Business Ethics in Healthcare: Beyond Compliance

Twelve: Union Organizing and Employee Strikes

Chapter 9 included Frank Narvan’s observation that decisions related to downsizing strategy “become the model. They tell all employees what the new rules are. These decisions set the standard for the ethics of future decisions.”1 How downsizing is handled is one of those de¤ning moments, a loud and clear communication regarding the values that management actually adheres to in its relationships to employees. This chapter focuses on another de¤ning moment in management’s relationship to employees: management’s response to union-related activity— organizing efforts and strikes. The importance of this response is hard to exaggerate, especially given the impact on the attitude of employees toward management over the long term. Management’s response to employee unionizing efforts and management’s strategy when strikes occur inform employees, loudly and clearly, of the nature of management’s respect for them. This chapter does not address the ethical responsibilities of employees or union representatives in organizing or work stoppages. The reason is simple: These comments are written for management about management’s responsibility . There are, to be sure, important ethical issues that should be considered by union organizers and employees, but that discussion is for another time and place. In some situations and issues, and this may be one, it is not very helpful to focus on the ethical responsibilities of “the other side.” The best starting point for management’s re®ection on ethics and union-related activity is to consider its own role and responsibilities. Twelve Union Organizing and Employee Strikes The Right to Form Unions There is a long-standing and widely recognized ethical principle that employees have a right to form unions. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights af¤rms this right: “Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.”2 Though the precise language often varies from one statement to another, this fundamental ethical principle is frequently noted in discussions of human rights, of business ethics, and of healthcare ethics. One business ethics text, for example, recognizes that “workers have the right to freely associate with each other to establish and run unions for the achievement of their morally legitimate common ends.”3 The United States Roman Catholic Bishops, to cite another example, recognize this right in their directives for Catholic Health Care Services: “the rights of employees to organize and bargain collectively without prejudice to the common good.”4 The ethical right of employees to establish unions is a human right, more basic than law. It applies to all organizations that hire employees, whether private or public, for-pro¤t or not-for-pro¤t, wherever they are. There is widespread assent given to this right of employees to negotiate through unions, but the meaning of this right is not always well understood. Basic human rights are of fundamental signi¤cance in determining ethical responsibilities. Human rights represent the ways in which everyone, regardless of power, position, or merits, is to be respected simply because of being human. Human rights are so fundamental that governments are not considered ethically legitimate if they do not respect them. Human rights apply within businesses and service organizations; they must be observed in the organization if the organization is to meet minimal standards of ethical legitimacy . When the effort to achieve certain organizational interests puts basic rights at risk, those organizational interests need to be subordinated to the obligation to protect rights. As a basic human right, the right of workers to form unions makes binding claims upon others. To prevent workers from organizing is to deny them the fundamental human activity of associating with others to achieve their goals. To prevent workers from organizing is to deny them the fundamental human activity of seeking to exercise some control over decisions that affect them directly and of asserting themselves in regard to what they perceive to be just and fair. In some cases, the right to form unions is understood as merely a right to choose. Respect for the right to form unions is sometimes interpreted as a tolerance responsibility, a responsibility to accept the decision of employees to unionize even though that decision is probably not a good one. It is true that one of the implications of the right to form unions is that the choice of employees regarding unionizing is not to be interfered with, but mere tolerance The Organization as Employer 110 [3.141.8.247] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 10...