REMARKS ON TRADE UNIONS’ ENTITLEMENTS IN THE FIELD OF COUNTERACTING BULLYING (MOBBING) AT WORK

In Poland the obligation to counteract bullying (mobbing) is imposed on employers by Article 943 of the Labour Code. The method of fulfilling this obligation is not indicated. The regulation is limited to precising the employer’s liability. Also the Act on Trade Unions does not deal with the trade unions’ competences in the field of bullying (mobbing). Yet, it proclaims the protection of dignity and moral interests of persons performing work, both individual and collective ones, as one of the tasks of trade unions. Thus, it is sometimes suggested that trade union’s representatives should take active part in activities and possible bodies aiming to counteract bullying (mobbing). However, admitting a trade union’s representative to employer’s activities aiming to counteract bullying might lead to infringement of the negative freedom of trade unions, personal rights and data of those people involved who are not trade union’s members.

THE CONCEPT OF FREEDOM IN I. BERLIN'S INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

Рассматривается трактовка И. Берлином концепта «свободы». Берлин сосредотачивается на дифференциации негативной и позитивной свободы, поддерживая негативную свободу, восходящую к классической английской политической философии. Понятие позитивной свободы связывается Берлином с континентальной мыслью - воззрениями Г.В.Ф. Гегеля, Ж.Ж. Руссо, И. Гердера и К. Маркса. Он указывает, что позитивная свобода может переродиться в свою противоположность - деспотизм. Негативная свобода, в свою очередь, не претерпевает превращения во что-то настолько далекое от ее изначального значения. The article is devoted to I. Berlin's interpretation of the concept of «freedom». Berlin focuses on the differentiation of negative and positive freedom, supporting negative freedom that goes back to classical English political philosophy. Berlin connects the concept of positive freedom with continental thought - the views of G.V.F. Hegel, J.J. Rousseau, I. Herder and K. Marx. Berlin points out that positive freedom can be reborn into its opposite - despotism. Negative freedom, in turn, doesn’t turn into something so far from its original meaning.

In Search of Autonomy: Dancing With Rules

Purpose: Autonomy in organisations cannot exist without rules nor relationships. Yet, previous research tends to elicit understandings of autonomy as freedom from external constraints to enact free individual will. And there are numerous positive effects related to autonomy at work. But research has not kept pace with modern-day organisations that are highly flexible and dynamic. Current understandings of autonomy are static. Autonomy is mainly regarded as something individuals possess, more or less constricted by rules. Our purpose is to contribute a more flexible and practice-oriented concept of autonomy to answer the research question: How is autonomy developed and practiced in relation to formal rules in high-risk organisations?Design: To investigate autonomy as a dynamic and flexible concept, we draw on two case studies comprised of a total of 52 interviews and more than 10 h of observation. The cases include a factory and a hospital unit.Findings: We suggest, based on the data, that autonomy is a relational phenomenon. We suggest four different autonomy-rule dynamics: Passive, loyal, self-promoting, and co-generative learning.Research Implications: Regarding autonomy as relational rather than individual contributes to our understanding of organisations as always in the making. In this, we emphasise the interactive element of autonomy.Practical Implications: Practitioners and managers may use our suggestions to work with autonomy in a different way, spurring creativity and improvisation by constructively using rules.Originality: Little research has paid attention to the concept of autonomy (despite its importance), and arguably, a trend in the available research concerns a commodification of the phenomenon, primarily aligning autonomy with (degrees of) negative freedom and individual decision making. We unpack the concept with attention to interaction – what we have called dancing with rules.

Freedom and Gender Equality in EU Family Policy Tools

The aim of this article is to look critically at the implications of gender equality concepts for individual freedom as conceptualised by the philosopher Isaiah Berlin. The scientific literature addressing the problem of freedom and gender equality with regard to public policy is considerably fragmented. Based on contextual literature, this article will offer four concepts of freedom that serve as analytical categories. I will analyse work/family reconciliation policy tools as introduced at the level of the European Union and reconnect them to three traditions of gender equality. The article reflects on historically embedded dichotomy between positive and negative freedom visible in gendered distinction between public and private. The main findings show that the relationship between freedom and equality is mediated by the selected policy tools suggesting that some policy tools expand freedom of all individuals while others indicate a possible limit for freedom.

