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Sylvania Resources - Policy for Trading in Company Securities
Sylvania Resources - Policy for Trading in Company Securities
Ashurst - Topical employment law newsletter (October 2009)
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I'm 29 and about to graduate with a 2:2 law degree from Birkbeck, University of London...?
I'm a bit disappointed.
I am working almost full time - 2 half days as a nanny, and 3 days as an admin at a charity organisation (with no employment contract even though I've been there now for 2 years). I had billion problems at home with my hubbie and trying to fit in the evening LLB course wasn't easy. I only achieved a 2:2... I did not really have time to apply for training contracts or do summer placements. I assume my application won't even be looked at now when I am a graduate with lower second class degree and no law experience...
I speak a couple of foreign languages - Turkish, Bulgarian and some informal Russian. My only office experience is at this charity org. I do have a degree in Turkish Philology (obtained in Bulgaria). I am experienced with children but am not excited about a job in child care.
Where do I go from here is the question, I guess...
I'd have you first try to get a job with a law firm or organization who deals with legal matters, and which does work with peoples from the regions in which you speak the language. They'd be most likely to value your entire set of skills. So, for example - a UK governmental or non-governmental organization that deals with immigrant issues, a law firm who deals with immigration, etc.
Use the career resources available to you via Birkbeck, and the rest of the University of London.
Make sure your old professors know you're looking.
In my opinion, it's not your 2.2 that's your main issue. It's the lack of training/work placements. Did they not speak to you about the importance of that in your field? To try to make up for that being missing, see if you can do some volunteer work related to the law, for a charitable organization. This counts as work experience. I know you're an admin for a charity now - time to move beyond that, either with your current org or elsewhere.
Continue looking for a job in law, and add that charity legal experience to your CV as soon as you start it. It's going to help you re: employment.
Benefits of taking a placement
Lawyer’s erotic tales of life in Moscow ‘based on colleagues’
A high-flying lawyer sacked after she wrote an erotic novel based her fiction on colleagues, a tribunal heard today.
Employment Law Specialist
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Law and Legal Affairs: Legal update
• AWARDS DRIFT: The snow storms which affected most of central Scotland last Monday have led to a further extension to the deadline for entries in the Scott + Co Legal Awards
Mr. Murray, Seeker of EMployment.
Why do the police seem so helpless against criminals?
Sure cops can make life difficult for law abiding citizens but the seem to be completely inept when it comes to stopping criminals. I see guys out in the streets selling drugs. Homes get robbed, cars get stolen. It seems the only thing police can do that actually has an effect is write tickets and arrest good people. As a law abiding citizen I fear being arrested because it can mess up my employment opportunities among other things. A criminal does not care about these things. Are their hands tied or do the cops just care about hurting good people?
Its like taking away the gun rights of the people. The only people who will obey a gun law are the people least likely to use them.
Police officers cannot work in a vacuum. If they don't have the cooperation from citizens who give them information then it is very difficult to stop many criminals. Why would you worry about getting arrested if you don't do anything against the law? It is actually extremely easy to follow the law of the land. I have lost track of the number of times that in my small town there were several people who knew exactly what was going on in the town in regards to who was doing B&Es but no one wants to get involved. Police need information and there is no magic way of getting this.
Also, I spend a lot of time going to calls where people are complaining that their 6 year old is getting beat up by the neighbours 6 yr old or complaints that their neighbour is putting snow in their driveway. Most police services are extremely understaffed, at least in my part of the world, and it takes many officers and lots of man hours to be effective against the crimes you mention.
Do you know what the number one complaint I get from people when I meet them? People speeding in their neighbourhoods.
As for arresting "good" people? I arrest people when I have reasonable and probable grounds to believe they have committed criminal offences. Are some of them "good"? Yes I suppose some of them are. But you can be a great citizen and neighbour and still hit your wife.
Adapt: Special Education Rights
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Why are companies allowed to blacklist former employers?
I feel that I have been blacklisted. It has been almost five years since I have worked. The problem started after leaving A Fortune 500 Company in Georgia. Due to being unemployed, I found time to obtain a Master's Degree in Business and despite being a law abiding citizen, no one has hired me. I live in Florida and can't find employment because I have been unemployed for too long. The sad part is that my credit has suffered extensively. I now have over $100,000 in student loans to repay. However, the worst part is that I'm in my 40's and am now facing age discrimination. I've actually been offered jobs and had them rescinded.
As a result of my job loss and continued unemployment, I have lost my beautiful house, a cargo van and a 2001 Honda Civic. So, in America companies can do whatever they want to destroy the lives of an employee. I lost my job because I suffered from depression. Is this fair, do I deserve this for being sick?
Legally, I company only reveal a former employee's date of hire, job title, and the date the employee left. If you feel that you cannot get a job because a former employer, see an attorney.
Ft. Lauderdale Law Firm Tripp Scott (South Florida) Norman Tripp Bio
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California Dreaming: Missing America's Wake-Up Call
The state's reliance on central planning, tax-supported subsidies and social entitlement programs is making it fall behind.
Fighting a DUI Charge
Can plaintiff's attorney be charged with aiding and abetting a fraud on the court by defense counsel.?
Is there any precedence where a plaintiff's attorney refuses to place in evidence proof of defense counsel's subornation of perjury and perjury of defendant’s witnesses, as a aiding and abetting a fraud on the court? The case involves wrongful termination for employment discrimination and retaliation for refusing to help the company win a $2 billion defense contract by using the competitors trade secrets and competition sensitive documents. Plaintiff's attorney would not even consider forwarding evidence of violations of federal law to the US District Attorney. Plaintiff's attorney did not object to 11th hour evidence and allowed defense counsel to submit material evidence that if known would have precluded summary judgment on all but one of the causes of action; this adds to the possible aiding and abetting a fraud on the court by defense counsel and his witnesses.
I don't think you will find your answer on YA.
Over-70 Exception Does Not Apply to Nonrenewal of Employment Contracts Based on Age
Some advice on choice modules in University ?
Hello,
i would like to get some advice on which modules to choice on my 2nd year law degree, so there is 3 modules that i can choice from and i need to pick two of them ,
individual employment law
company law and business client
offences against the person and property
i would like to add that i was really good at criminal law in1 year and contract law i didn't like human rights at all most of it because of the lecturer, how ever can someone give small review on those subjects so i could make my final decision ?
cheers
offences against the person and property will probably the most varied and intellectually engaging
The Small Business Jobs Act of 2010
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Does Your State Have Time-Off-To-Vote Laws? Wolters Kluwer Law & Business Details Election Day Rights Voters Need To ...
As political candidates from around the United States deliver their last stump speeches, air remaining TV ads and make final appeals before Election Day, voters are making up their minds on not only who to vote for, but when.
Fiscal Commission Public Forum 5 of 7
Undernews For October 7, 2010
MORE DEMOCRATS SEE POT AS A GOOD ISSUE Wall Street Journal - Democratic strategists are studying a California marijuana-legalization initiative to see if similar ballot measures could energize young, liberal voters in swing states for the 2012 presidential ...
Supreme Court: The Term in Review (2008-2009) Part 2 of 2
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In The Papers 22 September
Trintech receives takeover attention | Tyndall and Intel sign research agreement | Shared services centres to create jobs | HP, Oracle settle Hurd dispute | Twitter plans targeted ads
Goldman Sachs economic mafia ^^
Where to find information on, and how do I change my affirmative action response to Latino from white male?
I would like to know how I go about changing my affirmative action response to Latino, from white male. Can I just start filling out employment forms, student loans paper, goverment grant papers as Latino? There is a good chance I fall under this class based what I have learned. What is the Goverment standards, is it like the Jim Crow Laws which is a one drop rule? I am very serious, and would like this knowledge.
wrong section
Baptist Memorial Health Care Class Action Lawsuit Fox13 News
what are the rules of self employment or sub contracted?
im a hair dresser . i pay own tax and ni. we dont get paid holidays and treated as self employed but have to work 9 to 5 even if we dont get clients in but then we dont get paid. we only get paid for the work we do. we are now told we are subcontracted to work those hours. what are the laws and where do we stand
This is a big con. If you HAVE to work the hours specified by the salon, you can't be self employed. Its a way of employer's not having to pay holiday pay and NIC, etc. I would contact your local tax office and ask to be put in touch with the status inspector and ask them to give a ruling on your status. It's shameful the way employers try to dodge their responsibilities.
The sub contract situation the previous answerer speaks of relates to the construction industry.
Internships: Know the Rules
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under uk employment law....?
I have a friend who's employer has told them, "if they take a day or more of sick they will be docked 1 1/2 days wages!
Is this legal?
They can do whatever they want! Although if they have a sick note from their doctor, then his work is legally obliged to pay him.
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I have been told that employment law gives you 3 mths to make a claim for loss of job- I need more info?
My employer labeled me as 'MILITANT' which is defamation of character when all I did was refuse to break the carriage of dangerous goods regulations.
He also exploited and bullied me until I was out of a job.
I have made complaints to the Health and Safety executive who are still making enquiries and performing investigations 4mths after-
- Am I able to still put in a case on the grounds that the government (HSE) has dragged its heels until the time limit has expired?
Can I get the time limit extended?
Due to being very confused and really depressed due to the way I have been treated doesn't count for anything then?
And does a lack of advice from the HSE count for anything?
Agree with JZD and old.holly265.
The "reasonably practicable" rule is interpreted increasingly narrowly by the court, and there is nothing in your situation which suggests you would have a case for an extension on that basis. Extensions only tend to be granted now where circumstances mean it was physically impossible for the applicant to have made the three month deadline, for example due to severely debilitating illness.
You can still apply of course, but you will be wasting your time.
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Discrimination on grounds of religious belief and/or political opinion
A recent case taken with the support of the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland focused on the issue of selection for redundancy on the grounds of religious belief. Related Stories Temperatures in the Workplace
Support Mark Walker
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This is a Testimony On Supreme Court
My name is Robert Alt. I am a Senior Legal Fellow in and Deputy Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own, and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.
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STATE OF THE NATION ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO DURING THE 2ND REGULAR SESSION OF THE 14TH CONGRESS OF THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES, 28 July 2008
Thank you, Speaker Nograles. Senate President Villar. Senators and Representatives. Vice President de Castro, President Ramos, Chief Justice Puno, members of the diplomatic corps, ladies and gentlemen:
I address you today at a crucial moment in world history.
Just a few months ago, we ended 2007 with the strongest economic growth in a generation. Inflation was low, the peso strong and a million new jobs were created. We were all looking to a better, brighter future. Because tough choices were made, kumikilos na ang bayan sa wakas. Malapit na sana tayo sa pagbalanse ng budget. We were retiring debts in great amounts, reducing the drag on our country's development, habang namumuhunan sa taong bayan. Biglang-bigla, nabaligtad ang ekonomiya ng mundo. Ang pagtalon ng presyo ng langis at pagkain ay nagbunsod ng pandaigdigan krisis, the worst since the Great Depression and the end of World War II. Some blame speculators moving billions of dollars from subprime mortgages to commodities like fuel and food. Others point of the very real surge in demand as millions of Chinese and Indians move up to the middle class.
Whatever the reasons, we are on a roller coaster ride of oil price hikes, high food prices and looming economic recession in the US and other markets. Uncertainty has moved like a terrible tsunami around the globe, wiping away gains, erasing progress.
This is a complex time that defies simple and easy solutions. For starters, it is hard to identify villains, unlike in the 1997 financial crisis. Everyone seems to be a victim, rich countries and poor, though certainly some can take more punishment than others.
To address these global challenges, we must go on building and buttressing bridges to allies around the world: to bring in the rice to feed our people, investments to create jobs; and to keep the peace and maintain stability in our country and the rest of the world. Yet even as we reach out to those who need, and who may need us, we strive for greater self-reliance.
Because tough choices were made, the global crisis did not catch us helpless and unprepared. Through foresight, grit and political will, we built a shield around our country that has slowed down and somewhat softened the worst effects of the global crisis. We have the money to care for our people and pay for food when there are shortages; for fuel despite price spikes.
Neither we nor anyone else in the world expected this day to come so soon but we prepared for it. For the guts not to flinch in the face of tough choices, I thank God. For the wisdom to recognize how needed you are, I thank, you Congress. For footing the bill, I thank the taxpayers.
The result has been, on the one hand, ito ang nakasalba sa bayan; and, on the other, more unpopularity for myself in the opinion polls. Yet, even unfriendly polls show self-rated poverty down to its 20-year low in 2007. My responsibility as President is to take care to solve the problems we are facing now and to provide a vision and direction for how our nation should advance in the future.
Many in this great hall live privileged lives and exert great influence in public affairs. I am accessible to you, but I spend time every day with the underprivileged and under represented who cannot get a grip on their lives in the daily, all-consuming struggle to make ends meet.
Nag-aalala ako para sa naka-aawang maybahay na pasan ang pananagutan para sa buong pamilya. Nag-aalala ako para sa magsasakang nasa unang hanay ng pambansang produksyon ng pagkain ngunit nagsisikap pakanin ang pamilya. I care for hardworking students soon to graduate and wanting to see hope of good job and a career prospect here at home. Nag-aalala ako para sa 41-year old na padre de pamilya na di araw-araw ang trabaho, at nag-aabala sa asawa at tatlong anak, at dapat bigyan ng higit pang pagkakakitaan at dangal. I care for our teachers who gave the greatest gift we ever received - a good education - still trying to pass on the same gift to succeeding generations. I care for our OFWs, famed for their skill, integrity and untiring labor, who send home their pay as the only way to touch loved ones so far away. Nagpupugay ako ngayon sa kanilang mga karaniwang Pilipino.
My critics say this is fiction, along with other facts and figures I cite today. I call it heroism though they don't need our praise. Each is already a hero to those who matter most, their families. I said this is a global crisis where everyone is a victim. But only few can afford to avoid, or pay to delay, the worst effects.
Many more have nothing to protect them from the immediate blunt force trauma of the global crisis. Tulad ninyo, nag-aalala ako para sa kanila. Ito ang mga taong bayan na dapat samahan natin. Not only because of their sacrifices for our country but because they are our countrymen. How do we solve these many complex challenges?
Sa kanilang kalagayan, the answer must be special care and attention in this great hour of need.
First, we must have a targeted strategy with set of precise prescriptions to ease the price challenges we are facing.
Second, food self-sufficiency; less energy dependence; greater self-reliance in our attitude as a people and in our posture as a nation.
Third, short-term relief cannot be at the expense of long term reforms. These reforms will benefit not just the next generation of Filipinos, but the next President as well.
Napakahalaga ang Value Added Tax sa pagharap sa mga hamong ito. Itong programa ang sagot sa mga problemang namana natin. Una, mabawasan ang ating mga utang and shore up our fiscal independence. Pangalawa, higit na pamumuhunan para mamamayan at imprastraktura. Pangatlo, sapat na pondo para sa mga programang pangmasa.
Thus, the infrastructure links programmed for the our poorest provinces like Northern Samar: Lao-ang-Lapinig-Arteche, right now ay maputik, San Isidro-Lope de Vega; the rehabilitation of Maharlika in Samar. Take VAT away and you and I abdicate our responsibility as leaders and pull the rug from under our present and future progress, which may be compromised by the global crisis.
Lalong lumakas ang tiwala ng mga investor dahil sa VAT. Mula P56.50 kada dolyar, lumakas ang piso hanggang P40.20 bago bumalik sa P44 dahil sa mga pabigat ng pangdaigdigang ekonomiya. Kung alisin ang VAT, hihina ang kumpiyansa ng negosyo, lalong tataas ang interes, lalong bababa ang piso, lalong mamahal ang bilihin.
Kapag ibinasura ang VAT sa langis at kuryente, ang mas makikinabang ay ang mga may kaya na kumukonsumo ng 84% ng langis at 90% ng kuryente habang mas masasaktan ang mahihirap na mawawalan ng P80 billion para sa mga programang pinopondohan ngayon ng VAT. Take away VAT and we strip our people of the means to ride out the world food and energy crisis.
We have come too far and made too many sacrifices to turn back now on fiscal reforms. Leadership is not about doing the first easy thing that comes to mind; it is about doing what is necessary, however hard. The government has persevered, without flip-flops, in its much-criticized but irreplaceable policies, including oil and power VAT and oil deregulation.
Patuloy na gagamitin ng pamahalaan ang lumalago nating yaman upang tulungan ang mga pamilyang naghihirap sa taas ng bilihin at hampas ng bagyo, habang nagpupundar upang sanggahan ang bayan sa mga krisis sa hinaharap.
Para sa mga namamasada at namamasahe sa dyip, sinusugpo natin ang kotong at colorum upang mapataas ang kita ng mga tsuper. Si Federico Alvarez kumikita ng P200 a day sa kaniyang rutang Cubao-Rosario. Tinaas ito ng anti-kotong, anti-colorum ngayon P500 na ang kita niya. Iyan ang paraan kung paano napananatili ang dagdag-pasahe sa piso lamang. Halaga lang ng isang text.
Texting is a way of life. I asked the telecoms to cut the cost of messages between networks. They responded. It is now down to 50 centavos. Noong Hunyo, nagpalabas tayo ng apat na bilyong piso mula sa VAT sa langis-dalawang bilyong pambayad ng koryente ng apat na milyong mahihirap, isang bilyon para college scholarship o pautang sa 70,000 na estudyanteng maralita; kalahating bilyong pautang upang palitan ng mas matipid na LPG, CNG o biofuel ang motor ng libu-libong jeepney; at kalahating bilyong pampalit sa fluorescent sa mga pampublikong lugar.
Kung mapapalitan ng fluorescent ang lahat ng bumbilya, makatitipid tayo ng lampas P2 billion. Sa sunod na katas ng VAT, may P1 billion na pambayad ng kuryente ng mahihirap; kalahating bilyon para sa matatandang di sakop ng SSS o GSIS; kalahating bilyong kapital para sa pamilya ng mga namamasada; kalahating bilyon upang mapataas ang kakayahan at equipment ng mga munting ospital sa mga lalawigan. At para sa mga kalamidad, angkop na halaga.
We released P1 billion for the victims of typhoon Frank. We support a supplemental Western Visayas calamity budget from VAT proceeds, as a tribute to the likes of Rodney Berdin, age 13, of Barangay Rombang, Belison, Antique, who saved his mother, brother and sister from the raging waters of Sibalom River. Mula sa buwang ito, wala nang income tax ang sumusweldo ng P200,000 o mas mababa sa isang taon - P12 billion na bawas-buwis para sa maralita at middle class. Maraming salamat, Congress.
Ngayong may P32 na commercial rice, natugunan na natin ang problema sa pagkain sa kasalukuyan. Nagtagumpay tayo dahil sa pagtutulungan ng buong bayan sa pagsasaka, bantay-presyo at paghihigpit sa price manipulation, sa masipag na pamumuno ni Artie Yap.
Sa mga LGU at religious groups na tumutulong dalhin ang NFA rice sa mahihirap, maraming salamat sa inyo. Dahil sa subsidy, NFA rice is among the region's cheapest. While we can take some comfort that our situation is better than many other nations, there is no substitute for solving the problem of rice and fuel here at home. In doing so, let us be honest and clear eyed - there has been a fundamental shift in global economics. The price of food and fuel will likely remain high. Nothing will be easy; the government cannot solve these problems over night. But, we can work to ease the near-term pain while investing in long-term solutions.
Since 2001, new irrigation systems for 146,000 hectares, including Malmar in Maguindanao and North Cotabato, Lower Agusan, Casecnan and Aulo in Nueva Ecija, Abulog-Apayao in Cagayan and Apayao, Addalam in Quirino and Isabela, among others, and the restoration of old systems on another 980,000 hectares have increased our nation's irrigated land to a historic 1.5 million hectares.
Edwin Bandila, 48 years old, of Ugalingan, Carmen, North Cotabato, cultivated one hectare and harvested 35 cavans. Thirteen years na ginawa iyong Malmar. In my first State of the Nation Address, sabi ko kung hindi matapos iyon sa Setyembre ay kakanselahin ko ang kontrata, papapasukin ko ang engineering brigade, natapos nila. With Malamar, now he cultivates five hectares and produces 97 cavans per hectare. Mabuhay, Edwin! VAT will complete the San Roque-Agno River project.
The Land Bank has quadrupled loans for farmers and fisher folk. That is fact not fiction. Check it. For more effective credit utilization, I instructed DA to revitalize farmers cooperatives. We are providing seeds at subsidized prices to help our farmers.
Incremental Malampaya national revenues of P4 billion will go to our rice self-sufficiency program. Rice production since 2000 increased an average of 4.07% a year, twice the population growth rate. By promoting natural planning and female education, we have curbed population growth to 2.04% during our administration, down from the 2.36 in the 1990's, when artificial birth control was pushed. Our campaign spreads awareness of responsible parenthood regarding birth spacing. Long years of pushing contraceptives made it synonymous to family planning. Therefore informed choice should mean letting more couples, who are mostly Catholics, know about natural family planning.
From 1978 to 1981, nag-export tayo ng bigas. Hindi tumagal. But let's not be too hard on ourselves. Panahon pa ng Kastila bumibili na tayo ng bigas sa labas. While we may know how to grow rice well, topography doesn't always cooperate.
Nature did not gift us with a mighty Mekong like Thailand and Vietnam, with their vast and naturally fertile plains. Nature instead put our islands ahead of our neighbours in the path of typhoons from the Pacific. So, we import 10% of the rice we consume.
To meet the challenge of today, we will feed our people now, not later, and help them get through these hard times. To meet the challenges of tomorrow, we must become more self-reliant, self-sufficient and independent, relying on ourselves more than on the world.
Now we come to the future of agrarian reform. There are those who say it is a failure, that our rice importations prove it. There are those who say it is a success-if only because anything is better than nothing. Indeed, people are happier owning the land they work, no matter what the difficulties.
Sa SONA noong 2001, sinabi ko, bawat taon, mamamahagi tayo ng dalawang daang libong ektarya sa reporma sa lupa: 100,000 hectares of private farmland and 100,000 of public farmland, including ancestral domains. Di hamak mahigit sa target ang naipamahagi natin sa nakaraang pitong taon: 854,000 hectares of private farmland, 797,000 of public farmland, and Certificates of Ancestral Domain for 525,000 hectares. Including, over a 100,000 hectares for Bugkalots in Quirino, Aurora, and Nueva Vizcaya. After the release of their CADT, Rosario Camma, Bugkalot chieftain, and now mayor of Nagtipunan, helped his 15,000-member tribe develop irrigation, plant vegetables and corn and achieve food sufficiency. Mabuhay, Chief!
Agrarian reform should not merely subdivide misery, it must raise living standards. Ownership raises the farmer from his but productivity will keep him on his feet.
Sinimula ng aking ama ang land reform noong 1963. Upang mabuo ito, the extension of CARP with reforms is top priority. I will continue to do all I can for the rural as well as urban poor. Ayaw natin na paglaya ng tenant sa landlord, mapapasa-ilalim naman sa usurero. Former tenants must be empowered to become agribusinessmen by allowing their land to be used as collateral.
Dapat mapalaya ng reporma sa lupa ang magsasaka sa pagiging alipin sa iba. Dapat bigyan ang magsasaka ng dangal bilang taong malaya at di hawak ninuman. We must curb the recklessness that gives land without the means to make it productive and bites off more than beneficiaries can chew.
At the same time, I want the rackets out of agrarian reform: the threats to take and therefore undervalue land, the conspiracies to overvalue it.
Be with me on this. There must be a path where justice and progress converge. Let us find it before Christmas. Dapat nating linisin ang landas para sa mga ibig magpursige sa pagsasaka, taglay ang pananalig na ang lupa ay sasagip sa atin sa huli kung gamitin natin ito nang maayos.
Along with massive rice production, we are cutting costs through more efficient transport. For our farm-to-market roads, we released P6 billion in 2007.
On our nautical highways. RORO boats carried 33 million metric tons of cargo and 31 million passengers in 2007. We have built 39 RORO ports during our administration, 12 more are slated to start within the next two years. In 2003, we inaugurated the Western Nautical Highway from Batangas through Mindoro, Panay and Negros to Mindanao. This year we launched the Central Nautical Highway from Bicol mainland, through Masbate, Cebu, Bohol and Camiguin to Mindanao mainland. These developments strengthen our competitiveness.
Leading multinational company Nestle cut transport costs and offset higher milk prices abroad. Salamat, RORO. Transport costs have become so reasonable for bakeries like Gardenia, a loaf of its bread in Iloilo is priced the same as in Laguna and Manila. Salamat muli sa RORO.
To the many LGUs who have stopped collecting fees from cargo vehicles, maraming, maraming salamat. We are repaving airports that are useful for agriculture, like Zamboanga City Airport. Producing rice and moving it cheaper addresses the supply side of our rice needs. On the demand side, we are boosting the people's buying power.
Ginagawa nating labor-intensive ang paggawa at pag-ayos ng kalsada at patubig. Noong SONA ng 2001, naglunsad tayo sa NCR ng patrabaho para sa 20,000 na out of school youth, na tinawag OYSTER. Ngayon, mahigit 20,000 ang ineempleyo ng OYSTER sa buong bansa. In disaster-stricken areas, we have a cash-for-work program.
In training, 7.74 million took technical and vocational courses over the last seven years, double the number in the previous 14 years. In 2007 alone, 1.7 million graduated. Among them are Jessica Barlomento now in Hanjin as supply officer, Shenve Catana, Marie Grace Comendador, and Marlyn Tusi, lady welders, congratulations. In microfinance, loans have reached P102 billion or 30 times more than the P3 billion we started with in 2001, with a 98% repayment record, congratulations! Major lenders include the Land Bank with P69 billion, the Peoples' Credit and Finance Corporation P8 billion, the National Livelihood Support Fund P3 billion, DBP P1 billion and the DSWD's SEA-K P800 million. For partnering with us to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit, thank you, Go Negosyo and Joey Concepcion.
Upland development benefits farmers through agro-forestry initiatives. Rubber is especially strong in Zamboanga Sibugay and North Cotabato. Victoria Mindoro, 56 years old, used to earn P5,000 a month as farmer and factory worker. Now she owns 10 hectares in the Goodyear Agrarian Reform Community in Kabasalan, Zamboanga Sibugay, she earns P10,000 a week. With one hectare, Pedro and Concordia Faviolas of Makilala, North Cotabato, they sent their six children to college, bought two more hectares, and earn P15,000 a month. Congratulations!
Jatropha estates are starting in 900 hectares in and around Tamlang Valley in Negros Oriental; 200 in CamSur; 300 in GenSan, 500 in Fort Magsaysay near the Cordero Dam and 700 in Samar, among others. In our 2006 SONA, our food baskets were identified as North Luzon and Mindanao. The sad irony of Mindanao as food basket is that it has some of the highest hunger in our nation. It has large fields of high productivity, yet also six of our ten poorest provinces.
The prime reason is the endless Mindanao conflict. A comprehensive peace has eluded us for half a century. But last night, differences on the tough issue of ancestral domain were resolved. Yes, there are political dynamics among the people of Mindanao. Let us sort them out with the utmost sobriety, patience and restraint. I ask Congress to act on the legislative and political reforms that will lead to a just and lasting peace during our term of office. The demands of decency and compassion urge dialogue. Better talk than fight, if nothing of sovereign value is anyway lost. Dialogue has achieved more than confrontation in many parts of the world. This was the message of the recent World Conference in Madrid organized by the King of Saudi Arabia, and the universal message of the Pope in Sydney.
Pope Benedict's encyclical Deus Caritas Est reminds us: "There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love for neighbour is indispensable."
Pinagsasama-sama natin ang mga programa ng DSWD, DOH, GSIS, SSS at iba pang lumalaban sa kahirapan sa isang National Social Welfare Program para proteksyonan ang pinaka-mahihirap mula sa pandaigdigang krisis, and to help those whose earnings are limited by illness, disability, loss of job, age and so on-through livelihood projects, microfinance, skills and technology transfer, emergency and temporary employment, pension funds, food aid and cash subsidies, child nutrition and adult health care, medical missions, salary loans, insurance, housing programs, educational and other savings schemes, and now cheaper medicine-Thanks to Congress.
The World Bank says that in Brazil, the income of the poorest 10% has grown 9% per year versus the 3% for the higher income levels due in large part to their family stipend program linking welfare checks to school attendance. We have introduced a similar program, Pantawid Pamilya.
Employers have funded the two increases in SSS benefits since 2005. Thank you, employers for paying the premiums.
GSIS pensions have been indexed to inflation and have increased every year since 2001. Its salary loan availments have increased from two months equivalent to 10 months, the highest of any system public or private-while repayments have been stretched out.
