Human Resource Management: EEO, Recruitment, and Labor Relations

Introduction: HRM Beyond the Classroom

If what is learned in an important university course is not put to use in some pragmatic way — or understood in the larger social context — then that learning may be viewed as meaningless time spent. No doubt a percentage of students are simply going through the process of education, working toward a degree that will open doors and lead, hopefully, to the good life. But for many others, learning — in this case about human resources, management, employee/employer dynamics, and the ethical considerations therein — means being stimulated to grasp the links to the world that are discovered through serious attention to coursework.

The salient questions to be answered in this paper are: which aspects of HRM work best together to perform the function of achieving organizational goals, and are any more important than the others? The roles of EEO and affirmative action, HR planning, recruitment and selection, and employee and labor relations need to work together and are more important than the others. These three aspects have implications for personal growth, and they carry social and political relevance outside of the workplace and beyond the purview of HR and company dynamics.

EEO and Affirmative Action

The concept of human resource management — as a philosophy or policy — has an application to nearly everything an individual becomes involved with, whether in school or in a career. The values and ethical approaches that apply in HRM should mirror the values and ethical considerations in one's personal life and in society at large. Moreover, the individual who completes a significant course in human resources should be aware of — and have a solid understanding of — the broader application of those principles in the political and social world outside the educational environment.

In their article in the Journal of Business Ethics, Prue Burns and Jan Schapper assert that support for affirmative action (AA) has "been largely snuffed out or beaten into retreat" (Burns, 2008, p. 369). The opponents of AA have pretty much "won the battle," albeit on "dubious ethical grounds," the authors continue (p. 369). Burns points to the new euphemism that supplants affirmative action — "managing diversity" — which is nothing more than a situation in which "diversity is corralled into a sanitized space where the issues of power, disadvantage and inequality are cleaved from any context that might provide them" with any traction (p. 370).

Meanwhile, proponents of AA argue that giving a select number of minorities — immigrants, people of color, and in some cases women — a chance at a university or in a workplace that would otherwise be unavailable to them is a fair American policy. The reasons why opponents have fought, and largely succeeded, in blocking AA from becoming policy in many states are well documented. Federal civil rights laws, including fairness rules and equal employment opportunity (EEO) provisions, address some of these concerns, but there is more to the issue of justice and fairness than what legislation alone can resolve.

In the American landscape of government, politics, and education, there are injustices that go well beyond affirmative action. For example, in Tucson, Arizona, on January 12, 2012, students filed into a classroom and took their seats, expecting to continue their Mexican-American studies class. But there was no teaching that day — no classwork assigned, and in fact no class at all. The instructor explained that the Tucson school board had given in to the state superintendent of public instruction's mandate that no classes "primarily designed for a particular ethnic group" could be taught in Arizona (Ceasar, 2012, p. AA5).

The reason for the cancelled class was that Arizona's tough immigration law, SB 1070, which went into effect in 2010, prohibits the teaching of courses that frame historical events in "racial terms" — meaning no classes can appear to advocate special knowledge for Latinos. That particular legislation does more than just prohibit students from learning about their cultural heritage. It gives police "broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the country illegally," according to a report in The New York Times (Archibold, 2010). The law, according to President Barack Obama, threatened to "undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe" (Archibold, p. 1). The Arizona law made it a crime to fail to carry immigration papers. Other states — notably South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia — subsequently passed similar hard-line anti-immigrant legislation.

No matter what justification is used to defend the law, opponents see it as racist and unconstitutional. The courts have had to weigh in on the constitutional legality of these harsh laws enacted in conservative states. The controversy underscores the deep polarization in the United States regarding the rights of immigrants, arising in direct response to undocumented immigrants entering Arizona and other border states from Mexico and the perception that immigrants are accessing health care and educational opportunities to which they are not entitled.

What does the anti-immigration movement have to do with HRM? Reflecting on the rules at play in terms of hiring and policies reflecting fairness and justice in the workplace, it is unfortunate that those rules do not apply equally to governments and states. In my personal life I have Latino neighbors who have moved into houses with existing immigrant families. The Mexican-Americans in my community are no different from anyone else in the way they care about their families, education, and employment. The Mexican men work hard as gardeners, tree-trimmers, cooks, and wait staff in local eateries; they drive cars, spend money on groceries, and contribute to the economy.

What emerges from this picture is a pattern of racism directed at people of color — hatred, smears, and far-right rhetoric such as that of GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum, who called for "mass deportations and opposition to any leniency" (Rosen, 2012). Santorum came within eight votes in Iowa of defeating Romney, suggesting that divisive rhetoric attracts votes — a troubling reality that is far too common on talk radio and cable news. At my own workplace, every employee must be legally authorized to work, but all workers share the same rights under federal law, and the HR department acts swiftly at any sign of discrimination or harassment directed at anyone, including women, minorities, and people with disabilities.

Conclusion: Linking HRM to the Broader Social World

A good question to ask is: how does the average union worker feel about these events? Having been a member of the United Auto Workers myself, the very idea of a governor or any politician taking away collective bargaining rights from any union is an anathema to workers' rights and to democracy. This is precisely the moment when students should take what they have learned in their business and HRM courses and supplement that knowledge by staying closely attuned to national events that will have an enormous impact on the workplace of the future. There is always a linkage between classroom lectures, textbooks, and outside readings — and the real political and social world beyond the comfort zone of a university campus.