Amaury Abreu
This conversation about “economic justice” is one that I have been part of through my community involvement and one that is always coming back to us throughout time. Economic prosperity seems to last for a certain amount of time but then the growth stops, and we find ourselves in the same cycle. One of the challenges about the topic at hand is answering the question-Can we reach optimal economic justice? – meaning, are we able to create a system that will help everyone in developing a dignified life?
This week I learned about the importance of unions in the process of helping us as a society in the process of developing representation and power in negotiation of better working conditions and pay. Personally, speaking the idea of a union is new to me and I have not belonged to a union, nor do I know what the process is to create one. As a business owner and someone who has been employed by someone else before I am able to see the two sides of the spectrum. Asking for a raise is a good idea, I support any person that wants to be paid more for their work, but I also understand that corporations, especially those who are not publicly traded companies, many times do not have an open-source accounting system.
If an employer is facing financial difficulties, that might deter them from wanting an employee to know the financial state of the business because the employee could get scared and leave the company. The lack of transparency from many employers in terms of the financial state of the company is what can be a problem at times. What about companies that have to report their financials and seem to not care about their employees by paying them a livable wage? I believe this is where the government comes in. The government should make it a requirement for companies that are publicly traded and have a fiduciary duty to their investors to pay according to their revenue and amount of capital they are able to fundraise.
Economic injustice is now becoming more and more intertwined with AI and the technological advances that we are experiencing. “There are numerous examples of algorithms that discriminated against people who are protected under anti-discrimination civil rights laws. For instance, Amazon tested a hiring algorithm for technical jobs that turned out to be biased against women” (Gilman, Michele E. “Five Privacy Principles (from the GDPR) the United States Should Adopt To Advance Economic Justice”. P.379). Minority groups have been found to be the most affected when it comes to economic injustice and a biased artificial intelligence technology that will discriminate when a person from a minority group applies for a job.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, as women were pushed out of the workforce to look after their families and make up the majority of essential workers, it became difficult to ignore that their contributions are the backbone of society” ( “Meet the Women’s Economic Justice Advocate Empowering South Florida’s Domestic Workers.” Global Citizen, https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/miami-workers-center-womens-economic-empowerment/) As COVID-19 has impacted our lives and made clear the inequalities that exists in our society, like the example of women workers, we must take action and demand our government to start making the necessary changes, a livable wage must become part of our culture, we need to fight economic injustice through the proper channels.
References
Gilman, Michele E. “Five Privacy Principles (from the GDPR) the United States Should Adopt To Advance Economic Justice.” Arizona State Law Journal, vol. 52, no. 2, Summer 2020, pp. 368–444. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=sso&db=asn&AN=145229066&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
“Meet the Women’s Economic Justice Advocate Empowering South Florida’s Domestic Workers.” Global Citizen, https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/miami-workers-center-womens-economic-empowerment/
Author: Amaury Abreu
