Employment Law - Employment Contracts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Employment Law - Employment Contracts - Essay Example This rather surprising fact guides leaders in all types of organizations across the globe to believe that, rather than it being a mistake, that there are lessons to be learned from what has happened over the past two and a half decades, especially with regard to management types of issues (Harris, 2008). Over the course of the past 25 years, a lot of workforce issues have been revolutionized. Back in those rather unadorned times, "the law of labor and employment was a comparatively simple arena. The Fair Labor Standards Act required minimum wages and overtime and the Labor Management Relations Act protected employees' rights to form unions. OSHA was a three year old legal infant. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was still a sleeping giant. State law was 'at will' and 'right to work'" (Harris, 2008, p.1). Furthermore, "The economy was fueled by the heavily unionized 'smoke stack' industries of auto, steel, rubber and coal. Employee issues were often handled by payroll or 'personnel' clerks. Formal training in the field was concentrated in 'industrial relations,' i.e., dealing with unions, rather than 'human resources management'" (Harris, 2008, p.1). Although some of the aforementioned policies and rules changed and s... Unions are not needed to enforce OSHA, COBRA, ERISA, the Immigration Reform and Control Act, WARN, the ADEA, the ADA, the Employee Polygraph Protection Act, and most recently, the FMLA. Even that old sleeping giant, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was roused by its 1991 amendments" (Harris, 2008, p.1). At the state level of sources, institutions, and most of all enforcements, individual employee rights take the form of 'wrongful discharge" and other solutions such as common law torts. These solutions have matured significantly over the past 25 years. Other developments in the area of individual employee rights at the state level include complexity of the court system, erudition of government agencies, and superiority of special interest groups. Furthermore, refinement has occurred among lawyers and in human resources (Harris, 2008). Now, employees can do things on their own that they could not do without support from organized groups in the past. They can still seek support from these groups, but are not obligated to (Harris, 2008). "As the law of individual rights grew, former personnel managers became trained in behavioral motivation, training, career development, counseling, appropriate discipline, fair policies, good communication and, most importantly, participatory management. Risk management and human resources development merged to afford better workplaces and an environment which made unions less and less appealing to employees. Old labor lawyers turned their experience in campaigning against unions to assist human resource managers cope with all the necessary changes. We became human resource counselors as well as union battle horses" (Harris, 2008, p.1). Changes that occurred in the economy were concurrent with the changes that occurred in