Pag-Ibig housing loans increased from P3.82 billion in 2001 to P22.6 billion in 2007. This year it experienced an 84% increase in the first four months alone. Super heating na. Dapat dagdagan ng GSIS at buksan muli ng SSS ang pautang sa pabahay. I ask Congress to pass a bill allowing SSS to do housing loans beyond the present 10% limitation. Bago ako naging Pangulo, isa't kalahating milyong maralita lamang ang may health insurance. Noong 2001, sabi natin, dadagdagan pa ng kalahating milyon. Sa taong iyon, mahigit isang milyon ang nabigyan natin. Ngayon, 65 milyong Pilipino na ang may health insurance, mahigit doble ng 2000, kasama ang labinlimang milyong maralita. Philhealth has paid P100 billion for hospitalization. The indigent beneficiaries largely come from West and Central Visayas, Central Luzon, and Ilocos. Patuloy nating palalawakin itong napaka-importanted programa, lalo na sa Tawi-Tawi, Zambo Norte, Maguindanao, Apayao, Dinagat, Lanao Sur, Northern Samar, Masbate, Abra and Misamis Occidental. Lalo na sa kanilang mga magsasaka at mangingisda.
In these provinces and in Agusan Sur, Kalinga, Surigao Sur and calamity-stricken areas, we will launch a massive school feeding program at P10 per child every school day.
Bukod sa libreng edukasyon sa elementarya at high school, nadoble ang pondo para sa mga college scholarships, while private high school scholarship funds from the government have quadrupled.
I have started reforming and clustering the programs of the DepEd, CHED and TESDA. As with fiscal and food challenges, the global energy crunch demands better and more focused resource mobilization, conservation and management.
Government agencies are reducing their energy and fuel bills by 10%, emulating Texas Instruments and Philippine Stock Exchange who did it last year. Congratulations, Justice Vitug and Francis Lim.
To reduce power system losses, we count on government regulators and also on EPIRA amendments. We are successful in increasing energy self-sufficiency-56%, the highest in our history. We promote natural gas and biofuel; geothermal fields, among the world's largest; windmills like those in Ilocos and Batanes; and the solar cells lighting many communities in Mindanao. The new Galoc oil field can produce 17,000-22,000 barrels per day, 1/12 of our crude consumption.
The Renewable Energy Bill has passed the House. Thank you, Congressmen. Our costly commodity imports like oil and rice should be offset by hard commodities exports like primary products, and soft ones like tourism and cyberservices, at which only India beats us.
Our P 350 million training partnership with the private sector should qualify 60,000 for call centers, medical transcription, animation and software development, which have a projected demand of one million workers generating $13 billion by 2010.
International finance agrees with our progress. Credit rating agencies have kept their positive or stable outlook on the country. Our world competitiveness ranking rose five notches. Congratulations to us. We are sticking to, and widening, the fiscal reforms that have earned us their respect.
To our investors, thank you for your valuable role in our development. I invite you to invest not only in factories and services, but in profitable infrastructure, following the formula for the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway. I ask business and civil society to continue to work for a socially equitable, economically viable balance of interests. Mining companies should ensure that host communities benefit substantively from their investments, and with no environmental damage from operations.
Our administration enacted the Solid Waste Management Act, Wildlife Act, Protection of Plant Varieties, Clean Water Act, Biofuels Act and various laws declaring protected areas. For reforestation, for next year we have budgeted P2 billion. Not only do forests enhance the beauty of the land, they mitigate climate change, a key factor in increasing the frequency and intensity of typhoons and costing the country 0.5% of the GDP.
We have set up over 100 marine and fish sanctuaries since 2001. In the whaleshark sanctuary of Donsol, Sorsogon, Alan Amanse, 40-year-old college undergraduate and father of two, was earning P100 a day from fishing and driving a tricycle. Now as whaleshark-watching officer, he is earns P1,000 a day, ten times his former income. For clean water, so important to health, there is P500 million this year and P1.5 billion for next year. From just one sanitary landfill in 2001, we now have 21, with another 18 in the works.
We launched the Zero Basura Olympics to clear our communities of trash. Rather than more money, all that is needed is for each citizen to keep home and workplace clean, and for garbage officials to stop squabbling. Our investments also include essential ways to strengthen our institutions of governance in order to fight the decades-old scourge of corruption. I will continue to fight this battle every single day. While others are happy with headlines through accusation without evidence and privilege speeches without accountability, we have allocated more than P3 billion - the largest anti-graft fund in our history - for real evidence gathering and vigorous prosecution. From its dismal past record, the Ombudsman's conviction rate has increased 500%. Lifestyle checks, never seriously implemented before our time, have led to the dismissal and/or criminal prosecution of dozens of corrupt officials.
I recently met with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US agency that provides grants to countries based on governance. They have commended our gains, contributed P1 billion to our fight against graft, and declared us eligible for more grants. Thank you!
Last September, we created the Procurement Transparency Group in the DBM and linked it with business, academe, and the Church, to deter or catch anomalies in government contracts. On my instruction, the BIR and Customs established similar government-civil society tie-ups for information gathering and tax evasion and smuggling monitoring.
More advanced corruption practices require a commensurate advances in legislative responses. Colleagues in Congress, we need a more stringent Anti-Graft Act.
Sa pagmahal ng bilihin, hirap na ang mamimili - tapos, dadayain pa. Dapat itong mahinto. Hinihiling ko sa Kongreso na magpasa ng Consumer Bill of Rights laban sa price gouging, false advertising at iba pang gawain kontra sa mamimili. I call on all our government workers at the national and local levels to be more responsive and accountable to the people. Panahon ito ng pagsubok. Kung saan kayang tumulong at dapat tumulong ang pamahalaan, we must be there with a helping hand. Where government can contribute nothing useful, stay away. Let's be more helpful, more courteous, more quick.
Kaakibat ng ating mga adhikain ang tuloy na pagkalinga sa kapakanan ng bawat Pilipino. Iisa ang ating pangarap - maunlad at mapayapang lipunan, kung saan ang magandang kinabukasan ay hindi pangarap lamang, bagkus natutupad. Sama-sama tayo sa tungkuling ito. May papel na gagampanan ang bawat mamamayan, negosyante, pinunong bayan at simbahan, sampu ng mga nasa lalawigan.
We are three branches but one government. We have our disagreements; we each have hopes, and ambitions that drive and divide us, be they personal, ethnic, religious and cultural. But we are one nation with one fate. As your President, I care too much about this nation to let anyone stand in the way of our people's wellbeing. Hindi ko papayagang humadlang ang sinuman sa pag-unlad at pagsagana ng taong bayan. I will let no one - and no one's political plans - threaten our nation's survival.
Our country and our people have never failed to be there for us. We must be there for them now. Maraming salamat. Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat.
About the Author
The Author is an academic person who owns a passion for peace and self development. He who travels the world in search of a well defined political governance; where peace, abundance and security are of bounty.
He owns a strong faith in the theory of self preservation and self trust.
From his own conviction, He value not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumble, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
He also believes that ones good effort should be credited with recognition that belongs to the man who is in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be like those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. agp_von@yahoo.com
HomelandSecurity #13 Public Law 107296 107th
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Sheriff's Industry Station increases efforts in response to weakened parole restrictions
HACIENDA HEIGHTS - A policy that puts "low risk" offenders on minimal parole supervision has prompted Los Angeles County sheriff's authorities to step up their efforts in monitoring parolees.
If you're looking for a career as a paralegal, finding the right school can be challenging. Not only should you be looking for a top ranked education, but you should be looking to ensure job placement after completing your degree. While there are a lot of items to consider when looking into a paralegal program, few aspects are as critical as being approved by the American Bar Association (ABA). ABA approval is a mark of excellence within the legal profession.
According to the American Bar Association, "Law schools approved by the American Bar Association (ABA) provide a legal education which meets a minimum set of standards as promulgated by the ABA. Every jurisdiction in the United States has determined that graduates of ABA-approved law schools are able to sit for the bar in their respective jurisdictions. The role that the ABA plays as the national accrediting body has enabled accreditation to become unified and national in scope rather than fragmented, with the potential for inconsistency, among the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,
ABA approved Paralegal institutions offer Associate of Applied Science, Post Degree Certificate, (only those who have already obtained a bachelor or associate degree are qualified). Bachelor of Science degree on Paralegal Studies and Certificate in Legal Nurse Consulting are two other programs offered by ABA approved paralegal study institutions.
Training is an essential part in becoming a paralegal. Without proper paralegal training an individual will not be able to handle the challenges of working for an attorney. In fact, most attorneys will not hire someone without paralegal training. Additionally, most lawyers prefer working with paralegals who have obtained a certificate through an ABA Approved program.
Also problematic is the fact that most of the ranking are based, at least in part, on the subjective opinions of individuals at the various schools. Of course, such subjective opinions are likely to simply reinforce the historical opinions regarding the "top tier" law schools. Indeed, if you look at these rankings historically, you will find that they really haven't changed much over the years.
A career in Law can be very stressful, but also very satisfying and lucrative. The average annual income for practicing attorneys is between $64,000 and $143,000. Lawyers employed in the private sector are typically paid more than those who practice in the public sector.
If you are just starting out with no related experience or education in law, you might want to get your feet wet with a course in Legal and Paralegal. A legal paralegal course would be a great testing ground to see if you are really ready to start on the path to law school, and it would give you the leading edge once your legal studies begin in earnest.
This can be helpful to know since there are more than one thousand institutions which are offering paralegal courses. Going through each of them so that you can be able to determine the ones that are offering ABA approved paralegal courses can be quite a hassle.
When you are looking into an online law degree program, it is important to check whether the program has the proper accreditation. That usually means accreditation by the American Bar Association (ABA), which is the leading national association for attorneys in the United States. If the program you take does not have the approval of the ABA, then you will not be allowed to sit for a bar exam in any state with the possible exception of California. (Programs accredited by the Committee of Bar Examiners of the State of California may qualify law students to sit for the bar exam, but only in California.)
About the Author
Read About International study programs and also read about aba approved law schools and writing career
Canadian Bar Association Young Lawyers International Program
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People’s Demands on Aquino’s First State of the Nation Address
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL Because the Arroyo administration left the country in a crisis of unparalleled proportions, progressive groups presented an agenda, which they deem as necessary for the nation's survival.
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What should be the defining principle of the Koroma administration National Development Strategy is balance. President Koroma cannot expect to eliminate national development challenges through a unilateral political agenda, to do everything and coordinate everything based on his All People’s Congress (APC) party ideology. His APC party with its “corporate agenda” for Sierra Leone rolled over the incumbent Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) in a run-off that reflected the expectations and desires of a majority of Sierra Leoneans for far-reaching socio-economic change, institutional reform and full inclusion of the mostly youth and indigenous poor. If Koroma is to succeed to reduce Sierra Leone’s grinding poverty and the creation of a more effective, inclusive and just state, however—and he must if his leadership is going to be different from the SLPP administration it replaced—he will need to set priorities and consider trade-offs and show understanding and offer support as he grapples with explosive issues of judicial reforms, corruption and development policy.
The strategy strives for balance in three areas: between trying to prevail in eliminating corruption in his government and preparing for other contingencies; between institutionalizing capabilities such as nongovernmental engagement and supporting the relevance of NGOs as development stakeholders and maintaining NGO’s existing organizational independence and strategic edge in terms of advancing national development objectives through community involvement; and between retaining those cultural traits that have made grassroots involvement in development work possible and discouraging behaviors of NGOs that hamper their ability to do what needs to be done. “In its broadest sense, the term "nongovernment organization" [NGO] refers to organizations (i) not based in government; (ii) not created for financial or material gain; but (iii) created to address concerns such as social and humanitarian issues of development, individual and community welfare and well-being, disadvantage, and poverty, as well as environmental and natural resources protection, management, and improvement” (Asian Development Bank).
Strategic Thinking
The Koroma administration’s ability to deal with performance problems of NGOs will depend on its capacity in handling corruption in government. To be blunt, to fail—or to be seen to fail—in addressing corruption in government would be a disastrous blow to the APC party credibility, both among party supporters and voters and among opposition adversaries. Sierra Leoneans want to see serious effort to address corruption and the injustices of the legal system in the country—and the people of Sierra Leone have lost all patience in this regard. Still, there will continue to be high expectations for Koroma’s zero-tolerance against corruption to be seen to work in Sierra Leone.
Given its endemic nature, corruption, poverty, and the tragic history of violence, Sierra Leone in many ways poses an even more complex and difficult long-term challenge—one that, despite a strong rhetorical effort, will require significant determination and commitment to punish drastically for crimes of corruption for some time. And given the country's ever changing political game, the resounding victory of Ernest Koroma in the 2007 run-off elections could prove just another wrong turn along the road going nowhere. Sierra Leoneans have already started to question the leadership of Koroma, who in his inauguration in September 2007 announced his zero-tolerance stance against corruption, but “has not had a lot of luck with his cabinet” (The Africa Report). The instances of presumed corruption and shady dealings [the controversial Income Electrix power deal, the suspended Transport Minister Ibrahim Kemoh Sesay 700kg haul of cocaine deal, and the Attorney General Abdul Serry-Kamal Seventy Five Billion Leones Wanza saga] confirm the self-seeking and predatory activities of APC officials, “and that despite the best intentions announced by President Koroma, he [seems to] lack the moral standing and political backbone to implement his ‘zero-tolerance’ policy for corruption and his call for accountability of his cabinet” (The New People Newspaper). Koroma still has to demonstrate he is following a drummer different from that of every Sierra Leonean leader of the past 45 years.
What is dubbed the war on corruption is, in grim reality, a prolonged, nationwide conventional campaign—a struggle between the forces of blatant corruption and those of moderation. Direct ACC engagement will continue to play a role in the long-term effort against corrupt officials in government and the private sector. But over the short term, a determined leadership may have to use draconian rules of engagement to ending corruption in Sierra Leone. Where possible, what the ACC calls prompt service in addressing corruption cases should be subordinated to concrete measures by a strong presidency aimed at definitely promoting better governance, economic programs that spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the discontented which justified the civil conflict that so badly destroyed the social fabric of Sierra Leone over the years. It will take the active engagement as well of NGOs in a collaborative effort over a long time to educate, rebuild and advance infrastructural development objectives.
Sierra Leone is unlikely to experience another civil war—justifiable by the injustices resulting from bad governance and rampant corruption—anytime soon. But that does not mean it may not face similar challenges in a variety of locales. Where possible, a government strategy is to employ indirect approaches—primarily through building the capacity of partner NGOs and their administrative processes—to prevent festering problems from turning into crises that require costly and controversial direct civil conflict. In this kind of effort, the capabilities of the government’s allies and NGO partners may be as important as its own, and building their capacity is arguably as important as, if not more so than, the partisan bickering the government has to deal with.
The recent past vividly demonstrated the consequences of failing to address adequately the dangers posed by bad governance. Rebel networks found sympathy among Sierra Leoneans and strength within the chaos of social breakdown. The small-arms infested State quickly collapsed into chaos and criminality and the worst of catastrophes befell the Sierra Leone homeland—towns and villages were reduced to rubble by rebel attacks as a result of the failed State. The kinds of capabilities needed to deal with such a historically dismal scenario cannot therefore any longer be played down with political rhetoric. Even the smallest of crimes of corruption should require stringent and uncompromising methods of investigations and punishment to avoid this failed State scenario. As Transparency International chair Huguette Labelle has noted, “Stemming corruption requires strong oversight through parliaments, law enforcement, independent media and a vibrant civil society. When these institutions are weak, corruption spirals out of control with horrendous consequences for ordinary people and for justice and equality in societies more broadly” (NGLS Go Between).
In many ways, the country's national development capabilities are still coping with the consequences of the 1990s, when, with the complicity of the civil war, key instruments of the government of Sierra Leone regulatory mechanisms were reduced or allowed to wither on the corridors of power.
“Sierra Leone has been a major recipient of foreign aid since the end of a devastating 11-year civil war in 2002. But government, donors and citizens are all questioning how effectively this aid is being used. Allegations of misappropriation of donor funds, both by government actors and NGOs, threaten this inflow. One of the government’s principal partners, the British Department for International Development, withheld aid in protest against such anomalies, for most of 2007 and early 2008 (Fofana/IPS, Freetown). Besides, the Government of Sierra Leone has not maintained a constructive relationship with NGOs. However, the global push towards reducing poverty has created a new convergence among development practitioners and policymakers as the means of increasing access to new initiatives that will promote good governance and help reduce poverty. Citizen participation has increasingly been taken seriously to increase opportunity for lower income and other excluded populations whose interest are marginalized in classic representative institutions to influence policymaking processes. The government is beginning to appreciate the relevance of civil society in development—that community development lies at the heart of a strong, association-based civil society.
In this regard, the Koroma administration can assume more of the tasks of fostering effective collaboration with local and international NGOs for peace, security and development. To truly achieve victory as the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness defined it –“to bring new voices into a review of how aid is managed, and to sketch out a course for greater transparency, accountability and ultimately impact on the lives of the world’s poor—to attain a political objective” (Fofana/IPS, Freetown)–the Sierra Leone Government needs an NGO Coordination Unit whose ability to facilitate the diversion of huge donor funds to the NGO community is matched by its ability to use active evaluations and reviews as learning tools for itself and its development partners. “The role of the Sierra Leone Association of NGOs (SLANGO), formed in January 1994, to coordinate NGO activities in order that efforts are not duplicated and resources not wasted” (BNET Business Network) has to be differentiated from what the NGO Unit at MODEP is doing; also to understand SLANGO’s relevance in development work.
Given these realities, the NGO Unit of MODEP has, however, been seen to make some impressive strides in recent years. “The revised National NGO Policy following the wide range of consultations held at national and regional levels with the involvement of all stakeholders especially the NGO Community, Line Ministries and Civil Society in the preparation of the policy [was a laudable effort]. The NGO Unit facilitated several meetings with other ministries particularly the Ministry of Finance, the National Revenue Authority (NRA), the Ministry of Labor and other stakeholders to discuss among other things: Duty Free Concessions, Resident/Work Permits and Taxation etc.” (NGO Unit/MODEP).
It can also be suggested that a New Development Operations Manual for a New National Development Strategy is developed to incorporate the lessons of recent years in NGO service delivery doctrine. "Train and equip" programs will allow for quicker improvements in the development capacity of partner organizations. And various initiatives should be undertaken that will better integrate and coordinate government efforts with civilian society agencies as well as engage the expertise of the private sector, including nongovernmental organizations and academia.
Organizational Problems in Perspective
Even as international NGOs hone and institutionalize new and modern management methods, the Sierra Leone Government still has to contend with the organizational challenges posed by local NGOs. The images of NGOs seen by many local people as corrupt and undeserving of support are a reminder that these Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and their management processes do still matter. NGOs in the country should be seen to improve their and several partners’ documentation of results, including the development of good monitoring indicators.
In addition, there is the potentially toxic mix of inadequate financial management of NGOs and inadequate reporting on budgetary issues to the Government of Sierra Leone’s NGO Unit. What all these problems portend is that the monitoring of development aid continues to be a major challenge for Sierra Leone and that a thorough framework of monitoring both recurrent and development activities must be put in place. The Government of Sierra Leone cannot take these organizational issues of NGOs for granted and needs to invest in the programs, platforms, and personnel that will ensure their relevance as development stakeholders.
But it is also important to keep some perspective. As much as the MODEP’s NGO Unit has come up with revised policy regulations with collated information in respect of funds disbursed by donors to NGOs for the implementation of programs it must be remembered that what is driving MODEP is a desire to exorcise the sloppy performance of NGOs over the years and to make them more relevant as development stakeholders—not an ideologically driven campaign to micro manage NGOs in the country. “Understandably, the logic behind massive NGO presence in Sierra Leone was to create a civic culture, pluralize the political, economic and social arena and bridge the gap between the masses and the State. So NGOs thus act as intermediaries between, what donors call 'the unorganized masses' and the State and are expected to represent the people and express their voices in policymaking. In fact, among NGOs is a small sector of voluntary organizations that genuinely monitor regimes, engage in advocacy on behalf of the poor and serves as watchdogs in ensuring that government contractors deliver services”.
It is true that the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) with clear link to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is the main focus of Government and its development partners. “The PRSP calls for pro-poor sustainable growth. However, achieving this means maintaining macro-economic stability IMF-style with low inflation and strict fiscal deficits, despite research by CSOs and development agencies which seriously question the poverty impact of these types of policies” (European Network on Debt and Development). NGOs’ participation was recognized in the process. NGOs could now play an active role in the implementation process by shifting their interventions and assistance from relief/humanitarian programs to sustainable infrastructural development programs. Answerability and transparency, adequate financial management and adequate budgetary reporting are to be the watch words in the new dispensation.
NGOs in Sierra Leone may have their organizational problems, but they can be quite relevant stakeholders in promoting people's participation in poverty reduction programs. Use of funds has not been cost effective for most NGOs but the thematic areas most of these NGOs focus on (health, education, skills development, micro-finance, skills training, etc.), are relevant for the end users that are often poor and vulnerable children, youth and women. These are priority support areas that are in accordance with Sierra Leone’s development priorities and the PRSP as well international development agencies’ priorities.
Now that the performance bar has to be raised for the government and NGOs following their dismal performance in terms of handling aid money, the Sierra Leone Government must now endeavor to maintain a credible strategic relationship with NGOs through effectively evaluating, reviewing and monitoring their activities. Toward this end, the steps the NGO Unit at MODEP is taking to return excellence and accountability to NGO stewardship are commendable. Presidential and Parliamentary oversight may also be necessary for a more reliable and sustainable NGO Unit coordination effort.
When thinking about the range of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of non-governmental organizations as development partners in Sierra Leone it is reasonable to understand that NGOs come in many shapes and sizes. Data used in the SWOT analysis stem from multiple sources including statistical reports, literature review, regulations and policies, and research articles by NGO professionals. These findings should provide a valuable reference for the Government and the international development community who are interested in developing excellence in the civil society organization which interestingly can provide some feed back into the effectiveness aspects of the development analysis.
Strengths
Grassroots (local) NGOs
International NGOs
Weaknesses
Grassroots (local) NGOs
International NGOs
Opportunities
Grassroots NGOs
International NGOs
Threats
Grassroots NGOs
International NGOs
Overall, by sorting the SWOT issues of grassroots (local) and international NGOs into planning categories one can obtain a system which presents a practical way of assimilating the internal and external information about NGO work in Sierra Leone, delineating short and long term priorities, and defining and developing coordinated, goal-directed actions, and allowing an easy way to build management teams which can achieve the objectives of development growth and the essence of civil society. In reality, as the philosopher Michael Ignatieff has noted "without civil society, democracy remains an empty shell”. One can expect to see the efficacy of Civil Society Organizations to influence members of the wider public that adhere to their values and beliefs to engage in development programs at State and community levels.
Therefore, notwithstanding local NGO’s relatively dismal record they are still clearly quite relevant to the development equation. NGOs strengths can be harnessed with well coordinated capacity building programs. Conversely, international NGOs can develop a partner strategy of supporting and working through strong professional local partners as an effective tool for having a greater development impact than being a self-implementing agency. NGOs can also be very effective as learning organizations by providing important support to build their own staff’s and partners’ capacities, through individual training activities, annual partner meetings and conferences, learning exchange between partners, and partner self-assessments of training needs. Moreover, NGOs can also be very effective with regular active evaluations and reviews as learning tools for themselves and their partners.
Just as one can expect learning should be at the heart of these organizations, so too, should the Government of Sierra Leone seek a better balance in the portfolio of capabilities it has—the types of programs against corruption in government fielded, the punishment in place for crimes of corruption, the training done.
Moreover, given the development challenges Sierra Leone is struggling with—and given, for example, the struggles to field up hospitals and clinics, schools and colleges, maintenance of urban and rural roads, and the HIV threats to the society—the time has come to think hard about how to institutionalize the capabilities of NGOs and get them adequately fielded quickly. The NGO policy modernization programs of the NGO Unit at MODEP should seek a 99 percent solution to the organizational limitations of NGOs in the country and to build the kind of innovative thinking and flexibility capable of supporting rigid development processes.
Sustaining Organizational Performance
The ability to fight corruption in government and empower NGOs sometimes simultaneously fits squarely within the finest traditions of good governance, more so because adequate financial management, including adequate reporting on budgetary issues is key to sustained organizational performance of NGOs. For most NGOs in Sierra Leone, unsatisfactory practices with regard to vehicle and fuel use, procurement procedures and weak financial reporting and accounting are weaknesses which are also typical issues in bad government. Improving documentation of results, including the development of good monitoring indicators is also essential for sustaining organizational performance. The non performance of NGOs is coming at a frightful human, financial, and political cost. There has to be organizational improvements in government so that NGOs can be more resourceful and relevant to the development equation.
One of the enduring issues the NGO Unit at MODEP’s struggles with is whether personnel and organizational systems designed to coordinate the work of NGOs in the country will be able to reflect the importance of advising, training, and equipping NGOs in Sierra Leone—something still not considered a career-enhancing path for the best and brightest organizational development experts. Another is whether the revised policy regulations can be adapted well enough and fast enough to empower NGOs—or, more significant, to build the capacity of local NGOs to make them more resourceful.
One can make the argument in favor of institutionalizing NGO skills and the ability to conduct stability and support operations. This has to be done and is necessary for maintaining the current advantage of the relevance of NGOs as development partners. Apart from recent revisions of NGO policy regulations there has been no strong, deeply rooted constituency inside MODEP or elsewhere for institutionalizing the capabilities necessary to support NGO work in Sierra Leone—and to quickly meet the important needs of civil society organizations engaged in development work in Sierra Leone.
Think of the important work of NGOs in Sierra Leone. NGOs often make the impossible possible by doing what governments cannot or will not do especially when new challenges crowd the national agenda. Increasingly, NGOs operate outside existing formal frameworks, moving independently to meet their goals and establishing new standards that governments, institutions, and corporations are themselves compelled to follow through force of public opinion.
Some humanitarian and development NGOs, for instance, have a natural advantage because of their perceived neutrality and experience. Amnesty International - Sierra Leone Section, for example, (as listed on the webpage directory of NGOs maintained by UNDP Sierra Leone promotes and protects human rights through advocacy and human rights education—maintaining documentation on human rights abuses and violations carried out during the ten year rebel war in Sierra Leone which proved helpful to the TRC in Sierra Leone. Other groups such as the Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) is a democracy-supporting NGO in Sierra Leone which promotes the building of democratic institutions, transparency and accountability in government, active citizen participation in the political process, voter education, human rights, and the rule of law. The Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) organizes religious, educational, social and cultural programs to meet the spiritual, mental and recreational needs of members. The Centre for Coordination of Youth Activities provides training in leadership, peace building, skills development, and community development. The Kailahun District Development Foundation (KADDF), a district-wide non-governmental organization offers viable solutions to the pervasive problems of poverty and serves as a clearinghouse for outside agencies interested in carrying out programs in the Kailahun district. The Sierra Leone Adult Education Association (SLADEA) helps to reduce the high rate of illiteracy among adults in the non-formal sector; to enlist the co-operation and support of other NGOs with a view to motivating various forms of people's participation especially women and youth in national development; to achieve public recognition and support for non-formal education sector. FORUT’s thematic areas (health, education, skills development, micro-finance, skills training, etc.), are relevant for the end users that are often poor and vulnerable children, youth and women. Action Aid is one of the largest NGOs operating in Sierra Leone promoting food security through agricultural programs to ensure seeds are available and crop production continues.
There is no doubt, therefore, that modernization programs will continue to have, and deserve, strong institutional and parliamentary support. There has to be the enabling environment needed to make sure that the capabilities needed for the complex organizational issues of NGOs also has strong and sustained institutional support over the long term. The need for an NGO Unit establishment that can make and implement decisions quickly in support of NGOs working in Sierra Leone is necessary.
In the end, the NGO capabilities needed cannot be separated from the cultural traits and the management structure of the institutions the Sierra Leone Government has: the signals sent by how funds are managed, what projects are funded, what skills are used to implement projects and how personnel are trained. As Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy has said, "Clearly, one can no longer relegate NGOs to simple advisory or advocacy roles. . . . They are now part of the way decisions have to be made."
As Yale professor Steve Charnovitz has observed, NGO involvement seems to depend on two factors: the needs of government and the capabilities of NGOs. A good democracy encompasses all NGOs which strive to create formal but flexible systems fostering dynamism and self-adjustment. NGOs ought to be a part of the alternative development paradigm, because the State, its institutions, and public policy, are unable to address a host of issues of underdevelopment all alone.
Evidently, there are many NGOs today in Sierra Leone in different shapes and forms with substantial amounts of donor and individual funds being diverted through them for developmental purposes. These NGOs are thought to be participatory, community-oriented, democratic, cost effective, and better at targeting the poorest of the poor, although in recent years, the nimbus of righteousness around NGOs has almost disappeared, and there is wide acknowledgement of their inability to deliver what is expected from them. Many lessons, however, about NGOs in Sierra Leone present themselves. Two of the most important are an understanding of organizational challenges and a sense of determination to change. The determination and national reach of NGOs has been an indispensable contributor to national peace and stability. The NGO Unit at MODEP should be clear about what effective organizational management by competent operators of NGOs can accomplish. No matter what their aims, all organizations share two things in common: They are made up of people, and certain individuals are in charge of these people. NGOs therefore need strong managers to lead its staff toward accomplishing development goals. And these managers are more than just leaders—they are problem solvers, cheerleaders, and planners as well.
