Deck 6: Moral Rights in the Workplace

Question 1

Which of the following statements is true of work?

A)People typically determine most aspects of their work themselves.
B)Work is necessary to acquire many central human goods.
C)Most people do not value work as a necessary means to other crucial goals.
D)Work curtails the moral rights of employees.

Answer 1

Work is necessary to acquire many central human goods.

Question 2

Which of the following moral rights could be waived in order to get a job or an increase in employment benefits?

A)Protection against sexual harassment
B)A safe and healthy workplace
C)Wage levels required for a decent, humane level of existence
D)Plans for a family
E)All of the answers are correct.
F)None of the answers are correct.

Answer 2

None of the answers are correct.

Question 3

Which of the following would be a moral right of an individual?

A)The right to a workplace that is free from sexual harassment
B)The right to earn minimum wage
C)The right to free speech
D)The right to paid holidays

Answer 3

The right to free speech

Question 4

Identify a moral right from the following options.

A)The right to a chosen health package
B)The right to work
C)The right to equal opportunities at work
D)The right to privacy

Question 5

Identify the proposition that challenges the argument for mandatory union membership.

A)Mandatory union membership allocates the benefits and burdens of union membership in a fair and equal manner.
B)Whoever receives benefits from a process that entails costs should share the cost of providing those benefits.
C)Bargaining between employers and employees will be equal only if the employees bargain for wages and benefits as individuals.
D)Bargaining between employers and employees will be equal only if the employees bargain for wages and benefits collectively.

Question 6

Determine which statement defends the idea that private employers do not have an obligation to provide jobs for others.

A)Everyone needs a job to be able to satisfy his or her instrumental and psychic needs.
B)The economic system of a society exists, fundamentally, for the well-being of that society's members.
C)Employers have rights, although limited, to property and also have their own right to work.
D)If citizens have a right to a job to fulfill their instrumental and psychic needs, then some public institution has the obligation to provide those jobs. Private employers can fulfill that obligation more efficiently than government.

Question 7

Select the statement that represents an erosion of employment at will as a legal doctrine.

A)Federal and state constitutions grant employees rights against the government as their employer.
B)Union employees are protected from arbitrary dismissal by their union contracts.
C)Civil rights laws protect employees from being fired because of race or sex, for example.
D)Federal and state laws protect employees who blow the whistle on certain illegal or unethical acts committed by their employers.
E)All of the answers are correct.
F)None of the answers are correct.

Question 8

A procedural account of due process would preclude:

A)prior warnings, documentation, and written performance standards.
B)a list specifying beforehand every possible reason for dismissal and distinguishing them from unacceptable reasons.
C)probationary periods.
D)an appeal process and an opportunity to respond to allegations.

Question 9

Which statement fails to provide a valid reason in support of John McCall's claim that employees have a right to participate in management decisions?

A)Human dignity is tied to the ability of humans to guide their own lives and control their own destinies.
B)Fairness demands that each and every person affected by a managerial decision must have an opportunity to represent his or her own interests.
C)Employees who participate in and contribute to decision making are less likely to suffer alienation and burnout.
D)None of the answers are correct.

Question 10

Select the statement that might represent a valid objection to worker participation in management decisions.

A)Private owners have property rights that include the right to manage and direct the business.
B)Workers lack the expertise and knowledge to manage a business.
C)Substantial conflicts that exist between the interests of the firm and the interests of the employees are more likely to occur than similar conflicts between the interests of managers and the interests of the firm.
D)Any attempt to involve employees in decision making will be inefficient.

Question 11

According to the free market and classical models of corporate social responsibility, individual bargaining between employees and employers would be the best approach to workplace health and safety. Which statement does not support this approach?

A)Employees are perfectly free to decide what level of risk they are willing to accept for a corresponding level of wages.
B)In a competitive free market, individual bargaining would result in the optimal distribution of safety and income.
C)The means the market uses to gather information about risks is by observing the harms done to the first generation exposed to imperfect market transactions and market failures.
D)The threat of compensatory payments acts as an incentive for employers to maintain a reasonably safe and healthy workplace.

Question 12

Select the statement that does not reflect the connection between the two senses of privacy as a right to be "left alone" and privacy as a right to control information about oneself.

A)Certain decisions we make about how we live our lives play a crucial role in defining our personal identity.
B)Privacy establishes the boundary between individuals and thereby serves to define one's individuality.
C)The right to control certain very personal decisions and information has little relevance to determining the kind of person we are and the person we become.
D)To the degree that we value treating each person as an individual, we ought to recognize that certain personal decisions and information are rightfully the exclusive domain of the individual.

Question 13

One meaning of "employee rights" is that employees have claims independently of any particular legal system, claims that originate from the respect due to them as human beings.

Question 14

Without collective bargaining, employers would have a stronger incentive to compromise with individual employees on levels of wages and benefits.

Question 15

A modified version of the right to a job claims that the government should be the last resort for people who are able to work but unable to find jobs in the private sector.

Question 16

Rather than specifying every acceptable and unacceptable reason for dismissing an employee, due process refers to the procedures employers must go through before dismissing workers.

Question 17

The private property rights of business make it doubtful that it derives its coercive power from the consent of the governed even in societies where individuals are respected as autonomous, free decision makers.

Question 18

Stockholder rights raise a relevant objection to the participation of workers in management decisions only if such participation threatens a stockholder's investment.

Question 19

It is simply too much to ask of employers to provide an ideally safe workplace.

Question 20

Information about employees that is gathered through such technologies as polygraphs, drug-testing, surveillance, psychological tests, or electronic monitoring may sometimes have to include information that is not ordinarily job-relevant and legitimately knowable by the employer if the employer thinks the overall good of the business might someday require it.

Question 21

In the United States, civil rights laws do not protect employees from being fired on the basis of race and sex.

Question 22

The concept of democracy is based on the belief that each individual has the right and duty to fully participate in social and political decision making.