Business Ethics final report

INSTITUTE OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

The Ethics of Job Discrimination

Term Report

SUBMITTED BY

MUHAMMAD ASAD KHANMUHAMMAD ADEEL MUSTAFA

HENA TABASSUM

Institute of Business Management

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We would like to thank Almighty Allah for giving us courage and will to achieve our objective for

completing this report, according to the requirements and in due time. We would like to thank our

instructor Asad Shehzad for his guidance throughout this report. He showed us the way to achieve our

target and give us the guidelines for this report. He helped us with his time, effort and knowledge

through our entire semester with him.

Moreover, we would also like to pay gratitude to our family and friends for their support, we are also

very thankful to Institute of Business Management, for giving us support and providing us with resources

to complete this report.

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Table of Contents

Nature of Job Discrimination.......................................................................................................................5

Prejudicial Actions......................................................................................................................................5

Socio-Political-Economic Discrimination...................................................................................................5

DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT..................................................................................................5

Discrimination and Employment.................................................................................................................6

Killing Merit............................................................................................................................................6

Biased Attitude........................................................................................................................................6

Damaging Employee Interest..................................................................................................................6

Forms of Discrimination..............................................................................................................................6

Why This Discrimination?...........................................................................................................................7

The Glass Ceiling Concept..........................................................................................................................7

Utilitarian Argument...................................................................................................................................7

Criticism of Utilitarian arguments...........................................................................................................7

Rights..........................................................................................................................................................8

Justice..........................................................................................................................................................8

Job discrimination Practices........................................................................................................................9

Discrimination in recruitment..................................................................................................................9

Discrimination in screening.....................................................................................................................9

Discrimination in promotion....................................................................................................................9

Inequality in salaries................................................................................................................................9

Discharging based on discriminatory factors.........................................................................................10

Types of comparisons provide discriminatory evidence............................................................................10

Average income comparison.................................................................................................................10

Lowest Income Group Comparisons.....................................................................................................10

Desirable Occupation Comparisons.......................................................................................................10

Discriminatory practices in Pakistan.........................................................................................................10

1. Gender discrimination.......................................................................................................................11

2. Religious discrimination....................................................................................................................11

3. Ethnic/Racial discriminations............................................................................................................12

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4. Disability discrimination...................................................................................................................14

Affirmative Action......................................................................................................................................14

Affirmative Action as Compensation.....................................................................................................15

An Instrument for Achieving Utilitarian Goals.......................................................................................15

Preventing Discrimination at the Macro Level...........................................................................................15

Preventing Discrimination at the Individual Level.....................................................................................16

Preventing Discrimination at the Micro Level............................................................................................16

CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................16

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Nature of Job Discrimination

The core meaning of the term discriminate is “to differentiate one object from another”, a morally neutral and not necessarily wrongful activity. However, in modern usage, the term is not morally neutral; it is intended to refer to the wrongful act of distinguishing, not on the basis of individual merit but on the basis of prejudice.

Prejudicial Actions

To discriminate in employment is to make an adverse decision against employees who belong to a certain class because of morally unjustified prejudice towards members of that class. There are usually social, cultural, religious, political, economic and ideological forces at play that encourage discrimination.

Socio-Political-Economic Discrimination

Whenever the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity were violated the conditions for socio-political-economic discrimination arose. Any violation of liberty, equality and fraternity amounted to the act of discrimination and that was unethical.

DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT

Any person willing to find work and unable to find work is considered to be unemployed.

If a person works at a level below what he/she is capable of working at and consequently earns less wages is called under-employed.

If a person works at a level above what he/she is capable of working at and consequently earns higher wages is called over employed.

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Discrimination and EmploymentPrincipally there are three elements that define discrimination in employment and need to be consciously considered.

Killing Merit

A decision toward one or more (prospective) employees that is not based on individual merit, e.g., Seniority and experience, Educational qualifications and job performance ratings.

Biased Attitude

That derives from some morally unjustified attitude such as racial or sexual prejudice or false stereotypes

Damaging Employee Interest

That has a harmful or negative impact on the interests of the employees, e.g., by costing them jobs promotions and pay.

