Reference no: EM132824819

Dias and Bartleby

A Christmas Carol

The workplace in Bartleby's or Scrooge's () time was quite different from today. It was more like today's professional environment. Lawyers today are expected to be fully knowledgeable and have a professional work ethic learned in law school. Professional schools (architecture, engineering, medicine, law, and--not enough--business) include that in their curricula. So new lawyers today are given the sort of leeway that Bartleby and the scriveners have to decide on how they will do their work. It was largely F.W. Taylor and his Scientific Management movement that took decision making away from rank-and-file workers. Managers started designing the job and telling workers exactly what to do.

Much of this conversation assumes the 20th Century model of managers dictating. How does it change our conversation to think of that work environment more like our professional one?

Is there a bigger issue at work than insubordination? By hiring Bartleby in the first place, does the Lawyer owe any duty to Bartleby? Or is employment-at-will ethically enough?

A student once asked, "maybe I'm not sympathetic enough?" I'm not suggesting they were or weren't. Rather, this is a good place (this class) to consider what duties companies have to the people they hire and the communities in which they operate. Our English common law tradition gives us employment-at-will. I can quit today, and you can fire me today. All that is owed is today's wages. The contract period is only today, unless the parties enter into a different, formal contract, such as partners in a law firm. (If you watched Mad Men you saw that top executives were given lucrative employment contracts, and the story lines played out the ramifications of those.)

But, does a firm have only that responsibility? Labor unions fought for and won practices like vacation time, health- and life-insurance, and other benefits. Certainly these were unheard of in Bartleby's time. They would have been thought stealing from the employer. If we consider we are on an arc of history, where have we come from in terms of employer duty to employee, and where might we be going?