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Abstract
The importance of labor laws in shaping todays working environment is significant. These laws help to establish how employers treat their staff and stop the former from exploiting their workforce. This paper analyzes the ways different labor laws are applied within organizations around the world with a comparison of working conditions in several countries. Only secondary data is used in this research which is presented in the form of several academic articles. Ultimately, it can be seen that labor laws helped to establish safer and more comfortable working conditions in economically developed countries. However, some companies still ignore some aspects of labor rights.
Introduction
Labor laws were introduced to establish and control the relationship between employers and their employees. These regulations help to avoid labor exploitation of the former by the latter. Labor laws were first implemented during the industrial revolution when production shifted to large-scale factories. Workers were allowed to form trade unions or join the existing ones. Trade unions played a crucial role in negotiating current labor regulations back in the days and remain relevant even today. Nowadays, almost everyone in the labor force can join a union that would represent their profession. However, it is worth mentioning that labor laws and the power of trade unions would vary in different countries and organizations. The main idea behind the labor laws today is to establish the basic rules of conduct between employers and their staff. Furthermore, these regulations help avoid the rights of employees being neglected in favor of higher economic efficiency.
Labor Laws and Trade Unions
The need for labor laws first appeared during the process of industrialization and exists even today. Labor regulations help to avoid any form of professional misconduct within a workplace. Some developing countries are still in desperate need of at least basic labor legislation to be enforced. These countries are often exploited by Western transnational corporations which do not mind using child labor, paying the lowest wages possible and often ignoring terrific working conditions. For instance, the use of child labor is still widespread in tobacco production. Children are engaged in the cultivation of tobacco leaves in Malawi and Kazakhstan, which undoubtedly has harmful consequences for children and society (Ramos, 2018). Cases similar to this happen all around the globe and highlight the importance of legislation securing labor rights. Apart from child labor, these rights would also grant employees a more comfortable working environment and allow them to join trade unions that would negotiate higher wages.
However, it seems that there are plenty of examples of labor laws being violated even in first-world countries. Companies like Google constantly appear in various internet articles which criticize their policies regarding labor rights. In late 2020 Google was accused of restricting workers from forming a trade union. The accusation was made by The National Labor Relations Board. It claimed that the American IT giant illegally monitored several employees and then fired them (Dave, 2020). Despite the fact that the Western world is currently undergoing the fall of unionization, it is still crucial to recognize that unions help to stabilize the social and economic divide for common employees (Visser, 2019). Moreover, the modern-days economy is becoming more digitalized, which allows companies to generate gigantic amounts of data through various methods of workplace surveillance (Vandaele, 2018). This undoubtedly brings the need for an organization such as a trade union that would protect this data. Therefore, every employee has a right to be represented by a labor union, which would correspond to his profession.
Workplace Discrimination
Nowadays, the importance of gender equality goes hand in hand with various labor laws as almost everywhere they guarantee equal working standards for anyone regardless of a persons gender, sexual orientation, etc. However, once again, it can be observed that some organizations still have considerable pay gaps between men and women conducting performing jobs. By not following equality standards, companies create discrimination within their workplaces which goes against labor laws. For instance, in the U.S., one of the most significant gender pay gaps is related to medicine. In 2016 the difference in earnings between male and female doctors was 34 percent (Rimmer, 2017). In addition, in 2019, Google was accused of underpaying women. In fact, after the company started addressing this issue, it realized that it was underpaying men instead. There are many causes of gender pay gaps, such as access to education and nepotism, which should be addressed as soon as possible (Charlesworth & Smith 2018). These pay gaps result in discrimination and, as a result, show that basic labor rights are being ignored by some corporations even today.
Working Environment
Another key factor that labor laws help to address is the state of work conditions. Throughout the process of industrialization in the Western world, the work environment was tough for many factory workers. Many factory men had to comply with a 12-hour workday in a dangerous environment, resulting in severe health issues in both the long- and short-term. Unfortunately, this still remains the case for the majority of developing countries. For instance, in Bangladeshi factories, working conditions are still unsafe despite all the efforts being made to improve the situation (Liu et al., 2019). In this terrific condition, workers are often refused basic necessities such as lunch breaks, air conditioning in their offices, or health insurance. This could be easily fixed with sufficient funding and proper labor laws.
