Thinking Critically about Relevant Legal Issues: Arguments supporting strikes
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Although strikes can be considered to be unlawful, there are ethical norms that support that justify them. Employees of any organization or industry have the right to plan and implement a strike if they feel that they are being unfairly treated by their employers in the work environment. Strikes can either be unlawful or lawful depending on the timing, purpose, and employee conduct during the strike. Lawful reasons for strikes include protesting unfair labor practices and striking for economic reasons. Strikers who protest unfair labor practices cannot be permanently replaced or discharged from their jobs by their employers. They are entitled to get back their jobs at the end of the strike even if the employers had to hire other people to do their jobs. Striking for economic reasons may include seeking for economic concessions such as shorter working hours, more wages, or improved working conditions. Legally, economic strikers maintain their status although their employers can replace them. In cases where the employer hires permanent replacements and the strikers go back to work, they cannot be immediately reinstated to their positions (Hennebert & Faulkner, 2017).
Employees often go on strikes as the last resort hence strikes are justified. It is important to understand that there must be a reason why employees choose to strike and the reason cannot be interpersonal conflict with the employer. Most strikes are driven by justifiable reasons such as the employer’s inability to meet reasonable expectations within the work environment or industry norms. Strikes are decisions that workers make after deliberating their options and most workers must support the action for them to be implemented. One of the most important aspects of strikes is solidarity between workers. Naturally, workers have the ethical obligation to protest against issues that affect all of them. In addition, before opting to strike, workers engage in all manners of interactions with their employers in attempt to find a solution that will neither harm the organization, consumers, and other workers who rely on them. If all these attempts fail, they are justified to force their employers to address their grievances through strikes (Frangi et al., 2020).
The main purpose of strikes is to address the welfare of specific groups of people hence the end results may justify the means used even if there is some damage caused by the action. If employees strike for equal pay regardless of their gender and such strikes result in implementation of laws that promote equal pay, then the strike is justifiable. Many equitable labor laws have been implemented as a result of strikes hence one cannot dismiss the effectiveness of strikes in advancing the rights of people in the labor market. In the U.S., work safety regulations, worker’s compensation laws, minimum wages, and laws regarding compensation for overtime work were results of strikes. Work safety regulations mandated employers to provide work environments that promote employee safety. In the long run, the results obtained through strikes benefit other generations of workers (Kubasek et al., 2017). Strikes are also justifiable because they ensure that the quality of various institutions is maintained. Most institutions such as the education and healthcare institutions are shared assets which thrive on quality. For instance, when healthcare workers strike, they often do so to protest poor work environments and high workloads with low compensation. Failure to address these reasons has a negative impact on the quality of services provided by the healthcare industry. Poor work environments and high workloads for healthcare professionals translate to poor quality of services and poor patient outcomes. If strikes help to resolve these issues, then both patients and healthcare workers benefit from better working conditions and the strike is justified (Li & Ng, 2021).
Although employers can replace workers in case employees strike for economic purposes, the marketplace conditions can help determine if the strike was justified. For instance, if the employer is underpaying the workers based on current marketplace and economic conditions, it will be very difficult for them to find adequately skilled replacements if they still offer the same wages they did to the striking workers. However, if the strikers are demanding an unreasonable increase in their wages, then employers may find it easy to replace them. Therefore, strikes are essential because they ensure that employers provide economic benefits that align with the marketplace conditions (Kubasek et al., 2017).
Strikes provide an avenue that promotes a power balance between employers and employees. In many industries, employers hold most of the power hence they can engage in actions that jeopardize the rights and safety of their employees without any consequences. Such employers may not want to listen to any grievances aired by their workers because they feel that workers are replaceable. However, strikes are important because they make employers realize that they cannot dismiss their workers’ grievances (Frangi et al., 2020).
In conclusion, strikes which are conducted for lawful purposes are ethical because they promote the rights of employees including the right to fair wages and good working conditions. Some employers must be forced to examine their workers’ plight during strikes because they fail to listen to their grievances when aired in other manners. Strikes have been effective ways of influencing the development and implementation of labor laws.
References
Frangi, L., Boodoo, M., & Hebdon, R. (2020). Demobilised or dormant? Exploring pro-strike attitudes among employees who have never joined a strike. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 0143831X2098005. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831×20980059
Hennebert, M., & Faulkner, M. (2017). Are strikes still a tool for union action? A qualitative investigation into the private sector in Quebec, Canada. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 41(1), 73-97. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143831×16684963
Kubasek, N., Brennan, B., & Browne, M. (2017). Legal Environment of Business: A Critical Thinking Approach (8th ed.). Pearson.
Li, Y., & Ng, J. (2021). Moral Dilemma of Striking: A Medical Worker’s Response to Job Duty, Public Health Protection and the Politicization of Strikes. Work, Employment And Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017020981554