questionnaire measured the degree to which the following HR objectives underlie HR activities: (1) treating employees fairly, (2) improving organizational performance, and (3) complying with the law. Results show that a significant, positive correlation exists between emphasis placed on the fairness objective and corporate reputation.     

Workers,communities, and industrial property: An emerging language of rights

Out of recent national debates and local struggles over plant closings, an alternative language of industrial property rights has emerged. This language places the rights of workers and communities above, or on a par with, those of owners and managers. While this new language of rights coexists with more traditional conceptions of owner/manager prerogatives, its emergence suggests that rights of property ownership, which are often seen as relatively immutable structural constraints upon the capitalist labor process, may themselves be contested and subject to change.     

Challenges to employment at will: A survey of the natural gas transmission industry

The natural gas transmission industry, once paternalistic towards its employees, is feeling the effects of challenges to the doctrine of employment at will, and is responding with policies that will increase managerial prerogatives. This article approaches the issue from the points of view both of law and of economics, and includes a survey of pipeline managers who must develop viable work rules in an environment of increasing expectations of employee rights and tightening market competition.     

产权理论对企业年金管理的启示

企业年金基金资产属私人产权,具有可分割性;从企业年金基金自身的特点出发,结合我国的制度环境,我国企业年金产权制度应选择俱乐部产权,具体为信托型的运行模式。要实现企业年金的产权制度的目标,我国信托型企业年金的运行机制有待进一步优化。     

浅析管理沟通在员工关系管理中的作用及应用

现代社会中较物质资本而言,人力资本在经济活动中更活跃更具发展特性,从而使其成为现代经济增长的主要因素,甚至是首要因素。随着企业竞争的日益激烈,如何留住、用好人才,已成为人力资源管理面临的重大挑战。由此员工关系管理的重要性和必要性越来越凸显出来,在一定程度上,我们甚至可以说员工关系管理的和谐与否决定着企业经营的成败。     

The employer as social arbiter: Considerations in limiting involvement in off-the-job behavior

This article analyzes the trend of increasing employer involvement in social issues through human resource policies that influence employee behavior off the job and away from the workplace. Many employers are increasingly acting as social arbiters—regulators of the private conduct, personal behaviors, and habits of their employees. Relying on historical perspectives from (1) an exchange transaction economic view of the employment relationship, and (2) the origins and nature of the corporate form, a framework is developed to analyze the conditions under which employer involvement in employee personal matters may be appropriate. Our criteria generally guide an employer to act conservatively in invoking mandatory policies that affect employees' personal lives unless there is a clear individual employee performance problem or the personal behavior imposes harm on employees or customers. Two tests should be satisfied for mandatory programs: (1) the policy must have a discernible impact on the employee's performance on the current job based on individually based data, or (2) the behavior poses an immediate danger to or has an established discernible impact on the safety of co-workers or customers. The difficulties that may arise in administering specific polices such as no smoking, drug and medical testing, child care, and fitness policies are discussed.     

高校员工关系管理探析

文章分析了高校员工关系管理的定义、内容及维度,并从技术和方法上提出了高校员工关系管理策略,在一定程度上满足了当前高校员工关系管理的实际需要。     

When two cultures meet: new industrial relations at Japanco

This article addresses the question of the responses of British workers to Japanese management practices through a detailed case study of Japanco, a UK Japanese implant. The argument challenges the abstract ‘ideal type’ view of Japanization, by stressing the pragmatism of Japanese management, and its willingness to adjust to the contingencies of economic pressures and British industrial culture, over time. The introduction, outlining the main themes of the Japanization debate, is followed by a brief profile of Japanco. The main empirical body of the article is divided between an analysis of the start-up characteristics of Japanco, followed by a consideration of developments several years later, based on interviews and questionnaire material. The conclusion suggests that, like Ford of a previous generation, Japanco is being changed by its British industrial culture, just as this has been shaped in recent years by Japanese influence and example.     

现代饭店员工期望管理的探讨

对员工的期望进行管理,体现在两个方面:一是引导员工建立正确有效的管理,饭店管理者应该通过关注员工期望的形成和变化的过程,来有效实施对员工期望的全过程管理。二是最大程度满足员工期望,通过满足员工的基本要求,提供宽松愉快的工作环境,以消除员工不满意,通过构建和谐平等的人际关系,给员工以更多机会和温暖,创造出满意忠诚的员工。     

谈国际工程当地雇员管理

当前,我国建筑企业越来越多地参与国际工程承包和管理,制定程序化、规范化和制度化的当地雇员管理制度很有必要。文章阐述了对国际工程当地雇员管理的心得体会,供同行参考。     

The fusion of privilege and power: ESOPs in theory and practice

The heart of this paper is an examination of the rights of employees, owners, and the corporation. The modern corporation is characterized by the conflict that ensues when ownership and control are independent. Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), in theory, serve to realign these disparate interests between the owners and managers of the firm. This article will explore the mechanisms by which ESOPs serve to empower those who possess ownership rights in the corporation. The application of trusteeship theory serves to explain the agency problem that may arise when managers serve as both trustee and beneficiary. Workplace, ownership, and corporate rights are integrated into a stakeholder perspective of rights conflicts.     

美国企业员工健康管理研究与启示

在美国,大多数企业都开展了员工健康促进与管理项目,进行员工健康管理,而目前我国员工的健康状况并不乐观,很多企业对于员工健康的关注也还远远不够。     

完善企业管理员工参与制度的思考

企业管理员工参与制度是企业实行民主管理的一项重要制度,实践证明,员工参与管理对一个企业提高管理水平,完善管理机制有着重要的促进作用。文章阐述了该制度的重要意义和分析其相关影响因素,对完善我国企业管理员工参与制度作出了思考和提出若干意见。