The Ideas of Russian Slavophiles and Occidentalists as Reflected in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Discourse on Freedom

When developing ideological concepts and creating literary characters, Dostoyevsky drew from, among others, the ideas of the then most important trends in the Russian thought: Slavophilic and Occidental, as refl ected, among other examples, in his discourse on freedom. The condemnation of certain aspects of Western European civilization, present in the writer’s work – often articulated by the Slavophiles – expresses his aversion to negative freedom and excessive individualism, which undercut the roots of the social organism. Dostoyevsky’s affi nity with the Slavophiles is also refl ected in his positive attitude towards the Russian people and fascination with the unspoiled Christianity and community which they preserved. The formation of Dostoyevsky’s views was also infl uenced by the Occidentalists. The need to maintain the personality ideal, as the Occidentalists understood it, was extremely important to him. The writer glorifi ed the values that cemented the Orthodox community, without negating the knowledge and experience gained in the course of the 200-year Europeanization of the upper classes of the Russian society. He considered Occidentalism to be a phenomenon “leaning towards” specifi c social realities from which it drew its strength. The writer envisaged a harmonious coexistence of freedom and love, their unity. In his opinion, this unity could not be an expression of excess, egoism, pride, moral and moral promiscuity, exaggerated individualism and rationalism. He equated genuine freedom with commitment to God and to the well-being of the humankind.

Self-Constitution and Folds of Subjectivation in Foucault

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Foucault’s final key notion of subjectivation in the light of the Baroque metaphor of fold(ing). According to Deleuze, two distinct sources, Heidegger’s memory of Being and Leibniz’s monadology, are in a way brought together in this Foucauldian notion. I try to highlight the importance of the concept of subjectivation in the context of a performative turn in contemporary philosophy and various historical ways of conceiving this concept. A technical yet crucial aspect that has to be emphasized is the complex interplay and mutual co-dependence between active subjectivation and subjection (assujettissement). Understanding the «mode of subjection» as one of «the four folds of subjectivation» in Foucault provides us with a compelling argument for ethical pluralism. Finally, this gives us the vital clue for adjusting Deleuze’s interpretation of Foucault, revealing Nietzsche’s violent memory rather than the Heideggerian memory of Being as decisive in the process of subjectivation, and also a necessary conversion of «negative» freedom into positive liberty as autonomy and self-discipline, likewise in agreement with Nietzsche’s project of making «asceticism natural again».

Boundaries of Ideology

Liberalism is the ideology that has travelled a long way of formation and development. But for all the variety of economic, legal and philosophic theories within this doctrine, the key characteristic for it still remains the specific understanding of freedom (“negative freedom”) and equality. Modern neo-liberalism has become the total ideology claiming to be identical to the all-out world order, and thus becoming the secularized religion.

Wolność – religia – wolność religijna

The article points to a voluntary tendency in the history of philosophy, which is the theoretical justification for the phenomenon of the absolutisation of freedom. This phenomenon also occurs in practical life, where freedom is no longer understood as freedom to truth and goodness and within the limits of natural law, but as negative freedom. The absence of natural limitations to human freedom leads to its absolutisation and permissiveness, and consequently to attempts by the state and the law to limit it, which leads to its negation. However, the conflict between freedom and nature, nature and culture, freedom and law is illusive. The article points out the ontic basis of human freedom, a synthesis of the freedom and religion in the form of religious freedom, threats to freedom and religion from atheism, fideism, sentimentalism and individualism. The data to defense against the reduction of freedom and religion are from realistic philosophy, showing the rational and objective character of freedom and religion.

The Concept of Freedom in liberalism’s Thought, for Instance: Friedrich .A. Von Hayek's Vision

Liberalism thus views the concept of freedom as a fundamental element of its intellectual foundation and without access to and defense of freedom, there is no meaning for the existence and survival of liberals. Due to the wide range of views of liberalism and the differences of opinion of liberal thinkers and different trends, attitudes and views on different freedoms, for example some of the thinkers believe in the interference of the state power in personal freedoms with the goal of creating social justice and economic justice and so on..., such as the thinkers of the Social liberal trend in the thought of liberalism, But some other thinkers believe in the protection of individual freedoms from interfering of the power of the state, and reject any form of interference in freedom, such as thinkers of the Libertarians trend in the thought of liberalism, including (Friedrich A. von Hayek). These two views of liberalism are expressed in terms of freedom, as: positive freedom (when the state intervenes in freedoms), and negative freedom (that freedom is protected from the interference of state power). (Hayek) rejects positive freedom and believes that any interference in the freedom, economy, and property of individuals, commodities, and markets, leads to the deterioration of the security and stability of individuals on one hand, and the creation of an oppressive, tyrannical and dictatorial power or regime on the other hand. This condition becomes the cause and means of the departure of individuals and the coexistence of the living system to slavery.