Employment Discrimination Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Employment Discrimination - Assignment Example These articles present different provisions and protections to employees regarding discrimination in working places. Article nine states two major provisions as highlighted below: †¢ â€Å"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance† (Council of Europe, 2013). †¢ â€Å"Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others† (Council of Europe, 2013). Article 14 on the other hand also provides different aspects seeking to provide protection to individuals who might suffer from personal discrimination, either directly or indirectly within the working environment. This article, however, works in accordance to the provisions of article 9. The provision of this article states as follows. †¢ â€Å"The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in [the] Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status†.... These decisions delivered by the European Court of Human Rights could have various implications on the employment context in future. 1st applicant The applicant had been working with British airways for 5years before the introduction of new uniform regulations, which created controversies with her religion. The applicant appeared to fail to conceal the religious symbol displayed, prompting the company to take necessary action. Following the laid down procedures, the company decided to terminate the services of the applicant indefinitely, without pay. The condition set upon the employee was that she would be reinstated when ready to comply with the prevailing regulations. Following numerous consultations, with relevant stakeholders, the company reviewed the regulations and the perceived religious symbol became permitted within specified working areas. The applicant was reinstated into her employment, however, the pending dues, accrued during suspension were denied to the employee. Thi s prompted the filing of legal complaint against the company for discriminative treatment, and breach of article 9. The applicant cited hindrance of the freedom to manifest her religion. The employment tribunal, however, dismissed the claims for direct discrimination on the ground that, the applicant failed to raise the issues of discrimination when the regulation was introduced. The failure by the applicant to present evidence of other individuals complaining of similar discrimination became the ground for dismissal at the Employment Appeal Tribunal. The appellate body dismissed the appeal for indirect discrimination as the applicant never proved of instances where other persons professing similar religious beliefs complained of discrimination from the company’s regulations. This

Working in a Virtual World Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Working in a Virtual World - Essay Example This brings in the best of the talent present in the multiple locations in which the virtual world exists. Moreover, the virtual world brings forth the use of many technologies, which makes it even more interesting, as communication and collaboration becomes easier and working on any project becomes a dream-come-true even if each member of the project is kilometers away from each other. The barriers that would have been present in any virtual organizations - that of time and distance - have been conveniently removed by the technologies that are used, essentially that of telecommunications and computing. Furthermore, the virtual organization is flexible, because it is the management of an organization over a virtual set up. This also makes the virtual organization dynamic and ever-changing; it is restless in nature and dares to experiment with new ideas and creative techniques of operation. And lastly, the most important attribute which gives virtual organizations a unique touch is th e integration that results and which enhances and brings out the best in all individuals to level out complete synergy and work in favor of the organization. There is always a limit as to the efficient performance of the communications network that has been set up. As will be mentioned in the next few pages, handling and managing communication with remote workers will be one of the biggest challenges for the organization. For example, there will be a potential limit as to how much of transmission can the bandwidth set up do. Therefore, the moment that limit is crossed, the speed of communication gets slowed down and thus collaboration gets difficult. (Gareth, 1998) A very big disadvantage for virtual organizations lies in the fact that there may be hardware and software compatibility issues with the remote workers. The hardware that the remote worker uses will most probably be personal and would not be a specialized computer, rather just a simple one to keep at a house. The software that the management expects the remote worker to use would be specialized and would not be that efficient on an old, slow or mediocre computer. Thus, this mismatch is likely to result in low productivity and frustration of the employee to get things done the way management wants him to do. Computer security is an issue for the virtual organizations because they exist on around a million personal computers of all their remote workers. Leakage of information is highly likely. Technology that is being used in managing a virtual organization is most likely to evolve over time. Updating it in the many computers of the many remote workers would be difficult. The Advantages - Employee and Employer The virtual organization has many advantages for the employee: Often organizations experience an increase in production, but there is no as such acceleration in productivity, as should be the case. Therefore, implementing a virtual organization helps increase productivity and the number of output per worker, thus improving quality and not just the quantity of work that is being produced. Moreover, the employee is always at a pressure from all the