Forms of Discrimination:

Intentional and Institutional Aspects

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Why This Discrimination?1. This discrimination basically arises because those who have the power to

enforce decisions are unaccountable for their prejudices.2. There is no countervailing power to prevent this abuse of power.3. The larger civil society remains a mute spectator to this condition.

The Glass Ceiling ConceptWhen these three conditions occur the under-privileged worker faces a glass ceiling i.e., something he/she can see but cannot surpass. It is a kind of roadblock to upward progress in an organization.

Utilitarian ArgumentThe underlying theme of utilitarianism is that any action or policy should be evaluated on the basis of costs or benefits that action has for society as a whole. Moral actions are those that will produce the most utility for the majority.

The utilitarian argument against discrimination maintains that society’s productivity will be highest when jobs are awarded based on competence. Discrimination based on anything else is counter to utility.

Criticism of Utilitarian arguments:

Two criticisms:

First, if jobs assigned on the basis of job-related qualifications to advance public welfare, and if public welfare is advanced to greater degree by assigning jobs on basis of other factor not related to job performance, then the utilitarian would have to hold that in those situations jobs should not be assigned on the basis of job related qualifications, but on the basis of that other factor.

Second, it might be true that society as a whole would benefit by having some group discriminated against.

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For example: women are child bearer of society it makes sense in terms of society’s productivity because she is responsible for bringing up their families for future rather than attempting to have an active role in labor market, such discrimination is legitimate.

Rights

Non utilitarian argument against discrimination maintains that society’s productivity will be highest when jobs are awarded based on competence. Discrimination based on anything else is counter to utility. Kant says that humans should be treated as ends in themselves and never as a means to an end. Therefore, discrimination is wrong because it violates people's rights to be treated as equals.

Individual has right not to be discriminated against their organizational life and that others have a duty to provide an individual with that right. Discrimination violate it in two ways

1) Based on one group is inferior to other for example older workers are less competent as compared to younger workers or women are less ambitious to men such stereotypes can undermine the self esteem of such groups and therefore violate their right to be treated as equal.

2) Secondly discrimination places members of discriminated group in lower economic and social positions where by opportunities are considerably less than their counterparts, this again contravenes the right to be treated as a free and equal person.

Justice

A third group of arguments against discrimination views it as unjust. Rawls argues that it is unjust to give some people more opportunity than others. Another argument sees it as a form of injustice because individuals who are equal in all relevant respects cannot be treated differently just because they differ in other, non-relevant respects.

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Job discrimination Practices There are five recognized categories of discriminatory practices:

Discrimination in recruitment

This type of discrimination takes place when a particular group holds dominant position in the organization and practice recruitment on the word-of-mouth referrals of present employees representing that group e.g whites prefer to recruit white candidates, Muslim majority prefer Muslim candidates etc.

Discrimination in screening

Discrimination also happens in screening of the candidates for a job. Common examples include, demanding a certain level of education for very low-level jobs. Disqualifying minority class who are unfamiliar with the language, concepts & social situations in the aptitude & intelligence tests

Discrimination in promotion

Discrimination in promotion takes place when minorities are kept away from promoting to senior positions e.g women, religious minorities and disabled people.

Inequality in salaries

Many organization follow discriminatory practices in giving unequal salaries and wages to different group of workers who are essentially doing the same work. For example paying low salary to a female worker as compare to the salary of a male, despite of doing the same work.

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Discharging based on discriminatory factors

Another discriminatory practice is to fire the employees with no valid grounds but due to discriminatory biasness. Discharging an employee based on race or gender, or layoff policies that rely solely on seniority

Types of comparisons provide discriminatory evidenceThree types of comparisons provide discriminatory evidence:

Average income comparison

It is the comparison of average benefits given to various groups. Comparisons of incomes can be exercised between males and females, white and blacks, and different ethnic groups. Females and blacks usually earn less as compare to white males. Statistics showed that black average family income remains about 65% that of whites.