Think of the intricacies of management, for instance. No matter what type of organization they work in, NGO executives are generally responsible for a group of individuals' performance. As leaders, they must expect their fellow workers to work earnestly to reach common NGO goals. As the management guru Peter Drucker said, “Executives owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.”
In national affairs, "aid can work where there is good governance," the United States Congressional Representative Lee H. Hamilton wrote in his book on - A Legacy of Honor: The Congressional Papers of Lee H. Hamilton, U.S. House of Representative 1965-1998 Indiana Ninth District, "... and usually fails where governments are unable or unwilling to commit aid to improve the lives of their people." It is thus believed any responsible National Development Strategy for Sierra Leone should provide a balanced approach to enhancing responsibilities and preserving the relevance of NGOs as development partners.
About the Author
Kenday S. Kamara is a freelance development consultant in administration, policy development and capacity building. He can be reached at kenday.kamara@waldenu.edu.
QualityStocks Daily Video 03/29/2007
SEWAGE SLUDGE DISPOSAL – LAND APPLICATION -ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS – AN OVERVIEW
Md. Wasim Aktar
Pesticide Residue Laboratory, Department of Agricultural Chemicals,
Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur-741252, Nadia, West Bengal, India
1. Introduction
Most wastewater treatment processes produce a sludge which has to be disposed of. Conventional secondary sewage treatment plants typically generate a primary sludge in the primary sedimentation stage of treatment and a secondary, biological, sludge in final sedimentation after the biological process. The characteristics of the secondary sludge vary with the type of biological process and, often, it is mixed with primary sludge before treatment and disposal. Approximately one half of the costs of operating secondary sewage treatment plants in Europe can be associated with sludge treatment and disposal. Land application of raw or treated sewage sludge can reduce significantly the sludge disposal cost component of sewage treatment as well as providing a large part of the nitrogen and phosphorus requirements of many crops. Very rarely do urban sewerage systems transport only domestic sewage to treatment plants; industrial effluents and storm-water runoff from roads and other paved areas are frequently discharged into sewers. Thus sewage sludge will contain, in addition to organic waste material, traces of many pollutants used in our modern society. Some of these substances can be phytotoxic and some toxic to humans and/or animals so it is necessary to control the concentrations in the soil of potentially toxic elements (PTE) and their rate of application to the soil. The risk to health of chemicals in sewage sludge applied to land has been reviewed by Dean and Suess1
Sewage sludge also contains pathogenic bacteria, viruses and protozoa along with other parasitic helminths which can give rise to potential hazards to the health of humans, animals and plants. A WHO (1981) Report on the risk to health of microbes in sewage sludge applied to land identified salmonellae and Taenia as giving rise to greatest concern. The numbers of pathogenic and parasitic organisms in sludge can be significantly reduced before application to the land by appropriate sludge treatment and the potential health risk is further reduced by the effects of climate, soil-microorganisms and time after the sludge is applied to the soil. Nevertheless, in the case of certain crops, limitations on planting, grazing and harvesting are necessary.
Apart from those components of concern, sewage sludge also contains useful concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus and organic matter. The availability of the phosphorus content in the year of application is about 50% and is independent of any prior sludge treatment. Nitrogen availability is more dependent on sludge treatment, untreated liquid sludge and dewatered treated sludge releasing nitrogen slowly with the benefits to crops being realised over a relatively long period. Liquid anaerobically-digested sludge has high ammonia-nitrogen content which is readily available to plants and can be of particular benefit to grassland. The organic matter in sludge can improve the water retaining capacity and structure of some soils, especially when applied in the form of dewatered sludge cake.
2. What is sludge?
Residuals, biosolids, septage, sewage, wastewater byproduct, compost: there are many names for sludge and sludge products. The term “sludge” is used as most people understand it: the sometimes solid, sometimes liquid material generated by wastewater treatment plants and used as fertilizer on fields, in gravel pits, and on forestry lots throughout the state. Sludge may classified as “Class A” if it has been treated to reduce germs to background levels (levels normally found in soils) and “Class B” if it has been treated so that germs are reduced by an estimated 90%.
3. Composition of sewage sludge:
The nature of the sewage sludge depends on the waste water treatment process and on the source of the sewage. In general it contains both toxic and non-toxic organic wastes. Of the two, non-toxic compounds are most prevalent comprising all materials of plant and animal origin, including proteins, amino acids, sugar and fats. Toxic organic compound comprises Poly-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), alkyl phenols, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) organo-chlorine pesticides, monocyclic aromatics, chloro-benzenes, aromatic and alkyl amines, polychlorinated dioxins, phenols etc. In addition to these organic waste material sewage sludge also contains traces of many pollutants like Copper, Zinc, Nickel, Cadmium, Lead, Arsenic, Chromium, Selenium etc. Some of these substances can be phytotoxic and some toxic to humans and / or animals, so it is necessary to control the concentrations in the soil of potentially toxic elements and their rate of application to the soil. Sewage sludge also contains pathogenic bacteria, viruses & protozoa along with other parasitic helminthes which can give rise to potential hazards to the health of humans, animals and plants. Apart from those components of concern sewage sludge also contains useful concentrations of N, P and organic matter. Each component of the sludge has its own environmental impact, which must be taken into account when choosing the disposal route.
4. Processing of sludge:
Increasing urbanization and Industrialisation have resulted in a dramatic increase in the volume of waste water produced around the world. The waste water treatment step concentrates the various pollutants (upto 90%) in the waste water into sludge, normally containing between 1% and 2% by weight dry solids. The waste water treatment commonly involves the following processes to process the sludge for the production of suitable end products for utilization or disposal:
Sludge processing methods
Process Description
Sludge pasteurization Minimum of 30 minutes at 70ºC or minimum of 4 hours at 55ºC (or appropriate intermediate conditions), followed in all cases by primary mesophilic anaerobic digestion.
Mesophilic anaerobic digestion Mean retention period of at least 12 days primary digestion in temperature range 35ºC ± 3ºC or of atleast 20 days primary digestion in temperature range 25ºC ± 3ºC followed in each case by a secondary stage which provides a mean retention period of at least 14 days.
Thermophilic aerobic digestion Mean retention period of at least 7 days digestion. All sludge to be subjected to a minimum of 55ºC for a period of at least 4 hours.
Composting The compost must be maintained at 40ºC for at least 5 days and for 4 hours during this period at a minimum of 55ºC within the body of the pile followed by a period of maturation adequate to ensure that the compost reaction process is substantially complete.
Lime stabilization of liquid sludge Addition of lime to raise pH to greater than 12.0 and sufficient to ensure that the pH is not less than 12 for a minimum period of 2 hours. The sludges can then be used directly.
Liquid storage Storage of untreated liquid sludge for a minimum period of 3 months.
Dewatering and storage Conditioning of untreated sludge with lime or other coagulants followed by dewatering and storage of the cake for a minimum period of 3 months. If sludge has been subject to primary mesophilic anaerobic digestion storage to be for a minimum period of 14 days.
5. Agricultural application
The application of sewage sludge as a “ safe fertilizer “ started in earnest after the 1988 ban on dumping sewage sludge into the ocean. When the Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988 went into effect, the municipalities & the Govts. left with a new problem – how to get rid of the tons of sludge they generate on a daily basis. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stepped in with a plan to “solve” this problem by promoting sludge (sometimes called ‘biosolids’, a public relations term that is used interchangeably by EPA with the technical term “sewage sludge”) as fertilizer to be spread on land – where people live, work and play. Though, the viscous, black cake adds free Organic Matter & Fertilizer to poor soils, making them productive and profitable, the main limitations arising from such factors are: pathogens, heavy metals, toxic organics. Therefore, the plan of EPA has allowed toxic chemicals into air, water, soil, crops & into us. So, to call this sludge “ fertilizer” is tantamount to call a soup “food” which, though it contains some meat & vegetables, also contains a bit of lead, a little arsenic, and perhaps hundreds or even thousands of other toxic organic and inorganic materials whose impact ranges from carcinogenic to teratogenic (birth defect inducing ). “Most people want a simple answer; is it good or is it bad. The answer is not that simple. It is not completely risk free, but it has benefits. Just like driving a car”, Sanden said.
The benefits of sewage sludge on agricultural land
• Valuable agricultural nutrients like Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium and Sulphur can be returned to the land
• Soil organic matter levels have been increased to 12% – 15%
• Ground water and surface water quality are maintained
• Decrease bulk density and increase the non-capillary pore space
• Improve the aggregation of soil particles
• No significant health or nuisance problems occur
6. Problem of Sludge
Sludge contains measurable quantities of pollutants, such as heavy metals, dioxin, and other toxic chemicals. Sludge also contains pathogens--human germs, bacteria, viruses, and parasites. And sludge smells: sludge odor is more than just a nuisance; it is a public health threat, which has been linked to respiratory problems and death. The land application of sludge distributes pollutants from large towns and cities to rural areas, far from where they were originally produced. State and federal agencies of various countries regulate sludge spreading, but regulation of this waste is difficult and problematic. Many scientists agree that the current land application rules do not protect human health, agricultural productivity, or the environment. The lack of funding to provide proper regulatory oversight and the very nature of sewage allow for sludge spreading of an unknown quality to occur on our lands.
The problems with sludge include:
? Sludge contains heavy metals, toxic chemicals, and pathogens.
? The testing and regulation of sludge is inadequate and problematic.
? Sludge odors pose a public health threat and lower quality of life.
7. The trouble with sludge
7.1. How toxic sludge become fertilizer
In traditional agricultural societies, human waste was often used to enrich the soil. The Industrial Revolution caused increased urbanization and the need for cities to develop primitive sewer systems to remove human waste. Pipes and gutters were built to dump sewage directly into our lakes, rivers, and oceans. As industry increased in World, factories began using these primitive sewer systems to get rid of their waste. This practice continued well into 20th century, when industry began widely using toxic chemicals. Using the local sewer system as a dumping ground for toxic waste was an easy solution to their disposal problems and was cheaper than treating their waste on site. Sewage loaded with toxic chemicals created major public health and environmental disasters throughout the World: rivers caught fire, public drinking water supplies became polluted, and waste washed up on our beaches. Public outcry from the growing number of disasters led to the passage of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972. This act set water quality standards nationally and provided money to communities to improve sewer systems and create wastewater treatment facilities. Unfortunately, instead of addressing the root of the problem by stopping industrial use and disposal of toxic chemicals, the act instead regulated the amount of pollution large industries could release into sewer systems.
By the late 1970s, extensive sewage systems had been built across the country. Wastewater treatment plants were built to separate solid waste from water, and, following natural and chemical treatment, release water back into the environment, clean of human waste. Unfortunately, they were not built to treat toxic chemical waste. While these sewage systems and wastewater treatment plants improved public health standards and water quality, they have an ironic flaw. The treatment process creates cleaner water but also creates a toxic byproduct: sludge. In fact, the Clean Water Act rightly defines sludge as a pollutant. Like all waste, sludge must be disposed of in some way. What to do with sludge has been a source of controversy for the past three decades in the World. Through the 1970s and 80s, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strictly regulated the land spreading of sludge, effectively prohibiting much of the waste from being used on agricultural land. Wastewater treatment facilities could only dispose of sludge in one of three ways: by sending it to a landfill, by incinerating it, or by dumping it 100 miles offshore into the ocean.2
Ocean dumping eventually created large under-sea dead areas. In response to public concern, Congress passed the Ocean Dumping Act, which banned ocean dumping of sludge in 1992.3 Sludge disposals was then largely limited to landfills and incineration that became expensive for wastewater treatment plants. Municipal treatment facilities then pressured the EPA to relax its standards for the land spreading of sludge on agricultural fields. Following a number of draft rewrites of EPA regulations, corporate sludge marketing companies and municipal wastewater treatment facilities were successful in relaxing the limits of toxins in sludge for land spreading. What was once considered hazardous waste became a fertilizer? By classifying sludge as a fertilizer, it became exempted from several waste management regulations.
7.2. Marketing of toxic sludge
Municipal water treatment facilities depend upon corporate sludge brokers to dispose of their sludge. To dispose of it, these private corporations convince farmers and landowner across the country to spread sludge on their fields as a nutrient supplement for their crops. Sludge is marketed to landowners and consumers in two different ways. The first, and most obvious, is by offering them free sludge. By convincing individual property owners that sludge is of “agronomic benefit” to their land, sludge brokers are finding extremely cheap disposal sites for sludge that would otherwise have to be shipped to landfills or incinerators at a cost of approximately $70 a ton.4
Companies then claim that everyone wins: treatment plants have a cheap disposal option for their sludge, which gives taxpayers a break, and landowners get free nutrients for their fields. As an accurate result, the sludge brokers walk away with the disposal fees from the treatment facility. The sludge brokers also escape from potential liability, which is now assumed by the farmer or property owner. The second way sludge is marketed is by composting or palletizing it. Then it can be sold or given away as compost or fertilizer. Since the weakening of sludge regulations in the late 1980s, citizens cross the World have been fighting to keep sludge from being spread on fields and farmland in their communities. Activists fighting sludge are up against formidable opponents. Water treatment facilities and sludge brokers have formed powerful trade groups, such as the New England Biosolids & Residuals Association (NEBRA). NEBRA, in turn, is part of an even larger and more powerful group: the National Biosolids Partnership, which is a coalition of groups such as the EPA and Water Environment Federation, whose primary responsibility is to change “public perception” about sludge spreading.
7.3. Toxic secrets of sludge
Land applied sludge is required laws to have toxic levels below certain limits and it is treated with lime to reduce pathogen levels. However, no sludge in World is completely free of toxic chemicals or pathogens. In fact, after it is treated, Class B sludge still contains a significant amount of pathogens5.
7.4. Toxic in sludge
A. Heavy Metals
All sludge in world contains heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, selenium, and zinc.6 These metals are persistent—that is, they do not break down in the environment and therefore build up over time. As the Cornell Cooperative Extension states, “most heavy metals remain in the soil for long periods of time, ranging from several decades to many centuries.” The heavy metals in land spread sludge therefore become permanent additions to the total quantity in the soil. Even extremely small amounts of heavy metals in sludge, therefore, are dangerous.7 High levels of arsenic in food or water can be fatal. Cadmium, chromium, nickel, and selenium have been linked to cancer. Cadmium has also been linked to kidney problems, miscarriages, and stillbirths. Copper, nickel, and zinc are known to cause growth problems in crops. Children exposed to lead can develop behavioral and learning problems. Mercury exposure at key moments in fetal development can cause learning disabilities and neurological disorders. Molybdenum bioaccumulates in grass eating livestock; ingested in excess, it can cause anemia, diarrhea, and growth problems.8 These metals can be taken up by the plants that are grown on sludge and re-enter the human food chain via livestock feed. These metals can also leach into groundwater. Highly acidic soils, like those found in Maine, can exacerbate heavy metal leaching.9
B. Pathogens: Bacteria, Viruses, and Parasites
Sludge, by its very nature, contains human pathogens: germs such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites. Whereas exposure to heavy metals can cause problems over time, exposure to these germs is more acute and can cause health problems almost immediately. Because of the extremely large numbers of pathogens that exist in the world, it is impossible to test sludge for all types of pathogens. Some common pathogens in sludge include the bacteria E-coli and Salmonella, the virus Hepatitis A, and parasitic worms. Pathogens can cause intestinal problems, other serious illnesses, and death. Land spread sludge can be treated to nearly eliminate pathogens. By composting sludge, for example, pathogen levels can be reduced significantly. Unfortunately, federal and state laws allow “Class B” sludge, which has not been treated to the strictest pathogen reduction methods, to be spread. In other words, sludge with live pathogens is being spread throughout the state. Unfortunately for the residents and workers of Northern New England, wet and overcast climates encourage pathogen growth. Researchers have found that pathogens can survive in sludge for weeks, months, or even years after reduction treatment processes.
Humans can be exposed to sludge pathogens in a number of ways. We might consume vegetables that have pathogens on them. Children might accidentally gain access to a sludge field and become exposed to the germs. Pathogens can also be spread by pets or wildlife, such as deer, that walk through a sludge field.
C. Dioxin: “The Darth Vader of Chemicals”
Dioxin is the unwanted byproduct of chemical processes involving chlorine. According to the EPA, sludge spreading is the largest land distributor of dioxin nationally.10 Dioxin is a known carcinogen and has been linked to reproductive problems, genetic damage, and endometriosis. Scientific evidence suggests there is no safe exposure level to dioxin.11 As one well-known dioxin expert called it, dioxin is “the Darth Vader of chemicals,” because you can't see or taste it, but it is deadly. The source of dioxin contamination in sludge is not known. It might be discharged into the sewer system by unknown industrial or residential sources. Dairy cattle grazing on sludged land may ingest dioxin and the chemical will then enter humans via milk and meat.
7.5. What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us
The federal Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are 70,000 synthetic (not naturally occurring) chemicals. Yet, only 2% of these chemicals have been fully tested. In fact, even the most basic toxicity testing results cannot be found in the public record for nearly 75% of the most widely used of these chemicals. The ways in which these chemicals affect human health and the ways in which they interact with one another in the environment (their “synergistic effects”) are not always known. Despite this, industry only needs to report the discharge of 1% of these chemicals into the waterways and sewers. Although industries and households release thousands of chemicals, World sludge is only regularly tested for few heavy metals and occasionally tested for dioxin and toxic pesticides.
8. Source of toxic chemicals
Sludge contains heavy metals and other pollutants because industry and households use and release far too many toxic chemicals. The sources of contaminates in sludge are many, depending upon the specific water treatment facility and the community that it serves. Sources of contamination include industrial releases, small business discharges, hospital releases, household waste, leachates from landfills and Superfund sites, including nuclear waste dumps, and municipal water and sewer systems as a whole.12Everything that is discharged into a sewer that leads to a water treatment plant could potentially become part of the sludge that the facility produces. If a worker at an industrial facility accidentally dumps toxic chemicals down the drain instead of disposing of it properly, those chemicals could end up in the sludge. Likewise, if a home gardener rinses out a bottle containing toxic pesticides in the sink, those toxic pesticides could find their way to the sludge.
8.1. Industrial Hazards
As discussed earlier, many chemicals used by industry have not been properly tested and are not regulated or reported. Additionally, even at the safest facilities, accidents happen and toxic chemicals can be released into the waste stream. World requires wastewater treatment plants to work with large industries on reducing and monitoring their waste discharge. This “pretreatment process” is required of companies that discharge a large amount of waste into the sewer system or use a large amount of chemicals that could affect the operation of the sewer system. Unfortunately, once companies release heavy metals, or other toxins, into the sewer system, there is no process to remove these chemicals from the sludge. In addition, every industry in the country can discharge 33 pounds of hazardous waste every month into wastewater treatment plants, without penalty or reporting.13
8.2. Small Business Hazards
Many small businesses are not regulated for their toxic releases. Nor are they included in the pretreatment processes. While auto garages, dentist offices, photo developers, dry cleaners, and other small businesses may not individually release a large amount of toxic chemicals, taken as a whole their contribution to chemicals in sludge could be dangerous.
8.3. Hospital Hazards
All hospitals are required to dispose of toxic chemicals and biohazards in a state approved manner. Nevertheless, accidents do happen: from a broken mercury hermometer to additional human pathogens being washed down the drain, hospitals can contaminate sludge.
8.4. Contamination from Municipal Water and Sewer Systems
Many towns and cities have water and sewer systems made with lead and copper pipes. Lead, copper, and other metals often leach into the waste stream and contaminate sludge. Contamination of sludge can also occur if a town’s reservoir is polluted with pesticides and other chemicals for which testing are not required.
8.5. Household Hazards
From pesticides (including flea shampoos), to heavy duty cleaning agents and hair coloring products, toxic chemical containing products abound. Any of these chemicals dumped down the drain could end up being spread on a farm field or in a forest.
9. Sludge regulation
It is nearly impossible to know the exact levels of toxic materials in each batch of sludge because what is released into the waste stream varies day to day. While sewage waste is treated at wastewater facilities for several days, not every batch of sludge is tested before it leaves the plant. It is more due to economics than to concerns for health protection, that sludge generators do not test the waste more frequently. For example, waste is often only tested for dioxin twice a year because of the cost of the test. A worker may accidentally spill pesticides into a sink or storm drain, or someone might illegally dump other toxic chemicals down the drain, and no matter how strict regulations are in the law books, testing could miss these sudden increases in contaminants. Regulations and testing cannot guarantee sludge safety until toxic chemicals are removed from industrial household use.
10. Sludge consequences
“Temporary odors are a necessary inconvenience in the practice of agriculture.”14 Sludge smells similar to manure and that the smell will dissipate “within several days.” Despite industry propaganda, studies have shown that sludge odors are more than just a nuisance; they are a public health threat. Harmful gases, called organic amines, can develop from chemical reactions that occur in sludge. These gases are released when the pH of sludge is raised above 10, such as when lime is added. Studies suggest that sludge odor can cause health problems in humans as far as 1600 feet from a site.15A study performed by a former EPA sludge regulator linked sludge odors to “severe irritation to mucous membranes followed by respiratory infections” in residents living near a sludge site. Irritation of the eyes, throat and skin make infection from pathogens in sludge more likely. The study was conducted following the death of a New Hampshire man suffering from respiratory distress in the vicinity of a sludge site.16 Residents near sludge sites have not been the only victims of sludge odor. Symptoms associated with organic amine poisoning frequently occur among waste treatment plant workers and drivers who haul sludge.
10.1. Deaths associated with sludges
At least two deaths have been associated with sludge spreading. In October 1994, an eleven-year-old boy, named Tony Behun, went dirt bike riding near his home in Osceola Mills, Pennsylvania. Unknowingly, the boy rode through a field covered in Class B sludge. He came home covered in dirt and grime. Two days later, he developed a sore throat, headache, and a boil on his left arm. Brenda Robertson, his mother, took him to the doctor, who prescribed flu antibiotics. The next day, Tony had trouble breathing. He died after being flown by helicopter to a hospital in Pittsburgh. The final diagnosis was that Tony had died from a bacterial infection. How her son contracted the infection remained a mystery to Brenda Robertson until five years later when she read about an investigation into her son's death by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Without consulting Brenda, the state published a report concluding that Tony died of a bee sting and that Class B Sludge was not spread on property that he went riding on.
Another sludge related death occurred in Greenland, New Hampshire. In late October of 1995, the Marshall family had their otherwise quiet lives tragically disrupted. Sludge was being dumped on a field in their rural neighborhood. This was just the beginning of the residents’ problems. On Halloween, Joanne Marshall rushed home from work to take her little girl trick-or-treating. When she arrived home and jumped out of her car, she was “greeted by such a stench, it took her breath away. ”17 The Marshalls and their neighbors began suffering from nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, migraine headaches, flu-like symptoms, slowed reflexes and respiratory problems.
10.2. Environmental Assessment and some remedy:
Recycling sewage sludge to agricultural land to gain benefit from the essential plant nutrients and organic matter it contains, would seem a reasonable and rational method of managing a material which would otherwise need disposing of by some other non-beneficial route. But sludge also contains inorganic, organic and biological contaminants and so careful, management is required to avoid the potential environmental problems. The problems are listed in following Table. Large application of sewage sludge can decrease the soil pH. This can be avoided, if the soil pH is increased by application of lime, or if sludge application rates are limited in some way.
The no. of bacteria of different genera in sludge varies. In general, a total coliform count of 10 to 10 can be found per gram of dry wt., while fecal coliform bacteria generally represent 10 to 10 per gram of dry wt. The pathogens should be reduced to levels that are unlikely to cause a threat to public health and the environment under specified use conditions processes to significantly reduce pathogens, such as digestion, drying, heating and high pH or their equivalent are the most commonly used one.
For the removal of OCs from sludge mainly two approaches ar there – physico chemical or microbiological which involves either high temperature oxidation (incineration) or reductive dechlorination (pyrolysis in an atmosphere of hydrogen). To achieve allow level of risk, presticide concentrations in the combined soil and sludge mixture must be less than 1.25 mg/kg dry wt.
Environmental impact risk and benefit assessment for sewage sludge recycling to agricultural land (B= beneficial effect, L=Low risk, P=Possible risk, NA=Not applicable.)
Environm-ental parameter PTEs Organic contaminants Pathogens Nitrogen Phosphorus Organic matter
Human health L P L B B B
Crop yields L L L B B B
Animal health L L L B B B
Ground water quality L L L P L L
Surface water quality L L L P P B
Air quality L L L P NA NA
Soil fertility P L L B B B
Natural ecosystem P P L P P B
11. Sludge regulation
Sludge, by its very nature, is difficult to regulate. Depending upon what chemicals are being released into various sewer systems minute to minute, the toxicity of the state's sludge could vary day-to-day, minute-to-minute. Regulations of sludge do not adequately protect public health and the environment.
11.1. Regulations problems:
• Have weak pollution standards;
• Allow for the spreading of sludge containing live pathogens;
• Discourage municipalities from being precautionary and public health oriented by not allowing them to make stricter standards than the state’s; and
• Marginalize citizens’ voices in the process as the sludge industry has greater access to state regulators than the average citizen.
11.2. Heavy Metals Standards (in ppm)
Heavy Metal Denmark Sweden Finland Germany Netherlands Norway European Union
Arsenic 25 N/A N/A N/A 0.15 N/A N/A
Cadmium 0.8 2.0 1.5 5 or 10* 1.25 2.5 20
Chromium 100 100 N/A 900 75 100 N/A
Copper 1000 600 N/A 800 75 1000 1000
Lead 120 100 100 900 100 80 750
Mercury 0.8 2.5 1 8 0.75 3 16
Nickel 30 50 100 200 30 50 300
Zinc 4000 800 1500 2500 300 800 2500
*Source Harrison, et al. 1999 7
11.3. Sludge vs. Natural soil
Heavy Metal Average Sludge (ppm) Natural Soil (ppm) Times Higher than Natural Soil
Arsenic 5.6 7.4 1.3
Cadmium 2.4 0.37 6.4
Copper 388.0 23.3 16.6
Chromium 33.3 30 1.1
Lead 61.5 17 3.6
Mercury 1.2 0.003 400
Molybdenum 7.5 0.79 9.4
Nickel 22.8 18 1.2
Selenium 2.6 0.45 5.7
Zinc 468.5 68.5 6.8
11.4. Standard values for organic compounds
Compounds Concentration in sludge
PAHs 1-10 mg./Kg.
Alkyl phenols 100 – 3000 mg./Kg.
PCBs 1 - 20 mg./Kg.
Poly chlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins Very low
OC pesticides
Monocyclic aromatics
Chloro benzenes
Aromatic & alkyl amines 0 – 1mg./Kg.
Phenols 0 – 5mg./Kg.
12. The sludge solution
If spreading sludge in our communities is dangerous, where should it go? What are we supposed to do with this waste? The real question is, how can we eliminate the spreading of toxic pollutants on our land and how can we eliminate these contaminants from our wastewater treatment plant so that human waste becomes a truly useful and safe commodity? Because sludge contains toxic chemicals and other pollutants, the best solution to our sludge problem is reducing these contaminants at their source. By dramatically reducing the use and disposal of industrial and household toxic chemicals we can greatly cut the chemical levels in sludge. Until the long-term goal of eliminating the use and disposal of toxic chemicals is achieved, the state should:
1. Ban the use of sludge that contains industrial discharges.
2. Require the strictest level of pathogen reduction.
3. Broaden and strengthen sludge testing and toxic limits.
4. Allow municipalities to enact ordinances that are more stringent than the state’s regulations through the town meeting or a town-wide vote process.
5. Provide for the long-term pH maintenance and metal monitoring of sludge sites.
In addition to statewide protections, municipalities should also enforce their own protections through strong ordinances controlling sludge. It is, after all, local communities that are most threatened by sludge spreading.
13. Disposal of sludges
Sludge disposal is a worldwide problem and a wide variety of disposal routes have been adopted as directed by local conditions. The final resting place of the sludge must be either on the land, in the air or in the water. Disposal of sludge to the air largly employs high temperature incineration or pyrolysis. Although, this reduction is sufficient to “stabilise” the sludge, a large volume remains for disposal. Disposal of sewage sludge to the ocean in now banned because of its perceived environmental effects. The major sludge disposal methods employed by the waste water treatment plants are alienation or selling lagooning, used for municipal gardens, used for instant lawn cultivation, land application. The remaining of the sludge is either stockpiled or land filled.
Disposal and application of sludge’s should involve the following
1. The application must contain a summary of the types of crops to be grown on the proposed site, the method of sludge application, and an anticipated spreading schedule. The application must also include a representative soil nutrient analysis for the site.
