Nevertheless, because employee rights laws are meant to be universal, there is a public expectation for all workers to be treated according to a minimum standard. By refusing to grant those rights to an employee, one is essentially setting up a class distinction between people to whom the law does and does not apply. Such a distinction clearly offends the human dignity of those who aren’t, in practice, granted their legal rights. We have seen that meeting standards within one’s occupation is important because of relative social expectations. Here, however, by placing someone in a category where the law doesn’t apply to them we are no longer dealing with a set of social expectations, but a universal fundamental human right to be protected by the law. Violating this right should be considered so egregious that it should transcend normal tolerance for occupation-dependant expectational differences.
Suggested Discussion Questions:
1. What is an occupation-dependant expectation? How do these differ for different groups of people?
2. According to Passow, why is it important to maintain a minimum standard for all workers?
3. What happens when we fail to maintain this standard? Where do you see examples of this today?
Time Period: Contemporary (The Yom Kippur War until the present-day)