DIPANJAN DASH (BM18015)

1. How would you rate IISCO’s Labour management practices from an ethical point of
view?

Answer: (a) IISCO knew that most of the employees did not maintain the 4 hour work
hour regime rigorously . Employees resorted to these extreme practices to attend family
work, visit the doctor,banking works or in some cases community activity.IISCO did not
deal with this activities with punitive or harsh hands which shows ethically labour
management practices ground was justified.
(b) Due to the extreme heat generated in the coke oven plant it was not
mandated to work continuously beyond 4 hours and shoes,helmet glucose water was
provided by the company.Employees were also provided domiciliary and hospital
facilities. Which clearly shows as far as ethical ground is concerned IISCO did a pretty
good job.
(c)IISCO had provided subsidized canteen facilities for all the employees
and even after employees taking undue advantages of the canteen facilities they kept
mum just as to maintain good relations with the employees and also on humanitarian
ground which is ethically sound.
(d) IISCO had proper duty timings in place,proper relieve facilities for the
incoming and outgoing employees ,6 gates in place manned by security guards to
manage the huge rush of average 18000 employees.
(E) IISCO was properly engaged in creating ‘swyam-sevak’ samiti to
provide foodstuff,toiletries and stationary. Which is pretty good for a company to
engage in.

2. If work points like the Coke Oven where temperatures can go to unbearable limits should we
have only four hours working per worker as opposed the universally accepted eight-hour work
schedule?

Answer: It was mandated by convention not to work for more than 4 hours continuously in
front of the batteries where as universally the accepted time is 8 hours. So clearly temperatures
rise is not issue as as long as employees are working within the time limits.Now it might be the
case that proper thermal suits were not provided or proper infrastructure was not in place for
temperature control in-front of the batteries.If it is so they could have worked for 2 hours and
take an half an hour rest so that cumulatively working hours increases.

3. How will categorise the workers in the light of their practice of taking food from the canteen
home?

Answer: It was not morally correct for the employees in light of their practice of taking food
from canteen to home. The food or snack items were provided in subsidized rates ,the cost of
which was borne by the IISCO company.It was not ethical for the employees to take advantage
of this facility and use it in wrong manner.

4. Is it a moral responsibility of employers to provide housing, medical benefits as well as

subsidised provisions to the families of workers as a part of the terms of employment?
Answer: If a company can afford to provide all these facilities like housing.medical
benefits,subsidized provisions then it’s alright and it is also the moral responsibility for the
company to provide for those. But we can’t say it’s unethical if the company can’t afford to
extended one of the services to all the family members because extending all these facilities to all
the family members might result in heavy burden for the employers financially.

5. Can employers be forced or even willingly provide employment to family members of

employees who “die in harness” on compassionate grounds?

Answer: Employers can not be forced to provide employment to family members of the
deceased,reason being (a) It is not illegal if the company doesn’t do so.(b) The family member of
the company might not be skilled enough to get a role in the company.

Now,in this case study Indrajit’s father had worked for the company for many years and Indrajit
also was working for the company and he was a good ,efficient employee.His entire family was
dependent on the quarter given to him by the company. Although he did not pass away while in
the working hours of the company inside the company grounds by any accident ,company might
be morally responsible for providing a job to his wife as a means of surviving on humanitarian
grounds.

6. What will be the moral implication of such a compassionate based employment on the overall
work ethics of the country?

Answer: As in case of IISCO ,they have extended morally correct and compassionate solution for
the problems arose.Like providing medical care, staff quarter,organizing ‘swayam-sevak’
committee’s, subsidized canteen facilities and also employing indrajit’s better half on
compassionate grounds.These activities or facilities shows how they care for their employees.
But in some cases they should have more stringent rather than being lenient.

(a)They should have taken stern against the employees who were not working as per the
schedule to prevent from this practices ultimately turning rampant and prevalent resulting in
poor efficiency,time management,productivity and poor financial implications for the company.
(b) Scaling this example to India wide scenario I think it would create an effective employee-
management relationship good for employee morale boosting thus productivity improvement
and better employee exit ratio but some stringent or robust mechanism should be in place to
tackle misuse of facilities.