2. The sludge must provide “agronomic benefit” to the crops grown on this soil--meaning the generator must show that the site has a need for the nutrients provided for by the sludge. Farms utilizing sludge are required to have a licensed nutrient management specialist develop a whole farm nutrient management plan. This plan is the basis for the above determination that additional nutrients are needed on the farm.19
3. The application must show that “the water of the state will be protected.” In practice, state regulators assume that the waters of the state will be protected as long as certain setbacks and spreading requirements are provided for in the application.
4. To this end, sludge cannot be spread when soil is frozen, snow covered, and water logged. Sludge cannot be spread on land that favors the growth of water loving plants such as wetlands, swamps and others.
5. The soil of a proposed sludge site must have a six-inch soil cap and a minimum depth to bedrock of 10 inches for perennial crops (such as hay) and 20 inches for row crops (such as corn).
6. For Class B sludge, spreading may not occur within 25 feet of on-site waterways, including gullies, ravines, and swales. Sludge sites may not be located within 75 feet of a river, perennial stream, or great pond.
7. The application must include a statement as to whether or not the site is located on or next to a protected natural resource, a sensitive area, and/or a direct watershed to waters.
8. The generator must demonstrate that the sludge spreading activity will meet traffic standards for the site. This standard is assumed to be met if the sludge spreading activity will result in 16 or less vehicle trips a day.20
9. The application must include a site-specific odor control plan to prevent nuisance odors at neighboring properties. It assumes that odor, air quality, and nuisance standards will be met at the site if the site is 300 feet from occupied buildings, if there is a site specific odor control plan.21
10. The application must prove that the sludge is “non-hazardous”. To prove this, the application must include an analysis of the heavy metal levels in the sludge. If the generator’s sludge contains heavy metal concentrations above screening concentrations then the application must include a sampling and monitoring plan as well as demonstrate that the maximum heavy metal soil concentration will not be exceeded.
11. The application must also include an analysis of the dioxin level in the sludge. If a generator's sludge contains 27 parts per trillion of dioxin, then the application must include a statement signed by the generator, the landowner, and the operator acknowledging the dioxin in the sludge to be spread.
The statement must also include an agreement to the following conditions:
? The site will be tested for dioxin within 3 months of the last sludge spreading.
? If the soil on the site contains 27 parts per trillion of dioxin, then livestock intended for human consumption may not be pastured on site, crops for human consumption may not be grown on the site, and the deed to the site must record this information.
12. The application must also include a sampling plan: how often and in what manner the sludge will be tested for heavy metals and other toxins.22
13. Sludge will be spread at a minimum of 15 inches above groundwater surfaces. Food crops grown on the site with harvested parts that touch the soil will not be harvested for 14 months after the last sludge spreading.
14. If the sludge remains on the land for four months or more before being incorporated into the soil, food crops that grow below the soil cannot be harvested for at least 20 months after the last sludge spreading.
15. Food crops, feed crops, and fiber crops grown on the site but do not have harvested parts that might touch the sludge cannot be harvested for at least 30 days after the last sludge spreading.
16. Domestic animals are not allowed to graze on the land for at least 30 days after the last sludge spreading.
17. Turf grown on the site cannot be harvested for one year after the last sludge
spreading.
18. The application must contain site maps, including: a topographical map; a sketch of the site; a tax map; soils map (from U.S. Department of Agriculture); sand and gravel aquifer map; and a flood zone map.
19. The site sketch should include all the set backs and buffers that will be incorporated, as well as the location of onsite and abutting roads, wells, and buildings. The topographical maps are used to determine slopes at the site. The soils, sand and gravel aquifer, and flood zone maps are used to determine if the site is suitable, in a regulatory sense, for sludge spreading activities.23
14. Conclusion and Recommendation
14.1. Policy recommendation
? Prohibit sludge that contains industrial discharges from being land applied. The best way to ensure that our rural land is protected from industrial contamination is to ban the use of sludge that contains these toxins.
? Require land spread sludge to undergo the strictest pathogen reduction method available. Sludge with viruses, bacteria, and parasites above background levels should not be land applied.
? Broaden and strengthen sludge testing parameters. Sludge needs to be tested more frequently for more contaminants. In order to best protect public health and the environment, allowable pollutant levels should be guided not only by toxicology but also by natural background levels as well.
? Allow municipalities to enact ordinances that are more stringent than the state's through a town meeting or town-wide vote. The people who are most affected by sludge sites are local residents. It is important that these residents have a voice when it comes to decisions that affect their community.
? Provide for long-term maintenance of sludge sites. Sludge generators should be responsible for testing the pH of all sludge application sites, whether active or closed, and cover the costs of lime (or other amendments) to maintain safe soil pH. All large volume sludge activities should be recorded on deeds so that future potential buyers are aware of past use of the property.
15.2. Recommendation for municipalities
• Sludge is an especially important issue for municipalities to oversee: it is local residents that have the most to lose from the threat of sludge.
• In municipalities that are home to a wastewater treatment facility, local residents, town officials, and directors of the facility can work together to implement the above statewide recommendations at the local level.
• All towns have the authority to ban the use of sludge, or sludge materials (such as compost) on municipal property.
• Municipalities can also pass strict ordinances controlling sludge application. Although the state preempts local control on setting strict standards, there are several ways towns can discourage sludge spreading.
15.3. What concern citizen can do?
Citizens can protect themselves and their community from the dangers of sludge by being proactively engaged in sludge reform. Depending upon the needs of the community, citizens can reform sludge rules through engaging town officials, local and statewide public health and environmental groups.
References
1. Dean and Suess (1995). Toxic Sludge Is Good For You!, Center for Media & Democracy. Published by Common Courage Press, Monroe, ME. p. 101-107.
2. www.vpirg.org , On the Ground, The Spreading of Toxic Sludge in Vermont, Vermont Public Interest Research Group,VPIRG, 64 Main St., Montpelier, VT 05602. (802) 223-5221.
3. vpirg@vpirg.org . 7-9.
4. www.vpirg.org , Conversations with DEP Officials and Staff of Portland Water District
5. vpirg@vpirg.org On the Ground, The Spreading of Toxic Sludge in Vermont, Vermont Public Interest Research Group, VPIRG, 64 Main St., Montpelier, VT 0560. (802) 223-5221. 35-36
6. State of Maine Solid Waste Management Regulations Chapters 419, 400, 405, & Appendix A of Chapter 418, as well as repealed Chapter 567, Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Solid Waste Management, 17 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0017. Chapter 419, 17.
7. Harrison, Ellen Z. et al, (1999) The Case for Caution, Recommendations for Land Application of Sewage Sludge and an Appraisal of the US EPA’s Part 503 Sludge Rules, Cornell Waste Management Institute, Center for the Environment, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. February.
8. www.vpirg.org ,vpirg@vpirg.org On the Ground, The Spreading of Toxic Sludge in Vermont, Vermont Public Interest Research Group, VPIRG, 64 Main St., Montpelier, VT 05602. (802) 223-5221. 12-14.
9. www.essential.org/cchw America’s Choice Children’s Health or Corporate Profit, Center for Health, Environment, and Justice, PO Box 6806, Falls Church, VA 22040 703.237.2249, 546
10. Gibbs, Lois Marie et al. (1995) Dying from Dioxin: A Citizen's Guide to Reclaiming Our Health and Rebuilding Democracy. South End Press, Boston.. p. 25
11. vpirg@vpirg.org 10-11.
12. Scott, Laura, et al. (1998) The Sludging of New Hampshire. Answers for Local City and Town Officials in New Hampshire. New Hampshire Sierra Club. “Land Application of Wastewater Biosolids in Maine.” Maine Wastewater Control Association brochure.
13. Lewis, David L., et al. Enhanced Susceptibility to Infection From Exposure to Gases Emitted by Sewage Sludge: A Case Study, Departments of Marine Sciences, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, and Medical Microbiology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, BIOSET, Inc, 13700 Veterans Memorial, Ste. 385, Houston, TX, 77014. (conclusions)
14. Tuohy, John, (2000) “State probe wrongly followed path of bike ride to a bee sting,” USA Today, July 13,. 20. Statement of Joanne Marshall
15. www.essential.org/cchw. “A Comparison of Heavy Metals in Sewage Sludge, Soil, and Applicable Regulatory
16. cchw@essential.org Standards,” 10/10/00 fact sheet from Maine Department of Environmental Protection. 47
17. State of Maine Solid Waste Management Regulations Chapters 419, 400, 405, & Appendix A of Chapter 418, as well as repealed Chapter 567, Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Solid Waste Management, 17 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0017. Chapter 2, 21-22.
18. Standards,” 10/10/00 fact sheet from Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
19. State of Maine Solid Waste Management Regulations Chapters 419, 400, 405, & Appendix A of Chapter 418, as well as repealed Chapter 567, Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Solid Waste Management, 17 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0017. Chapter 419, 7-10.
20. State of Maine Solid Waste Management Regulations Chapters 419, 400, 405, & Appendix A of Chapter 418, as well as repealed Chapter 567, Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Solid Waste Management, 17 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0017. Chapter 419, 26.
21. State of Maine Solid Waste Management Regulations Chapters 419, 400, 405, & Appendix A of Chapter 418, as well as repealed Chapter 567, Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Solid Waste Management, 17 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0017. Chapter 419, 7-10 and 26.
22. State of Maine Solid Waste Management Regulations Chapters 419, 400, 405, & Appendix A of Chapter 418, as well as repealed Chapter 567, Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Solid Waste Management, 17 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0017. Chapter 400, 28.
23. State of Maine Solid Waste Management Regulations Chapters 419, 400, 405, & Appendix A of Chapter 418, as well as repealed Chapter 567, Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Solid Waste Management, 17 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333-0017. Chapter 419, 26-27.
About the Author
Md. Wasim Aktar is a Senior Research Fellow in Export Testing Laboratory, APEDA, B.C.K.V., Mohanpur,West Bengal, Pin-741252,India. He is expert in pesticide residue analysis using GC-MS and LC-MS from different environmental samples. He is an Agriculture Graduate and obtained his M.Sc. degree in Agricultural Chemicals from B.C.K.V. He is now doing his Ph.D. work in the same university under the deptt. of Agricultural Chemicals.
Silda Wall Spitzer - Greening the NY Governor's Mansion
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]illinois employment law rules[/mage]
1)Who Gets Tested
Illinois has a required drug testing law. This means that certain individuals must be tested if involved in certain types of jobs or activities. This is to ensure the safety of the public at all times. Otherwise drug testing is at the discretion of the employer.
2) Types of Drugs
The state of Illinois requires no specific drugs be tested for. It is up to the employer to decide what drugs they wish to look for. Of course it is standard practice to test for those drugs that will cause impairment and the inability to safely complete a job.
3) Company Disclosure
There is no requirement for a company, public or private, to post notice in a public area that they conduct drug testing.
4) Written Policy
Only public works requires a written policy on drug testing. Otherwise no employer, public or private, must have a written statue in the employee handbook that describes the companies policy regarding drug use and drug testing.
5) Test Types
There are no state laws or statutes that require mandatory types of testing by a company either public or private. There a company can opt for drug testing using a blood sample, hair sample or urine sample.
6) Drug Test Fees
All fees are the responsibility of the employer. No employer, public or private, can require any employee pay for any drug testing regardless of the type of testing of frequency of testing.
7) Who Must Be Tested
Only public works contractors and public works subcontractor must test their employees for both alcohol and drug use. Otherwise there are no regulations requiring any other worker to undergo drug or alcohol testing. However, companies that work with the public or who conduct business of a sensitive nature will usually do drug and/or alcohol testing.
Where Does Testing Take Place
There is not set laboratory or hospital where testing must occur. An employer can choose any facility that conducts drug testing.
9) Is there a Set Time for Drug Testing?
Only public works contractors as well as subcontractors must be tested prior to starting work for the company and ultimately for the public. In addition this type of company is required to conduct drug and alcohol testing for any employee involved in an accident or who is suspected of using drugs or alcohol. Otherwise there is no set rule, law or statute that states when a company, public or private, must do their drug testing.
10) What Happens if the Test is Positive?
A public works contractor and a public works subcontractor that has an employee that tests positive for drugs must be fired and could be prohibited from re-hire with any other company for that particular job. Otherwise a company, public or private, is under no obligation to fire or prosecute an employee that has tested positive for drug use.
About the Author
This Article is written by Lena Butler, the author of Drug Testing Laws by State a longer version of this article is located at 10 Things to Know About Workplace Drug Testing State Laws and Regulations in Illinois, and resources from other home health and wellness testing articles are used such as Drug Testing Policy.
StateSurge Weekly Episode 1 - March 29
Lake County Calendar
Find out what to do this week and beyond. The John Birch Society will present a program on "The Health Care Law and You" at 7 p.m., July 1 at Fremont Public Library, 1170 Midlothian Rd., Mundelein. Come to the DVD showing to find out what is in the law and how it will affect you and your family.
Linxsense A Nice Paid To Click Site
Distance learning with an llb or a bachelors degree in usa?
Hi. I just got done with my AS levels (I live in Pakistan, where we study under the British system) and my family is planning to move to the States - California, for more accuracy. I am interested in pursuing a career in law, and want to get done within the shortest span of time possible. Going to a US college will mean using up 4 years on a bachelor's degree and THEN starting with J.D. Continuing under the British system with distance learning means I get my degree quicker, but no guarantee of proper employment.
Right now, I have 11 GCSE o levels, all A's, and an internship at a law office under my belt. I gave economics and maths AS levels, and am waiting for the result now. If I do have to pursue an undergraduate degree, what field would be suitable? Could my alevels possibly count as AP classes and hopefully knock an year off the bachelor degree? Do I get scholarships as an undergraduate permanent resident? Would love some advice, thanks =)
Unfortunately you will have to do the JD if you want to practice law in the US. Reason for this statement is about 50% of the states do not recognize foreign experience and they do not recognize the LLB. Those states that do recognize the LLB typically will require you to study an Additional 1 - 2 years at a law school in the US. Best advice in this situation is to contact the state bar association in the state you want to practice in order to find out their rules regarding admission of the LLB qualification.
Regarding your question concerning A-Levels you will have to ask the university because each university in the US is different and has different rules regarding admission of foreign students. Plus you will most likely have to take the ACT or SAT and most likely TOEFL. Again, the universities that you are most interested in will be in more of a position to guide you on that matter.
Finally your question regarding scholarship because you are a permanent resident and the answer is no. Scholarships are awarded based on academic achievement, financial need, or if you meet specific requirements. Being a permanent resident does not automatically qualify you for a scholarship and you will need to do some research to see which ones, if any, you qualify.
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]attorneys employment law denver[/mage]
As a business owner, one of the things that you have to be familiar with is the various labor laws. Knowledge of this set of laws can ensure that you treat your employees fairly and that you and your business are protected from any possible lawsuit as well as payment of fines and penalties. Knowledge of these laws would also be of great help when you are forming your company’s policies and procedures.
Under federal law, if you would be doing business in Colorado, you can hire anybody for the job that you have provided that you do not base your selection on physical and personal characteristics such as age, sex, religion, race, national origin, and disability. Aside from this, you are also warned against asking personal questions that concern the marriage plans or status of the applicant, their sexual orientation, and the presence of previous arrest records.
In the state of Colorado, the at-will employment rule being practiced by most states is limited by two legal principles. According to the principle of public policy, you cannot fire an employee for performing a legal duty or exercising a legal right. On the other hand, the principle of implied contract established employment relationships based on an implied or expressed contract. This means that handing out a personnel guidebook can be seen as a solid establishment of an employer-employee relationship.
In order to ensure that the at-will employment does not become a disadvantage to your company, your contract law attorney will most likely advise you to provide a clause in your contract that sets down the terms on how both parties can terminate the said contract, including how much grace period should there be before the termination takes effect.
Attorneys Denver Colorado have would also advise you that, should there be a need to terminate an employee, you can still be held liable for defamation if you make a negative or damaging statement about an employee to a third party. Although there are a number of defenses available for you, it is still better that you keep from giving out such statements.
There are a number of commercial attorneys within the state of Colorado who can help you determine how you should go about hiring and firing employees. As long as everything is done in good faith and you have proper documentation, you may not have to worry about lawsuits.
About the Author
Go to http://www.larsenlawoffices.com for more information.
Denver injury and civil rights attorneys interviewed on CBS Haystack
I was fired for refusing work 'til sevrl mnths of unpd. ovrtime was reslvd. How do I handle this in an interv.
I worked for a Pennsylvaniia company in California and they refused to pay me for my overtime and travel pay. I won a settlement before the State of California Employment Commission. The company has since gone out of business and the President convicted of EPA violations and export law violations for dealings with Iran. How do I address this period of employment with this company in an interview coming up.
your explanation sounds fine to me
tell the truth
US Citizens Docket Standard Access For American CPS Victims Class Action Litigation Referral
Tampa Police Department may have violated federal law in firing
An inquiry finds officials acted "unjustly and discriminatorily" in an officer's termination.
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]employment law video surveillance[/mage]
Will Holder Prosecute the Leakers?
One of the mysteries of George W. Bush’s administration resulted from its too-apparent failure to investigate and prosecute the leaks of classified information most damaging to our national security.
Lanford & Associates Investigations
Employment and training: e-learning
There are so many rules and regulations to navigate in today’s pub businesses that even training new staff in the basics can take up much of your valuable time.
Santire Management and Employment Law Seminar
VA official gets big pay, little work
A senior Veterans Affairs official in Honolulu who has filed numerous discrimination complaints against his bosses now finds himself working in a small cubicle with no phone and no meaningful work to do -- as he draws an annual salary of about $120,000.
Employment Contracts after Rudd's new rules
British bosses are complaining that measures designed to reduce the impact of swine ‘flu on the workplace are in danger of creating a ‘skivers’ charter’.
More than a thousand companies across the country claim staff have been logging-on to an NHS self-diagnosis website to extend their Summer holidays.
The National Pandemic Flu Service advises that individuals who appear to have symptoms associated with swine ‘flu should stay at home for up to seven days.
However, Manchester-based Employment Law Advisory Services (ELAS) says it has been inundated with enquiries from managers who claim colleagues without any signs of illness are using the website and causing more disruption to the workplace than the ‘flu itself.
Peter Mooney, ELAS head of consultancy, said his firm began receiving calls from angry managers as soon as the website became active at the end of last month.
“They feel that some staff are simply taking advantage of current concerns about the transmission of swine ‘flu to take an extra few days off work. Because the emphasis has been on not going to your local GP but using services like this to assess the infection and the risk to others, those who stay at home aren’t going to need a doctor’s note or have too many people calling on them to see how they feel.
“Based on the volume – and the nature - of calls we’ve been taking, the number of deliberate false cases of the condition are having a significant impact on workplaces across the country, something bosses are keen to tackle.”
Mr Mooney warned that additional short-term measures being considered by the Government to address the impact of swine ‘flu could exacerbate the problems being experienced by Britain’s bosses.
The Cabinet Office is deliberating over proposals for a possible six-month extension for the length of time for which people can self-certify in order to get the country through the worst of the crisis.
Those plans would allow individuals to take up to 14 days off work without having to get a doctor’s note.Mr Mooney added: “Employers believe that by doubling the self-certification limits, you are potentially multiplying the opportunity for untruthful individuals to kid the system.
“The issue is about when and how they can tackle those individuals who they believe have not been ill. After all, they are being told not to return to work until all their symptoms have gone but that doesn’t mean suspicion about whether they really were under the weather won’t persist.”
Visit www.employment-law.uk.com for more information.
For HR Software to manage your absences, visit www.employersafe.co.uk
About the Author
Employment Law Advisory Services
www.employment-law.uk.com
www.employersafe.co.uk
New Mexicos Government Employment and Pension Problems with Scott Moody
More cases are being litigated over employers deducting unlawfully pay from an exempt employee. Unlawfully deducting pay from employees classified as “exempt” could mean losing the “exempt” status and a finding that the employee is entitled to payment of overtime wages for all hours worked over 40 per week.
Employers must heed all wage and hour laws, lest they find themselves in expensive and time-consuming litigation. In one recent case, the Court concluded that the employer failed to pay the employees on a “salary basis,” which the law defines as payment, “on a weekly, or less frequent basis, a predetermined amount constituting all or part of his compensation, which amount is not subject to reduction because of variations in the quality or quantity of the work performed.”
The Court found that the employer violated the “no-docking” rule by having a written policy stating that all employees could be suspended without pay under at least three circumstances, none of which were exceptions to the “no-docking” rule and numerous “exempt” employees had their pay docked for unlawful reasons, such as partial-day absences
Quick Tip: Pay Now or Pay a Lot More, Later. Deductions of exempt employees’ pay are permitted only for whole-day absences for personal reasons, absences due to sickness and disability if made in accordance with a “bona fide plan, policy or practice” that provides such benefits, and for suspensions due to violations of major safety rules, as long as there is a published policy. Partial-day deductions are permitted when leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act is taken.
Violations of wage and hour requirements under the FLSA and Hawai`i state law can result in awards of back pay, interest, liquidated damages, civil penalties, and for flagrant offenders, even criminal prosecution. Employers are wise to review their pay/disciplinary policies for compliance.
Roman Amaguin, Esq.; romanamaguin@yahoo.com; www.amaguinlaw.com
About the Author
Roman Amaguin, Esq. has sucessfully practiced law in Hawaii since 1995 and specializes in employment and labor law, and civil litigation.
www.amaguinlaw.com
Mistys brother arrested for grand theft, questioned about HaLeigh Cummings disappearance video
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]california employment law developments[/mage]
prison...for punishment of criminals or protection of society?
I grew up in the suburbs of southern California in a little social bubble being constantly bombarded with social ideals...leading me to the belief that criminals were imprisoned to protect society and that the punishment for their crimes was forever being labeled an ex-convict, with all the employment and life style consequences that were apart of that label.
It seems now that would be labeled discrimination and deemed unacceptable, prison terms are being shortened and rehabilitation programs exceed development programs available to the law abiding citizens.
Have we decided that criminals are above the social standard?
California Penal Code section 1170, subdivision (a), paragraph (1) has lead me to the belief that criminals are imprisoned for punishment.
“1170. (a) (1) The Legislature finds and declares that the purpose of imprisonment for crime is punishment…”
*/End of Line.
Defending the Public Option - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]labor and employment law websites[/mage]
What do you know about labor and employment law in the public sector?
What are job conditions like? pay? benefits? social life? hours? I've only been able to find a minimal amount of information online. Links to any websites (besides Vault.com) with this kind of information would be much appreciated. Personal experiences much desired. (Particularly in the Washington D.C. metro area)
One of the biggest public section organizations is CSEA in Albany, NY. Over the years they have won excellent pay, benefits, and job protection for their members. Look them up.
NRTW Urges Obama Administration Uphold Ethics Pledges
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]employment law summary penalty[/mage]
2. This is primarily a request for declaratory relief regarding the enforceability of code enforcement. This case management statement alleges that the slander and libels are inherently invalid primarily because they were obtained through fraud at the state court level through inequitable conduct originated by the city police of Napa, California. Their actions have influenced judges and attorneys, local officials, communities at large, the police and their informants and hoodlums in Susanville, California and Klamath Falls, Oregon, to carry out surmounting travesties of injustice.
3. There have been constant manifested patterns of physical and psychological abuse, state terror, harassment, a number of discriminations and massive human right violations conducted through excessive housing matters before various courts since 1995.
4. In 1995, Respondent was convicted of stalking and sex offense crimes through an illegal plea bargain. A misdemeanor to felonies evidenced by duress, undue influence, coercion, and especially the arbitrary results of inadequate representation who lacked even the most rudimentary knowledge, resources, and capabilities needed for her defense. Respondent continues to contend that the attorney's representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness and established prejudice that affected the outcome as a reasonable probability of counsel's errors. It was like not having any representation at all.
5. This occurred in in the Courts of Napa County, Napa, California. Instead of correcting this imbalance, the Courts have fostered it by intentionally appointing inexperienced and incapable lawyers to defend their erroneous view of the law resulting in long-term neglect and unwanted burdens. Respondent has never been entitled to a legitimate appeal in that case.
6. As a result of the Napa County Courts failure to reverse this illegal conviction on their own, several new reports have been filed in the Klamath County Circuit Court in Klamath Falls, Oregon. These damages were sent to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals because they are damages that should have been foreseen by Napa County and their failure to abide by the Rule of Law and respect for human rights.
7. As the various discriminations have multiplied, Respondent had managed to be academically educated and trained to be self-employed for office businesses, horseshoeing, horse-training, welding, and automotive. However, none of these careers have been an option to provide a livelihood due to the expanded hatred and hostile workplace environments described throughout all pleadings and the states’ illegal suspension of her driver’s license.
8. Respondent has suffered numerous hardships that have not prohibited gender discrimination in ALL injuries. The prolonged loss of her children and consequential summary punishments; substantial losses of assets for an indeterminate sum; the grand-theft larceny of a rightfully inherited trust estate of $100k, losses of extensive real and personal property, and the illegal suspension of her California driver’s license from the purposeful and malicious government “oversights” related to this originating case.
9. Due to the seriousness of the offenses, Respondent is unable to become employed in any field of the workforce that she was trained for. The harassment has been more than intolerable and it is going beyond any form of legal solution.
10. No attorney has been available to assist Respondent so she has had to file arduous state and federal cases at all levels of the courts in the states of California and Oregon on her own. All cases have been continually ignored and/or dismissed.
11. After filing federal summary judgments on a timely basis (the State of California defaulted and has never had to pay the damages), Respondent consolidated the cases and sent them to the Federal Claims Court in Washington, D.C under a category entitled “Failure To Pay“. These cases were again dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Respondent has had to continue taking it to the international level for the several counts of cruel and unusual punishment that comes along with the sex offender status.
12. In addition, Respondent filed numerous reports regarding her missing $100k family estate trust. The estate originated in the Napa Courts in California and consolidated at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. As to date, she has not had any cooperation regarding it being returned to its rightful owner.
was it likely that respondent could have committed this offense but for the fact that she was under duress, coercion, or strong provocation?
13. Respondent, contests this citation for “illegal camping” with specifications that it could have been committed to escape apprehension for, and whose sentence to a life time of horrors of humanity by torture, negligence and recklessness endorsed for the malicious purpose of invalidating Respondent’s life were affirmed by the stalker-sex offender status and stigma.
14. Making various challenges to the validity of her conviction, Respondent has attacked the constitutionality of the felony stalking enhanced with sex offender statute on the grounds of massive illegalities; that it gives this sentencing judge a full opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances in this case as required by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.
15. Further, this Respondent, now a 52 year-old single woman with health problems, was evicted more than one time (in Klamath County alone) in rental disputes with her landlords with the aide of hooligans during the freezing elements of winter months.
16. Regardless of Respondents contentions that the State(s) has subjected her to torture by using her as a human battering instrument in human trafficking, it has become clear by gender discrimination that any female relationship with Respondent’s intellectual position is unattainable due to the alleged heinousness of such a horrid status as the City of Napa and County in California claim this Respondent has a history of “stalking women.” Therein after, the Courts have sanctioned her by using eviction proceedings to continue to force her to stay at the homes of men who acquire the gist that Respondent is available and vulnerable to sexual aggravation without consequence.
17. In the most recent case of this Respondent in the Klamath County Circuit Court, SUSAN E. SNELLING, PR, ESTATE OF ROSS vs. Cosma AKA “AMY ATKINS AND ALL OCCUPANTS“, Case No. 0804232CV Case: 0803782CV being evicted because as a party of interest, the wrongful interference of personal property through dominion caused injury to this Respondent when she complained of hooligans menacing her while residing, and still resides at 5332 Harlan Drive in Klamath Falls in an illegal structure on the property line, in the immediate vicinity of her guesthouse and office, united with imprecise Oregon Health Plan policy, resulted when previous Defendant's et al “willfully interfere[d] with her chattel, without lawful justification to deprive this rightful owner of her personal property. And, having everything she owned destroyed on a public curb, the amount in dispute was far more than the monetary value of Respondent’s life possessions, which was approximately in the sum of $15,000.
18. Respondent’s health prevented her from retrieving much more than the clothes on her back; she didn’t have the strength to move her possessions herself, nor could she afford to hire anyone to move her possessions. Everything from her furniture to her family photographs and undergarments were taken; she was quite literally left with nothing.
19. To put her into the street when the slum landlord, not the slum tenant, is the real culprit deprived this tenant of fundamental right(s) without any real opportunity to defend. Then she loses the essence of the controversy, being given only empty promises that somehow, somewhere, someone may allow her to litigate the basic question in the case.
20. The trauma of that eviction was further exacerbated when Oregon’s Department of Motor Vehicles confirmed that Respondent’s drivers license was fully reinstated but infuriated Klamath Falls police into confiscating her vehicle, dumping and piling all her worldly possessions she had retained on the street at the Klamath County Fairgrounds for passersby to see. This has involved a great amount of emotion and humiliation that results from being forced out of a home.
21. The lack of respect for this Respondent‘s life, her personal property, real property and misappropriation of her rightfully inherited $100k estate trust during eviction(s) has largely escaped scrutiny by the judiciary, state legislatures, and legal commentators alike. Respondent contends this loss of personal property is more than an inconsequential aspect of the eviction process. All losses have had a devastating impact on Respondent already traumatized by a illegal conviction of stalking enhanced with a sex offense.
