January
3
Blog #9 – Is a job a civil right?
One of the issues brought up in the video on the Homestead Strike of 1892 that we watched on Tuesday/Wednesday was the idea of a worker having a right to his/her job. The workers at the Homestead steelworks believed that they had a right to their jobs, that the right was a fundamental right as an American much like the right to vote or free speech or owning fire arms.
Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, on the other hand, didn’t believe that they had to listen to their unions and nor any intention of honoring the unions at all. Frick locked out the Amalgamated after their contract expired on June 30, 1892 and with Carnegie’s approval, had every intention of breaking the union and replacing them w/ lower paid non-union workers.
As we know, most of the workers ended up out of work for good. Some skilled workers came back in other jobs at lower pay at Homestead. In the end, the Amalgamated Steel Workers Union was finished from Homestead.
Please answer the following questions:
1. Does a worker have a right to his/her job? If so, does it depend on the worker’s circumstances (for instance, if the worker is an adult or teenager / full time or part time / has children, married or single)? Why or why not? If not, why not?
Answer 2 if you said Yes. #2. If a worker does have a right to his/her job, how can a company downsize in troubled times? What options does a company have when it needs to cut costs? Today, jobs are being sent overseas and people are being laid off during a recession. Would those practices have to stop if unions and workers have more of a say-so in the management of a company?
Answer 3 if you said No. #3. Obviously, things have changed in the U.S. since 1892, heck, since 1982 when our country used to manufacture a lot of stuff. Currently, about 15% of American jobs are in the manufacturing sector while 80% are in the service sector. So, many of those manufacturing jobs that used to exist no longer exist in the United States and are filled by lower paid workers in other countries. What responsibilities, if any, does the company have to its workers if it lays off its workers? For instance, in the film, Roger and Me, Michael Moore showed that in 1989 GM was willing to move 15 – 30,000 jobs out of Flint and overseas if it meant saving the company money. But the surrounding community and city of Flint were (and to some extent still are) economically devastated when GM left the city.
Here’s the trailer for Roger and Me.
Due Wednesday 1/5/11 before class begins. 250 words total for both answers.
1.) I believe that a worker does not have a right to his/her job. In a free market democracy like ours, the law requires equality. No one should be promised a job, as it should be based on work ethic and performance. In America everyone has an opportunity to the job market if they get the proper education and work hard. A worker could have a job that is providing for their family, however, they may have a bad attitude and they aren’t willing to be the best at that job. This type of person isn’t as deserving for the job as someone who works extremely hard and is determined to succeed. It doesn’t depend on the worker’s circumstances because the worker could be an extremely hard working teenager, who is excited to be there everyday. If this teenager is cut off because an old man gets to keep his job, this is not right. The man could have a bad attitude and not show up to work but still has the job simply because of seniority. It doesn’t matter if the worker works part time or full time either.
2.) The most humane approach that companies could do when laying off workers is to assist people to develop skills necessary to look for another job. For example, a worker might not know how to write a proper resume or know how to look online, but the company could teach them and put them on the right path to apply for a job. The company could also provide that worker a severance pay for a certain amount of time so that the worker can pay their bills while they are looking for another job.
Erick Dagenais
1. I don’t think everyone has a right to his/her job. If you know you are guaranteed a job, then you wouldn’t really try hard at school since you know that you already have a career awaiting you, whether you’re trying or not. I think however that if you’ve been working exceptionally hard for your company and fulfill their demands, then a company shouldn’t have the right to lay them off just to save money. This wouldn’t be fair to people who have worked for their company for numerous years, left to find out that they will be fired.
3. If a company lays off its workers, I think that they should still provide some financial support to them such as healthcare, insurances and partial salary while the worker looks for a new job. That way, the workers aren’t doomed while they look for a different position. The company also has to make sure they can still fulfill its requirements for functioning now that they have less people. The empty spots should be compensated for. You don’t want a company to go bankrupt and end up having to fire all its workers and owing them a salary but not being able to pay them. This would be a lot worse and would leave many more families in poverty than a simple budget cut.
I believe that a job is not a civil right. If a person is unemployed the government usually offers subsides to that person such as WIC, unemployment money, and sometimes unemployment health benefits. If the government gives you options and other ways of living than a job shouldn’t be promised to anyone. When the government takes away unemployment then there will have to be another way for people who are laid off to survive. Also the society we live in is a capitalistic society, so people who believe in this country and what it stands for shouldn’t complain about the treatment they get as workers. This country was built for people who can create and if you’re not taking part in it, you’re not taking advantage of what this country has to offer.
