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Globalization; Challenges to the Equalization of Opportunities to the Disability Movement
INTRODUCTION
Human communities worldwide have tended to move gradually to develop closer associations over a long time. However, lately the speed of the movement appears to have considerably accelerated. For instance, the invention of the jet planes, the computer chip, and availability of electronic mail (email), cheap telecommunication services, huge but fast sea vessels, instantaneous financial transactions across national borders, all seem to contribute to the movement to make the globe even more mutually dependent than ever. The production and provision of branded goods and services by transnational corporations (TNCs) such as Coca- Cola, Colgate-Palmolive, Dulux Paints, Barclays Bank Gestetner, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chickens, Nandos, Dunlop, and Ford to name a few, marketed throughout the world, all seem to contribute to make the globe a more symbiotic place. The exchange of information and communication technological knowledge along with products and finances, ideas and cultures now seem to circulate more liberally. And this seems to be the current and future trend.
Globalization undoubtedly, appears to be one of the most prominent aspects of the present century. Consequently, laws, economies, and social engagements seem to now form at the global level. Professionals, politicians, intellectuals and journalists seem to treat the global trends as both predictable and generally welcome. And for some of the world's population, globalization has increasingly become a catchphrase or buzzword and may mean getting rid of the old ways of life and hostile livelihoods and cultures (Guinness, 2003).
However, signs of globalization of the past few decades are recent compared to at least four other major phases that appear to have shrunk the world throughout history. Historically, globalization can be viewed as having been signaled by;
The cross-oceanic European voyages of discovery from 1492 to about 1565 (Guinness, 2003).
The forced migration and translocation of Africans and Indians into slavery and indentured labour to the plantations in the West Indies.
The massive human migration of the 1930 from Europe and Asia to the Americas (Ingstad and Whyte, 1995).
The economic depression of the 1930s (Stiglitz, 2002).
While each of these earlier episodes of globalization saw rapid growth in world economy, Guinness (2003), contends that they tended to exert a heavy human toll especially on the less economically developed nation states. In addressing the challenges and opportunities of globalization, there currently appears to be increasing global concerns with both the positive and negative impacts of this phenomenon on the local, national and international levels of developments in all spheres be they social, political, or economic (Priestley, 2001). Of concern in this essay, is the area of disability and how globalization has impacted on the challenges or opportunities for disabled people.
lthough Lauder, Brown, Dillabough and Halsey (2006) note that most researchers on globalization have tended to focus on particular aspects, globalization, however, appears to be multi-dimensional (Waters, 1995; Cheng, 2004). Hence, perceptions on the phenomenon tend to be varied and accordingly, the definitions of the term so far postulated, appear "fuzzy". And indeed Lauder et al (2006) observe that there is no agreed definition as yet because it appears globalization represents a process that is never ending and cannot be thought of as either cyclic or evolutionarily progressing from simple to complex.
Indeed, with a new crop of writers such as Brown and Lauder (1996), Schirato and Webb (2003), Stiglitz (2002), Burbules and Torres (2000) and Bottery (2004), to mention a few, it appears a plethora of concepts which include, technological globalization, economic globalization and learning globalization, environmental globalization, demographic globalization, American globalization, (Nye, 2002) cultural globalization political globalization (Bottery, 2004) emerged, advancing new insights into the meaning of globalization. The list of the kinds of "globalization" appears endless and is on-going, as debate on the phenomenon continues to forge ahead. But according to Bottery (2004), some kinds of globalization are more pressing in their immediate effects than others. This paper examines and defines globalization from a general perspective and also explores how the globalization process has "pressed" on the creation of challenges and, or opportunities for disabled people worldwide. Other terms such as "disability" that are embedded within the globalization context will be defined as the discussion unfolds.
What is globalization?