On the other hand, the situation is much different for economically developed countries. The main reason for this is the significant shift of economic activity into the tertiary sector away from its industrial origin. Nowadays, western corporations rely on creative work and, thus, strive to create better working conditions than their competitors in order to attract specialists. In addition, stricter labor laws were created, which in combination with the growing power of trade unions, deter employers from putting economic efficiency as their top priority (Maestas et al., 2017). For example, Google allows their employees to have flexible lunch breaks and provides them with corporate transport. Moreover, in the case of an employees death, the company promises to pay half of their yearly salary to the family of the employee over the next ten years. This indicates the importance of appropriate labor laws in motivating Western organizations to improve the working conditions of their employees.
Overall, the research indicates that despite some isolated cases of labor rights violations, the situation has significantly improved in developed countries. Nowadays, labor laws guarantee plausible working conditions, which, if compared to those of the industrial past, show the major steps which were made to improve the situation. Furthermore, enormous work is being done to keep the improvement going through the adjustment of current labor laws, which restrict any attempts of exploitation and discrimination from the employers.
Literature Review
This research includes various complex academic articles and books that evaluate different factors which either form or show the need for labor laws in forming working environments around the globe. Arguments, data, and other information regarding labor rights and conditions appear useful in forming an understanding of the applications and usefulness of labor laws. The academic literature used for this research consists of six articles and one research paper which contains the results of the doctors pay gap in the U.S.
The first source used for the research is Child Labor in Global Tobacco Production under the authorship of Athena K. Ramos (2018). This article carefully approaches the issue of child labor in developing countries. It contains an extensive overview of labor rights violations in Kazakhstan and Malawi, comparing them to the one in the United States. Ramos (2018) perfectly describes the situations where major international organizations such as Imperial Tobacco ignore the basic labor regulation in favor of higher profitability of their businesses. The article helps to build an understanding of the importance of labor laws. In addition, it also lets the reader build a parallel between developing countries and their economically superior counterparts. The only drawback of this academic work is its limitation to only three countries. The author could have extended her research to include countries like Indonesia where the situation with child labor engaged in tobacco production is not much different from Malawi.
The second article was presented by Jelle Visser and the International Labor Organization in the form of a formal report about the state of trade unions in the modern-day economy. This report highlights the importance of unionizing the labor force in the current economy. The main point the author tries to explain is that economic activity in developed countries has shifted towards the tertiary sector, with many workers starting to ignore their rights to join a union. The paper, however, presents the evidence that even in developed countries, trade unions still retain massive power. Visser (2019) helps to shape the understanding of the role trade unions have in forming labor laws and securing labor rights.
Another article by Vandaele (2018) stresses attention on the importance of trade unions used in this paper analyzes the usefulness of trade unions in securing the digital data organizations have on their employees. The author provides extensive arguments on why personal data should be secured, and companies should be regulated in the ways they can perform workplace surveillance. Overall, it is a well-written academic paper with clear argumentation on the role of trade unions in todays economy.
Charlesworth and Smiths (2018) research helps to form an understanding of the role of gender pay gaps in todays economy. Even though it only talks about the Australian inequality issues, the article provides an overview of the causes of gender pay gaps in a modern economy and provides a list of possible causes. The article works well in combination with the research results from Rimmer (2019). These two papers highlight the issue of discrimination within the workplace and, thus, identify the need for further revision of labor laws.
The last two articles were used in combination to compare the state of working conditions between countries that are still going through industrialization and the deindustrialized ones. The two works contain extensive overviews of various working environments around the globe. They help to assess the progress developed countries underwent to develop satisfying labor laws and create better and safe working conditions. Furthermore, the article written by Liu et al. (2019) can be used to see how the lack of proper labor rights lets organizations exploit their labor force.