Lowest Income Group Comparisons

It is comparison of the proportion of a group found in the lowest income levels of the institution. In most cases women, religious minorities and disabled people lies in this category which gives discriminatory evidence.

Desirable Occupation Comparisons

It is the comparison of the proportion of a group found in the most advantageous positions in the institution. History reveals that most desirable positions are held by white males whereas women, blacks and minorities are restricted to be promoted to high income positions

Discriminatory practices in PakistanNow we will take a brief look at some of the discriminatory practices exercised in Pakistan.

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1. Gender discrimination

Gender discrimination is very commonly exercised in different institutions in Pakistan. Even high profile institutions are involved in such discrimination act. Women are victims of gender discrimination as most of the high earning positions are occupied by men. These are the some discriminatory practices against women

Sexual harassment against women. Survey showed that 40 to 70 pct women face harassment at workplace.

Pay inequality of women against men for the same work. Women workers in private sector work 12 to 16 hours a day and still get 40% less wages as compared to men workers. Nearly 3 million women are working as domestic servants and get anything between 500 to 2,000 rupees per month.

Unsecure environment at the workplace is another discriminatory practice against women.

Managers hesitate to promote women on top level positions. The resistance also comes from the staff as male workers feel degrade to follow the orders of female head.

Denial to follow equal opportunity employment Companies hesitate to assign technical jobs to women.

2. Religious discrimination

Religious discrimination involves treating a person (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of his or her religious beliefs. Pakistan is composed of 96% Muslims and 4% non Muslims which include Christians, Hindus, and other non-Muslims. Religious discrimination is one of the major discriminatory practices in Pakistan. Following are some of the major practices.

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Case of sexual harassment at Jinnah Hospital Karachi:

A doctor named Dr. Jabbar Memon , a medico-legal officer at Jinnah hospital, raped a trainee nurse in Jinnah hospital Karachi. The nurse was seriously injured and regained consciousness after several days of incident. The culprit was continuously pressuring the nurse not to speak up against him. The incident became a top issue in world wide media and the government eventually took action against the doctor. The doctor was sacked and faced hearing in the court.


Teasing fellow non-Muslim colleges at the work place create hurdles for them and avoid them to occupy higher positions

Firing non-Muslim employees without any proper reason and without providing proper compensation

Hindus and Christians continue to face discrimination in government departments, as they are mostly being allotted low-level jobs such as that of a sweeper

employers who would otherwise consider hiring talented non-Muslims refrain from doing so for fear of angering the majority-Muslim workforce

If we consider outside from Pakistan, Muslims are being discriminated in jobs greatly in west after 9/11

3. Ethnic/Racial discriminations

This type of discrimination is performed when favoring a particular race or ethnic group in hiring and promotion decisions. Pakistan has many ethnic groups such as Punjabi, Pashtun, Sindhi, Balochi and migrates. A particular ethnic group is

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Case on Discrimination against Ms Julia Austin

Ms. Julia Austin, 32, comes from an educated Christian family of Lahore and studied Applied Mathematics and Computer Science. She has been teaching mathematics for 11 years and has been employed at Bahria Town School, a private educational institute in Lahore. Ms. Ambreen, a Muslim woman allegedly known for her hatred for Christians, repeatedly abused Ms. Aust in when she became HOD and one day Ms. Austin was called in the principal’s office and was dismissed without warning. Ms. Ambreen pretended that Ms. Austin’s results at the annual examination were not sufficient and that she did not properly prepare her classes. However, the results published by Agha Khan Examination Board show that Ms. Austin’s students obtained the highest scores of the school.

Case on Religious discrimination in U.S

A Muslim high school senior working at a fast-food restaurant was the repeated target of bias jokes from both his coworkers and his manager. At first, coworkers taunted him, asking why his “cousins” destroyed the World Trade Center. Sometime later, his manager began teasing him as well. “Hey, we’re going to have to check you for bombs,” the manager joked, often in front of other employees. Days later, he was fired after he accidentally threw away a paper cup that the manager was using. The management said he was let go for “performance deficiencies.” (The Los Angeles Times, 10 February 2002)


favored against the other. Following are some ethnic discriminatory practices in Pakistan

Avoiding considering citizens of a particular region or province. For e.g. Motorway Police Job Form gives a true picture of ethnic discrimination in Pakistan as only Sindh is divided in Sindh urban and rural in the domicile listings. No other province is divided in urban and rural areas.This is to discriminate against Sindh urban or rural people

Sindh urban have only 2% job quota in government jobs which is very little as compared to the population which is above 18 million and comprised of most educated people.