22. In Lindsey v. Normet, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Oregon landlord-tenant statute, allowing for removal of the tenant within a six day process, was not, on its face, a violation of the 14th Amendment due process clause. But where the right is so fundamental as the tenant’s claim to his home, the requirements of due process should be more embracing. In the setting of modern urban life, the home, even though it be in the slums, is where man’s roots. Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56 (1972).
23. Essentially, Respondent contends that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments require that the sentencer be given a full opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances in this case, but she goes beyond them.
24. Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978) ruled that no state statute could limit mitigating circumstances; the jury must be allowed to consider anything that might move them to show leniency.
25. The Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments required, in all but the rarest capital cases, that sentencers not be precluded from considering a range of mitigating factors before imposing the death penalty. These factors included any aspect of a defendant's character or record and any circumstances of the offense proffered as a reason for a sentence less than death.
26. The Court echoed Mr. Justice Black, stating that "[i]n discharging his duty of imposing a proper sentence, the sentencing judge is authorized, to consider all of the mitigating and aggravating circumstances involved in the crime." Page 438 U. S. 604 reviewing the historical repudiation of mandatory sentencing in capital cases, 428 U.S. at -298, concluded that "in capital cases the fundamental respect for humanity underlying the Eighth Amendment . . . requires consideration of the character and record of the individual offender and the circumstances of the particular offense as a constitutionally indispensable part of the process of inflicting the penalty of death."
27. Respondent recognizes that, in noncapital Page 438 U. S. 605 cases, the established practice of individualized sentences rests not on constitutional commands, but on public policy enacted into statutes.
28. There is no perfect procedure for deciding in which cases governmental authority should be used to impose death. But confronted with what reasonably would appear to be the questionable constitutionality of permitting discretionary weighing of mitigating factors, considering "the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history, character, and condition of the offender," Respondent requests that this sentencing judge liberally construe in favor of the accused determine that at least one of the following mitigating circumstances is established by a preponderance of the evidence:
29. It is unlikely that the offense could have been committed, but for the fact that the alleged offender was under duress, coercion, or strong provocation."
30. With that obligation in mind, we turn to Respondent’s attack on the Klamath County Code Enforcement, the Klamath County Sheriff‘s Department, and the Klamath County Circuit Court.
31. To address her contention from the proper perspective, it is helpful to review the developments in our recent cases where we have applied the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to “capital” death penalty statutes.
32. Literally, you could say, Respondent was sentenced to death under a statutory scheme that precluded any effective consideration of her degree of involvement in any crime or her prospects for any rehabilitation. It is clear from recent history that the infliction of death under circumstances where there is no purpose to take life has been grossly out of proportion to the seriousness of any crime.
33. It is now established that a penalty constitutes cruel and unusual punishment if it is excessive in relation to the crime for which it is imposed. A punishment is disproportionate "if it (1) makes no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment, and hence is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering; or (2) is grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime.
34. Significant occasions for setting some limit to the method by which the States assess punishment for actions connected to the deliberate taking of human life has been provided.
35. Upon consideration of Respondent’s reports, and other evidence, degree of respect due the uniqueness of this individual and arguments submitted to this court by Petitioner, Respondent, claims this penalty statute is deficient in regard to this hardship.
36. It violates the Eighth Amendment because it is pregnant with discrimination, because it permits a death penalty to be "wantonly" and "freakishly" imposed, and because it imposed the death penalty with "great infrequency" and afforded "no meaningful basis for distinguishing the few cases in which it [was] imposed from the many cases in which it [was] not," Thus, what had been approved under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment became permissible under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments by virtue of the judgments.
37. Applying a requirement of actual intent to kill Respondent involved in the physical act causing death, moreover, would run aground on intricate definitional problems attending a felony murder.
38. In this case it is "unmistakably clear" that Petitioners can not be trusted to "abide by existing law" and "to follow conscientiously the instructions" of the trial judges. To exercise unfettered discretion to impose or not to impose for this grievance of “illegal camping”, the penalty being imposed discriminatorily, wantonly and freakishly, and so frequently that any given sentence is cruel and unusual.
39. The Eighth Amendment requires that consideration be given by the sentencer to aspects of character of the individual offender and the circumstances of a particular offense in deciding whether to impose another hardship. Petitioner’s imposition would be pointless and a needless extinction of life with only marginal contributions to any discernible social or public purposes.
40. Achieving the proper balance between clear guidelines that assure relative equality of treatment, and discretion to consider individual factors whose weight cannot always be preassigned, is no easy task in any sentencing system. Where life itself is what hangs in the balance, a fine precision in the process must be insisted upon.
41. There must be a way able to provide an efficient process to protect this Respondent from undeserved economic loss, intentional abuses and to protect this Respondent from unmerited harassment and dispossession by Petitioners in this summary eviction process
42. Surely, this Honorable Judge can agree that this citation must be dismissed to provide an extrajudicial remedy consisting of judicial intervention for the purpose of compelling human habitation temporary hardship dwelling allowed by ORS Chapter 215 and to complete her caretaking employment for Marie T. Nicholson.
I, Kini Cosma, hereby declares under penalty of perjury that the foregoing is true and correct to the best of my knowledge.
Dated this 27th day of April, 2009:
Signed: ___________________________
Kini Cosma, Respondent
About the Author
www.kinispolarbear.bravehost.com
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About the Author
Introduction
Career development and career management are no longer a reserve for the human resource department alone; these days companies are involving all their employees in career development. This shift in behavior emanated from the stiff competition plaguing the retail sector. Companies need to look for ways of incorporating job enrichment, lateral assignments, rotation programs, and other activities that can improve employee retention.
The company chosen for analysis is Walmart. Walmart is the country's largest employer. Given this fact, there is need to examine whether this retail giant adheres to basic career development techniques as part of their human resource management programs. In case of any negatives, then recommendations will be made on how the company can improve. (Green, 2001)
Ways of retaining employees at Walmart
One of the major indications of Walmart's' employee retention practices is its orientation program. Upon arrival at Walmart, new employees are taken through a recruitment process where they can learn about all their new job position. Additionally, the orientation process is also present in order to teach employees about the organizational structure within the company. The company's representatives explain that the warm welcome extended to consumers upon arrival at the store is the same thing that occurs when new employees report to work. In this orientation process, staff members are taught how to gauge consumer expectations. Employees are also taught about the rich Walmart history and the environment required to deliver the high performance expectations synonymous with the company. All these initiatives are aimed at making employees stay within the organization more favorable. This empowers the employees and gives them the incentive to remain within the company. (Sullivan and Zaino, 2005)
Walmart also offers training and development programs. While many other companies look at training as an occasional issue, Walmart considers training as part of their regular work environment. The company ensures that a substantial portion of their employees' time is dedicated to training. The company affirms that the emphasis on training and development occurred to equip employees with the necessary skills to continue climbing the corporate leader. They believe that top positions within the company would be better performed by people who had been with the company before.
In line with these arguments, Walmart established a new type of creation known as the Leaders Out In Front. The purpose of this training program is to teach field associates within the country how to manage their portfolios effectively. The following professions are liable for training
The company asserts that this program prepares their employees to improve continuously through training. The first category of employees that is liable for the program, are the assistant managers. The program assists those managers in determining necessary skills required to be efficient leaders. It also helps them to assess quality in the work of their subordinates. This particular training program is not just effective for Walmart in general, it is also important for those particular employees that do it. This is because it gives managers a competitive edge and makes them more lucrative for higher positions.
Another training program established by Walmart is known as the Stores of learning program. The latter scheme is relatively new as it was started in 2007. Here, the company established virtual classrooms in chosen stores where employees can learn about the most effective methods of service delivery.
Walmart also ensures that their employees develop their careers through skill assessments. The company has instituted a program known as the Associate Investment model where supervisors evaluate employee competencies. This methods of employee assessment is particularly accurate owing to the fact that it allows the assessment of the evaluation process. This means that in case evaluation was done poorly, the company can detect it and makes their employees more prepared for future eventualities. (King, 2006)
The company goes through a rigorous process of career assessment and development through this tool. Phase one of the process entails on-boarding. Here, the company ascertains that their employees know all the skills and knowledge required to perform their job functions. So this can be regarded as the informative phase. The next step is called the fundamental track phase. Here, the company conducts performance management to assist their employees in the process of understanding their responsibilities. It is tailored at creating a good foundation for employees as they go about their duties.
Employees then go through the third phase known as the advanced track phase. Here, associates within the company are taught how to plan their careers. In doing this, the company ascertains that their employees go through all the progressive steps required to get to different positions within the company. Associates are required to examine their own competencies and the kind of opportunities available within the company to see where they fit in. All in all, the latter program teaches Walmart employees about how to write resumes, conduct interviews, plan their careers and seek for job opportunities within the company. As of today, around twenty five thousand Walmart employees have undergone the latter training programs where they have learnt a lot about where they fit in the Walmart key competencies.
Walmart's top managers have talked about the importance of developing talent within their company. These executives assert that while other retailers are outsourcing a substantial part of their production process, Walmart is keen on retaining new talent within the company. Owing to the fact that the company has leadership programs for employees and managers alike, it is demonstrating that the company is committed to developing Walmart related employees. The company's Vice presidents feel that only those individuals who have been close to the jobs are the ones who are most prepared to take up others positions within the company. (Marquez, 2005)
The company's leaders in human resource asserted that the reasons behind the company's success was because they dedicate a substantial amount of their time (60%) in determining whether the most appropriate person has embraced the most appropriate opportunity. As if this is not enough, the company asserted that their competitive advantage has been brought about by the training practices they have been conducting throughout the world. According to this group, the company intends on introducing a program where employees let them know about their ambitions. Thereafter, the company then decides to train those employees for the positions which they will take up. For instance, if an employee wants to work in Walmart China, the company needs to ascertain that they have the right language and corporate requirements necessary to make it in that respective area.
Career development should not just be regarded as an internal issue. Companies ought to equip themselves with information about the goings-on in their external environments. For instance, many companies change their laws frequently with regard to employee practices within certain countries. Consequently, Walmart always makes sure that it keeps up with these changes in employment training and recruitment practices. Failure to effectively monitor these systems could make other retailers more competitive than their counterparts. (Walmart, 2008)
In response to some arguments about Walmart's' employee practices, the company decided to create a program that would facilitate career development within the company in an acceptable way. In some of the stores owned by the company, there are new programs designed to ensure that there are technologies that facilitate communication between staff members and their subordinates. This means that the company is trying to increase its employee satisfaction performance and is also trying to boost their morale. The company instituted this kind of approach owing to the fact that there is intense rivalry between players in the retail industry. If the company fails to do this, then it will loose access to some of their most valuable employees. These employees may be relocated to other retail companies that may not even be larger than Walmart. Walmart takes the issue of career development seriously because of the fact that it is the largest employer. Its human resource managers have asserted that the rest of the country is expecting more from them in terms of employment.
Part of Walmart's efforts towards improving their employees career practices was seen when the company designed a project in 2005, aimed at creating a different level of human resource executives. The company placed one human resource executive in charge of ten stores in US districts. The purpose of doing this was to ascertain that the company improves the coordination of its services across the country rather than in specific stores. This will also go a long way in enhancing career opportunities for its employees if it succeeds. The company is currently implementing the program and is assessing whether the company's employee turnover will reduce. At the moment the company is grappling with a turnover of 50%. If it can reduce this figure by ten percent, then it will have ascertained that the program can work and they will therefore spread it to the rest of the country. (Wal-Mart, 2005)
On top of the latter initiative, Walmart has also created an avenue for helping their employees in human resource. There is a team made of five members who have the mandate to deal with all the eventualities that may arise when handling employees. The members of this team have legal backgrounds and experience in human resource. Their task is to help Walmart's' managers tackle challenging situations. For instance, if a company has hired a worker with a unique problem, the team has the ability to give advise to this manager. They are always available day and night. By doing this, the company has empowered a substantial number of their store managers because handling employees is not an easy task. Besides that, the company has also enhanced the experiences of subordinates within the corporation because now employees need to only focus on their specific jobs rather than dealing with managers who do not know how to handle them. The major aim behind this team of experts was to reduce the workload faced by a substantial number of their managers who had to accommodate employment practices, laws and regulations all at the same time. By giving them a group pf mentors that can assist them, the company is ensuring that they have some sort of refuge from all the demands of the job.
Walmart has incorporated the issue of technology in career development. They have managed to do this by automatically notifying managers who are interested in certain jobs that the positions are available. This is possible in almost all areas regardless of the geography. In the past, the company used to utilize a paper system where employees would give information about days of manually. However, the company is in the process of automating this system in order to minimize chances of incurring errors.
Strengths and weaknesses of Walmart's career management
Walmart's practices have been very instrumental in ensuring that service delivery is up to par. However, the company is still grappling with law suits from unions, workers and the general public at large. The company is not very vigorous about their career development because they record one of the highest employee turnover rates; fifty percent. Other competitors like Target, Costco boast of employee turnover rates below twenty percent. This means that there are still some things that the company has not achieved. (Broder, 2004)
For instance, the company needs to improve the amount of wages which they play their clients. This is because pay acts as an important incentive for increasing employee retention rates and also for encouraging employees to grow with the organization. The company pays their employees nine point seven dollars per hour yet other competitors pay over fifteen dollars per hour. This does not make sense since the company brings in close to eleven billion dollars in revenue annually. Critics have asserted that this discourages employees from continuing with the organization and it impedes their career development. The company could boost employee morale by cutting down on the amount of money paid to top executives. This is because there is a huge divide between executive managers and the rest of the workforce. Walmart has designed their system, in such a manner that the profits of the company are only shared by top management while the small employee who deals with the consumer one on one has been disregarded. Taking a comparison of what Walmart pays its Chief executive and what another retailer like Costco pays their chief executive; as of 2005, it was reported that Walmart's' manager got five point three million dollars while the chief executive officer in Costco got only three hundred and fifty thousand. This indicates that Walmart still has a lot to do with regard to treatment of their employees. (Herbst, 2005)
Another issue that Walmart needs to work on is prompt response to employee needs in career development. The government waited until it was faced with laws suits and campaigns by civil rights groups before they started implementing some career development programs. The company's human resource division ought to examine career development needs before hand and then give them suggestions about the most appropriate actions. The company has been very slow about responding to some of the needs within the company.
Conclusion
Walmart has implemented some programs to assist in career development. These include training programs, incorporation of technology in career development, job orientation, career assessment and creation of a team of experts in human resource, notification of employees in case of position and many others. However, the major problem with Walmart's' career development is that thy have high employee turnover brought on by poor wages. The other problems is with regard to their responsiveness to employees' career needs; they only wait until they have been prompted by external parties.
Reference:
Herbst, M. (2005): The Costco Challenge: An Alternative to Wal-Martization?; Report for Labor Research Association, 9th May 2008
Broder, J. (2004): Voters in LA Suburb Say No to a Big Wal-Mart; New York Times 4th March
King, M. (2006): Point Austin: Let'EM Eat Op-Eds!; The Austin Chronicle, 2nd October
Greenhouse, S. and Barbaro, M. (2006): Wal-Mart to Add More Wage Caps And Part-Timers, New York Times, 2nd October
Walmart (2008): Employee store practices, retrieved from http://www.walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStore-sWeb/navigate.do?catg=610 accessed on 15th August
Wal-Mart (2005): Report on Ethical Sourcing, retrieved from http://walmartstores.com/Files/05_ethical_source.pdfIbid.9 Ibid.1 accessed on 15th August
Green, F. (2001): Wal-Mart Removed From Socially Responsible List; San Diego Union-Tribune, 1st May
Marquez, J. (2005): Walmart throws lifeline to managers, Free Press
Sullivan, L. and Zaino, J. (2005): People First: Talent Development Is A Wal-Mart Hallmark, Infoweek magazine, 27th September
About the Author
Author is associated with SuperiorPapers.Us which is a global Research Papers and Term Papers Writing Company. If you would like help in Research Papers and Term Paper Help you can visit www.SuperiorPapers.Us
July 17 2007 husband wife and CA form DE 1 HW
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]employment law verbal promises[/mage]
Is an employment verbal agreement legally binding? My friend works for a despatch company and they have?
changed his job title/role on numerous occasions all with the promise of getting a rise in pay etc, they keep moving the goalposts yet he has no contract of employment or anything from them. Can they do this by law or can he take them to the Courts?
Verbal agreements are rarely enforceable. He should just get a different job.
Barack Obama moving film - A Mothers Promise
Introduction
To be discriminated has there notion that one is not given the rights that will enable him or her offer the required productivity this is in terms of providing an hostile environment that will lead to the employee have no hope for work because it is not possible to work. This is because if a person is set in an environment such as for example been told to work in a company where by the air pollution is very high and not given the protective devices, this will mean that such person will be in an exposure that will lead to many dangerous disease that are related to smoke and therefore that person's health will be at risk all the time this means that it will not be possible for one to work in an hostile environment that does not favor his or her health and therefore such a person will feel discriminated due to this condition that is exposed on him or her.( Jose,1997)
Employment discrimination that is mainly based on age and disability has been wide spread in most of the countries this is because these people are seen to be of less importance and not able to offer the required productivity therefore the people are discriminated in terms of hiring, one can be fired any time even without a cause, the people who are discriminated are not even given high ranks even after they have provided their services to the organization and these people are accursed of misbehave and therefore they enter into different punishments .there are different types of discrimination in the employment like the age discrimination which is the state where by the older people are mainly mistreated this is because they are seen to have low productivity and therefore they prefer to employ the young people who are healthy and can work for many hours therefore it is always a bother and time of distress to the people who have experienced and been in older ages. In the case of the disability discrimination this is a case where by the people with abnormalities such as the blind, deaf and dumb and other types of disabilities are not given opportunities to work just like the other normal people this means that such people even if they have experiences are not given chance in the work places to do there work as they are seen to offer little to the organization. There is the race discrimination which is related to the notion whether one is a black or a white and therefore depending on ones race then the employment for example the work for the whites will be very different for the African Americans the reason is that these blacks in US are seen to offer poor quality products even with training and therefore it becomes very hard for them to get good posts in the country. The race discrimination has a high impact mainly to the blacks who educated this is because they are not given chance and the freedom to work like the other citizens. (Jerry, 2001)
The sex discrimination where by the females are treated differently from the males and therefore it means that most of the favorite jobs may be given to either the females of the males depending on the view in that particular organization therefore it becomes very hard for the people to do their work as expected and therefore most of the work will be left undone this means that such an organization will have low productivity which will lead to low economic growth and the country will have less of its own. This is due to the fact that the organizations are not producing enough for sale and also for the nation satisfaction and this will mean that the nation will not have enough products for the rapidly growing population. The employment discrimination leads to the low growth of the economy of the nation this is because it is not possible for them to know and give every one freedom to get jobs just like the rest and therefore the country will end up having many jobless people and this will mean that the dependency rate will be high. With high dependency rate then it means that the country will be forced to get assistance from other countries this is due to the fact that many people who should be doing their work to earn a living are seen to be of less importance and therefore such a country will continue to be experiencing low growth in economy as most of the income will be used to get assistances from other places. (Jeff, 1997)
Age discrimination
This is where by the employer views the people within the ages of 40 to be of less importance this is because they are not able to do their work just like the young even though they have experiences. Most of the commonly discriminated people are the men and women who have attained the ages of 40 and above. This discrimination is seen in cases where by in the times of promotion then the old people are not given promotions, they do not get trainings just like the others and these people are given transfers without notice. The thing is they do not have to enjoy the benefits that are enjoyed by others in the organization. The discrimination is also seen where by they do not get cover for the provision of goods and services this is because they are not seen to be of importance and therefore they do not require to get the benefits of the organization just like the young people in the work place. Due to lack of the benefits that are required for an employee to do his or her work properly then such a person is seen discriminated. The examples of age discriminations includes: a person who is of like 56 years been given to work with a team of colleagues who are of the ages of 20s or those with less years compared to such a person this person is discriminated because the team he or she is working with will not be easy to cope with and therefore such a person will get difficulties in trying to interact and relate with these colleagues. Another example is where by one can work past his of her years of age in that one has retired and he or she is still working. This will lead to claims that will be based on the feeling that their is unfair dismissal of people and if the person is able to challenge the firm then he or she will become a bother because the thoughts that are mainly based on many firms is that it is not possible for a person above the age of 60 years to work perfectly. There is the company giving of pensions in that if one has to be retired and is given more time to work this will mean that such person will have the worry about his or her pension. (Dobrich, 2000)
Disability discrimination
In the treatment of a disable person unfavorably in that without giving him or her the services that are required will lead to problems that will mean that the person will not be able to work as expected will mean that such a person has been discriminated and not able to do what is expected of him or her. This is where by one is not given the rights in his or her abnormality to work and provide the best to the organization. The must common disabilities are blindness. Deafness, dumbness and other disabilities that people may have. Such a person who has been discriminated due to the fact that he or she is abnormal will lead toil more problems affecting such person and therefore he or she will be a bother to the people who relate with such a person. Examples of a disability discrimination is that a blind person who has experiences in typing and rejected in the organization due to his or her state of health this means that it becomes very hard for such person and he or she will be mentally and physically affected as they will have to depend on others for their survival. This person will not be able to know what to do due to the fact that there is no organization that is ready to recruit him or her. Another example is a person with the osteo-arthritis which is a disability that will make the person be not able to walk then such a person is not seen as of importance to do what is expected of him or her and therefore it becomes impossible to do the best so that the productivity can be accepted. Another example is that an employer not been able to offer employer for a disabled person who has got the qualifications and experiences that are required. The signs of discrimination includes: not given benefits that are required to enhance him or her so that the work can be done effectively like for example there are equipments that are required by the blind people to assist them to do their work as expected, also lack of the employer concern on the working environment for these people meaning that it is not possible to work all the best and therefore working becomes a bother for that person and has got to undergo many constraints in his or her life and therefore life becomes very hard. Disabled people are not given the attention that is required for their survival; this is because most of the employers view them as been a problem to the organization as they want to get special care so that they can work well and the fact is that it is not possible to work without some of the important equipments that are required for assistance and therefore it is not always a view that is accepted by most of the employers. (Clayton, 1994)
Laws concerning age discrimination
The laws prohibiting age discriminating are the age discrimination in employment act of 1967. This law ensures that the people who are of 40 years and above are given the same priorities to work just like the rest this is because when people get to the older ages are not preferred by most of the employers and therefore it becomes hard for them to secure jobs just like the young. This law covers these people and therefore it becomes possible for them to work and get what ever they require just like the others who are able to work. The law has the idea that people are not supposed to be discriminated in any way provided such a person is able to work and has got experiences required .the ADEA law is applied to the employers who have more than twenty employees with both the state and the local government and is also applied to the organizations that are based on labor employment and also the federal government. It is against the law to have age limitations in job notices and it applies that the advertisement that has to be made known to the public should not have age indication. If the employer has to ask anything concerning the age of that particular person then it should be lawfully done and should not be disclosed. There is a law that was changed in 1990 that is the older workers benefit protection act that ensures that the older people are not rejected of their benefits but are seen to be just the same as the rest in any working institutions. (Barns, 1998)
If one has been discriminated due to his or her age then the ADEA has got the rights that show that such an employer has to face the law and therefore such a person who is discriminated should ensure that the report is made to the protection law act. For a person to be able to report the discrimination and be considered then he or she should ensure that such requirements must be followed which includes: the rights must be in writing and understandable, it must be specific to the ADEA rights, the rights law should ensure that the claims should not be repeated in future, the rights should have valuable consideration, it must advise the individual on how to go about the laws before signing the law and the individual should be given days to consider the agreement and therefore one should ensure that the rights are well understood and the best is achieved in making sure that the people are not discriminated. This law that is based on the age discrimination has got to be made clear and cover all the employees this is because most of the employer's do not like to employ the old people and therefore such a person will be willing to work and no job provided and therefore it becomes a bother to him or her if he or she is the sole provider for the family. This will mean that such a person will be forced to do things that are not acceptable by law and lead to more problems. (Barbara, 1997)
Laws for disability discrimination
The American with disabilities act (ADA) deals with ensuring that the people with disabilities are given the same opportunities that are in employment, transportation, public accommodation and the state and local government services. This law ensures that the disabled people are provided with all the equipments that are required in any working environment so that they can do their work as expected that is including the hiring terms, the payment terms, they should get the benefits that are required and this employers includes the private businesses, the educational institutions, the employment agencies and all the institutions that deal with employment opportunities including the local and the federal government. This means that the act ensures that all the other employees are covered with their disabilities and they enjoy their benefits just the same as the normal people. It is not lawful for the employer to discriminate against the disable people when making the arrangements in deciding whom to recruit this means that the employer should be ready to accept the person provided this person can be able to offer what is required by the organization. The US equal employment opportunity commission (EEOC) ensures that it provides the resources that are required by the ADA so that it can operate as required in dealing with the employers who are ready to interfere with the working conditions of the disabled people through any of the means that will make the working of that person be in danger that is like providing hostile environments and therefore this will be very hard for such a person to do what is expected. The terms that are used by that employer in employing the employees should not lead to discrimination and the notion of the employer refusing to employ a person due to the disability that is in that person. Therefore it means that the employer is liable by the law to make sure that the employment criteria are not discriminatory. Such a person should not be discriminated in terms of been given promotions, the transfer training been that they do not give them that is expected for their assistance in ensuring they work well. It is also unlawful for the employer to harass a disabled person who has been employed meaning that an employer should be willing and ready to offer the services that are required so that they can work without been in stress this is because harassing a person will have the impact of stress. The harassment can be through violating the person's dignity in that the person is not given his or her self respect and also the employer can create an hostile environment for that person which will mean that it will not be possible for that particular person to work as the condition is not favorable for him or her. (Kathy, 2000)
Solutions for age discrimination
If not feels that he or she is discriminated then there is need to ask the employer to resolve the matter and if they are not possible then the individual has got the right to sue the employer. The charge must be filled within the given time and this is the only time when the EEOC can help the people to go about the problems that affects him or her. This EEOC ensure that the charge of discrimination against that company has been filed; it ensures that it gets the solutions immediately and this is done through ensuring that it tries to resolve the problem between the employees and the employer. The employee can also decide to take the problem to the court this is because it is the right of that person to ensure that his or her rights have been followed. (Arthur, 1991)
Solutions for disability discrimination
For the employers to ensure that they offer the required services to the disabled then they are supposed to ensure that they make the adaptations to the tests that are required for interview, the employer should also allow the job applications to be seen by all in the nation, the should be equipments given to those people for example the impaired so that they can be able to work effectively and also for the case of the blind they should be provided with Braille display meaning that with this instrument then the blind person will work effectively without problems and therefore what us required will be produced. The employer should also provide vacations for the employees in that they should not be over worked because they need to have care that is required. They should have relocation of some duties for the normal people so that the disabled do not have the notion of been discriminated. The employer should know how to treat the adjustment that will prevent the problems that may affect these disabled people; they should also offer financial support to them so that they are not disrupted in their working places. There resources should be readily available so that the disabled does not have to move from, one place to another. The nature of the activities that are given to that person should be taken with a lot of care so that it does not harm him or her. The person has got the right to report the discrimination to the court so that the right steps are taken against this employer who is discriminating the person. (Arthur, 1990)
Conclusion
The discrimination should be considered so that they ensure that people need to have respect that will lead to the proper working rate. Without discrimination then the working will not be interrupted and therefore it will become possible for all the people to fit in any of the fields that are offered by the company. Discrimination affects the performance of the organizations which will further lead to more effects on the nation as a whole this is because most of the people will be jobless with experiences and qualifications but due to there state of either been disabled or been past the required age then such a person finds no opportunity and therefore the dependency rate becomes great that will lead to more strain in the nation in dealing with the provision of basic needs of the population. A nation should ensure that the people get their rights the same as the normal ones and therefore the laws should be very stiff for those who go against the laws that are set to cover the people with abnormalities of other types of discriminations.
Summary
Age discrimination has got a high impact to the discriminated person this is because it leads to a hard life that the person has got to go through. The problems that lead to age discriminations includes things like the person may be forced to get things from others illegally either through bullying or theft this is because they are not given there opportunities to wok just like the young and therefore it the life of that person is in danger all the time. In the case of disability discrimination the person becomes a burden to the people who take care of him or her been that he or she has got experiences and can be able to work but the thing is that he or she is not given the required opportunity and therefore has to depend on others for survival. Discrimination leads to the slow growth of the economy of that particular nation due to the fact that dependency ratio will be great and will affect t the things that are to be done by that nation for its survival.
Reference:
Arthur, B. (1990): the employees' rights and responsibilities. The right communication of the employees' rights and responsibilities. A book review. Industrial relations review, pp, 90-100, American society of newspaper editors.
