PANEL 1 / JUSTICE IN THE WORKPLACE: EXIT, VOICE, AND FLOURISHING
CONVENORS: HUGO RAJÃO and ANTÓNIO BAPTISTA
All enquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected] or [email protected]
Political philosophy has been concerned with the fair distribution of benefits within society. However, most of these benefits are produced at and via the workplace. Moreover, much of a person’s day – and of one’s active life as whole – is spent at the workplace and it is here, again, that many significant social relations are formed and maintained. This means that it is not possible to dissociate the fair distribution of burdens and benefits, and people’s well-being, within a society from the fair distribution of burdens and benefits within its various workplaces. Furthermore, it is not possible to dissociate the fair distribution of burdens and benefits within the various workplaces from the way in which the decision-making power over this very same distribution is itself shared.
However, whereas in the political sphere, it has long been accepted that all people (or at least all citizens) should carry equal weight in decision-making regarding the issues that affect them, in most contemporary workplaces, decision-making is, most often than not,carried out by one party alone, the capital owners’ representatives without the other, the workers, being given any right of veto, choice or even scrutiny.
What happens in the workplace should be regarded as a matter of Justice as much as what happens in society as a whole and, therefore, as a fundamental topic of Political Philosophy that raises a host of difficult questions. Is an exit option, or at least a reinforced exit option, enough to make a workplace democratic or at least sufficient to make it sufficiently just and free from arbitrary power? Or do we instead need to provide workers with a (real) voice? If bargaining power is not enough, what is the best Workplace democracy model? Is non-domination at the workplace and in society as a whole possible or not without some form of Workplace democracy? Also, does democracy at work lead to greater well-being? Is work itself constitutive of well-being – meaningful work - (and if so, what kind of work)? What are the goods and bads of work? In light of this, this panel seeks to discuss the role and impact of workplace justice on the overall problem of Justice in a society and therefore invites contributions relating to the following topics:
- Workplace democracy
- Labor Commodification
- Exit options (Unconditional Basic Income, for instance)
- The Goods and Bads of work (income, but not only)
- Conceptions of meaningful work
- Bargaining power and labor self-control
- Domination within and without workplace
All enquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected] or [email protected]
Political philosophy has been concerned with the fair distribution of benefits within society. However, most of these benefits are produced at and via the workplace. Moreover, much of a person’s day – and of one’s active life as whole – is spent at the workplace and it is here, again, that many significant social relations are formed and maintained. This means that it is not possible to dissociate the fair distribution of burdens and benefits, and people’s well-being, within a society from the fair distribution of burdens and benefits within its various workplaces. Furthermore, it is not possible to dissociate the fair distribution of burdens and benefits within the various workplaces from the way in which the decision-making power over this very same distribution is itself shared.
However, whereas in the political sphere, it has long been accepted that all people (or at least all citizens) should carry equal weight in decision-making regarding the issues that affect them, in most contemporary workplaces, decision-making is, most often than not,carried out by one party alone, the capital owners’ representatives without the other, the workers, being given any right of veto, choice or even scrutiny.
What happens in the workplace should be regarded as a matter of Justice as much as what happens in society as a whole and, therefore, as a fundamental topic of Political Philosophy that raises a host of difficult questions. Is an exit option, or at least a reinforced exit option, enough to make a workplace democratic or at least sufficient to make it sufficiently just and free from arbitrary power? Or do we instead need to provide workers with a (real) voice? If bargaining power is not enough, what is the best Workplace democracy model? Is non-domination at the workplace and in society as a whole possible or not without some form of Workplace democracy? Also, does democracy at work lead to greater well-being? Is work itself constitutive of well-being – meaningful work - (and if so, what kind of work)? What are the goods and bads of work? In light of this, this panel seeks to discuss the role and impact of workplace justice on the overall problem of Justice in a society and therefore invites contributions relating to the following topics:
- Workplace democracy
- Labor Commodification
- Exit options (Unconditional Basic Income, for instance)
- The Goods and Bads of work (income, but not only)
- Conceptions of meaningful work
- Bargaining power and labor self-control
- Domination within and without workplace