Key concepts
Understanding and complying with HR law is important for three reasons. It helps you to do the right thing, realize the limitations of your firm’s HR and legal departments, and minimize your firm’s potential liability. (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin & Cardy 2016)
Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) means freedom from discrimination on the basis of protected classes such as race, color, sex, national origin, religion, age, disability or genetic information. (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin & Cardy 2016)
According to Tech Runnel’s article (Chrisos 2019), here are the most important human resource management laws and regulations:
- Confidentiality
- Background checks
- Discrimination and favoritism
- Harassment
- Safety
- Equal pay
- Other payroll issues
According to Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland website (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland n.k.): Employment Contracts Act is the basic law regulating employment relationships. It is applied to work performed in employment relationships in both private and public sectors regardless of the nature of the work. Separate provisions exist for public-service relationships. The most important acts applied to employment relationships of individual employees are:
- Employment Contracts Act
- Working Hours Act
- Annual Holidays Act
- Study Leave Act and
- Act on the Protection of Privacy in Working Life.
Human resources discipline policies are designed to provide employees with opportunities to correct objectionable behaviors or to improve job performance. HR discipline policies evolve from training, coaching and counseling through various levels of consequential actions until negative behaviors have been corrected or employment has been terminated. HR discipline policies often follow a format known as progressive discipline. This disciplinary framework provides occasions to establish important documentation and might also include an employee appeals process.(Reynolds n.k.) A company can avoid discipline by recruiting and selecting the right employees for current positions as well as future opportunities, by training and developing workers. (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin & Cardy 2016)
Employees join unions because they want to have someone protecting their rights and benefits. When you have union behind your back, it is easier to negotiate for more favorable working hours, work benefits and salaries. It’s about the quality of work life.
A labor relations strategic plan is a way to allow the parties to move away from simply reacting to each other, towards an approach where they can identify their labor relations goals, determine the strategy needed to reach those goals, and develop the actions needed to carry out that strategy. (FLRA 1999) The labor relations process has three phases: union organizing, collective bargaining and contract administration. (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin & Cardy 2016)
Overall, working in HRM you need to be aware of all the regulations, laws and acts that are part of the hiring process and the whole work cycle. You need to know how to deal with the unions and follow their regulations. Laws and regulations are not the same in each country, when business world today is extremely international, you need to follow how things are in other countries.
Cases 1 & 2
Nowadays there are more and more sexual harassments happening, at least people are informing about them more. Sometimes people don’t realize that even something small thing they say might be taken as harassment, even it would be a joke. In this very case with police deputy inspector Keith Walton, borders were crossed big time. No one, especially someone who’s working as a manager position, should treat others in a bad way. They should give a good example, follow the laws and look after that everyone is being treated with respect. (Mele & Baker 2016)
Well said in an article called Receipt rage (McCarthy 2015): “This type of behaviour, and this case in particular, reveals a side of humanity that you thought was dead.” This case shows the problem nowadays, when social media is blooming and people are writing whatever come to their minds, without really thinking it trough. Same kind of hateful things happen even when people transact with other people during their days. There were inappropriate acts from workers to customers but also the other way around. Especially when working in HRM you need to be sure who you will hire, do proper scanning of job applications and have a good knowledge of people when you are interviewing them. In the worst scenario, you end up hiring someone who is not treating customers with respect and it will end up with a lawsuit from unhappy customer.
Racial slurs and harassment at General Electric
General Electric (Kareem Nittle 2020) came under fire in 2010 when 60 African American workers filed suit against the company for racial discrimination. The black workers say GE supervisor Lynn Dyer called them racial slurs such as the N-word, “monkey,” and “lazy blacks.”
The suit also alleged that Dyer denied bathroom breaks and medical attention to black workers and fired black workers because of their race. In addition, the suit alleged that higher-ups knew about the supervisor’s inappropriate behavior but delayed investigating the matter.
In 2005, GE faced a lawsuit for discriminating against black managers. The suit accused the company of paying black managers less than whites, denying them promotions and using offensive terms to describe blacks. It settled in 2006.
References
Chrisos, M. 2019.What are some of the legal issues in human resources? URL: https://www.techfunnel.com/hr-tech/what-are-some-of-the-legal-issues-in-human-resources/. Accessed: 1 March 2020
Federal Labor Relations Authority. 1999. General counsel issues guidance on developing a labor relations strategic plan. URL: https://www.flra.gov/092499. Accessed: 1 March 2020
Gomez-Mejia, L.R., Balkin, D.B. and Cardy, R.L. 2016. Managing Human Resources. Global Edition 8/E. Pearson. London.
Kareem Nittle, N. 2020. 5 big companies sued for racial discrimination. URL: https://www.thoughtco.com/big-companies-sued-for-racial-discrimination-2834873. Accessed: 1 March 2020
McCarthy, S. 2015.Receipt rage: Why food is being served with a side of hate. URL: https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/receipt-rage-why-food-is-being-served-with-a-side-of-hate. Accessed: 1 March 2020
Mele, C. & Baker, A. 2016. New York police inspector is charged with sexually abusing female officer. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/nyregion/new-york-police-sexual-abuse-of-officer.html?_r=0. Accessed: 1 March 2020
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment of Finland. N.k. Employment contract and employment relationship. URL: https://tem.fi/en/employment-contract-and-employment-relationship. Accessed: 1 March 2020
Reynolds, M. N.k. HR discipline policies. URL: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/hr-discipline-policies-59297.html. Accessed: 1 March 2020
Basics of Human Resource Management 