Employees and Business Ethic

Employees and Business Ethics

Employees Privacy

Course of Corporate Social Responsibility

Introduction:

Drug testing is common in the modern work place, particularly in the United States. More and more companies use tests in health, drug, alcohol, and genetic in order to put employees under surveillance. These facts mean that employee privacy is compromised. However, privacy is today a fundamental right.

The key issue is to determinate whether some aspects of our life are relevant to the relationship with our employer. However, employers have right to know about the factors influencing whether an employee is performing or not. Costs caused by drug abuse for example can lead future costs due to absenteeism and loss of productivity. So, what aspects of our life could be relevant to the relationship with our employer?

In the first section, I’m going to define what privacy is, and I will compare the utilitarian vision of privacy with Kantian arguments. Then, I’m going to talk about the privacy of employee records. Finally, I will present two case studies, one about espionage and the other deals with companies that have anti union stance.

I- Business ethics and employees: the main theories

a) Definitions of Privacy

There are different situations in which people implore a right of privacy. So, be agree in one definition of the concept of privacy is not easy.

Warren and Bradeis define the privacy like the right to be let alone. But, there are many critics that point out the words “to be let alone”. Individuals have right not to dissimulate information in matters of religion and politics for example. But, law predicts legal restrictions on religious practices and these restrictions do not involve a violation of privacy.

The error in the Warren and Bradeis definition is the confusion between the concepts of privacy with liberty.

Cranford defines the right to privacy as an individual’s right to control information about oneself and to control...