Arthur, D. (1991): safeguarding the employees rights .the right measures to undertake so that these workers can do the best. Spring field. Journal of planning and employment, pp, 36
Barbara, G. (1997): rights in work place. The guides for employees' legal protection. Book review. Journal of disability studies, pp 67-70
Barns, E. (1998): the rights for people to work in any organization. The business law and the regulatory environment. Ryburn publishing, Halifax.
Clayton, M. (1994): differences between the rights given to employees in public and private sectors. American business laws journal, pp 67.
Dobrich, D. (2000): protection of workers in basis of age, disability and race discrimination. The managers' guide to preventing hostile work environment. The news media and disability, pp 89-100
Jeff, N. (1997): the people's rights and personality tests. The employees' selection, HR Focus, PP, 45.
Jerry, H. (2001): the work of ADEA. The functions of the ADEA law act in age discrimination. Paper presented at the annual meeting for the education in journalism and mass communication
Jose, M. (1997): the social security and pensions. The cultural representation of the people with disabilities. Chronicle of higher education.
Kathy, M. (2000): disability discrimination rights. The rights that enable the disabled people do their work normally. Disability discrimination act disability standards.
Mike, D. (1997): the employees' rights. Need for all the workers to have freedom. Report of the inquiry into equal opportunity.
William, K. (1998): employees' rights .the act that ensures no discrimination is done. Disabilities studies quarterly. Report for Dispute resolutions
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Employment Law Checklist
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Can anyone help?
identify and name the protected class for each of the human resources laws that are listed below and list the protections under each law.
a. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
b. Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
c. Executive Orders 11246 and 11375
d. Equal Pay Act of 1963
e. Vietnam Era Veteran’s Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974
f. Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
Disabled people,
People of color
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women
viet nam vets
people over 40yrs.
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Having raised a problem with wages,something else have surfaced.I have been erudition a new role for the past 6 months.My colleague and troop member started in indistinguishable boat.New to the role and the firm. I have caught him blaming me for problems that are both our responsibilities,he has jelled beside every one else way faster than me,so I have be feeling outcast since starting,he varies his lunches beside no consideration for my not being able to dance to lunch until he returns.My boss has made me feel that he does not endow with a monkeys about me, I have be lied to about my role and as a result have be put on the phone overflow,taking calls that are not related to me.The result of which has cause distraction and errors.Now I have found out that our roles will no longer exist,Two new combined roles will be made and two relatives will be made redundant. My colleague is constantley having meetings beside my boss.I am entitled to nothing and burned bridges getting here.Any one got any thoughts?
Am i Being Too Sensitive?
I'm an assistant and I knew I was gonna enjoy to put up with alot of crap, but its starting to take its toll on me. When I ask my bosses question, sometimes they don't even answer or acknowledge me. And it seems like I get hold of blamed for "messing things up" when its not even my fault. Like if a clients cell phone dies when I transfer a name, they get snippy with me even tho I can't control what someone else's cell phone does. I know society get stressed at work, but is this acceptable?
Am I close to getting fired?
I was placed on a temp assignment a few weeks ago that pay pretty correct money 16.hr, an office cubicle job.Last week I received a call upon for a counselor opportunity.My Degree is in the Behavioral Science, and this is the perfect opportunity, that I hold been looking for.However, I don't want to lose my current job, but I took rotten yesterday to go to traffic court, plus,my supervisors aren't giving me work, I'm sitting at work basically adjectives day,while other people are working, next my supervisor is coming my cubicle every hour asking me stupid stuff, like do I have a ruler, or can I assist him with his computer, plus my supervisor isn't really responding to me when I ask her for more work, am I being permit go? Should I quit?what should I do
Am I getting rewarded correctly?
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Am I going something like this duty check out adjectives wrong?
I have been looking for almost two months immediately to find a job. I've sent my resume, by email and by fax, to over 30 prospective employers found via the Fourth Estate and internet. I've applied at retail outlets, restaurants, and customer service sectors in the nouns I live in and as far out as 30 miles away. Why can't I find a job? My mother is of the assessment that something on my resume is undesirable to potential employers, but I don't know what that something could be! This is what I normally include on my resume: -my positions as a Pet Care Lead at PetSmart (6 months), a bartender at Red Oak (6 months), a server at Steak n' Shake (8 months), and as a summer volunteer at the local Animal League (4 months) -my large school graduation and classes taken there -my ongoing college teaching and classes being taken -my personal skills with computers, animals, etc. -my low-level proficiencies near foreign language I even make a cover communication specifically tailored to every application!
Am I hired?
Am I hired? She called me 2 hours after i dropped of my resume,she tried to contact me at two numbers sent an email,i called her she asked me some question,she told me come in for an interview,and testing,she sent an application within the email it said be prepared to set up payments,this is very odd exact i always wanted to work for this company,do you really estimate i am hired why or why not
Am I human being paranoid?
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Am I individual unprofessional?
ok so I have been at my brief for 2 months. I work at a community college. I work part-time as an office assistant. I don't resembling it at all. In fact, I loathe it at hand. It is just a bunch of tedious, mind-numbing work. The pay packet isnt that great either. So I figure I am unsatisfied and I am not doing anyone any favors by staying so I submitted my two weeks notice today. But the beginning of Fall semester is around the corner. I know it's almost to get super-busy. By me leaving I will leave your job them short handed. But I can't stand it here another minute. I will go crazy if I stay. Am I person unprofessional?
Am I just about to be Fired?
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Am i person underpaid at work?
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Am intuition feed up near my existing charge as I worked like career for more than 10 years, is it fluent?
Am feeling fed up next to my existing job as I served the same undertaking for more than 10 years is it natural and/or shall I look for other job eventhough my present employment is not bad but for a change! dispense me ur sincere opinion
Am returning to admin/clerical pasture; on which types of job should I focus?
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An member of staff impression somewhat too much at home?
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And what would this mingy? exactly?
"Thorough training of in-house systems provided." what so do they give a physical package or a party comes in to actually train you? which one? Thanks adjectives.
Annoyed beside my boss?
so my boss attended a meeting last week contained by switzerland, i'm here in the US. He is chairperson of the committee and i got to do adjectives the planning as far as booking hotels for about 25 people, planning a cocktail reception both sunday and monday, plus dinner monday and breakfasts for 3 days. I own to say this isnt the easiest thing to do when you're surrounded by another country and there is a language balustrade. i went back and forth near the hotel a lot over email, and spoke to them about a cocktail reception monday dark with dinner afterwards. Of course there be a mixup and the place thought they just wanted a cocktail reception beside no dinner. My boss said something to me about it today. I forwarded him the emails i had which clearly stated we needed cocktails and dinner. Im just annoyed with how he asked me roughly speaking it...plus, he told me 2 years ago i could attend this event, then took back what he said, and i enjoy yet to ever get to progress to this, yet i plan all these things.
Anonymoysly report sexual stalking, how promising he would acquire fired?
I have been continuously stressed out by a guy at work. Simple friendly conversation has turned into asking me out, flirting with me, getting uncomfortably close to me. I've tried describing him to stop. He is BEST friends and VERY close to all the supervisors and managers and in that is no doubt in my mind that if I be to report him, absolutely nothing would be done. I've have this job (job itself is great) for 5 years and it's a specialized field so it's not as if I can in recent times up and go somewhere else and I shouldn't have to. Our company have an online system where employees can anonymously report anything specifically not right to upper level regional management. I wouldn't own to enter any identifying information. Just the situation. My question is do you conjecture that this would make them get rid of him? There are other girls I work near going through the same thing next to his guy so he wouldn't really know which of us reported him. Anyone with HR experience that could answer would be great.
Anty Administrators out within?
Ok would you reccomend office work to anyone? I love being on the computer so I be thinking maybe going into office work. Would you reccomend it to me? I enjoy applied for an appreticeship in Administration
Any Admin. Asst. Jobs contained by L.A., S.Fernando Valley, California?
Hello, I am an experienced Administrative Assistant. I have been one for nearly 3 years, surrounded by addition to a lot of other clerical and admin. related job. I am currently working on my bachelors degree in business administration. I am a really great employee but am not at all content with my job currently. I am doing 5 job total: receptionist/office supply, set up interviews and maintain employee calendar, coordinate and see through adjectives employee events/luncheons, AND am the administrative assistant to the VP maintaining his calendar, reminding him, running errans, etc. I am doing adjectives of this and at my 90 day review, instead of a raise, they give me a $4 dollar pay CUT. I feel resembling they are using me and I am not at all being compensated. I really want a unmarked job where I am appreciated and compenstated fittingly. Any one have any leads or anyone entail a personal assistant? Let me know, thanks. 818-876-2045 or gemarionpapas(a)yahoo.com
Any administrator out in that?
What is your role in the office...? Do you relish your work?Is it difficult?
Any AEAP member or former member - how do you use your benefits?
Just curious if anyone feels this is actually a benefit or not. Please, if you don't know what AEAP is, consequently you don't need to answer. Thanks.
Any budy know nearly alfuttain companoy a prevailing companoy surrounded by dubai?
i am working as an electrician in oman.now i try to budge dubai and working their i hear about alfuttain but i dont have their trellis address
Any counsel?
what would you do if one of your boss is making a pass at you? i am very irritated beside the situation because i don't like it and it makes me massively uncomfortable. i've been trying to avoid any conversations beside him and it's been really hard to do that specially that he IS my boss.
Any direction on how to settlement beside "department politics"?
i just started a new errand and it is in an office environment. In the few weeks that i enjoy been there I own already noticed alot of certain cliques, groups, gossip etc. I wanted to know if any one has any proposal for me on how to deal with ceratin "bureau politics"? My own advice would be to just preserve to myself rather than become too friendly and then hold problems with someone but i also don't want to seem snotty by keeping my distance from population? any advice?
More Administrative Job questions please visit : JobQnA.com
About the Author
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Legal Seminar
Need to know about Illinois Labor laws. My company makes us work 12 days straight. No Overtime. Is This legal?
I work for a Tradeshow company that makes us work weekends for tradeshows. We are salary employees that work 40 hours per week Monday thru Friday. When shows are scheduled we work an additonal 8 hours per day on Saturday and Sunday. We are then required to work the following week as normal. We don't get paid overtime, and we don't get any additional time off unless we use our vacation time. Is this legal. Can our company force us to work 12 straight days with out time off. All days are at least 8 hour days. I can't see how they can allow us to do that. Management said they can do that because we are salary employees. I can't seem to find the answer on the Illinois state web site for employment issues.
Unfortunately, what your company is doing might be completely legal and in compliance Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17a_overview.htm
Here are more links that might be useful:
http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/wages/overtimepay.htm
http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/index.htm
Some links to legal information.
http://www.nolo.com/
http://www.findlaw.com/
Each of the states have similar laws to mentioned above. However, you might contact OSHA and ask if they could refer you to correct resources that would help you to find correct answer.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of companies who do exactly the same as your current employer.
Unemployment Hearing Representation (Employment Law)
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]employment law fcra[/mage]
Does anyone know a good reference where I can find laws, specific to each state, regarding background checks?
I know the FCRA outlines restrictions as to how far back you can search in civil and criminal records when conducting a pre-employment background check, but I believe individual states also have their own guidlines. I would appreciate any help.
http://hr.blr.com/topics.aspx?topic=17
Maybe this will help..
Hire Education-Fair credit reporting act
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]employment law hypothetical scenarios[/mage]
Full Disclosure during employment?
This is more of a hypothetical scenario than a dilemma I'm facing now. If someone were to leave his job or school because of cancer and now he is in remission and seeking a new job, what if the interviewer where to ask reasons on why he left his previous job. Would he be obligated or recommended in making a disclosure about the his past medical history, this is considering that the disease is not currently affecting or has little affect on his job performance or ability to accomplish the job criteria. Would your answers change if the disorder were epilepsy (in this case no seizures for over a year) or the person was HIV+. What protections does he have under the law?
just say - for medical reasons - and I am now fit and ready to work again.
I am in the similar situation. I took a year off to recover after major surgery. I am having touble getting back into the work force so I went back to school to upgrade my skills.
Handmade Expressions: Fighting Poverty Through Fair Trade
What do you think of this aricle about the inbalance in employment?
Employment law is another area of concern, with such problems as unequal treatment around parental leave, retirement age, and pension entitlements. They also assert sexual harassment policies are de facto directed against the male style of inappropriate sexual behaviour in the workplace, while ignoring the female style of inappropriate behaviour in the workplace. Others assert that many sexual harassment laws restrict men's basic freedoms, and cause men to be constantly on edge[citation needed]. They express anger towards the fact that a man telling a joke or simply referring to a co-worker by a nickname is grounds for dismissal or lawsuits. Spain's recent 40% requirement on boardroom members has come under harsh criticism from the movement, in particular as it violates EU law which would make working for a company with 65% male board members illegal, while a company with 100% female board members would be acceptable under Zapatero's new law
You're right - there is much inequality in the workplace regarding maternity / paternity leave - and that law in Spain does sound sexist to me - if there is a 40% rule, it should apply across the board, not just to desirable 'mens' jobs but also cleaners, nurses, care workers, etc.
I have to disagree with you on the sexual harrassment law - men are increasingly reporting and prosecuting for sexual harrassment so it would seem the law is doing its job in applying the measures consistently 
Basics of Employment Law for Law Clerks (Part 1)
Despite the fact that the dangers of asbestos exposure have been known since the 1920s, this fire resistant, lung incinerating material is still used in production and construction today. Granted, the government came forward in 1980 and placed a few new rules and regulations in place to help minimize the effects of too much asbestos exposure, but Mesothelioma victims will tell you that it was simply a case of a little too little and a little too late.
Public awareness of Mesothelioma has risen ten fold over the past ten to fifteen years, making it even more detrimental that companies today are still utilizing this material. There is very little payoff which would entice anyone with the necessary education into working in conditions that are likely to cause Mesothelioma.
The only likely answer? Even those companies which are in coherence with United States government regulations are not voluntarily admitting to their employees that they are working in asbestos contaminated areas. Most people who are diagnosed with Mesothelioma are genuinely surprised, unless of course their company or former company has been sued a few times by former or current employees in a Mesothelioma lawsuit.
I recently read a review of a company which had been sued four times for Mesothelioma claims and asbestos exposure and the majority of the company's retired employees discovered the health risks were present for the initial stage of the hearings. He was excused when he admitted being a former employee, and once released from his responsibilities as a juror, he informed as many retirees as he could find. Seven of the retired employees were subsequently tested and diagnosed with Mesothelioma.
Obviously, situations as such are very rare. Yet the point remains that people do not have the information they need regarding asbestos exposure and the threat that Mesothelioma presents in their life. Withholding such information leaves people at a serious disadvantage when it comes to making educated decisions about their health as it pertains to the work environment. It is fair to say that people do not typically willingly expose themselves to high levels of asbestos knowing the threat of Mesothelioma is very real and very ugly.
Mesothelioma settlements reflect the company's acknowledgement as to their culpability in these cases. While there is the perpetual excuse that companies tend to settle a Mesothelioma lawsuit to avoid negative press, there is much more truth to the notion that a company is much more willing to shell out to a Mesothelioma victim they are readily convinced contracted the disease while working for their company than they are to give hand outs to people they believe did not get sick working for them. A fight is only worth fighting when you believe you can win.
Not every case of Mesothelioma is one that will end up in settlement or a Mesothelioma lawsuit. A competent California mesothelioma lawyer will honestly tell you that not every case of Mesothelioma is able to make it to court or settlement. There are some determining factors that play into whether or not a Mesothelioma case will make it past the first meeting with a California mesothelioma lawyer.
Only a qualified California mesothelioma lawyer can tell you whether or not the specifics of your case qualify, but a few factors that determine a solid Mesothelioma case include the use of the asbestos, the quality of the lawyer, the laws during the time of both construction and employment, current legislation, and the time period which the building was constructed.
Fighting a Mesothelioma lawsuit is time consuming. So is treating the symptoms of Mesothelioma. Some people that start a Mesothelioma lawsuit are unable to finish their lawsuit due to health reasons. This does lay the groundwork for families to continue the Mesothelioma lawsuit in the event that the unfortunate but often inevitable conclusion to Mesothelioma.
Families often file a wrongful death Mesothelioma lawsuit after the victim has passed away. Most California mesothelioma lawyers will advise at least allowing them to gather direct information from the client even if the client has no intention of filing a Mesothelioma lawsuit. This allows the Mesothelioma attorney a chance to gather pertinent information that the family members of the victim may not be able to adequately answer.
No Mesothelioma victim should ever feel pressured to file a Mesothelioma lawsuit. Regardless of everything else, the decision to file a Mesothelioma lawsuit can only come from the victim.
About the Author
Nick Johnson is lead counsel and founding partner of Johnson Law Group. Johnson represents plaintiffs throughout California and focuses on injury cases involving Mesothelioma. Visit http://www.nickjohnsonlaw.com or call 1-888-311-5522 immediately to request a free case evaluation.
California Labor Law Attorney Announces New Blog
What are the general laws regarding employment verification?
I live in Nevada and was wondering if anyone knew the general laws regarding what an employer can and cannot say about you when someone calls to verify employment. I know a reference can say whatever they want but what about a previous employer? Thanks.
If someone signs a release authorization for a background check to be done that means they are releasing former employer and educational institutions from liability for releasing truthful information about your employment with them or your education with them. They can release any and all truthful information about you. They can not make up things or discuss things not involving your employment - such as "she's a really bad driver" if your job did not involve driving.
Dara McGrath on BLR's 2008 National Employment Law Update
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]labor and employment law opportunities[/mage]
I did not receive my final paycheck?
A view weeks ago I quit my job because I had a much better opportunity coming up for me. Since employment with this company was at will I was not required to give them 2 weeks notice. On March 2nd was payday (normal pay period), and I should have received my final paycheck in the mail. But unfortunately I didn't get paid.
Does anyone know the labor law in CO and how much time the employer actually has to send the final paycheck.
What can I do if I don't get the paycheck within the next few days?
Thank you
Shaylee
found this website http://www.coworkforce.com/LAB/
and it has what u are asking about and how to file a complaint against your former employer..should be helpful...good luck
Sacramento Labor Lawyers - Mastagni, Holstedt, Amick, Miller & Johnsen
Can I renew my KY Driver's License?
Hi everyone I'm not sure how kentucky law works. My driver'slicense expired last week, unfortunately I have not being able to renew it. I am an immigrant from Brazil and my employment card expired last week also. I have a social security # but no card, Will i be able to renew my license without an employment card??
As long as you have some KY residential proof, your Green Card, and a S/S #, they will PROBABLY not give you too much hassle. Good luck!
European Agenda: 6. July 2009
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]employment law smoke breaks[/mage]
Russ Belville: Obama Drug Policy calls for drugged driving charges for unimpaired marijuana users
From the Obama Administration's recently released National Drug Control Strategy (hat tip to NORML reader Glen): Encourage States To Adopt Per Se Drug Impairment Laws...
House Session 2010-04-13 (21:38:10-22:08:58)
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]ohio employment law book[/mage]
The following is an excerpt from my new book, "MORPHING INTO THE REAL WORLD - A Handbook for Entering the Work Force" which is a survival guide for young people as they transition into adult life. The book offers considerable advice regarding how to manage our personal and professional lives. As a part of this, I found it necessary to discuss the legal ramifications of employment.
Do's and Don'ts in the Workpace (Part I)
Life is full of rules and regulations. The only reason we write rules is to protect us from those who would break them. In past essays, I've discussed several unwritten rules for acclimating into the corporate culture. Now we will focus on the formal written rules you will be dealing with in your professional life, along with commentary on how to deal with them.
RULE #1 - GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING. Like it or not, we now live in a litigious society where lawsuits are issued at the drop of a hat. When you first join a new company you will likely be inundated with documentation requiring your signature. Be sure to review the terms and conditions carefully before signing anything and make sure you retain a copy of all documentation for your personal files at home. If you have any questions, ask for clarification. Some of it will only apply to your term of employment, others may follow you for quite some time thereafter (sometimes in perpetuity). Some of the documentation will pertain to government regulations, such as for income taxes and social security, some will relate to benefit programs, such as your health care providers, and some relates specifically to your employer. Most will use standard legal language. Regardless, read everything carefully and, when in doubt, seek suitable legal advice.
Employment
As a new employee, you must be cognizant of your employment status which is defined for government reporting purposes. There are two types of employment status:
EXEMPT - This represents professional workers who are paid a salary as opposed to an hourly wage (typically compensated on a monthly basis). The term "exempt" means the worker is exempt from certain wage and hour laws. For example, exempt workers may work many hours and are not paid overtime.
NON-EXEMPT - The opposite of exempt. This is normally administrative workers or laborers who are paid an hourly wage and subject to certain wage and hour laws. For example, they are limited in terms of the number of hours they may work (such as 40), are paid a special rate for overtime (extra hours), and may be entitled to specific breaks during the work day.
Punctuality
Regardless of your employment status, there will be defined working hours you will have to observe. The only difference is that non-exempt workers must watch the number of hours they work more closely than exempt workers which is inconsequential. Non-exempt employees can be docked for pay if they are late to work or leave early.
Most employees will follow a fixed schedule of working hours, such as 9:00am to 5:00pm. However, some companies make use of "Flex Time" for exempt employees. This is a time management program that allows employees to keep more flexible hours than a fixed schedule. They may come in early one day (and leave early), and late another (and leave later). This allows employees to make personal appointments either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Regardless, they are still expected to work a certain number of hours during the day and week.
The amount of time allowed for lunch varies from company to company; most allow 30-45 minutes for lunch.
This emphasis on starting/stopping times, both in the workplace and in school, has created a generation of "clock watchers," people more interested in counting the number of hours they spend at work as opposed to the work they are to produce. Not long ago, I was visiting a client in Ohio where a young programmer bragged to me he had worked 14 hours that day. I asked him what he had produced during that time. After much hemming and hawing he admitted he hadn't actually produced much of anything. I admonished him that he should be more concerned about the volume of work he was producing as opposed to the amount of time he spent producing it, particularly since he was an exempt worker.
In every work day you will see people slowly getting started for the day and ramping down towards the end. Being a baseball fan, I would often use the analogy that the work day was like a professional baseball game, particularly for exempt workers. First, the players do not show up at game time, they are usually at the ballpark earlier to warm up and take batting practice. And second, they give it their all throughout the game until the last out is made. In other words, if you are a slow starter for the day, try to get to work a little earlier so you are awake by the start of the business day, and; give it your all until the close of the business day. After all, isn't this what you are being paid for?
Personal Time, Sick Days, Vacations and Holidays
During the work day you will be entitled to take some breaks to refresh yourself. Such breaks are invaluable for clearing your head and refocusing on your job. Of course there will be those "time wasters" who will abuse this privilege and take more breaks than normal. This type of person is putting his personal interests ahead of everyone else's. In other words, he is not a team player. Be leary of such people as management will inevitably weed them out.
You should not have any problems taking a break if you have developed a reputation for delivering on assignments and have developed a trust with your boss.
In terms of sick days, you will be entitled to take a certain number, but understand this: they are for illness, not for vacations or hangovers. Nothing raises suspicions with management more than excessive use of sick days. Some companies even mandate that if you are sick, you give some form of evidence to that effect, e.g., a doctor's note.
You will also be entitled to take a certain number of vacation days during the year. Check with company policy to see if they must be taken as contiguous days or randomly, such as on a Friday now and then. Perhaps the hardest part in terms of taking a vacation is scheduling them. It is not uncommon to have to request your vacation many months in advance. Because of the need to keep your department operational, a manager does not want to strip the staff down to a point where it cannot adequately service its customers. Consequently, vacation schedules must be arranged in advance. Further, vacation schedules may be based on seniority. This means you, as the Newbie, are often the last one to schedule a vacation.
In terms of holidays, you will be entitled to standard days, e.g., New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas. However, your company may also observe other days, such as Armed Forces Day, Veterans Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Chanukah, etc. Consult management for all of the holidays you are entitled to.
Next week in Part II I'll describe such things as Moonlighting, Discussing Salaries, Job Titles, and Employment Contracts.
If you would like to discuss this with me in more depth, please do not hesitate to send me an e-mail.
About the Author
Tim Bryce is the Managing Director of M. Bryce & Associates (MBA) of Palm Harbor, Florida, a management consulting firm specializing in Information Resource Management (IRM). Mr. Bryce has over 30 years of experience in the field. He is available for lecturing, training and consulting on an international basis. His corporate web page is at:
http://www.phmainstreet.com/mba/
He can be contacted at: timb001@phmainstreet.com
Copyright © 2007 MBA. All rights reserved.
06/21/10: Press Briefing by Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton
Redundancy Payments
You may recall that in the budget earlier this year, Alistair Darling declared that to assist people being made redundant, the maximum week’s pay for the purposes of the statutory redundancy payment would be increased from £350 to £380. However employees made redundant in the meantime will not be able to benefit from this largesse as it will only come into force on the 1st October 2009. There will then be no further increases till February 2011. In other words, the budget announcement may have looked good, but will not make a great deal of difference in practice.
Just as a reminder, employees with over two years service who are made redundant are entitled to receive a statutory redundancy payment of a weeks pay to a maximum (of currently £350) x full years worked x 1.5 for years worked over the age of 41. This can be easily calculated by visiting http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employment/employment-legislation/employment-guidance/page33157.html.
Employees are also entitled to contractual or stautory notice (whichever is greater), or payment in lieu. Statutory notice is 1 week for each full year worked to a maximum of 12 weeks.
The same method is also used to calculate ‘basic’ awards in unfair dismissal cases (‘compensatory’ awards in unfair dismissal being for the loss of earnings etc until the employee finds suitable alternative employment)
Accruing Holiday When Off Sick
Do employees on long term sick leave continue to accrue paid holiday under the Working Time Regulations? Back in January we reported the European Court of Justice decision in Stringer v HMRC which ruled that:
A worker who is on sick-leave for the whole of an annual leave year is entitled to a period of four weeks' paid annual leave, despite the fact they are not actually at work. In other words the right to paid holiday accrues even for employees on long term sick leave.
The ECJ sent this back to the House of Lords to decide how this works in UK law which this week has held that this right can be enforced under the Employment Rights Act. What does that mean in practice? It means that the limitation period for bringing a claim is three months from the date of the last ‘deduction’ complained of (rather than three months for each deduction). Still not clear? Well, it means a lot more employees on long term sick leave will be able to sue if they don’t get paid holiday. Good news for employees; not such good news for employees.
In January, the ECJ suggested that that annual leave accrued by a sick worker must be carried over (rather than being forfeit if unused at the end of the particular holiday year). This however is something that the UK Regulations do not provide for, and which the House of Lords do not appear to have cleared up either. The best thing employers can do in the meantime is to address sickness absence issues before they become long term.
About the Author
James Carmody is lawyer advising on UK employment law in Central London. Please let me know if there are any issues arising in this article that you would like to discuss by contacting jrc@reculversolicitors.co.uk . (http://www.reculversolicitors.co.uk)
Dianne Quinn on BLR's 2008 National Employment Law Update
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]employment law smoking at work[/mage]
iam living with with my wife and my freaky ex ex ex ex ex has recently moved in next door to us and ever since?
there has been nothing but constant noise with her children and their friends and other people of the freaks making noise until all hours of the night indoors and out we have told them several times to quiten down police have visited neigbours a few times we have a young baby who hardly sleeps me and my partner are in full time employment my baby goes to day school until i finish work when i come home i have to put up with children giving me grief as if a day at work wer'nt hard enough we are simply at wits end. gangs aged between 12-18 y/o smoking cannabis outside of property making noise until late do turn vigil-ante or go by the law? help. depressed.
Hi.put a complaint in to your local council authority.They can be thrown out for noise pollution & arrested for drugs.
Good Luck
Small Business and Health Reform: Christina Romer Takes Your Questions
Life Glimmers Amid the Ruins of Greek Finances: Commentary by Suzy Hansen
A couple of months ago, around the time Greece passed new austerity measures to ward off economic catastrophe, Nicholas Papandreou , the very tall brother of Greece’s Prime Minister, George Papandreou , was riding the Metro in Athens. The Papandreous, now in the third generation of a Socialist political dynasty, live in rented houses, drive Priuses, and, apparently, take the subway, even during ...
Salt Lake City-based Teleperformance USA pays almost $2 million in back overtime wages following US Department of ...
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Meal and Break Time
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MoreInjury Attorneyquestions please visit : LawyerFreeFAQ.com
In what courses of regulation should a workplace injury attorney apply?
I am a pre-law student about to enter law university with an interest in workplace injury regulation. With this concentration I would probably deal mostly with workers' comp claims. However, how broad can this view of workplace injury be taken? For example, would a workplace injury attorney ever be faced...
Injuray attorney for collar injury? want proposal!?
the insurance wants to offer me a measly $1000. i lost work , didnt own insurance at the time, and so on. i went to freidman dominano and smith injury attorneys but they want 40% off the top, consequently to pay back the medical expenses that own already been paid from my trial insurance,...
Injury within IRAQ? should I hire an attorney?
