Distributive justice in the workplace: Emerging social work interventions

Abstract

In the wake of recurrent corporate consolidations, down‐sizings, and restructuring, today's workers face increasing threats of job loss, job insecurity, and lack of employment opportunities. This article examines how American business and the social work profession come to grips with the present workplace upheavals, displacement of workers, and the distributive justice implications to individuals and companies. Emphasis is placed on the historical development of the role of the EAP social workers and its contributions to distributive justice in the workplace. Emerging from this discussion is a comprehensive model that integrates EAPs with organizational development (OD). This EAP/OD model is developed from the belief that a worker with strong self‐esteem and reasonable expectation of continued employment is an indicator of a productive employee and an example of distributive justice in practice.

Keywords:

• Distributive justice
• employee assistance program
• organizational development
• organizational social work
• person‐environment