If a company chooses to lay off workers I believe that the company should give the person they are planning to lay off ample time to be financially and emotionally set for the difficulties of being unemployed. The company should give the person some sort of lay off benefits so the person who has had an insurance for twenty six years is no without insurance. Time that a person worked is important so options for older more skilled workers should be better than the options that are given to the newest workers. Being laid off is very difficult, but with the government using the tax dollars that people pay to help the people things are sometimes a lot easier to overcome.
1. I don’t think that Americans have a right to a job. Of course, there are circumstances where the worker shouldn’t have been fired, but for the ones that do deserve to be fired, they shouldn’t be able to keep their jobs due to a civil right. I completely agree that a person has the right to support themselves, but when they’re caught eating a McDonald’s hamburger without paying for it, well then there’s obviously something wrong with their head and they should be fired immediately. No questions asked. There shouldn’t be some birth right preventing this. Another reason is that the worker loses all motivation to work hard if the job is secured for life, the quality of nearly everything would go down tremendously. Thirdly if all the jobs are secured for life it would be nearly impossible to get the childhood dream job because all the positions would be taken up by the employee’s for life. Finally there are far too many benefits for the unemployed and homeless, these benefits would be able to keep you afloat for as long you need to find a job. The only benefit I can see from having jobs for life is the job security for the people who were fired unjustly (such as outsourcing), but this would be taken advantage way too often by the people who don’t deserve a job that takes skill.
3. The company should have a huge responsibility to the employees if it was a mass layoff (like the GM layoff)but if they were there for a short time and deserve to be fired, the worker that was fired shouldn’t get anything. This is mainly circumstantial, but there should be job security if the worker has been there for a long time.
No, I don’t think that it should be a right to have a job. In fact, I think it should be viewed more as a privilege. I think that in order to have a job, a person should be willing to work hard for their position. I think that if having a job were a right, many people wouldn’t take things like education and hard work seriously because of a guaranteed future job. Another thing is the fact that most jobs require skill. Some type of skill, ranging in difficulty depending on the job. If a person isn’t qualified for a specific job, then they definitely shouldn’t be given that job. I also think it should partly depend on the workers circumstances. If the decision is between a married man with three kids and someone fresh out of college, I think the job should go to the man with the family. Depending on his wife’s financial income, i think that it is more important for him to get a job because he has the priority of providing for his family while the younger person only has to take care of themselves.
In terms of layoffs, I think part of it depends on qualifications. I think the person least qualified for the job should be laid off. In terms of cuts, if the company is in financial trouble, I don’t think there’s any reason to complain. If there’s no possible way for the company to keep paying everyone the same amount, then there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
1. No, I don’t think a worker has a right to their job. A job isn’t a piece of property, it can’t be owned. The closest thing to having a right to your job is feeling secure in it, and you can only feel that way if you’ve been working your hardest and putting in lots of effort. Some circumstances, however, are certainly out of the hands of the workers and it’s not their fault, but you’ve got to take the consequences and roll with them; it’s the only way to get back on your feet. Though it is unfortunate if someone of lower class gets laid off, it will make just as much impact as a richer person getting laid off from a high-ranking job. It’s somewhat unlikely that someone with a low-paying job will get dismissed, because companies will want to lay off the better-paid people higher up on the food chain. This way they can save money by hiring younger, newer employees who get paid less. In addition, many companies want to keep people that aren’t paid as much because – as they aren’t of equal qualification – the company knows they’ll fight tooth and nail to keep this job. It may be their only source of income, whereas people who seek lower-paying jobs at a young age or with little education are using the employment as a stepping stone, a filler job.
3. If a company wishes to keep the employees it has laid off, it should give those unfortunate people some compensation. If the reimbursement is a reasonable amount, the company must be planning on hiring the employees back at some point, probably when the company can afford to have a full and qualified staff. Although, if the company is in such a dire situation that it doesn’t know when it will recover, it most likely won’t be planning to rehire the lower-paid legions of staff, as they won’t be much help to the company one way or the other. The higher-paid members with buckets full of seniority would surely have a say in either who gets laid off or how much money they, as unemployed, will get as compensation, seeing as the company will either desperately need them to rebuild or desperately need to let their high salaries go.