There is also a number of cases in which favorism for one ethnic group is done to another. This is mostly exercised in government jobs due to political influences in hiring and promotion decisions. A government from a particular ethnic group will prefer candidates from those ethnic groups. Balochis are being less advantageous people historically as compared to other ethnic groups

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Case of ethnic discrimination

H.baloch, a civil engineer from Balochistan was rejected by the director of the ministry of telecomunication in Islamabad. The director was a local somewhere from punjab . The vacancies were reserved under Balochistan quota for Engineers from Balochistan. The director clearly refused and said there was no candidate from Balochistan so those positions were filled by local Engineers.


4. Disability discrimination

Disabled people are suffering enormous discrimination in our society. They are considered as workless people although a lot of disabled people have proved them as they can work as equal as normal people. The government has allotted 2% job quota for disabled people in government jobs but this is also not properly followed. Most of the disabled people are jobless in our society.

Disabled people suffered great difficulty to get jobs in labor force. They often work in low-level jobs, frequently work part-time or move between jobs and in-and-out of the labor market, their income levels are low. The employer takes false advantage of their disability and paid them lower for the same effort work as for a normal people. There are certain cases in Pakistan in which candidates are rejected to hire even in the sitting jobs in which their disability does not mattered.

Affirmative Action

Affirmative action programs call for positive steps designed to eliminate the effects of past discrimination. It is a “utilization analysis" of the major job classifications in an organization. If the analysis shows that women or minorities are underutilized, then the firm must establish practices to correct these deficiencies. Despite the good intentions, Affirmative action has failed to accomplish what was intended.

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Case of disability discrimination by PAF recruitment

Imtiaz, a disabled candidate from Karachi, applied in Air force for a civil position which was related to office work like on computer automation works. He achieved top position in 200 hundred participators in written and oral test but in the last he was rejected due to physical disability (polio affected leg), despite it was civilian office work job.


Affirmative Action as Compensation

Difficulty

Just because person A’s ancestors endured hardship at the hand of person B’s ancestors, it does not necessarily mean that person A deserves to be compensated, nor does it mean person B did something wrong.

An Instrument for Achieving Utilitarian Goals

The second way of justifying affirmative action sees it as an instrument for social change. Such arguments maintain that race and gender provide an indicator of need. Since reducing this need is consistent with utilitarian principles (as it will increase total utility), affirmative action is justified.

Difficulty

Lesser-qualified individuals are performing critical and sensitive jobs (i.e.: surgeons, lawyers, and scientists)

Preventing Discrimination at the Macro Level

1. There must be greater socio-political awareness created by ethical politicians.

2. Social workers must create pressure groups to force legislation against discrimination (positive or negative).

3. (Press and TV) must highlight cases of discrimination without fear or favor.

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Preventing Discrimination at the Individual Level

1. Ensuring that the manager acts fairly at all times and is transparent in these actions irrespective of who is involved.

2. Ensuring that the individual is ruled by his / her morality and conscience which rises above petty considerations of race, class, religion and ideology.

3. Ensuring that one does to others what one would have others done to one at all times.

Preventing Discrimination at the Micro Level

1. The H R Department must operate as the organizational conscience keeper by enforcing ethics and governance.

2. The Employee Collectivity (trade unions) must boldly and fairly take up all cases of employee discrimination (positive or negative).

3. Top management must not only be ethical but also be seen to be ethical by those who observe their actions.

CONCLUSION

Discrimination in all forms (especially in employment) is morally disgusting and socially intolerable. The more developed the person, the organization or the society is the lesser is the level of discrimination.

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