Position matters

The ability to bargain greatly depends on the position of the employee. As discussed in the class when a big player like TCS or Infosys recruits people in hundreds and thousands there is hardly a scope for bargaining. But many a times we see few employees who are critical resources and they can manipulate the situation to suit them. Work for hire contract indeed retards the thinking process in most of the cases and the employee just works precisely to make money. But these issues of intellectual properties are not only the problems of today. I would like to bring in the example of Michael Faraday and Humphrey Davy in this context. Faraday was working as an assistant to Davy. During those days a physicist called Hans Orsted discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetism. Davy tried to design an electric motor based on it but failed. However, Faraday went on to develop a device using a wire extending into a pool of mercury with a magnet placed inside would rotate around the magnet if supplied with current from a chemical battery which could produce electromagnetic rotation. In his excitement, Faraday published results without informing about his work to Davy. Even if he would have consulted it, Davy would have taken the credit as happened with the development of some other devices. This incident spoilt his mentor relationship with Davy and he was removed from electromagnetic research for several years. But he continued his work independently and only after the demise of Davy he got the official rights to do research and then went on to discover the theory of electromagnetic induction.

Another instance few days back was the issue of remake rights with Director Murugadoss for the movie Ghajini in Hindi. Salem Chandrashekhar, the producer of Tamil version of the movie, felt that Murugadoss had not thought it necessary to obtain permission from him before starting the Hindi remake. The financial aspects were never been discussed and the remake rights not bought. So he threatened a lawsuit against him. Just like “work for hire” is the provision for companies not to lose any opportunity of making profit whenever a chance arises to do so; here also the objection was raised when the movie was ready to bear fruits. Movie could be released only after some mutual financial settlements between the two parties.

There are numerous instances in different companies where employees had to face injustice and companies owned the brilliant works of the employees immorally through the strong tool called contract. However, how unethical and immoral it is from the company’s point view is a topic to be analysed more. There may be certain conditions or circumstances where the company may be morally right while claiming the ownership of the work done by an employee.