Workers do not have a civil right to their job; however, depending on their status, they should have some sense of security. Americans are not guaranteed a job in the Constitution, and in my opinion, they shouldn’t be. After all, who is going to provide the job? If a person performed poorly or inappropriately, they should be removed from the job, but if employment was an assured right, there would be no way to fire the offender. If a worker is in a certain situation, such as being single and independent, a fulltime employee, or having children to provide for, they should have some job protection. If companies are forced to cut workers, they usually determine the order by experience. Companies either respect the seniority of their older employees or eliminate higher paid, more experienced employees to save money. However, companies should lay off employees by order of dependencies, taking into consideration each individual situation. Although this may be time consuming, a company owes it out of respect, or the rule could perhaps even be made a law. There are crimes for acts such as disrespect to wildlife, so there could also by crimes for disrespect to workers. A teenager working part time living and dependent on their parents should be laid off before a single adult who is the only member of their own household and needs the income, even if the company wants to slash expensive employees, or the teenager happened to be working there longer. Some companies need to reduce the number of employees in order to save their business if it is losing money. Still, other companies lay off workers to increase their profits, an exercise practiced heavily in the 1990s. There should be a worker protection law that prevents companies from laying off workers if they are making money. If a company were to lie about its financial standing, there are already tough punishments in place. Workers should be afforded some protection of their jobs, especially based on their dependencies. However, the perfect balance must be reached. If jobs are assured, workers might become complacent and lazy. On the other hand, if people aren’t sure they will still be employed the next day, productivity might be reduced.
I don’t think that a worker has a right on the job he has. Someone that is working at a power plant, or at a car company both had to apply for their jobs, and there was work required in order to get the job. They may not make the same amount, and there hours may be different, but they are still both making money. So if someone wants to get a job at a better business they should be able to get it if they are more qualified than others. This is how people can “move up the ladder”. Even if it was a case by case thing people should not be guaranteed there job for as long as they want. If someone isn’t performing to what a company needs this will hurt the company, and the government because then they have citizens losing faith in their policies. Another reason circumstantial job giving wouldn’t work is because it could waste massive amounts of money. If an agency is put in charge of getting people jobs it could potentially be very corrupted. Everyone is going to want a “life long” job. It also will end up costing the government more money than it should because if they put someone in a job who is a slacker, then the business gets hurt, and ultimately the economy will suffer from these bad people being hired. It is not worth the government paying to get people jobs, and then a company losing money because they can’t fire a bad worker.
I think that a company does owe loyalties to workers that it lays off. For instance, if a man works at a franchised electric store for 15 years and then suddenly the company lays him off from budget cuts. He should be able to get some support from the company; if not financially then they should at least help him find another job. I think this is more of a case by case thing as opposed to jobs always being someone’s. Obviously a kid working at McDonalds for the summer doesn’t deserve anything. If the store has to be closed then that sucks for that kid. Maybe he should have worked at the Wendy’s next door instead. But if it’s someone who has held a position at a job for 3 or more years then the company should be responsible and help them find another job, at least. I also think companies should be loyal because it looks good for them. If someone is looking for work they are more likely to try and get a job with a company that is supporting the people that it has to lay off, then a huge corporation that says “sorry buddy” and then screws people over. The government may also help the company. If all of the sudden they go bankrupt the government isn’t going to care if the company is small. But if it supporting and helping people it lays off then maybe the government will be more likely to help them.
1. I believe that a worker does not have a right to their job. A job is not just something that every citizen should get with their life. If this were true, that would mean that even the slackers in the world, who are up to no good and don’t try hard at anything would get a job. This might cause some of the people, who actually want to grow in a business and do well, not be able to get the specific job that they want because someone who doesn’t even want to try has the job. Also people are not entitled to keep their job, in some cases they are if they are doing the work well enough so that they deserve their job, but if there is someone that comes to interview for a job that is younger and seems like a better fit than an older, more experienced employee, it should seem as if the older one gets laid off since he/she would be costing more to the company. Most people who are married and have kids should want to do well in their job so that they can support their kids and family. It shouldn’t take a higher power to give a family the support and money that they need, it should be the peoples want to have a good life and be successful in their jobs. This is why I don’t think a job is a civil right, they should be given to people who actually care and will make the effort to get one.
3. If a company lays off a worker, I think the right thing that the company should do is give them a couple months of pay so they can move into the unemployment lifestyle easily. It would be very harsh to all of the sudden announce that they are laying people off with no more paychecks. Also if the company had the time to, they should help get their laid-off employees on a start on a job hunt and give them some references. Some people who just got laid-off might not know where to look for another job, but that’s what I think their past company should help them with.
