Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Legitimacy of a "Love Contract"

I have some serious apprehensions about the legitimacy and scope of such love contracts. Some of my friends in their posts have pointed out that such a contract will help prevent favoritism and nepotism at the workplace, but is it actually so? I don’t think so. In this case, even if Jagruti works very hard and earns good ratings being given by Pritam after entering into the love contract, this can be construed as favoritism by the organization or by the peers which can prompt the organization to terminate Jagruti or Pritam or both. So love contract forces them to create conditions which will enable them to resign on their own. So the conditions of “constructive discharge” are indirectly created. I have seen more serious cases of favoritism on the basis of speaking the same language, caste, religion , community of practice and of course as has been pointed out by some of my friends having personal relationships. So, is it possible to cover all sorts of favoritism by a contract or other? So the scope of such contracts are limited. Will a “Love Contract” in anyway ensure the good performance of the employees? As Shreejit has put it, that he himself had been working with the person he had been romantically committed to in the same organization at the same location without having faced any hassles of a “Love Contract”.

What are the conditions under which the romantic relationship may be defined? Is it renewable as the romantic status can be challenged at any point in time? While this is a restrictive covenant, the discharge becomes enforceable when it is covered by the contract, and the employer can charge the employee of not conducting himself in “good faith “and hence conduct the necessary discharge. Under the garb of implementing the contracts the employees give away an important right to fire them off. But in this case, how is the accountability shared between the two parties in contract? What must be the decision making process followed by the employer to charge a particular person or the two persons covered under this contract of violating this agreement and hence provide the involuntary discharge ? Suppose a male and a co female worker engaged in this “love contract” indulge in a behavior breaching the terms as put in the contract , who will be held guilty ? Suppose one person is very critical to a project(and has greater bargaining power), and prima facie he appears to initiate or instigate the other person to indulge, then ideally the first person should face the heat and bite the dust but will he be actually terminated or whether the other person would have to face the heat. Hence, such love contracts don’t serve the purpose of organization in managing the performance of people involved.

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