When the term Affirmative Action Policy is used in any context brings about the aspect of the employer ensuring impartiality in the workplace in regard to sex, race, color and state origin among others. It is within the dictates of this policy that the issues of discrimination are dealt with in that they are prohibited or disallowed altogether. At the same time, the employer is obliged to make sure that the matters of employment and the ones who deal with them are non-discriminatory and making provision for diverse workforce. Along with this, the policy requires that the employer make supplementary efforts to recruit, hire and at the same time promote competent members of the groups that were presumably prohibited. This is done in spite of the fact that there may be no any perceptible act of prejudice in the workplace (Lapenson, 2009).The policy however, does not exclude 1995 Auto Corporation based in central Colorado which is family-run manufacturing business. In actual sense, the state of affairs in this company needs to be addressed and before implementing an affirmative action policy, foreknowledge of the company activities is prerequisite. Just to explore some of the activities carried out by 1995 Auto Corporation; it manufactures emergency lighting systems for first-responder vehicles (police cars, ambulances, fire trucks) in the emergency services industry. The organization consists of a production facility which at the moment has 88 unionized production employees and two administration offices with 22 non-union employees. The term unionized employees means official members of a workers/labor union. 1995 Auto Corp. is in the process of opening a production facility in Toledo, Ohio aimed to have 31 non-union employees.1995 Auto Corp. has been in service as a sole proprietorship by R. Shaffer for 18 months as the owner could not predict the exponential expansion and the demand of the product as it is. As a result, she made no application for any policy shielding workers because she planned to use her own family members to run the business. Over the last 13 months the company's organization has developed, due in part to its belligerent hiring approach and need to manage production load. In spite of the company's rapid growth, the company does not have a devoted human resources department.Instead, the role is played by the production operations manager (POM whose knowledge of human resource policy, practice, and regulation has proved to be limited. Arguably, this point puts the company at the risk of facing great challenges in recruiting, hiring, performance appraisal, compensation, health and safety, and labor relations. As such, these areas require conformity with the employment law that should be fulfilled by the human resource. Predominantly, POM is proficient in the production issues and thus it would prove so hard to take up the responsibility of the human resource manager.
An increase in employee grievance cases has been noted with the growth of the company. The owner anticipates, due to the lack of human resource administration experience, certain legal consequence of an under-managed labor force. Following this point, it is self explanatory that the human resource services are limited and as such they are required. This should be done by ensuring that human resource services are provided or rather one of the administrators is trained on human resource management or else bring in someone proficient in the human resource management.Along with this, non-union and unionized members should be integrated and involved in the human resource management to improve workforce diversity (Leiter & Leiter, 2002). This is to suggest that members of the minority groups of the presumably discriminated groups should be promoted to the leadership of the company .Accordingly, ensuring that HR policies and processes are in compliance with local labor, state labor, and federal labor statutes is mandatory if the solution is to be realized.Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act are some of the laws whose review can provide a good foundation towards realizing a lasting solution for 1995 Auto Corp. For one, FLSA is a US federal law which relates to employees and was passed back in 1938. It was meant to establish the nationwide lowest wage, guaranteed time and half for overtime in definite jobs and it barred employment of minors in the domineering child labor (Church Pension Group, 2001).Generally, the law is today meant to put into effect and protect the rights and wages of non-exempt employees entitled to an overtime pay.In line with this, FMLA is a labor law signed into law back in 1993. In actual sense, it requires that superior employers should make a proviso of job cosseted unpaid leave owing to a grave health condition of the employees limiting their feat in job. It may be a departure to care for a family member who is sick or care for a new born. In the same line of thought, ADA is committed to protect employees from discrimination founded on disability. In this case, discrimination is prohibited for a competent candidate who is prohibited on the basis of his or her disability or impairment (Church Pension Group, 2001).
Along with this, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that it is illegal to put into practice discrimination in public services, in government, and in employment based on race. Actually, it is a federal law that prohibits the majority workplace nuisance and discrimination, it covers all concealed employers, state and local governments, and educational institutions with 15 or more employees in particular (Leiter & Leiter, 2002, p.8).EEO recruitment laws, anti-discriminatory employment practices, immigration bills, foreign worker provisions, and affirmative action regulations are the major policies and processes that need to be implemented in order to manage 1995 Auto Corp. As a strategic human resource consultant for 1995 Auto Corp. have several points proposed for a change. In this sense, my research has pointed out that there are needs with regard to the hiring process. This should be corrected by applying equal employment opportunity for all employees' liberated from discrimination on the basis of color, race, sex or nationality. EEO efforts focus on the process involved in hiring and promoting employees and try to ensure that there is a level in performance for all concerned. Affirmative policy on the other hand, will focus on upshot of recruiting, hiring, and promotion processes, and involve additional efforts to increase the share of women and minorities that are employed and upheld in promotion (Leiter & Leiter, 2002, p.11). Cultural under-presentation which has been interlinked with the presence of unionized and non-unionized employees can be addressed by means of improving workplace diversity which would regulate the cultural dynamics of the organization and stop any legal issues related.Grievance procedures and labor relations practices in 1995 Auto Corp. needs some redress as the environment of the workplace was in the past based on family relationship. In order to overcome this, new rules and regulations that protect the employees from discrimination should be implemented along with the aspect of encouraging as well as improving cultural diversity. This will be achieved by a compliance with the EEO law. This means breaking up hiring practices that are family based and expounding to application of laws that involve other members who are covered by the labor laws. At the same time, increasing the number of applicants from underrepresented groups along with location and recruitment of a larger number of individuals from the affected groups will help deal with this challenge (Lapenson, 2009).The production facility presents an increased risk for safety accidents and in order to reduce labor and employment litigation risks, 1995 Auto Corp. should ensure that its safety rules are compliant with Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). This Act is meant to make available the safe working environment for the workers as well achievement of safety measures for the employee's operating the production facility (Gutman, 2000). It guarantees that employers provide employees with an environment free from documented risk, such as introduction to toxic chemicals, tremendous noise intensity, perfunctory dangers, high temperature or cold pressure, or unhygienic circumstance.So to speak, adherence to OSHA rules and regulations will reduce the related risks of hearings and investigations with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in case of occurrences of accidents. Similarly, EEO provisos and affirmative action policy should be implemented. NLRB in particular deals with cases related to labor relations and the welfare of the employees or rather the employee-employer relations in the workplace (Gutman, 2000). Even though there may be no any recorded case of discrimination, an affirmative action policy would take care of this by ensuring that such related cases will not in the future occur as the company is potentially capable of involving diverse workforce. Diversity in workforce is prerequisite in order to achieve the advantage of remaining competitive in the current market and thus an EEO policy can lead to it.An EEO and affirmative action strategy that would cover employees at the Toledo, Ohio facility must prohibit discrimination and encourage diversity as well as a compliance of the company with the provisions of OSHA. EEO is given to the duty of enforcing laws against workplace prejudice and unfairness on the grounds of color, sex, nationality, disability and race among others. Human resource manager is responsible for hiring employees, continuing a safe workplace, avoiding inequity and harassment and terminating the employer-employee relationship among others. Therefore empowering human resource is important if 1995 Auto Corp. is to realize a lasting solution not only for it but also for Toledo and Ohio.
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