Day 6: Exam, Rights, Discrimination and Facebook

EXAM 1 in the first section.

Second section I introduced tomorrow’s case, New Belgium Brewing Company. (looked at their website basically). We also discussed the project; a description/topic is due on Wednesday. Then we started a section on rights.

After some of the basics, a definition of rights and duties, I introduced “Dan Keplinger”, as I sometimes do in the states. He’s a Towson U. grad, aka “King Gimp”, severe case of cerebral palsy. When his mother (in the film “King Gimp”) enrolls him in a mainstream public high school, the principal tries to steer her toward a “special needs” school. She refuses. During Dan’s time in high school, he requires resources like a writer and note-taker. The cost of these services is irrelevant, if we say that Dan Keplinger has a right to an education. Utilitarianism might argue against his public education, if it were not for the fact he discovers a gift for painting. The students seemed interested in his story, and wanted to see examples of his work. I showed them on his website, www.kinggimp.com.

After the next break we come back I have written some of the key rights terms (chapter 14) on the board, e.g. social welfare rights, human rights, legal and moral rights and the UNDHR. I have asked the students to pay attention to these in their reading rather than going over every categorization.

I then applied rights to the workplace. “Every U.S. worker has a right to fair treatment”, at least as outlined in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Every U.S. worker has a right to be free from age, sex, religion, national origin, race and disability discrimination. (though the first and last one are part of other laws). I asked them about discrimination in Panama.

They tell me that these forms of discrimination are also illegal in Panama, but still take place. For example, there are job advertisements that might say “seeking female salesperson between 22 and 29”. When I asked what would happen if a male applied for such a job, the answer is his application would be taken but he would never be called. I pressed the matter a little further, “how can an advertisement exist if the contents of it are illegal?” there was no answer, just people shrugging their shoulders.

There was at least open agreement that there was little in the way of discrimination on the basis of race. This is a fairly diverse culture racially with a fair representation of Hispanics, caucasians, Africans and Asians here. I rather wonder about national origin, since I hear about immigration issues involving Colombians, Venezuelans, and some other countries.

Sensing it might yield a more interesting exploration, I stayed with sex discrimination. I mentioned the classic flight attendant example in the U.S.; men couldn’t work as flight attendants initially because the job was poorly defined as setting a “soothing atmosphere for the weary business traveler” (something like that). they seemed interested if there weren’t any jobs that a company couldn’t define as strictly for men or women. “Prison guard” or “bridal dress consultant” are examples, but these are very exceptional.

then I was asked about “freedom to hire”? “If it’s my company, can’t I hire who I want? If I want to hire a man, or a woman, or whoever, why shouldn’t I be able to?” There seemed to be at least a couple of people who expressed this point of view. “A business is not a party” I answered. “If you’re having a party, go ahead and invite only men, or only women, only whites or only blacks. But that’s a temporary private event. A business is an on-going public endeavor. If you want to operate publicly, to participate in a very public endeavor such as wealth creation, you cannot deny opportunities based on personal prejudice.” (more or less) I could see some questioning faces, though I was not challenged any further.

I transitioned to the Peter Oiler case. He was a truck driver, fired after twenty years of good service by Winn Dixie stores, for cross-dressing. At first they seemed confused, but as I shared an excerpt from the case, it mentions the company’s position that he might harm the company’s image. The class quickly divided, much like my students do in the U.S. Some feel it’s his own business what he does, and the company is losing a good employee, and the job doesn’t have much of an image component to it; others I could tell thought Peter Oiler was “crazy”, “dangerous”, “something was wrong” (I did press them on this, asking if they were sure, or if they were qualified to give a diagnosis, the few that did backed off, though the essential “I’m uncomfortable with this” remained). They also agreed that in Panama such an employer might harm a company’s image, and might lead to bad publicity.

The Peter Oiler case also introduces the concept of “employment at will”. I asked if an employer in Panama could fire an employee for “no cause”. The students disagreed with themselves; most arguing that it couldn’t be done but they weren’t sure. There was general agreement that (1) Panamanian companies are quite good at finding ways/reasons to fire employees they no longer wanted and (2) to the extent the rationale for dismissal is poor, there is a financial penalty. (lots of wild percentages were thrown around..). I indicated this would be a good topic for a project.

Finally we discussed my Facebook example: a friend loses out on a job because of what he posts on his facebook page (in the example the friend lists “slasher” movies has his favorite, posts pictures of heavy drinking, along with being passed out and with frequent use of profanity). The class divided again, along similar lines to Peter Oiler. Some expressed that employees must remain “professional” at all times; others claiming that your own time is your own business and that “everyone is entitled to a little fun”. There was broader agreement that simply not hiring someone because they drink too much wouldn’t be an effective staffing strategy in Panama.