Workers do not have a right to their job. No questions. A job is not a right. A job is not a requirement. A job is a privilege. In order to get a job, prior work needs to be done. I currently work as a film composer. I have just now entered the realm of getting paid for my work. To put it in perspective, I have been working as a composer for approximately two years. When I first started out, I didn’t even score for films, or any projects of any kind. I just wrote. I wrote, and wrote, and wrote, until I had pieces of music worth showing to the world. Then, I circulated the music around and waited for a call. Even after that, my first few projects were for no pay. My only condition was that I got a credit, so I could get my name out there. Now, I’m finally being paid for work. This job was not given to me. This job was not my right. This job was created by me, and I worked intensely hard to become successful at what I do. I feel that, if jobs were just a right, and employment was handed out for free, the quality of the job being done would be lowered. Not only did creating a reel and working for no pay circulate my musical talent throughout the film business, but it also helped me increase my craft, so when the time came, I was ready. Still, sometimes people’s jobs must be cut. If this happens, however, the company should give the worker some time to get back on his feet before cutting him off completely.
A worker does not have a right to his or her job. People need to be able to know that certain skills and other responsibilities are needed for a job, better to even keep one. No one should look to the government for a job laid out right in front of you waiting for you to work. It is ones responsibility to work hard and maintain a job and if that is failure, people should have the responsibility as to being their own boss and solving their own problems. It can offer an opportunity that is unemployed to become employed. This is also where I find education important. People should have to work hard for their earnings. I feel that company doesn’t or better yet should not have that much of a responsibility. Hopefully that company would gave the decency to tell that person at least five months in advance and can still work while being in the process of getting laid off. I would hope that person can look for unemployment benefits. Also, maybe even the company can offer some type of support group that offers other things they can venture off into other things. This is where having a skill comes in because if something like that was to happen you will be able to pick up where you left off and start anew. While not having any type of skill can really leave hanging dry. I would suggest going back to school or whatever.
Even though it would be quite awesomesauce if everyone could have a job and make their own living, the negatives outweigh the positives. Assuming that the government would hire all of the unemployed, that would be putting too much power in the government’s hands. We all know idiots and people who are greedy get elected, and with that kind of power some really messed up things could happen. Also, what if you want to choose a career path that needs a college degree, since you are guaranteed a job would that mean the government had to pay for you education too? The costs for making such a program would be tremendous and put us even further in debt. Making a job a civil right would be extremely difficult and cost way too much. Although I do see a solution in the government creating job training programs. This way, the government wouldn’t have the extreme power of employing everyone yet could still really make a difference for the people who are unemployed. It would give a second chance for those who didn’t do well in high school and could give an unskilled worker a skill. This program could also be used to promote green technology and helping little animals that are homeless.
For #3 I think it would be great if companies offered some sort of plan after its workers were fired. This would really help a lot of people and make unemployment more bearable. I believe that this plan should include a job training course (which the fired worker could choose) and money. Those are my thoughts on jobs being civil rights and fun stuff like that.
1.) I believe that a worker does not have a civil right to a job. This is because it simply would not work in an economy like ours where money is tight and we are already cutting costs everywhere. The government would have to spend even more than they are now to secure jobs for every single person. What is stopping high school dropout bums from saying “hey I think I want to be a doctor today”? If there was a system like this there would need to be some discretion with the age and experience of the people who want a skilled job. If our economy was better and if we got out of our billions of dollars of debt and we could spend more money, a system like this may work.
2.) I believe that businesses have many responsibilities to laid off workers. They need to give them little things so that they dont go from making money straight to no money at all. They should get paid a small percent of their salary for at least the first few weeks after theyve been laid off. This would help the company to save money and help the person who got laid off. The company also has to make sure that this person gets his/her job back at some point.
I don’t think that a job is a civil right. I think that if you put in the effort, time, education, and commitment, that there should be something said for that. But you can’t walk into an office or a restaurant or a store and just say, “When do I start?” If a company lays off it’s workers, the first thing that should happen is a reason. If you have a worker who is lazy, rude, aggressive, or otherwise, then that could be grounds for removal. And if the worker has been there for 30 years and is costing the company too much, discuss with them their options. But some people are very attatched to their jobs, to the point that when they’re let go, they become lost. They put their life into this job, centered their existence and schedule and social life around this job. And taking that away with little to no notice when they have done no wrong is a little cruel, to say the least. Once again, if they are a bad employee, by all means let them go. but a good worker who is commited should be helped by the company to transition into the stage of either retirement or finding another job. Because after all the hard work and time they put into your company, don’t you think that they deserve just a little bit of a payback? In the form of just some assistance, at least. That’s my take on it, anyway.
