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The decline of collective representation and rise of individual employment rights is a transformative shift in employment relations that has changed the landscape of workplace dispute resolution. I propose a model that seeks to provide a new approach to understanding how workplace dispute resolution functions in the era of individual employment rights.

The model I propose focuses the analysis on the elements that connect the structure of rights that are enacted to the patterns of employment practices in the workplace.

My argument is that the systems for enforcement of individual employment rights and the mechanisms of representation for the employees affected are as important as the substantive rights themselves in determining the impact of the individual rights regime. These three elements combine to determine the degree to which the individual employment rights serve as an effective source of power for employees in relation to their employers.

The establishment of these sources of power is what then results in the individual rights regime producing an effect on the employers’ patterns of practices in the workplace and ultimately determining the nature and character of the employment relationship.

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) creates rights for covered employees, defines conduct that violates those rights, and deems that conduct an unfair labor practice. But while given broad remedial powers under the Act, the Board's options were curtailed by the Supreme Court's limit on the use of deterrence as an express remedial justification. The Board was left with a strongly make-whole, i.e., ex-post, focus to undo the consequences of a violation.

Put differently, the current NLRA remedies reflect a pay-or-play philosophy. The goal is restoration after the fact, using ex-post remedies to give parties the benefit or status quo that they expected. An actor willing to pay may use a cost–benefit analysis and strategically choose to violate the Act, accepting the make-whole remedies later. But the Act created ex-ante statutory rights, not agreed-upon contractual terms. By statutory enactment, employees are given something of value deemed worthy of protection. Assigning value to compliance with the law in the first instance not only prevents sometimes irreparable harm but also reaffirms the inherent value of the right itself.

The impact of the Board's limited remedies is therefore a broad value-driven one. Without ex-ante deterrence, the available ex-post make-whole remedial options make a normative statement about individuals' rights under the Act: those rights may not be inherently worth enough to incentivize legal compliance. The make-whole focus can imply that financial compensation for the portion of harm that can be calculated and “undoing” some nonfinancial effects is sufficient. There is little drive to deter infringement before the fact. By examining the remedial philosophy behind contrasting approaches in the common law of torts and contract, this Article asserts that the current remedial strictures and framework undermine both the Act and the worth of its rights in the eyes of the public and the employees who hold them.

Purpose — This paper explores the field of ethical conflicts of human resource (HR) managers in Slovenian organizations: unfair payments, extreme differences in rewards, not respecting employees’ rights, discrimination; using over excessive disciplinary power, not paying social contributions, and engaging in manipulations, among others. The main attention is paid to the implementation of employees’ rights and the factors that affect the process of the implementation of employees’ rights.Design/methodology/approach — We applied an ABC (antecedents — behavior — consequences) analysis of ethical organizational behavior. The survey encompasses 73 HR managers of Slovenian companies.Findings — HR managers perceive their role in an organization as being caught in a specific position in relation to senior management and employees. The study shows that in organizations where the “soft” and “combined” model of human resource management (HRM) is developed, the implementation of employees’ rights is more strongly realized.Research limitations — The sample size is one of the chapter’s limitations. The other is the use of quantitative statistical approach without applying other methods. In the future it should be accompanied with qualitative techniques by which dishonesty would be more directly linked to the violation of employees’ rights.Practical implications — Professional education can (1) form a solid system of professional values that can help to prioritize expectations and demands in the work place and (2) equip HR managers with competencies to solve ethical issues and to engage in ethical behavior.Social implications/value — The results show that first of all, HR managers are responsible in their role (responsibility of the role in developing the model of HRM which facilitates the implementation of employees’ rights) and only secondly, comes the responsibility of HR managers in an active sense of responsibility (responsibility as a virtue).

In this chapter, we explore the legal framework of AGMs in seven Member States (Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) of shareholder decision-making rights. We find that, since only a small part of the decision-making rights is harmonized at the European level, there are numerous differences in shareholder rights among national laws. These decision-making rights are usually about the topics director (re-)elections, pay matters, share capital, amendments to articles of association, annual accounts, etc. To be able to conduct empirical research in the remaining chapters, we develop a categorization framework of 15 voting items.

This paper examines roles of mandated employee participation rights (EPRs), such as works council legislation, in corporate governance. Links between employment and corporate relationships are stressed. Market failure arguments are developed, predicting that EPRs, and the interaction between EPRs and investments in skills, can positively impact productivity; preliminary evidence from German establishments is generally supportive. A qualitative appraisal concludes that EPRs have not harmed economies that adopt them. Policies to expand EPRs in the US are introduced, jointly encouraging skill development and employee decision-making participation, full rights for employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) participants, legal regulation of terms such as “participation,” and EPR extension services.

The aim of this study is to find out the managers’ perception of employment practices and human rights for Indonesian women employee. The research was conducted by using a quantitative and qualitative approach. Data collection was gathered through a questionnaire before performing the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests that compare the managers’ perception. The samples for the research were top-, middle-, and low-level managers in Indonesian companies. Three primary managers’ perceptions concerning human rights were found. They are requirement of a particular unit to handle discrimination complaint, guarantee of rights to associate and give opinions, and workforce. There are also three primary managers’ perceptions on employment practices. They are sexual harassment, time flexibility for breastfeeding, and training for counseling facilities and employee risk anticipation. The originality of this study is empirical exploration of multilevel managers’ perception of women employment practices and human rights in Indonesia.

Relative to other industries, hospitality organizations tend to be labor intensive, employing large numbers of individuals in hotels, resorts, restaurants, and other related enterprises. There has been long-standing debate between the rights of worker personal privacy and the need for employers to know information concerning prospective and current employees. This article presents an evolution of employment relationships in the hospitality industry to demonstrate the complex nature of employment from legal, moral, and ethical perspectives that exists at the current time. It provides discussion of the balance between the rights of individuals and employers’ “need to know” private information to draw conclusions and suggestions for practicing hospitality human resource managers.

This chapter focuses on the development of corporate human rights standards since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. One of the important agendas for this Summit was human rights (apart from the climate change issue). This chapter provides a critical evaluation of institutional change in human rights guidelines and associated corporate (non) accountability in relation to human rights in line with the RIO summit. Based on a review of the media reports, archival documents and a case study, we argue that while there are a number of international organisations working towards the creation of corporate accountability in relation to human rights, there is limited real change in corporate action when faced with no government regulation. A radical (reform-based) approach, such as mandatory monitoring (compliance audit) and disclosure requirements is necessary to ensure corporate accountability in relation to human rights.

The purpose of this chapter is to survey and synthesis the literature on: (1) myths and misinformation about persons with disabilities that create attitudinal barriers to employment, (2) best practices in employing persons with disabilities, (3) the business case for hiring persons with disabilities and (4) corporate social responsibility and disability, in order to distill a model for changing corporate culture for successfully integrating employees with disabilities into an organizations workforce.

An extensive review of the above mentioned literature is synthesized and distilled into a model.

The review indicates a number of best practices to be implemented in order to successfully integrate employees with disabilities into the workforce. These factors have been synthesized into a model to guide employers in affecting corporate cultural change to address the integration of person with disabilities into the organization.

A systematic approach to integration of employees with disabilities, informed by the significant business logic for doing so.

The chapter provides an extensive survey of the literature on disability employment and highlights attitudinal barriers to employing persons with disabilities, the business case and social responsibility case for employing persons with disabilities, the best practices for success and synthesizes these factors into an original model to guide business in cultural change making.