Here are some health and safety issues for people at work.

• • temperature
  • passive smoking
  • reteptitive strain injury or RSI
  • dangerous machinery
  • hazardous substances
  • fire hazards
• All these things contribute to a bad working environment. The government sends officials called health and safety inspectors to make sure that factories and offices are safe places to work. They check what companies are doing about things like:
  • heating and air-conditioning
  • first aid
  • fire precautions

• If someone such as manager bullies an employee, they use their position of power to hurt or threaten them, for example verbally. Someone who does this is a bully.
• Sexual harassment is when an employee behaves sexually towards another in a way that they find unwelcome and unacceptable.
• If people are treated differently from others in an unfair way, they are discriminated against.
• If a woman is unfairly treated just because she is a woman, she is a victim of sex discrimination. In many organizations, women complain about the glass ceiling that allows them to get to a particular level but no further.
• If someone is treated unfairly because of their race, they are a victim of racial discrimination or racism. Offensive remarks about someone’s race are racist and the person making them a racist.
• In the US, affirmative action is when help is given in education and employment to groups who were previously discriminated against. In Britain, affirmative action is known as equal opportunities.
• Some companies have a dignitiy at work policy covering all the issues decribed above.
• Labour unions, organizations defending the interests of workers (AmE) are called trade unions in BrE. When workers are not happy with pay or conditions, they may take industrial action:
  • a strike, stoppage or walk-out
  • a go-slow
  • an overtime ban
• Losing your job: 
  
  • dismissed
  • fired
  • sacked
  • terminated
  • laid off
  • made redundant
  • offered early retirement

Employees who are made redundant may get advice about finding another job, retraining, etc. This is called outplacement service.

 Exercise 1: Read the article from an HR trade magazine and complete the gaps with word from the list!

Dealing with grievances

 Exercise 2: Below are some headlines from articles on HR issues. Decide what you think they refer to!

1 Absence level rising

2 Is there a doctor in the house?

3 Women sue over sex discrimination

4 Deaths from overwork (Karoshi) increase in Japan

5 Staff quit over Internet use and abuse

6 Wellness management – a growing necessity?

7 US ban on smoking in the workplace reduce heart attacks

8 Consultation on workplace noise rules

 Exercise 3: Case study

 Video 1: Sheryl Sandberg: Why we have too few women leaders?

• C-level jobs
• To top out
• Corner office
• Bio break

 Video 2: Sheryl Sandberg: So we leaned in... now what?

  Video 3: Dame Stephanie Shirley: Why do ambitious women have flat heads?

Summerize the ideas about glass ceiling from the three videos!

Video 4: TED: Leila Hoteit: 3 lessons on success from an Arab businesswoman

 Video 5: The Devil Wears Prada

1. Why/How does Miranda Priestly wield so much power?  Why are people so afraid of disappointing her?  Why doesn’t she call them by their real name?  Why are people identified by their dress size?
2. Why is Andy so worried about disappointing her boss Miranda?  Why so eager to please her?  What happens to her as she gains acceptance from her and the people at Runway?
3. Throughout the film, Andy insists that she didn’t have a choice (when she was late to her boyfriend’s birthday, when she went to Paris in place of Emily).  In what sense, if any, is she correct? In which sense not?
4. After the Paris trip, Miranda claimed to see herself in Andy, citing her ability to put others’ interest aside to get ahead as a reason.  Explain how this might be seen as a turning point for Andy and the sense in which this naming of her choices set her free. 
5. Why does Andy choose to leave the magazine? Why does Miranda, who is “so disappointed in her,” give her such a fine recommendation?

 Video 6: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

1. Changez says ‘I am a lover of America’. Given his actual alienation of the country, how do you think this love/hate statement may be reconciled?
2. Did you find any symbolism about Erica and her skewed relationship with Changez? If so what and how?
3. What part does the disintegration of Erica’s mental health play in Changez’ alienation of America?
4. How does the movie enable you to understand why second generation immigrant youths might turn to terrorism against the West?

5. How does the movie interpret the American and the Pakistani Dream?

 Video 7