I don’t believe that a job is a civil right. A company should have to provide you a job, but they have the choice to if you fit their needs and are fit for the position. Whether the worker is an adult or not should only depend on the job position and not the job, for instance a bar. You have to be at least 21 to work at a bar to serve alcohol and you can’t be a minor to serve it. Other than this, if an adult or a teenager is fit for the job, they should both have the same chance at getting it. If you are pregnant, have a child, or single, shouldn’t determined whether you should be giving a job or not. In fact, this should make you do all that’s in your power to be able to get a job so u can support yourself or family, it shouldn’t just be giving. Also, if you were given a job because you were pregnant, have a child or single, people would do those things just to get a job, which is sort of scamming other people.
I don’t believe that the company should have any responsibilities for laying off workers. They were the ones that gave them the jobs in the first place and so if they need to take that away, they are allowed to. The job was a privilege to the worker from the company/boss and privileges are allowed to be taken away, it’s not a right. If it were a right to have a job, there wouldn’t be enough jobs out there for everyone and the people the better deserved the job would have to share it with someone that didn’t. Also, if it was a right, everyone’s pay would be cut dramatically which isn’t fair to the people that worked hard to get their jobs compared to the people that just laid back and knew they could get a job for nothing.
1. I don’t think that people should have a right to a job. If people had a right to a job then they wouldn’t want to try there hardest to keep that job and the work they do wouldn’t be that good. Even if people made it so that if you have the necessary training for that job then people would only try hard to get the education for it and once they get it there wouldn’t be any motivation. If they made it so that the government would give you a job that wouldn’t require training or minimal training then it would be good for them but the rest of the country might not be able to help pay for them and it would cause them to start working for the government which keep our country poor and it would be hard to recover for it. People today always need to try or else they get fired and if you had that right it would be a lot harder to get rid of people.
2. I don’t think that the company needs to do anything for the people they lay off even though it would help those people a lot. What a company could do is tell the people that get laid off that they would be guaranteed their job back when they can start hiring again. If the company wanted to pay the workers when they fire them it would hurt the company more than if they give them their job back when the company starts to do good again.
1) I do not believe that workers have a right to their jobs. Companies are personally owned and therefor they should be allowed to what whatever they want with their workers. If workers get fired, ity is because of their own doings or because the companies have to. I think companies should be responsible for the workers, after laying them off, for a certain amount of time. They should give them medical halp because finding a job so unpectedly is hard to do. They also should get a certain amount of time to know before they get laid off. A little of money would for the workers too.
I feel that a person does not have a right to their job. I feel that it is the companies or organizations choice weather or not the person can have the job. I feel that the age does not matter in the situation. I think that the company has the choice weather or not to employ the person if they want to or not. If the company is to lay the person of from their job, then I feel that the company does owe the person something. The person put their trust into that company and it wouldn’t be right of them to just let them go without any benefits. I feel that the companies should try to find the laid off workers other jobs first, before they lay them off, just to be fair. I feel that people shouldn’t get special job opportunities just because they are pregnant, or need help in life. I don’t think that a company can just randomly lay a person off for no reason. If the person was to do something wrong, then I think that it is the companies right to do whatever they want to the person. The person should not be able to complain about it. However, if the person did not do anything wrong, then the company should do something for the person. They should give the person major benefits because it is not fair what they did. The person had no say in losing their job.
I do not think a worker has a right to his or her job. A worker is not forced to work, if they act up or do something against company policy or something like that they should be fired. There are some circumstances like wrongful termination. When someone is working their life outside of work should not affect their right to their job. The worker should put responsibility on them selves to think about their family or life outside of work before doing something they will regret long term.
I think companies should offer severance packages so that the worker can pay bills or provide food for their families. Another example would be to give extended pay for some period of time for the transition between jobs. I hope that to some extent the people at GM feel guilt for leaving the city of Flint like that. I hope they think if it was really worth it in the long run but they should not feel obligated to let people keep their jobs because of a right, there are other reasons like if they really deserve to be laid off if they put in hard work and is determined. If the worker was fired they should not get anything because they do not deserve it.