I was injured in IRAQ while working for KBR. I hold had several surgeries since I have be home in states. The work comp carrier AIG is markedly difficult to deal with, slow surrounded by paying the bills and reimbursements. I don't feel like they are responding as they should. My big interrogate...
Is 33 1/3 % closely of money for a injury attorney?
i was in a motor cycle coincidence and the other party was at idiosyncrasy. i am looking at attorney's to take care of the bag what is a reasonable rate?? 33 1/3 is the standard rate but it is high. Maybe you can get the percentage lowered if your award...
Is getting an attorney for a personal injury claim worth it?
I got in an fluke riding passenger in a car, it get totaled and I have 3 bulging discs in my posterior, granted I am 19 years old and my ATV riding is over with, also I can't enjoy any kind of labor job due to the discs surrounded by...
Is it a requirment for a personal injury attorney to enjoy a college degre or be board certified?
Yes, you'll have to go to directive school Yes, you must pass the state BAR to practice law within ANY state. of course. It is against the law to practice tenet without a license. Attorney's have to not solely have a College Degree,...
Is it crucial to consult an attorney for a workmen's comp. injury? Why or why not?
I know someone who shattered their shoulder while working on a field job away from their typical place of employment. A year later, they still aren't back to majority, and don't know if they will ever be. Do they need a lawyer, or does workmen's...
Is it expected that the subject within a personal injury lawsuit bring adjectives the medical store for the attorney?
Our attorney is making us run all over the place and obtain our medical history. When you do this for a lawsuit they charge you per page and it's turning out to be costly. Is this normal practice? Just an FYI we...
Lawyer banter : How oodles personal injury attorneys does?
it take to change a pale bulb? Why won't sharks attack lawyers? A. Professional courtesy. --------------------------------------… Q. Why is going to a meeting of the Bar Association resembling going into a bait shop? A. Because of the abundance of suckers, leeches, maggots and night crawlers. --------------------------------------… Q. What's the definition of a...
Looking for a personal Injury attorney contained by the San Diego nouns?
Can anybody refer me to a good personal injury attorney??. I hurted my self in the dishwasher of my apartment bldg where on earth I live. My back is hurting really bad and my foot is drastically swollen. I have gone to the emergency room and was told that...
Marketing for personal injury laywers and attorneys, how to marketplace your practice ?
I am a personal injury lawyer currently working for a company, but I am interested in starting my own practice, how should I budge about marketing my personal injury practice ? Check out these guys, they are quite affordable http://www.myearnpro.com/jolly/info
Miami Personal Injury Attorney, Miami Personal Injury Lawyer. Miami Car Accident Lawyer. Who is the best?
Who is the best Miami Injury Attorney, Miami Car Accident Lawyer or Miami Accident Attorney that you know. If you don't think highly of any surrounded by Miami, what about Fort Lauderdale Accident Lawyer, West Palm Beach Personal Injury Lawyer, or any other cities that...
My attorney said he's going to immediately litigate my personal injury overnight case?
What does this mean? It's going to be 2 years exactly next month from the date of my coup¨¦ accident. Why is my attorney now decide to take the case to litigation? You must any nearing the limitation for filing. I would hold thought about replacing the attorney...
My attorney say that here are no other option presently that the defendents contained by my Personal Injury settlement hold
filed bankrupcty. He says that I can pick up my record and that is it! Will another attorney try and collect for me , What can I do now? "> I would grasp a second opinion. You can get a consultation...
Name something more disgusting than personal injury attorneys?
Used car salesmen and TV evangelists ACLU, the radical people at PETA, racist, dictators, etc., etc. Their clients. Radical Leftist Politicians and Muslim Terrorists. . Lawyers who defend the indefensible. Like police brutality. Congress.
Need to find an attorney not afraid of helping me within Akron Ohio. for personal injury or legal representative malpractice?
my husband was in an auto quirk in July 2005. we had an attorney and enjoy found out that he dismissed the case back contained by August 2007 without notifying us. we are contained by need of an attorney to help...
Personal Injury Attorney - Income and Getting Clients?
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Personal Injury Attorney Fee, 40%?
Does that sound high for serious personal injury covering? It's just for the total recovery award. 30% is standard, i thought. 40 seem high. And don't hire the guy on t.v. Most of them run a factory type business. They make their money surrounded by volume, not quality. Most attys charge 33 1/3 if they don't...
Personal injury attorney severe whiplash concussion 2 teeth knock loose rotator cuff hole mva settlement?
mva accident not my fault 60 miles and hour interstate sideswiped me spun me out approaching 4 times it was raining he was cited for unsafe lanechange. I go to emergency room treated for a concussion cervical sprain and lower back sprain. 2 days later I...
Personal Injury Attorney surrounded by Dalton, Ga?
Anyone know of a good lawyer within Dalton, GA for personal injury due to auto accident that was not my condemn? Any recommendations please. Thanks. Try martindale.com. It lists lawyer by location and specialty. Look at the billboards in your area. Ambulance chasers are adjectives over them. 33% is the standard fee if they...
About the Author
Public Record 2006
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]california employment law website[/mage]
Can someone explain this to me please realating to LAPD Citizenship?
i want to join the lapd but i don't understand on joinlapd website
''The City of Los Angeles requires that a Police Officer candidate be a United States citizen, or that a non-citizen be a permanent resident alien who, in accordance with the requirements of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), is eligible and has applied for citizenship.
During the selection process, each non-citizen is required to prove that USCIS accepted his/her application for citizenship prior to the date the Police Officer written test was taken.
California State law requires that citizenship be granted within three years after the employment application date. For information regarding citizenship requirements, contact the USCIS''
the part it say about you can join with out citizenship but would do you have to prove please could some explain it to all to me
Before you (a non-citizen) apply at the lapd you have to have a green card and have the receipt notice that you filed your N-400 (naturalization application) with USCIS. They will take you with a pending citizenship application, but they will fire you if you haven't received your citizenship within 3 years of hire.
Jack on the 2009 ERI California Employment Law Update
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On what basis can employers discriminate in hiring?
Employers can discriminate against smokers.
Obviously, they should discriminate based on ability to do a job.
If there are no workplace requirements for an attribute, can a large employer legally discriminate by:
-sex
-age
-weight
-race
-sexual orientation
Have federal laws or court decisions eliminated some of the employment discrimination protections?
Although it's unethical employers can discriminate based on weight and sexual orientation.
Currently there are 7 protected class: race, color, sex, religion, national origin, gender, and age.
Employers can also not discrminate based on an actual or perceived disability (or is the person is close to someone who has a disability) as long as the limitations due to the disability do not significantly affect the requirements for the job.
There is an exception to this but it is rarely used. If the job qualifies for a BFOQ (Bona Fide Occupational Qualification) then there could be an exception. For example, if there is an ad posted for a female model to model women's clothing, the employer can obvious note hire (discriminate) against a man even if he can fit in the clothes.
Hope this helps.
Binghamton, NY Proposes Transgender Protection
The global nature of products & services and the rise in purchasing power of developing countries have increased the customer base of an ordinary business. Imagine a scenario. A prospect or customer calls up a business to ask for clarification or information but is unable to communicate due to differences in language. This peeves the customer as he feels unimportant and his problems are resolved. He leaves your business or worse moves to your rival business
How do smart businesses tackle such problems? Simple. They ensure that the call center they hire offer bilingual services at their call center.
So now if you are the business who has hired an ordinary call center for customer support, remember you just lost a prospect or a customer. And I’m sure that in these hard times you feel like I do- Each and every customer is important.
Changes in demography along with change in State policies have increased the need for efficient models of providing language services to people with Limited English Proficiency (LEP). The sharp rise in the Latino community in the US has increased the need for Spanish language Customer Service Support. There is a steep demand for bilingual employees in all industries – healthcare, education, finance, sale and marketing. Employees with knowledge of English and Spanish are sought after. Other languages sought out are –German, Japanese, and Russian.
Since the world has become a global village using the vehicle of internet, it’s very important for the companies to target customers from all over the world. It would mean to be well versed in their language.
There is a need for bilingual customer service support system in call centers. This has led to formation of bilingual teams by Managers. The job description states the criteria of knowledge a minimum of two languages. It is deciding factor in selecting staff members. The business class or companies seeking customer are responsible for language assistance. They cater to the needs of the clients such as providing interpreters and translators. Telephonic services use bilingual staff to cater to the needs of LEP. Shortage of bilingual staff and trained professional interpreters are considered to be a resource constraint. In order to be successful the language needs of the customers are identified and steps are taken to introduce language access at the first points of client contact, for example at the front desk.
The bilingual staff performs multiple roles. Individuals with conversational proficiency in a second language may provide limited telephone assistance at the front desk while those with greater proficiency may interpret during interviews with the clients. In the field of medicine or other clinical needs assistance in the language of the patient is a must, even more so if the patient or person seeking information is LEP. The bicultural translators who act as cultural brokers provide accurate translation in a clinical sound culturally relevant manner.
Making any Organization bilingual I not one day’s job. Like any process of change, the actual implementation needs meticulous planning. The process differs with different organizations having different needs. The growth should be reviewed and the advantage should be assessed.
In the State of California there is a Law, Dymally Alatorre Bilingual Services Act which provides for bilingual staff in State offices and departments. It states its objective as, “Employment of bilingual persons in public contact positions to ensure the position of importance and service to the public in language of the non-English speaking persons.” Even in Canada commercial leases have to be drafted in both English and French, which are the official languages. The Canadian Heritage funds various organizations under official language support programs. These funds are used to create linguistic duality.
Bilingual community is a reality. Government offices were quick to realize it and smart businesses do the same. Keep the options for your customers open. When customers are asked about their language preference and get to talk in their preferred language they are at ease and are more relaxed. Now the chances of closing the order and making him a loyal customer increases.
About the Author
Randall J. Harmat is the President of Ansafone Communications a full Service Call Center located in downtown Santa Ana, CA. Some call center services include bilingual inbound/outbound telemarketing, third party verification, seminar reservations and appointment setting, database management, order taking, voice mail and customized customer service operations. During his tenure, Ansafone has succeeded in its quest to recruit and retain a premier management team to carve its course into the 21st century.
California BSIS seems to condone American Police Force (APPF/APF) unlicensed security activity
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Can anyone help with UK employment law ?
I'm currently employed to work 40 hours per week from 8:30 to 17:00 monday to friday with half hour lunch unpaid, And Saturday mornings from 8:30 to 12:30 on a rota basis. The position is salaried (no overtime applicable). My gripe is that I do not get paid at all for working Saturdays. I spoke to my boss and he said that if I don't work Saturdays then I should find another job.
Is this Legal?
Any advise would be great.
What does your contract say? If it says 40 hours then that takes care of Monday-Friday and saturday should be paid in addition. Your boss simply cannot make you work extra hours without pay, especially on a regular basis. However if youre on a salary, and youre contract doesnt stipulate the exact hours (which it should, either the times or hours per week) you need to multiply your gross pay x 12 and divide by 52 (to get a weeks wage) then divide by 40+ the average hours you do on a rota ie +2 if its every other saturday, +1 if its once a month, then youll have your hourly pay which should be over the nmw which is £5.25 over 22 (i think).
If its less than national minimum wage, you can complain to an Industrial tribunal as this is a breach of your statutory rights (as you can if your contract doesnt state the hours).
To not pay you is also a breach of your statutory rights, its an 'illegal deduction from wages' and you can also take your boss to a tribunal to get this back.
Best bet is to contact your local CAB or ACAS or an employment solicitor if you have any in your area. To do anything you need to first put in a grievance to your employer and there are specific procedures to follow if you want your case to be successful.
Man Says Home Depot Fired Him Over God Button
So, business managers up and down the country are preparing to bid farewell to 2008 and usher in a whole new year. Over the last 12 months, we've seen changes to flexible working, dispute resolution and even how companies that cause a person's death are dealt with. What's in store for 2009? Well, here are a few changes to business law that we will definitely see occurring, so prepare to update all your employment contracts and business documents as necessary!
Redundancy and Unfair Dismissal Becomes More Expensive
At a time when there may be many thousands of redundancies, the cap for maximum redundancy and unfair dismissal payments have been increased. When it comes to calculating the weekly wage for statutory redundancy pay, the maximum has increased from £330 to £350. The maximum statutory redundancy payment or basic award is now £10,500, up from £9,900, and the maximum compensatory award for unfair dismissal has gone from £63,000 to £66,200.
Right to Time Off for Public Duties Expanded
In April 2009, the rights to time off for public duties will be extended to include membership of a wider range of roles including youth offender panels, court boards and probation boards. It's worth noting that although they will be given the time off, there is no obligation to pay them for this time.
Right to Request Flexible Working Expanded
Currently, the right to request flexible working hours in employment contracts is only open to parents with children under the age of six or who are disabled. In April next year, this right will be extended to parents of children all the way up to 16, opening up the option for some 4.5 million more parents. Under the legislation, employers won't be obliged to grant the request but they will have to have legitimate reasons to reject it.
Trainee Doctors get Reduced Maximum Working Hours
In August, the notoriously overworked trainee doctors will have their working hours reduced in the final stage of the phase-in to a 48 hour week. In 2004, the maximum was reduced to 58 hours, and in 2007 it was reduced to 56.
Tips no Longer Count Towards Minimum Wage
Under current rules, employers can process service charges and gratuities paid through the payroll as part of their obligation towards minimum wage. From 2009 this will no longer be allowed.
Minimum Holiday Time Increased to 28 Days
In 2007, the minimum days paid leave for most UK workers went up to 24 days including bank holidays. In April 2009, the second part of this act is passed and it is raised to 28 days including bank holidays. This will have no effect on those giving bank holidays in addition to the minimum holiday day allocation, but if you are only giving your employees 24 days in total at the moment, be sure to update your business documents and employment contracts to reflect the changes.
Acas Code of Practice for Discipline and Grievance Procedures
April also sees the revised Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures introduced. This means that where there is a breach in the Code of Practice, a tribunal can change the award granted by 25% up or down.
Centralised Vetting System for Workers Dealing with Children and Venerable Adults
In October, the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act will come into force, creating a centralised vetting system for those banned from working with both vulnerable adults and children. Employers will be able to make checks online using a constantly updated database and, where possible, employers will be informed if an individual in their employ is added. There will be fines of up to £5,000 for employers who either knowingly employ people from the list for these roles, or fail to make relevant checks.
Health and Safety Offences Act
At the very start of 2009, the Health and Safety Offences Act will come into effect. As long as you are doing everything that needs to be done with regards to health and safety already you can safely ignore this one, as it only changes the available punishments. From January 16th, a maximum 2 years imprisonment and/or a maximum £20,000 fine will be available to those who breach Health and Safety regulations. Additionally, while such offences were only available for prosecution in the Magistrates Court, from January they can be tried in the Crown Court. With such hefty punishments soon to be available, it might be a good idea to ensure your business documents pertaining to health and safety are fully in order, just in case!
These aren't the only laws and regulations changing in the next 12 months, but they are amongst the most important to most business owners. Make sure that you're aware of the upcoming changes that apply to you and get your business documents and employment contracts in order for when the laws change!
About the Author
Iain Mackintosh is the Managing Director of Simply-Docs. The firm provides over 1100 UK documents covering all aspects of business from holiday entitlement to
employment contracts
.
Workers Compensation NewsLine Video Report for 10/23/2007
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AstraZeneca Case Rewards Two Whistleblowers With $45 Million
Blowing the whistle on drugmakers is becoming a habit for a salesman and a psychiatrist splitting a $45 million award after AstraZeneca Plc settled claims of illegally marketing a schizophrenia drug.
Haleigh Cummings: mother and her many lies.
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What School Is Best for an Eventual Career in Law?
I've been admitted into usc (the business program), umichigan, and tufts. I know that USC and UMICH have awesome law schools, and that they take a high number of students from their undergraduate program into their law schools, though Tufts seems like a great school too. But I was.
Which will be better..BBA LLB or BA LLB as an undergraduate law degree?
I am filling up my form for the undergraduate law schools in India.i want to know which would be better..BALLB or BBA LLB.I want to pursue a carrerr in corporate law..I also want to know will pursuing an BBA LLB programme deter my chances of getting.
Would law schools be more lenient on GPA if I major in Chemical Engineering and aspire to be a patent lawyer?
I'm a second-year ChemE major student at UC Berkeley. I want to go to law school and practice patent law, but my GPA is a little less than a 3.0. Do I have a chance? I think you.
Are there any good law schools in california?
I am begging high school in the bay area, and i was wondering if there are any good law schools there, or in the state of California and the requirements to get into them There are scads of good law schools in California: we turn out more lawyers than anybody. In.
Can someone please tell me about some NGO which gives free legal aid to women in distress?
http://www.neveragainfoundation.org/.law schools http://www.opdv.state.ny.us/victims/. Also, if there are any law schools in your area, they probably have a domestic violence clinic that will provide free assistance. - Try your local city or state bar associations.
How are medical challenges to 'free will' being discussed in US law schools?
Neurology and genetics are suggesting that many behaviors are biologically determined ('nature'), even more than the 'nurture' of training and experience. The trend is for more and more behaviors to be determined by genetics. What is being taught about this topic in law schools in the.
I want to find a law school in NYC and the price it will cost to go there can anyone help me thank you?
There are numerous law schools in New York City. There's New York University, Columbia, Fordham Law School, Cardozo Law School (a school in Yeshiva University), and New York Law School (different from NYU). St..
What are sum of the top law schools for criminal law ?
The same as the general top ten: Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, Chicago, Penn, Michigan, Berkeley, Virginia and Duke. No one really pays attention to specialty rankings. - Outside of the Ivy League, I highly recommend San Diego and Univ. of Arkansas. - Law schools don't.
What do I do if I dont get accepted to any law schools this year?!?! 
?
Ok, I graduated from college last year, 'studied' for the LSAT, then took it in December. My score was pure crap, so I took in again in February and I had to cancel it (its a long story). I still sent out my.
What states has the most diffucult Bar Exam to pass?
again, it's for an article that I am writing. California has the lowest passing rate -- but that may be due to the fact that California is the only state that allows graduates of non-accredited law schools to sit for the bar exam. New York has an exam that.
how do you get into law school?
I find a key works pretty well, or if you lose your keys, then a crowbar. - First you must have a bachelor's degree - doesn't matter in what really. Then you have to take the LSAT and apply to particular law schools. Law school is very hard but not undoable..
How much does being a lawyer pay?
Like, how much does a lawyer make? And is it a good amount of money? Lawyer pay is all over the map. Right out of law school some graduates make six figures at their very first jobs. Those people graduate from top tier law schools and they ranked at the top of.
Is the law field in fact oversaturated with attorneys?
Why is it that many people cliam that the Field of Law is oversaturated with attorneys while on the other hand, many other sources claim that the forecast is looking good. The statistics at almost all law schools show that the majority of their recent graduates had no problem finding.
Misdemeanor & Law School?
Hello, I was wondering if it was possible to get into law schools with a Misdemeanor Class B (Texas). I have turned in all the police reports and a statement about the incident to the law school. The incident happened 5 years ago. I plead guilty and recieved probation. I owned up to the mistake.
My daughter needs a Pro bono atty in central fl to fight to get kids back.?
She really needs legal help. Doesn't have the funds to do it. I am disabled and cannot help. Legal aid won't help because the grandparents have been given legal guardianship and have closed her case. HELP Seek out law schools in your area..
Prestigious law school?
Hey. I need some suggestions for law schools. I have a 3.7 gpa or something like that. I want something that will wow my future employers. Hartfords a no-brainer, but what are some others? thx 
Remember that a law degree (J.D.) is a graduate degree. As you mentioned that you are now in the 10th.
I went to a terrible law school, how do I get law firms to hire me?
Even though I went to one of the worst law schools in the country (California Western), I scored in the 99% on my LSAT and have an IQ of 150 (1 in 300). I know I'm smarter than most attorneys regardless of school,.
top 5 law schools and statistics?
The top three are usually listed as 1.) Yale, 2.) Harvard and 3.) Stanford. The next tier is University of Chicago, New York University, and Columbia. There's another eight which regularly make it in varying order into the top 14. Then, there's the Top 25. The top 50 make up the 'Tier.
What are the best places in UK or USA to study Law?
Well of course rating schools is somewhat arbitrary. I don't know about schools in the UK, but there are a couple of sources of information on ratings of US law schools. Best in many US ratings combines ratings of reputation (which changes slowly), alumni support, the.
What does it take to become a lawyer? How many years at college, etc.?
PLease don't spam. In the U.S., most law schools will tell you that you need a four-year degree from an accredited college or university, then most states require a juris doctor from an accredited law school before taking the bar exam. Law School is usually.
what is the best school of law in the united states of america?
The top three law schools in the countery are generally considered to be Yale, Harvard, and Stanford. Yale is consistently ranked #1 according to the US News Law School rankings, and it's easy to see why. Yale has a very small class of just a.
What law schools are in Orange County CA?
There are several - Fourth tier schools like Whittier Law School (Nixon is an alumni) and Chapman are decent schools, for being low ranked. There are a few others - I've heard of one called Trinity in Santa Ana, and I think it's California Western?? or is it Western State?.
Which law schools have the best programs in constitutional law?
I'm planning on applying to law school this fall, and I'm wanting to take alot of courses on con-law. I know obviously the top tier schools like Harvard, Columbia, Yale, etc are all going to have good constitutional law programs but what other schools have good programs, and where.
How old do you have to be to become a lawyer?
That will vary from state to state. But, by the time you get through with high school, college and law school the age is around 25. I got my license at 23. - Because of the content of many of their mandatory courses, law schools do not.
Is there any good reasonable criminal lawyers in Colorado?
Who would take payments for drug poss. charge Lots of them. Just look in the phone book! Also, look at the criminal defense clinics at the various law schools in Colorado. - CHECK THE LAWYERS BOARD MAYBE THEY CAN HELP YOU - Yeah, His name is Chris Miranda. He's in.
More Law school questions please visit : LawFreeFAQ.com
About the Author
LawFreeFAQ.com
Mechanical Turk and the Danger of Digital Sweatshops - Jonathan Zittrain
• Education roundup
North Hills honor roll North Hills Christian School has announced its honor roll. First grade: Cassidy Athey, Kalynn Bailey, Micah Cross, Elisabeth Houghton, Zachary Kennedy, Melanie Long, Ashley Mays, Landon Mesimer, Maddie Mitchell, Lucy Monath, ...
Step #2 - Retirement Preparedness Checklist: Insure Risks You Cannot Afford to Take
A. Arbitration Award
was biased against him and failed to follow the law. On de novo review, Coutee v. Barrington Capital Group, L.P., 336 F.3d 1128, 1132 (9th Cir. 2003), we affirm.
Public Affairs - Tom Geoghegan
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Summerville considers illegal immigrant ban
SUMMERVILLE -- Councilman Walter Bailey said he wants to make a statement about the federal government's lack of action on illegal immigration.
Constitutional Homeland Security part 2.wmv
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UK Employment Law Issue - Continuous service?
I commenced employment with a Local Authority (LA) in 1991. In 1996 the LA function I was in transfered under TUPE rules to a new Govt body. I left that new employment in 2005 and returned to original LA (but not same job tho) .When I started I was told my former Govt employer was on list as a recognised employment for continuous service purposes and so I had no probation period and I got leave entitlement enhanced. I had no breaks / gaps between any employments. Following workplace issues in 2008 I am taking LA to Employment Tribunal. Does anyone know if the whole 17 years from 91 to 08 count for continuous service regarding the Basic Award element of a Tribunal claim or will only the 3 years from 05 count when I returned to the LA ?
Normally your service would have run from 2005 because you left your job voluntarily and took up a new post - there was no TUPE at that time. However, in your case as the employer expressly allowed you to transfer and keep your previous service then it will run from 1991. You will probably need evidence to prove that this was the case when you took up the role in 2005 although the fact that you had enhanced leave would probably be a good indication to any tribunal.
Recruitment agencies
The fifth preference employment based visa (EB5) was created in 1990 as a way for foreign investors to gain United States permanent residency (and eventual citizenship if desired), through an investment in a new or pre-existing American business that sees the creation of at least 10 new full-time jobs for American workers. The E1 Treaty Trader visa is described by the government's website as being a "nonimmigrant classification (that) allows a national of a treaty country (a country with which the United States maintains a treaty of commerce and navigation) to be admitted to the United States solely to engage in international trade on his or her own behalf." In this article we will take a closer look at the E1 Treaty Trader and EB5 investor visas to see how the two compare and contrast.
E1 Treaty Trader Visa – As per the government's website: The E-1 nonimmigrant classification allows a national of a treaty country (a country with which the United States maintains a treaty of commerce and navigation) to be admitted to the United States solely to engage in international trade on his or her own behalf. Certain employees of such a person or of a qualifying organization may also be eligible for this classification.
Who May File for Change of Status to E-1 Classification - If the treaty trader is currently in the United States in a lawful nonimmigrant status, he or she may file Form I-129 to request a change of status to E-1 classification. If the desired employee is currently in the United States in a lawful nonimmigrant status, the qualifying employer may file Form I-129 on the employee's behalf.
How to Obtain E-1 Classification if Outside the United States - A request for E-1 classification may not be made on Form I-129 if the person being filed for is physically outside the United States. Interested parties should refer to the U.S. Department of State website for further information about applying for an E-1 nonimmigrant visa abroad. Upon issuance of a visa, the person may then apply to a DHS immigration officer at a U.S. port of entry for admission as an E-1 nonimmigrant.
To qualify for E-1 classification, the treaty trader must:
"Trade" is the existing international exchange of items of trade for consideration between the United States and the treaty country. Items of trade include but are not limited to:
Goods – Services - International banking – Insurance – Transportation – Tourism - Technology and its transfer - Some news-gathering activities.
"Substantial trade" generally refers to the continuous flow of sizable international trade items, involving numerous transactions over time. There is no minimum requirement regarding the monetary value or volume of each transaction. While monetary value of transactions is an important factor in considering substantiality, greater weight is given to more numerous exchanges of greater value.
"Principal trade" between the United States and the treaty country exists when over 50% of the total volume of international trade is between the U.S. and the trader's treaty country.
EB5 Visa – In stark contrast to the E1 visa, lays the EB5 investor visa. According to the government's web page, to qualify for the EB5 visa program you must:
1) Invest or be in the process of investing at least $1,000,000. If your investment is in a designated targeted employment area (A Targeted Employment Area is defined by law as "a rural area or an area that has experienced high unemployment of at least 150 percent of the national average.) then the minimum investment requirement is $500,000.
2) Benefit the U.S. economy by providing goods or services to U.S. markets.
3) Create full-time employment for at least 10 U.S. workers. This includes U.S. citizens, Green Card holders (lawful permanent residents) and other individuals lawfully authorized to work in the U.S. (however it does not include you (the immigrant), or your spouse, sons or daughters).
4) Be involved in the day-to-day management of the new business or directly manage it through formulating business policy – for example as a Limited Partner, corporate officer or board member.
We see in this comparison that despite the E1 Treaty Trader and EB5 immigrant investor visa are very different in nature and offer disparate paths to a green card visa. While the E1 allows a national of a treaty country to come to the United States for the purposes of conducting international trade on their own behalf, the EB5 visa relies on an immigrant's investment to create new full-time jobs for the American workforce.
About the Author
This article was written by Terry Martin. He recommends you visit http://Eb5Central.com for more information on the eb5 investor visa, also known as the immigrant investor visa.
F-1 Student Visa and Employment. Legal Permenant Status
What can you do after grad school?
I plan on going to either business school for my MBA or Law school after getting my bachelor's degree in economics/finance with a minor in political science/government. Which school will provide me with a better job outlook in terms of employment and salaries? Also what good jobs are available because I am going to need to pay back a lot of college loans, so I want to make sure i have a good paying job. I would like to work in law, government, finance, or any economical related job. Please help me out.
Business school will give you more options than law school. Unless you are 100% that you want to be a lawyer...Reality today is that it will not be easy for you to find a high-paying job coming out of an MBA program if you do not have any WORK EXPERIENCE. I would rather hire someone with a BA/BS and 2-3 years of related work experience than someone with an MBA and no experience. Consider finding a job at a company with tuition reimbursement and getting some experience while you work on the MBA. Alternatively if that is not possible, make sure you intern or get some related experience while you study.
Attorney New York - David A.Bythewood Law Office-presentation
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Satyam: All is well that ends well
In Q2, our revenue grew… on the back of a 4-per cent volume growth and rupee depreciation against the US dollar… We believe these factors will also enhance annual margin performance… I would like to emphasise that Satyam is leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to create a sound foundation for our future.
Note to investors from B. Ramalinga Raju, Founder & Chairman, Satyam Computer Services, when declaring the company’s results for the quarter ended September 2008
The balance sheet carries as of September 30, 2008 inflated (non-existent) cash and bank balances… The gap in the balance sheet has arisen purely on account of inflated profits over a period of last several years (limited only to Satyam stand-alone…)
Note from B. Ramalinga Raju to the Board of Directors of Satyam dated January 7, 2009
Byrraju Ramalinga Raju (born September 16, 1954) is the founder of Satyam Computers and was its Chairman until January 7, 2009 when he resigned from the Satyam board after admitting to corporate fraud.
