Monday, May 14, 2007

What are the Substantive Measures of Workplace Fairness?

Most of the articles in this blog have thus far been devoted to the "Process" measures of workplace fairness (i.e. What makes a fair workplace conflict managment system?). It has occured to me lately, however, that perhaps there is a way to measure the substance of workplace fairness (i.e. what minimum terms and conditions of work are required to make a workplace a "fair" workplace). I suspect this is a much harder task than the first line of inquiry. This is so, because substantive fairness will likely be subjective and referential. Or to put it another way, "fairness is in the eye of the beholder".

Still, perhaps there are some minimum indicia of a fair workplace. Perhaps there are standards that must be met to ensure workplace fairness.

I will begin this discussion in the upcoming articles by exploring what cannot be absent from a workplace in order to achieve fairness. This negative proposition might be the easiest place to start. To put it another way - What is required to make workplace fairness possible?

I encourage the reader to reply in the comment section with your ideas about the minimum requirements of workplace fairness. To make a start at this, we assume that a workplace cannot be fair if it is unduly physically dangerous. Legislators accross the Western world have made it clear that workplace participants must not be subjected to harsh physical dangers at work.

Let us take it from there. In upcoming articles I will explore these minimum standards of "substantive" workplace fairness. I invite you to explore with me.

No comments: