1• The Supervisor’s Job
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Increased Legal Power of Employees. Organized labor’s share of the work force is lower than at any point in the last 50 years. Currently about 19 percent of the work force belong to labor unions. It is predicted that by the year 2000, only 13 percent of all nonfarm workers will be organized.¹¹ Despite this decrease in labor union power, employees have more legal clout than at any previous time. Numerous laws and court rulings have protected the rights of workers in such matters as discharge and discipline, pay, discrimination, retirement age, and employee privacy. It is therefore difficult for the supervisor to control workers through such means as the threat of job loss or negative employment references.
A key challenge facing all managers is that workers have developed a sense of entitlement to their jobs. When workers believe they have been dismissed unjustly, they hive often sought retribution through the courts and won. Many years ago the termination-at-will doctrine prevailed. Employers were allowed to dismiss employees for good cause, or for no good cause, without being guilty of legal wrong.¹² Over the years, legislation has moved in the direction of employee rights. The employer who dismisses an employee may have to prove to a court that he or she deserved to be terminated.
The increased legal power of employees has magnified the importance of the staffing function of supervision. Because unsatisfactory employees are now more difficult to dismiss than in the past, supervisors must do a particularly careful job of selection and training. Performance appraisals must be conducted thoroughly, because undocumented dismissals will often be overturned by the courts. A related challenge is that supervisors must carefully guard against intended or unintended job discrimination. Employees who believe they have been discriminated against often take legal action against the firm.
Supervisory Problems Created by Employee Involvement Programs. Organizations today are run more democratically than in the past. Modern supervisors typically practice participative management, a style of leadership in which the managers share decision-making responsibility with the group. Participative management often takes the form of an employee involvement program. An employee involvement program is a formal method for soliciting employee ideas about work topics such as increasing productivity, quality, safety, and morale.
¹¹“Beyond Unions: A Revolution in Employee Rights Is in Making, Business Week, July 8, 1985, p.72.
¹²Maria Leonard, “Challenges to the Termination-at-Will Doctrine,” Personnel Administrator, February 7983, P.49.