For a man who ran India's fourth biggest software exporter, Mr Ramalinga Raju was not a showy person.His bungalow in Hyderabad city's upscale Banjara Hills is an understated two-storey structure, with parking for no more than three or four cars.
Friends who have dealt with the 54-year-old chairman of Satyam Computer Services, say it is difficult to know what he is thinking behind a calm exterior. He goes for morning walks, but seldom appears at the swinging parties of Hyderabad's elite.Behind his back, they sometimes refer to him as 'the man with the Mona Lisa smile'.
Mr Raju, a native of Andhra Pradesh state in southern India, had a comfortable head start: He studied abroad, obtaining a business management degree from Ohio State University.
On his return, he began his career with forays into construction. Satyam, , was set up in 1987 with 20 employees as Raju spotted the opportunity in outsourced code-writing. He was on the board of Naandi, a non-governmental organisation based in Hyderabad which does stellar work in providing clean drinking water in rural areas and supplying mid-day meals to more than a million schoolchildren across India. He also runs the Byrraju Foundation, named after his father, and an emergency ambulance service that has won global acclaim.
About Satyam Cmputer Services Ltd
"The truth is as old as the hills" opined Mahatma Gandhi, So a company named "Satyam" (Truth, in Sanskrit) inspired trust, Satyam Computer Services Ltd was founded in 1987 by B Ramalinga Raju. The company offers Information Technology (IT) services spanning various sectors, and is listed on the New York Stock Exhcnage and Euronext.
Satyam's network covers 67 countries across six continents. The company employs 40000 IT professionals across development centers in India, the United States, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Hungary, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan, Egypt and Australia It serves over 654 global companies, 185 of which are Fortune 500 corporations. Satyam has strategic technology and marketing alliances with over 50 companies. Apart from Hyderabad, it has development centers in India at Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Delhi, Kolkatta, Bhubneshwar, and Vishakhapatnam
Chronology of Satyam
Sr.No.
Year
Event
1
1987
Ramalinga Raju establishes Satyam Computer Services Ltd.
2
1991
Satyam gets listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, IPO oversubscribed 17 times.
3
2006
Revenues cross '$1 billion.' Raju becomes Nasscom Chairman.
4
2007
Raju named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
5
2008
September 23
Satyam awarded with Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Governance and Compliance.
December 16
Satyam Chairman Ramalinga Raju announces plan to buy Maytas Infra and Maytas Properties owned by his sons for $1.6 billion.
December 17
Raju does a U-turn because of negative investor reaction
December 23
Satyam barred from business with the World Bank for 8 years for alleged malpractices in securing contracts. Shares fall to lowest in 4 years.
December 25
Satyam asks World Bank to apologize
December 26
Board member Mangalam Srinivasan resigns followed by exits of members Vinod Dham, Krishna Palepu..
December 30
One of Satyam's largest investors says it could sell its stake.More suitors join in the fray to acquire Satyam.
6
2009
January 2
Satyam says its founder's stake fell by a third to 5.13%.
January 6
Satyam's i-bank DSPML meets Sebi, informs about accounting irregularitites
January 7
Ramalinga Raju resigns, discloses a Rs 7000-crore accounting fraud in balance sheets about cash which never existed in the company.
January 8
Satyam's bank Citibank freezes its 30 accounts. Interim CEO Ram Mynampati says company in severe cash crunch and may not be able to pay salaries. Satyam's auditor PwC faces ire.
January 9
Ramalinga Raju and his younger brother B Rama Raju arrested by Police. Central Govt disbands Satyam board, to appoint its own 10 directors.
January 10
Satyam's largest investor Lazard seeks a nomination board. SEBI grills Raju.
January 11
New Satyam Board announced, Mr. Deepak Parekh, Kiran Karnik and C Achuthan appointed as board members
Feburary 5
A S Murthy appointed as new CEO
April 16
Company Law Board approved stake sale to Tech Mahindra
The Satyam Scandal – Explained
Satyam, which ironically means 'truth' in Sanskrit, was set up in 1987 with 20 employees as Raju spotted the opportunity in outsourced code-writing. Within no time, business was booming. Andhra Pradesh, of which Hyderabad is the capital, has one of the largest pools of skilled manpower in India. Satyam would prove a doughty competitor to its rivals, pricing its services so aggressively that some thought it was prepared to go with minimum profits in order to gain customers. And it expanded aggressively overseas. When he opened his Sydney office a few years ago, he occupied premises vacated by a top global IT firm. In China, provincial leaders vied to invite Satyam to set up operations in their areas. But once Mr Raju sold shares to the Indian public in 1992 and later, went for a New York listing in 2001, pressure grew on him to improve the company's performance. Ever competitive, he was also in a rush to catch the market leaders, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies and Wipro. Raju was obsessed with getting past the billion-dollar sales mark. When he got there, he wanted to post US$2 billion. Satyam posted US$2.1 billion (S$3.1 billion) sales in the year to March 31, 2008.With the ever-rising pressure to perform, Satyam began doctoring the books to show bigger profits, a process that began several years back.
For Satyam, the recent developments are a direct leftover of the past. In fact, the story is about a decade old. In late 1999, IndiaWorld — a largely unknown internet firm — was acquired by Satyam group company, Satyam Infoway, for an eye-popping Rs 500 crore. The consternation that accompanied this deal was not hard to comprehend. IndiaWorld had a topline of just Rs 1 crore and a net profit of an insignificant Rs 25 lakh. At Rs 500 crore, Satyam Infoway, later renamed Sify, was paying this astronomical sum not just for IndiaWorld but for a number of sites that came with it — among them were samachar.com, khel.com and khoj.com. The argument dished out was based on the potential of the internet business and the logic of eyeballs was driving this valuation story. One was not sure about the source of funds and how much money went back to Ramalinga Raju.
A few months later in 2000, shareholders of Satyam were an irate lot. At the annual general meeting (AGM) of the company in Hyderabad in May 2000, shareholders accused Satyam of withholding facts and claimed they were defrauded. This was after the merger of three subsidiaries — Satyam Enterprise Solutions (SESL), Satyam Renaissance Consulting and Satyam Spark Solutions — with Satyam Computer Services. Post merger, 8 lakh shares of Satyam Computers were allotted to C Srinivasa Raju, who was then Satyam Computers’ executive director.
Shareholders contended that SESL had made a rights issue of 12 lakh shares at par just before this merger. A third of this was bought by Satyam Computer while the remaining 8 lakh shares went Srinivasa Raju’s way after they were renounced. Once shareholders of SESL were given shares in Satyam Computers in a 1:1 proportion, Mr Raju got 8 lakh shares at just Rs 10 each, when the shares were trading at a whopping Rs 1,600. The management of Satyam Computers, however, maintained that things were above board, though shareholders thought otherwise.
The seeds of accounting manipulation in Satyam were sown several quarters before Ramalinga Raju’s communiqué to the board on Wednesday, 7th Jan-09. In 2002, the department of company affairs (DCA) was in receipt of a slew of complaints from Satyam’s shareholders that there were accounting irregularities in the company.
Here, it was stated that Satyam’s directors invested unwisely in subsidiaries that were underperformers. This merely facilitated the process of tax evasion and employing methods such as writing off large amounts on depreciation.
At first blush, Raju’s statement to the board in which he confesses to inflating profits appears a act of contrition by a man who was willing to stand up and face the music for his transgressions. If Raju was dressing up the bottom line, it was only to boost the company’s valuation and ensure that it stayed in the big league of IT services. A higher valuation also enabled Raju to borrow more money against his shareholding.
But Where did the money go?
Raju claims that Satyam inflated profits for many years...
but if this Rs 7,000-odd crore did not exist…
...but if the money did exist...
If Satyam was fudging profits, where were the funds for all-cash acquisitions coming from?
Sr.No
Year
Acquired Firm
Profession
Funding
(Amount in $)
1
Apr-05
UK based Citisoft PLC
Business Consulting Firm
38Mn (Paid in tranches)
2
July-05
Singapore based Knowledge Dynamcis
Consulting Solution Provider
3.3 Mn (All cash deal)
3
Oct-07
UK based Nikor Global Solutions
Infrastructure based management services and consultancy group
5.5 Mn (All cash deal)
4
Jan-08
Chicago based Bridge Stratergy Group
Management consulting firm
35.00 Mn (All cash deal)
5
Apr-08
Caterpiller Inc
Market research and customer analytics operations
95.5 Mn for both deals (all cash purchase)
S& V Management Consultants
Supply chain management frim
The Downfall of Raju
The downfall of Raju, began in Dec 08 when Satyam attempted to acquire two companies controlled by his sons - Maytas (Satyam spelled backwards) Properties and Maytas Infra - for 1.6 billion dollars in order to compensate for the holes in his books of account. The deal was abandoned 12 hours after it was announced when investors objected, claiming it was an irresponsible misuse of funds and an instance of nepotism. The Maytas deals acted as a red flag for international investors, with a host of companies like Unpaid Systems of Britain accusing Satyam of fraud, forgery and breach of contract.
Shortly thereafter, on Dec. 23, the World Bank barred Satyam from offering its computer services for eight years citing a potential trail of corruption - data theft and bribery - that led to Raju.
The last straw perhaps came on Jan 09 when an Indian associate of Merrill Lynch terminated an agreement on grounds of "material accounting irregularities".
The Role of Auditors
There is intense debate about the role of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the external auditors of the company in clearing the accounts of Satyam. Auditors are supposed to have checked, verified cash balances, bank statements, assets with relevant confirmations. Satyam was a large company, not a street store; PricewaterhouseCoopers is a globally reputed firm. The auditors cannot hide under the standard clause ‘auditors can be watchdogs and not blood-hounds’ especially when cash and bank balances have been overstated.
Role of Directors
The Companies Act in India has stringent corporate governance requirements of board members. Yet Raju was able to steer the fabricated accounts through his board members for 6-years! This has bewildered the corporate sector and regulators. At times, the company was holding excessive cash, as per the books. This should have invited questions by board members.
In particular, Independent Directors, who are appointed by shareholders at the behest of the board, are selected on the basis of their reputation, knowledge, and wisdom. They are the first defense of minority shareholders. Generally they bring specialized expertise. Independent directors have to meet standards set by stock exchanges too. The Indian Government specifically delineates the role of independent directors in safeguarding the interests of the organization and the shareholders.
An independent director would normally assume that audited accounts have been rigorously examined. This is more so when an internationally credible firm- like Pricewaterhouse Coopers- has audited the numbers. But, they need to still ask the right questions and probe. Sitting on numerous boards compresses the time an independent director has to reflect on what is happening inside the belly of a company.
Raju has claimed that no one else in the company was privy to the fudging of accounts. But the facts speak something else. BSE figures show a number of senior people in the company, including Raju and CFO Vadlamani were reportedly selling Satyam's shares over the last 22 quarters.
Sr.No.
Name of the Officail
Year
Stake in the Satyam/ No. of shares sold
1
Ramanlinga Raju
June-2001
23.0%
Dec-2001
22.4%
Sep-2002
21.6%
2003
19.0%
2004
16.0%
2005
14.0%
2006
11.0%
2008
8.27%
2
Vadlamani (Then CFO)
92538 shares
3
Ram Mayanpari (Then CEO)
7,00,000 shares and 2,50,000 ADR’s
4
Kiran Cavale
4,00,000 shares and 10, 000 ADR’s
5
Rajan Nagarajan
4,30,000 shares and 70,000 ADR’s
Satyam Fraud Investgated
As soon as Ramalinga Raju confessed about the fraud, all the government deparments started investigating about the fraud. The deparments include CBI, SFIO, SEBI, ICAI and RBI.
CBI reveals modus operandi of Satyam fraud
Using cyber forensic techniques, the CBI has deciphered the modus operandi of the Satyam fraud. Following are the findings of CBI for some areas:
Sr. No.
Area
Remarks
1
Sales Data
IT company generated false invoices to show inflated sales. 7561 invoices were found to be hidden in the Invoice Management System. These invoices were worth Rs.5,117 crore. The accused already entered 6,603 of these, amounting to Rs. 4,746 crore.
2
Receivables
The fraud invoices resulted in creation of inflated receivables
3
Fixed Deposits
Investments shown as fixed deposit receipts (FDRs) worth crores of rupees were fake and printed from his personal device. The fake FDRs showed huge amounts, as the interest on these deposits was projected to be over Rs 375 crore, as against the actual interest income of Rs 7.42 lakh only.
4
Bank Guarantee
Manipulated the Bank Guarantees to show balance in bank accouts as Rs. 1800 crore
5
Balance in bank accounts
Forged the bank documents showing the existence of the cash balance in five banks including ICICI Bank, HSBC, Citibank and BNP Paribas but the banks clarified that they do not have any cash balance in the name of the firm.
6
Who all were involved
CBI Chargesheet names Ramalinga Raju, Rama Raju, Suryanarayana Raju, V. Srinivas, S. Gopalakrishnan, T. Srinivas, G. Ramakrishna, D. Venkatapathi Raju, and C. Srisailam.
The revelations by Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO)
The government, on January 13, had initiated an SFIO probe into various corporate aspects of the fraud under Section 235 of the Companies Act. The SFIO is a multi-disciplinary body set up in 2003 to investigate serious financial frauds. It consists of tax professionals, auditors, fraud examiners, capital market experts and banking professionals. Following are the revelations of the SFIO Commitee
Sr. No.
Area
Remarks
1
Main areas of inflation
inflation has happened mainly on six accounts, One is by falsifying cash and bank balances, by showing fictitious FDs, by showing fictitious interest being accrued on those FDs, by showing understated liabilities and also by showing overstating debtors.
2
Exports
Inflated to the tune of over Rs. 4500 crores over the last 7 years
3
Currency Remittance
Amount of Rs. 1940 crore is still unremitted
4
Books
Books inflated to the tune of Rs. 27167 crore
5
How long has this
been going on
Fy 01 to Sep 08
6
Reason for fraud
Very weak invoice management system and weak accounting practices
7
Accounting Sofware
Loopholes in accounting software and left passwords unsecured to facilitate fraud. software system for managing company’s financial accounting functions was deliberately made very complex for inflating profits
8
Invoice Management System
Weak password protection making the system vulnerable to misuse. Therefore, fake invoices could be created by unauthorised users. In order to Balance the collections against these fictitious invoices, they were first shown as receipts in the current account maintained with the Bank of Baroda, New York Branch and subsequently they were shown to be transferred to other bank accounts as fixed deposits. There were no validation checks for a number of invoices. The SFIO report points towards a serious control deficiency in the system that facilitated entering of unauthorised transactions, making unauthorised payments and non-detection of unauthorised activities.
9
Fixed deposits
The promoters were regularly generating fake quarterly balance confirmation letters showing the amounts of fixed deposits and the interest accrued on them. These forged current account balance statements and confirmation letters were fed into Satyam’s accounting software Oracle Financials for the quarterly audits of the company.
10
Current Accounts
three other bank accounts in India, Citi Bank, HDFC Bank and HSBC were also used for this purpose of falsification of current account balances.
SFIO in its report on the Satyam fraud case said that the IT company's claims of depositing funds raised through American Depository Shares in 2001 in banks could not be verified. Satyam in 2001 through a public issue in the US raised Rs 760 crore and claimed it deposited the amount in Citibank, New York. Though the company claimed that it transferred Rs 397 crore to India, the SFIO report said, it was wrongly mentioned to have been transferred to India and the actual utilisation of this amount could not be traced as all the amounts were transferred from this account to some unknown accounts through Citibank, Bahrain.
Tech Mahindra pipped Larsen & Toubro and the Wilbur Ross group to claim the fraud-hit Satyam Computer. According to early reports on Monday, Tech Mahindra is paying Rs 1757 crore for a 31% stake in the company, or Rs 58 per share. Satyam Computer Services has now zoomed 15% to Rs 54.20 ahead of the announcement of the highest bidder for the company on April 13, 2009.
Conclusion
The Satyam Saga cannot be concluded in just few pages. The truth is still to be revealed. The only truth which we know now is that nearly $2 billion of wealth that belonged to 3 lakh shareholders eroded in a week; the jobs of 53,000 were on the line; the shareholders’ net worth drops from a positive Rs 8,529 crore to a negative Rs 278 crore only because of greed of few people.
But one thing is very true had it not been for a fraud, the way things were manipulated for over seven years in IT major Satyam Computers could be a “work of art”, If it were not for a dishonest purpose, the planning and execution to the minutest detail is truly admirable.
But we still wonder What was Raju thinking; since when—and why—was he thinking this way; and how did he do it?
About the Author
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EXISTENTIALISM IN EDUCATION.
INTRODUCTION :
A keen study of quite an amount of existentialist philosophy would reveal that to write about existentialism is neither easy nor simple but a challenging and complex one. If doubts and confusions are left uncleared, one can only say that “contradictions and inconsistencies are fundamental to their thought.”1
Some illustrations of such paradoxes are - Heidegger’s statement -: ‘analyse death to understand life’, Jaspers : ‘Renounce your world and you will return to it’, Santre : You are a free man if you deny God’, Kierkegaard : ‘You are a free man if you accept God”, etc. When once a critique drew the attention of Sartre by his remark. ‘Your philosophy is problematic and ambiguous’, Sartre’s reply was ‘Man does seem to me to be ambiguous.’2
Not only their thought, even their language is obscure. Here is an example of existentialist dialectical confusion : ‘Nothing’ is revealed in dread, but not as something that ‘is’. Neighter can it be taken as an object. Dread is not an apprehension of Nothing. We would say rather : in dread Nothing functions as if at one with WHAT-IS-IN-TOTALITY?3
“Another very significant source of confusion arises out of the different personal lives and convictions of existential philosophers. Kierkegaard, Marcel and Jaspers are theists whereas Sartre and Heideggar are agnostics. Jaspers is a protestant whereas Marcel is a staunch Roman Catholic. Less said the better about the diversities of other existentialist philosophers like Berdyaev, Buber, Tillich and Neibhur.”
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW -:
Just as the whole of Indian philosophy is either an extension, interpretation, criticism and corroboration of the Vedas and in it the Upanishads or an outright revolt against them, similarly it may be remarked of western philosophy as either a clarification of Socrates or his rejection. One would be still right in saying that the whole of western philosophy is an appendix on Socrates. So it is even true with existentialism that Socrates has been considered to be the first existentialist. Socrates statement : “I am and always have been a man to obey nothing in my nature except the resoning which upon reflection, appears to me to be the best.” Right from Plato down to (Spinoza, Leibnitz) Descartes, the majority of western thinkers have been believing in the immutability of ideas and the rest of the thinkers have been suggesting correctives to it. Anyhow their frame of reference has always been ‘Essence Precedes Existence’, essense being referred to ideas, values, ideals, thoughts, etc. and existence being referred to our lives. The last in the series was Hegal who carried farthest this effort to understand the world rationally.
But by the middle of the 19th Century there sprang up a Danish philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) who not only rejected the platonic view but reversed the order itself. Kierkegaard who may considered to be the founder of the philosophy of existence contradicted Hegal and asserted that Existence Precedes Essence.6 It is against any kind of rationalisations, universalities and generalities in philosophy. There is the extreme subjectivism in it. His major work ‘Either/or/to be or not to be.
Atleast for the western world, the first half of the twentieth century has been an age marked by anxieties, conflicts, sufferings, tragic episodes, dread, horrow, anguish, persecusion and human sacrifices caused by the two intermittent world wars. As Harper writes : “Tragedy, death, guilt, suffering all force one to appraise one’s total situation, much more than do happiness, joy, success, innocence, since it is in the former that momentous choices must be made.”7 So, there sprang up a group of philosophers spread all over Germany, France and Italy which were the places of social crisis.
Significant among these philosophers were Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegaar from Germany. France contributed two other existentialists -: Gabriel Marcel and Jean Paul Sartre. ‘There are quite a few gentlemen who are associated remotely with the philosophy of existentialism like Schelling, Nietsche, Pascal, Hussrell who have influenced existential thought but cannot be rigidly classified as existentialists.”8 Existentialism thus has a short history of nearly two centuries.
MEANING OF EXISTENTIALISM -:
There are numerous ways to analyse the currents of existential thinking. As a system of philosophy or a school of thought, existentialism is a revole against traditional metaphysics. As a theory of human development, it is an approach to highlight the existence of being the process of becoming. Since a person, in the becoming state, always exists in a constantly dynamic phase, “his life may be regarded as a journey on which he finds ever newer experiences and gains greater insights.”
Existentialism represents a protest against the rationalism of traditional philosophy, against misleading notions of the bourgeois culture, and the dehumanising values of industrial civilization. Since alienation, loneliness and self-strangement constitute threats to human personality in the modern world, existential thought has viewed as its cardinal concerns a quest for subjective truth, a reaction against the ‘negation of Being’ and a perennial search for freedom. From the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates, to the Twentieth Century. French philosopher, Jean Paul, Sartre, thinkers have dealt with this tragic sense of ontological reality - the human situation within a comic context.
ETYMOLOGICAL MEANING -:
Etymological meaning of ‘existence’ from two German words -: ‘ex-sistent’ meaning that which stands out, that which ‘emerges’ suggests that existentialism is a philosophy that emerges out of problems of life.
EXISTENTIALISM DEFINED -:
Various definitions of existentialism have been proposed by different authors.
Blackham (1952) has described existenalism as a philosophy of being “a philosophy of attestation and acceptance, and a refusal of the attempt to rationalize and to think Being.”
The peculiarity of existentialism, according to Blackham is that, “it deals with the separation of man from himself and from the world, which raises the question of philosophy not by attempting to establish some universal form of justification which will enable man to readjust himself but by permanently enlarging and lining the separation itself as primordial and constitutive for personal existence.”12
Harries and Leveys (1975) defined existentialism as “any of several philosophic systems, all centred on the individual and his relationship the universe or to God.” 13
Tiryakian (1962) defines it as “an attempt to reaffirm the importance of the individual by rigorous and in many respects radically new analysis of the nature of man.”14
In the opinion presented here, existentialism is a humanistic perspective on the individual situation, a philosophy of existence, of being, of authenticity and of universal freedom. It is a quest, beyond despaire, for creative identity. It is the philosophy that is a counsellor in crisis, “a crisis in the individual’s life, which calls upon him to make a ‘choice’ regarding his subsequent existence.”15
In brief, Existence does not mean living alive alone, it means to maintain perfect, powerful, self-conscious, responsible and intelligent life. Man should get opportunity for subjective consciousness. Truth is realised only in inner life. As modern mechanical and industrial life has taken away individual freedom from man, Existentialism lays emphasis on Freedom and Individual Responsibility. It has an Eye-view on human weakness and insecurity as man is leading a lonely life, being surrounded by anxieties, frustrations, fear, feeling of guilt etc. His individuality is being crushed.
BASIC TENETS AND FUNDAMENTAL POSTULATES -:
1) The centre of existence is man rather than truth, laws, principles or essence.
Man is characterized by decisions, will and choice. Although existentialists emphasize man’s place in the world, or man’s relationship to Being, or even man’s relationship to God, they still indicate that there is a certain uniqueness and mystery about the human person. The phenomenon of man is life as it is lived, and the mystery is an awareness of man’s deep and complex meaning, science and rational thinking cannot grasp or explain it.
2) This notion of the uniqueness and mystery man implies that previous definitions of man have been completely unsatisfactory.
The uniqueness of man comes from his emotions, feelings, perception and thinking. The philosophy of existentialism stresses meaning, only through development of meaning in his life, man can make something of the absurdity which surrounds him. Man is the maker, and, therefore, the master of culture. It is man who imposes a meaning on his universe, although that universe may well function without him. Man cannot be ‘taught’ what the world is about. He must create this for himself.
3) Man is not alone in the world.
He is connected to other men; he communicates with others; therefore, he cannot live in a state of anarchy. Life is seen as a gift, which, in part is a mystery. Man is free to choose commitments in life, in his choice, he becomes himself. He is the product of his choices. He is, therefore, an individual who is different from other persons. The real living person is more important than any statement we can make about him. Man’s existence is more important than his essence.
4) Existentialism propounds the belief that man cannot accept the ready-made concepts of existence forced upon him.
He is a free agent capable of shaping of shaping his own life and choosing his own destiny. Thus we cannot treat people as machines, first pulling one lever, than another, and expect predictable results. Therefore, we cannot say that the stimulus response or conditioning is a sufficient description of man’s behaviour. Man can transcend both himself and his culture.
5) A synthesis of immanency and transcendency, guided by a primordial sense of ontological wonder and subjective knowledge constitutes existence.
6) People are able to appreciate human fortitude only through extreme situations, sorrow, disappointment and death enable humans to achieve authentic life. In short the main tenets of existentialism involve a kind of subjective and direct approach upholding the emergence of the person in a rather impersonal environment.
SOME CONCEPTS USED IN EXISTENTIALISM -:
1) Existence precedes essence
It was Plato who said that the surrounding world is a world of essences - ideas, values, ideals, thought etc. and the purpose of life is to discover these essences. Essences are already there and they precede existence. Even existence is an embodiment of an essence - the self, which is a part of an universal essence - the self. The majority of other Western philosopher carried forward this theory.
Descartes even affirmed the reality of existence because of its essence - thinking as he said, “I think, therefore, I am”. Bergson even went to the extreme of saying that ‘I do not think it (essence) thinks in me’,16 thereby striking a transcendental, desperately deterministic note on human existence.
Similarly naturalist philosophers rejected this type of a transcendental determinism but replaced it by a naturalistic determinism by identifying essences in nature as preceding existence. On the other hand pragmatists spoke of social determinism. As such, exstentialism is a revolt against any kind of determinism and an affirmation of the free nature of man. They affirm that existence is prior to essence that man is fundamentally free to create his essences.
As Blackham writes, “There is no creater of man. Man discovered himself. His existence came first, he now is in the process of determining his essence. Man first is, then he defines himself.”17
As Sartre himself explains his concept to us, “what is meant here by saying that, ‘existence precedes essence?’ “It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene, and only afterwards defines himself. It mean, as the existentialist sees him is indefinable, it is because at first he is nothing. Only afterwards will be something and he himself will have made what he will be…”18
Therefore, it can be easily observed that when idealists believe in transcendental values, Naturalists believe that values are resident in nature, pragmatists believe that values arise out of social life, existentialists affirm that the individual alone creates values. Reality is a state of becoming. Existence increases with every moment of life and essence is a consequence of this perpetual becoming.
2) ‘Contingency’ of human life is the ‘giveness’ or ‘throw ness’ of human life.
Existentialists believe that existence of a person means his period from birth to death. There was nothing before birth and would be nothing beyond death. In between we have been thrown into a social life and the characteristics of this social life are the contingent circumstances of our life. ‘This contingency is often characterised by experiences of dread, horror, anguish, solitude, bewilderment, uncertainty and finally limited by death.’19
As Jean Wahl puts it : “Man is in this world, a world limited by death and experienced in anguish; is aware of himself as essentially anxious; is burdened by his solitude within the horizen of his temporality.”20
Therefore, we are all aware of our situation in life, limited by death and existentialists rightly remark that man is the only being in the world who knows that some time he will die. That is why his existence is throughout permeated by dread, anxiety and fear. He cannot escape or transcend this situations. He must learn to live with anguish, dread and anxiety. He must learn to love death (Justices Socrates, Lincoln, Kennedy, Gandhi and a score of other great men for whom dying for a meaningful cause was of greater significance than living a purposeless life.)
INDIAN PHILOSOPHY AND EXISTENTIAL CONCEPT -:
There are a number of correlates in Indian philosophy for existential concepts for e.g., anguish, Dukha, dread and horror; Bhagya, Bhiti etc.
But when existentialism advises us to live with these categories of contingency, Indian philosophy counsels us to transcend them. This is very clearly evident in the concepts of a sthithaprajna21 in the Gita. One sloke runs like this -
¤ãü:?Öê¿Öã ´ÖÖ×¾¤ü?Ö: ÃÖã?Öê¿Öã ײÖ?ÖÖïÖéÆü
¾ÖߟָüÖ?Ö ³ÖµÖ: ?ëúÖê¬Ö ×ã֟Ö׬Ö: ´Öã×Ö¹ý“”ûŸÖê 22
(He who is not depressed by anguish, elated by joy and at times of fear, anxiety love, horror and anger maintains his equanimity and poise as a sage). 23
Even the India attitude towards death is similar to that of existentialism. As an illustration, to quota Gita -: (For a man enjoying popular esteem infancy is worse than death) ‘Gandhi once had said that death in freedom is sweeter than life in bondage.’25
3) Freedom is identical with existence -:
According to Sartre freedom is identical with existence. As such existentialism has even been described as a search for ways in which man’s freedom to create may be widely established and understood. In Marjorie Grene’s terms -: “The revolutio