Research Results
This research helped me improve my understanding of the importance of labor laws and their appliances within corporations. From the sources I used for this essay, I was able to compare labor rights in several countries and, ultimately, come to the conclusion that developing nations often ignore the need for appropriate labor laws. This poorly affected the working environment, with some local and international employers exploiting the labor force. In the chase for higher economic efficiency, major corporations in developing countries tend to pay the lowest wages possible, providing inhumane working conditions without hesitating to use child labor. More developed countries, on the other hand, seem to have taken massive steps towards improving labor rights through a series of legislations that were applied through the process of deindustrialization.
Furthermore, by looking into the integration of labor laws and American organizations, using Google as an example, I was able to observe that some companies still find ways to get around labor laws. For instance, there were cases when the IT giant protested unionizing the labor force, unlawfully monitoring its employees, and then subsequently firing them. In addition, the company was also alleged to create gender pay gaps, which in turn led to discrimination within the workplace.
However, I was also able to conduct that despite several isolated cases of violations of labor rights, Western companies provide comfortable conditions for employees. Many organizations, nowadays, adhere to various labor laws and take it even further to attract more potential workers. They offer different perks such as corporate transport, flexible work time, and health insurance. Therefore, I can conclude that labor laws are important in creating a plausible working environment.
Recommendation for Future Research
There are two factors, which can significantly enhance this research. This paper could have covered more research data. A wider list of countries could have been used for the examination of their labor laws and their influence on local working conditions. By expanding the list of countries involved in the research, it would be possible to build a better picture of the current situation with labor laws. This would then help to make a broader conclusion on the importance of labor laws and the reasons for their introduction since more primary and secondary data would be available.
Furthermore, more organizations need to be examined to form an understanding of how labor laws are applied within corporations. So far, it can only be stated that corporations are certainly complying with labor laws by providing features such as health insurance, maternity leaves, and guaranteed redundancy payments. However, some companies found their way around the labor laws. This observation used Google as the sole example and, thus, a wider range of companies from various countries could have been used to provide further explanation on the applications of these laws within corporations.
Conclusion
To conclude, the importance of labor laws is the key point of this research. These laws ensured the smooth transition of developed economies into their current state away from the industrial past. Labor laws prevent organizations from putting economic efficiency as their top priority and restrict them from cutting back on wages for common employees. Furthermore, the legislation also ensures a comfortable and safe working environment, which does not ignore labor rights. This is achieved through the establishment of a formal relationship between employers and their employees and specific regulations dictated by governments and trade unions. Unfortunately, the research showed that there is still room for improvement. Companies, even in developed nations, can violate labor laws by preventing unionization of their workforce as well as engaging in discrimination by creating pay gaps. Therefore, labor laws play a significant role in todays economy, but they have to be revised and modified to restrict employers from exploiting their staff even further.
References
Charlesworth, S., & Smith, M. (2018). Gender pay equity. In Stewart A., Stanford J., & Hardy T. (Eds.), The Wages Crisis in Australia: What it is and what to do about it (pp. 85-102). South Australia: University of Adelaide Press.
Dave, P. (2020). Google violated U.S. labor laws in clampdown on worker ORGANIZING, the regulator says. Reuters.
Liu, X., Mishra, A., Goldstein, S., & Sinha, K. K. (2019). Toward improving factory working conditions in developing countries: An empirical analysis of Bangladesh ready-made garment factories. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 21(2), pp. 379-397.
Maestas, N., Mullen, K. J., Powell, D., Von Wachter, T., & Wenger, J. B. (2017). Working conditions in the United States results of the 2015 American working conditions survey. RAND Corporation.
Ramos, A. (2018). Child labor in global tobacco production: A human rights approach to an enduring dilemma. Health and Human Rights, 20(2), pp. 235-248.
Rimmer, A. (2017). The gender pay gap: Female doctors still earn a third less than male doctors. British Medical Journal, 357.
Vandaele, K. (2018). Will trade unions survive in the platform economy? Emerging patterns of platform workers collective voice and representation in Europe. SSRN Electronic Journal.
Visser, J. (2019). Trade unions are in the balance. International Labour Organizations Bureau for Workers Activities.
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