Should the Companies Proclaim Policy for Protect the Worker's Family - Essay Example

Should the companies proclaim policy for protect the worker's family? And what's the effect? Business entities are also part of society and being such, it has an obligation to proclaim and enforce policies that protect the worker and the worker’s family. This is important because the inability to protect the worker and the worker’s family have many negative effects that would undermine the business productivity and profitability. Corollary, proclaiming and enforcing policies that protect the worker and worker’s family is beneficial to the company and it improves its profitability and position in the market. Failing to protect the worker and the worker’s family could be very disadvantageous to the company in terms of image and brand because the general public will be appalled with a company’s labor practice that disregard the welfare and protection of its employees and its immediate dependents. When the general public will perceive the company as uncaring, they will be turned off with the company and will cease patronizing its products. When customers no longer patronize or buy a company’s product or service, its sales will decline and it follows that when sales decline, the profitability of the company will also decline and it will not be long before the company will go bankrupt. In addition to customers who would be put off with a company that does not proclaim the protection of its employee and their families, investors and the general public will begin to have a negative perception of its shares of stock and it will follow that its stock price will decline due to the negative perception of the market. When that happens, returns to the shareholders will also decline. When the returns of the shareholders investment will decline, they will withdraw their money from the company and will look for other companies to invest it in where it could be more profitable. Thus, the evil cycle will begin with shareholders leaving the company aggravating the already negative perception on the company. In the end, the company may even go bankrupt just because of the market’s negative perception of the company with its uncaring labor practice with its employees and their families. The refusal or failure of the company to protect the worker and their families come in many ways. For the worker’s family’s refusal or inability to protect them by the company, this could come in the form of non recognition of health insurance coverage and in today’s case refusal to implement Obamacare. In effect, this law mandates that companies are all required to protect all their workers and their families from rising medical cost despite their medical condition. Failure to cover its employees would tantamount to paying fines which the law will impose on the company. This is important to mention because this is the new context that businesses will be operating in terms of providing health insurance to their employees and their employees. It meant that companies will have to cover all of its employees including those who were previously uninsurable and those who have pre-exisitng conditions and that includes their families. This may mean an added cost in terms of paying premiums as employees who were not uninsurable has to be insured now that companies may be tempted to renege it to save on cost. The consequence proved to be more expensive because companies who refused to provide medical insurance protection to their employees and their families were fined heavily such as the case of big companies such as AT&T and Caterpillar who decided to stop providing health coverage for their employers because of its additional cost. As a result, it was slapped with penalty and mandated to pay heavy fines that were very costly (Colvin 125). Big companies are considering this option because the forced coverage of the new law on health insurance on all of its employees including those who were previously uninsurable would mean huge addition of cost due to the scale of its employees. Such, they deemed it more cost effective to stop insurance coverage until they were penalized by the government. Another way of going around the law that companies are using to avoid protecting their employees and the employees family is to resort to self-insuring their employees. This meant that the employers themselves would cover the health insurance of their employees and would pay their claims directly rather than going through the conventional health insurance policies (whose cost has gone up with the implementation of Obamacare). The self-insured employer will choose and design their own plan and hire a third party administrator to manage the plan. And employers who cannot afford huge claims purchase stop-losss insurance that would cover the claim just in case they reach a certain level (Sammer). This became an option because the new law on health insurance removed the annual and lifetime payment caps that made stop-loss coverage a good alternative among employers. While this may sound to be a reasonable alternative, this is in fact just a way to skirt around the law so that companies will no longer have to protect the medical coverage of their employees families to save on cost. This cost saving device of employers however may be challenged by employees who would actually opt in with the coverage of the new health insurance law especially parents who have children under 27 years old. Under the law, employees who will be covered by the insurance policy of their