Week 14: Rights in the Workplace

This weeks readings were extremely interesting, and I particularly enjoyed the guest lecture from Bruce Barry, author of Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace, and professor at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. Mr. Barry’s lecture corresponded very much with the readings (the two chapters from his book). The introduction of the book, “Speechless at Work in America”, discusses the erosion of freedom of speech in the workplace, and the book as well as his lecture outlined several extreme, yet real, situations of workers being “legally” stripped of their freedom of speech rights both in and outside of company lines. The first example pertained to a woman by the name of Lynne Gobbell her lost her job over a political bumper sticker she had on her car (which was parked in the company’s parking lot). To me, the case seemed relatively extreme, but was an excellent “jumping off point” for subsequent discussion of workplace speech rights. Barry, who is very concerned with the increasingly blurred lines between the home and the workplace (particularly in regards to freedom of speech), believes that thousands upon thousands of workers are subjected to “unfair” yet “legal” restrictions on their freedom of speech. I however, don’t believe the problem is as pressing as Mr. Barry makes it out to be. But, in his defense, I have not had much experience in the workplace outside of summer internships and on-campus jobs. This past summer I had the opportunity to work for a very employee-friendly company (a small firm) in which the overarching company culture was “employees are the company’s biggest asset”. That being said, there is no doubt in my mind that many hourly workers in large companies are often exploited to the harsh, and often unfair, restrictions of free speech in the workplace. Perhaps the most alarming example of the erosion of free speech in the workplace was Bruce Barry’s example of the stockbroker who was forced to resign from his job at the firm Paine Webber. Although I do not believe that the victim in this particular case was committing any violations of company policy, he was indirectly harming Paine Webber’s business in such a way that they were essentially losing business as a result of his political activism. Because there were political implications (the Mayor of the city was involved) and because the issue was such a hot topic (affirmative action) I believe there are many other factors that played a role in this particular case study which make it difficult to analyze for the purpose of this discussion, and for Mr. Barry’s overall argument. Furthermore, after hearing Mr. Barry’s lecture and after reading the two chapters from his book Speechless I immediately became aware of the implications my “outside the workplace” words and actions can have on my employment and my rights as an employee.

In sticking with the current topic and readings two very controversial events that relate directly to this discussion came to mind. The first event and question I had pertained to Larry Summers, the former President of Harvard University (and now Director of the White House’s National Economic Council for President Obama). For those not aware of this specific case, Mr. Summers made apparent sexist comments about women and their overall inability in the subject areas of math and science. My question is, should Mr. Summers have been “forced” to resign because of his speculative comments that women may statistically have lesser aptitude for work in the highest levels of math and science? This questions is a particularly tricky one, and I’m sure Mr. Barry would agree that, while “legal”, Mr. Summers speculative and discriminative comments were no doubt in poor taste (and false if I might argue). However, the question of whether he should have been forced to resign is still a topic of debate among scholars in the field, and I believe that although legal, the implications of his comments were so vast and so damaging that he should, rightly, have been forced to resign. What do you guys think?

The next question I had when reading these articles pertained to ideas presented in Chapter One of Bruce Barry’s book, “When Work and Speech Collide”. I recall sitting down with one of my dear friend’s father’s, Mr. Marc Richards, who is a partner at the bankruptcy firm in New York Blank Rome LLP. He told me that ex-President Bill Clinton came to speak to the firm in attempt to convince the lawyers to make political contributions to his wife’s campaign for Presidency last summer. After the speech (which he found to be very insightful –Bill is a very good speaker and he likes Bill) the firm asked the partners to each make a personal contribution to Hilary’s campaign. Mr. Richards, a staunch Republican and “hater” of Hilary Clinton, was more or less “forced” to write a check towards Ms. Clinton’s campaign –should he have been forced to do this? Obviously Bruce Barry would say no, but what are the firm-wide, personal, and political implications if Mr. Richards had refused to contribute to Hilary’s campaign? Clearly, Mr. Richards’ free speech rights were in a sense neglected as he felt that he must, in accordance with his firm, provide a political contribution to a politician he felt was not aligned with his views. I, and Mr. Barry too probably, have a serious problem with this.

Finally, moving on to the final reading of the week titled, “Law Down the Law: Know Your Work Rights” from Joe Robinson’s book Work to Live. In this reading the author discusses various abuses of employees by employers –clear violations of workplace rights. He then moves on to outlining the various laws that govern workplace rights, namely the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which was passed in 1938. The FLSA established both the forty-hour week and the federal minimum wage (which has increased over the years). Basically, Robison’s main point was that so often many workers do not know their workplace rights, which can either cause them to breach them without knowing, or more importantly, the misperception and misinterpretation of these laws that so many employees in America have causing them to be exploited by their employers. Thus, according to the author, the best way to take advantage of your rights in the workplace is to know them and to be familiar with them. Thus, Mr. Robinson encourages employees (and I would have to agree) to familiarize themselves with the laws and policies that govern salary versus hourly compensation, severance pay, vacation time and benefits, harassment, and other very pertinent laws, ramifications, and recourses employees must live by. Furthermore, I believe that both Mr. Robinson and Bruce Barry have a very firm understanding of the law in regards to the workplace and freedom of speech, but both authors/educators (mind you they are not attorneys), in my opinion, oversimplify the legal issues and implications in dealing with rights in the workplace.