Justification for Worker Recalcitrance

Re “Recalcitrant Employees” (June 26): The case of Darryl Gates is atypical. Civil Service rules provided him an unusual protection, which caused the dilemma the city faced.

However, an average employee does not enjoy similar protection. Nor are employers, in general, helpless victims. The ways the employer treats the so-called recalcitrant employee, as writer Roy Rivenburg described, are real.

An employee is always in a weaker position than the employer and by and large suffers through miserable working conditions. The humiliation, the assignment of menial jobs continue to distress the employee until he or she becomes resigned to fate or resigns from the job.

The recalcitrance may be the result of frustrations of an employee who was once viewed as an “asset and highly cooperative” by the management. Viewing an employee as recalcitrant may be due to prejudice against the race, gender, ethnicity or simply the appearance of an employee.

BALKAR S. HUSSON

Duarte