employers can now include their children under the age of 27 in their insurance coverage with Obama’s new health care law. This component of the new law will be very advantageous to employees who has/have sickly child/children because the cost incurred in the health care of their children can now be shouldered by their present insurance when the new health care law. Employers who will attempt to stop health insurance coverage of their employees are almost certain to have conflict with them because that would mean depriving employees who are parents of this benefit. In addition, companies will also run the risk of being sued and paying huge amount of fines for skirting around the law. Another form of refusal to protect the company’s employees is practicing and tolerating discrimination. Discrimination comes in several ways and the most common is racial, religious and gender discrimination of which the law is very harsh in penalizing who proved to still practice discrimination. Racial discrimination is the act of discriminating minority workers and this could come in many ways such as refusal to hire them, refusal to promote them, refusal to provide them their full wages and benefits as employees or by simply treating them badly either by unkind remarks, bullying and other subtle actions. Once proven, the law does not take this lightly and the company will surely be fined heavily. But what is more damaging is the public perception on the company that it is discriminating its employees. The media will be on them giving negative publicity which will surely turn the public off. Once this happen, it will just be a matter of time before the company will fold. Another most common practice of not proclaiming employees protection is discrimination against gender especially women. Society is already sensitive to gender equality and companies who discriminate against females run the danger of being perceived as “sexist” which is not really good for its image. There is another type of discrimination that is rising which again, is a company’s inability to proclaim policy to protect its workers which is religious discrimination. Companies must proclaim as a policy that an employee must be allowed to practice his or her religion within reason otherwise it would become a ground for discrimination. To paraphrase Pledger “the law requires employers to make reasonable accommodations to "sincerely held" religious beliefs of employees as long as doing so poses no undue hardship on the employer, EEOC says. When that doesn't happen, EEOC said it steps in but only after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement with the employer”. Despite the unlawfulness of religious discrimination, it still however exists even in the United States. The number of complaints againt religious discrimination is even on the rise. The agency tasked to oversee labor practices in the United States, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported that religious discrimination in the workplace settings have more than doubled “from a little over a decade ago, resulting in roughly $10 million in settlements. Last year, nearly 3,800 were filed” (Pledger). Despite the startling figure on how much it costs for companies to continue their discriminatory practices against religion, its end cannot yet be seen in the near future. Much of this discrimination cases against religion were against the Muslims (Greenhouse). The disadvantage of religious discrimination is not only in the cost associated with settlements when a case is filed against the company. The biggest cost that is incurred against the company in this discriminatory story is the one that cannot be easily counted which is lost productivity due to the dampened morale of employee or employees because of discriminatory practice. The court settlement and its associated costs during the litigation can easily be monitored by its receipts but opportunities lost had the worker or workers been motivated to work are not easily quantifiable (Kaminer 455). On the other hand, once companies proclaimed to protect the worker and worker's family, it will reflect well on the company as a good Customer Relation Management (CRM) and this will enhance the image of the brand which will foster goodwill among the customers and general public and could increase the profitability of the company. Works Cited Colvin, Geoff . IF OBAMACARE SURVIVES, EMPLOYERS MAY DO IT IN.  Fortune (2012) 00158259, 165 (7) Greenhouse, Steven. Muslims Report Rising Discrimination at Work. Septemeber 23, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/business/24muslim.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all. Accessed April 20, 2012. Guy, Gery P. Jr.; Adams, Kathleen; Adams Atherly (2012) Public and Private Health Insurance Premiums: How Do they Affect the Health Insurance Status of Low-Income Childless Adults? Inquiry. 49: 52–64 Kaminer, Debbie N.. RELIGIOUS CONDUCT AND THE IMMUTABILITY REQUIREMENT: TITLE VII'S FAILURE TO PROTECT RELIGIOUSEMPLOYEES IN THE WORKPLACE. Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, 17.3(2010):453-485. Pledger, Marcia. Workplace Religious Discrimination Complaints Double Over 10 Years. April 19, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/25/workplace-religious-discrimination_n_1112313.html Sammer, Joane. Is Self Insurance for you? HR Magazine, (2011): 35-37 Turnbull, Lornet. Religious tension in workplace on the rise. February 15, 2007. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003566830_religiousuit11m0.html Read More