Journal of Workplace Rights

AIMS & SCOPE

The Journal of Workplace Rights is dedicated to the proposition that human rights should not be compromised by employers. It uses an expansive definition of human rights, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as passed by the United Nations in 1948. A list of proposed topics is provided below. The Journal invites prospective authors to submit papers that are completely unrelated to the below topics as long as their focus is on workplace rights.

TOPICS

Job Security Rights
People are supposed to have the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. This is in stark contrast to the "employment at will" doctrine, which grants employers the undisputed privilege of determining who is hired and fired. How and where have employees managed to secure this workplace right?

Nondiscrimination Rights
Although the right to equal pay for equal work without any discrimination is part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sex and race discrimination in employment remain rampant. Why does this continue to be the case, and what can employees do about it?

Living Wage Rights
People are supposed to have the right to a living wage, yet most can barely get by on their paychecks. How have employees successfully countered the tendency of most employers to pay them as little as possible?

People are supposed to have "the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours." In recent years, how and where have employees succeeded in reducing their working hours without lowering their standards of living?

Collective Bargaining Rights
The right to form and to join trade unions is enshrined in the Universal Declaration. Labor law in many countries including the United States and the United Kingdom effectively denies this right to most employees. How can trade unions and their supporters enable this human right despite a hostile political climate?

Privacy Rights
According to the Universal Declaration, "no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home, or correspondence." Is this human right violated by practices such as pre-employment drug testing and electronic monitoring of employees' Internet usage?

Civil Disobedience Rights
The right to "freedom of thought, conscience, and religion" is enshrined in the Universal Declaration. Under what circumstances should employees be able to exercise this right by disobeying their supervisors?

People are supposed to have "the right to freedom of opinion and expression." How have employees created safe spaces in which they can honestly share their feelings about work and non-work issues?

"Degrading treatment" is a human rights violation. What constitutes degrading treatment in the workplace?

Workplace Democracy Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives." How can this right be extended to the workplace?

Intellectual Property Rights
The Universal Declaration grants ownership rights to authors of a "scientific, literary or artistic production." What implications does this entail for workplace rights in academe?

New Scholars Section
The only potential authors who will receive any preferential treatment will be doctoral students and untenured faculty. These groups of potential authors have fewer workplace rights than their more senior colleagues, so they need a journal that welcomes them. Their work will be featured in each issue, in a "New Scholars" section.

Author:
Joel Rudin, is Professor of Human Resource Management at Rowan University's Rohrer College of Business. He earned his Ph.D. in Human Resource Management from Cornell University, and is also a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources. His most interesting research examines sex and race discrimination in employment. His articles have been published in journals such as Human Relations, Journal of Social Psychology, Labor Law Journal and Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal. He plans to continue the Journal of Individual Employment Right's tradition of providing prompt feedback to authors, which was established

Abstracted and Indexed in:
- Academic Search Complete
- Academic Search Premier
- All-Russian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information
- Employee Relations Bibliography & Abstracts
- Human Resources Abstracts
- Left Index
- Personnel Management Abstracts
- Social Science Citation Index
- Urban Affairs Abstracts
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"We see this Journal as a timely intervention in the field of human rights in the workplace. Too often in liberal democracies human rights are curtailed at the factory gate or the office door as the law concedes the so-called business case as a justifiable limitation on such rights. In the JWR practitioners and scholars will be provided with the scope to probe the limits of the business case and the potential for greatly extended individual rights at work."
Albert and Jean Mills, St. Mary's University (Canada)

"To some academics value judgments and good quality research are incompatible. The contents of this Journal seek to show just how wrong is such a view."
Phil Beaumont, University of Glasgow