While the terms "globe" and "global" appear to have been in English usage for over four centuries, the noun form "globalization" did not seem to be in common use until about 1960 (Guinness, 2003). According to Weekley (1967), in "An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English", the term "globalization" was first recognized in 1959 but remained dormant until the mid-1980s when its usage increased dramatically in academic language (Guinness, 2003). To some authors, the term seems to refer to the emergence of transnational organizations whose decisions tend to shape and constrain the policy options any particular nation state may wish to take (Burbules and Torres, 2000). To yet others, globalization may mean the "transition from national ‘walled' and regional economies towards global ‘free' trade and markets" (Lauder,et. al. 2006; 30). It may also, to yet others mean the impact of global economic processes that include production of standardized goods and services, consumption patterns and financial interdependence and "footloose" capital flows (Brown and Lauder, 1996). To still others, globalization means the appearance of new global cultural forms, media, information and communication technologies, which seem unrestricted by national borders (Held, 1991). It is perhaps, to political skeptics, where globalization can be viewed as a mental construct utilized by the state polity to garner support for or to squash opposition to reform resulting from mightier forces such as global trade competitions instigated by the World Trade Organization (WTO): or responses to structural adjustment programme (SAPs) demands of the Bretton Woods Institutes-the World Bank and International Monetary Fund) (Brown, 1999): or to obligations to fulfill agreements of intergovernmental organizations or regional economic blocs (Held, 1991) such as the European Union, The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Committee (SADC), or the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), that leave the nation state with no option but to play along an imposed set of global rules (Burbules and Torres, 2000).Guinness (2003; 3) posits that the nature of certain jobs tends to influence views when thinking of globalization. For instance, to Kofi Annan (the former United Nations Secretary General) globalization may mean "world inclusivity"; to depots and other like minded dictators, globalization may be perceived as meaning a threat to the national sovereignty of their nation states. While to Bill Gates of Microsoft Corporation, globalization may mean connecting the world virtually in cyberspace, by a world wide web. Thus, myriad views on globalization surfaced as the concept ignited across a wide range of intellectual interests with some views on the one end vilifying the concept and on the other, praising it (Stiglitz, 2002).
The use and popularity of the term "globalization" may be partly due to its vagueness and ability to assume different dimensions depending on the user and context. Held and Koenig–Archibugi (2003) and Schirato and Webb (2000; 1) concur and describe globalization as a word that is often used to designate the global power relations, practices and technologies that characterize, and help to bring into being the contemporary world. Robertson (1992) defines globalization as a concept that refers both to the compression of the world and the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole. Waters (2001), in coining his definition argues that the most appropriate way of defining globalization would be to predict what a totally globalized world would appear to be like in the future. Waters (2001) therefore, visualizes globalization as being characterized by a single global society with a single culture, where there are no territorial boundaries which, in that status quo, seem to exist in principle for organizing social and cultural life and where there could be high regard for tolerance, diversity and individual choice. Waters (2001) also views the flow of trade as well as migration of people and ideas across national and political boundaries, as being interlinked and thus, forcing previously homogenous cultures to rationalize each other. Thus, globalization can be perceived s a process that simultaneously differentiates and homogenizes and consequently "pluralizing the world by recognizing the value of cultural niches" (Guinness, 2003; 2). From this vantage therefore, Waters (2001) defines globalization as;
A process in which the constraints of geography on economic, social and cultural arrangements recede, in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding and in which people act accordingly.
To an extent, Waters' definition of globalization seems to concur with Stiglitz's (2002; 9) description when he says globalization is fundamentally,
The closer integration of countries and peoples of the world which has been brought about the enormous reduction of costs of transportation and communication, and the breaking down of artificial barriers to the flow of goods, services, capital , knowledge and …people across borders.
To Waters (2001), globalization, not only is it a major historical process that impacts heavily on culture but is also, a central focus of attention of modern culture and economy. He contends that globalization has a tendency to take issues from the centre levels to the periphery. For instance, through the speedy and continuous transmission of the "so-called" western culture to peripheral communities, And vice versa, globalization has also tended to bring issues, from peripheral levels to the centre. For instance, the area of disability to be discussed below, has been taken seriously onto the agendas of supra national institutions such as the United Nations, International Labour Organization The Bretton Woods Institutes and the World Health Organization or to organizations that have merged with existing ones to function across borders. In this sense, it appears to me that the United Nations' programme of work on globalization is in response to the changing international context to promote effective development oriented disability policies and strategies. Accordingly, the aim of the United Nations through various arms such as the World Bank, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization, to name a few, is to ensure that disability policies and strategies and globalization function together to improve the health, welfare and rights of the poor as well as the disadvantaged population (World Health Organization, 2005).
Disability as a global concept: Historical background and definition of disability.
Disability is one socio-cultural issue that appeared to have remained in the periphery but has currently been brought to the centre of most global agenda. It is a term sometimes confused with two other terms "impairment and handicap. The terms "disability" "impairment" and "handicap" were often used interchangeably but in an unclear and confusing way, and may have tended to give poor guidance to policy-makers, for political action as well as for practical use. The terms used to be perceived from a medical and diagnostic angle (Shakespear, 2006).
What is a Disability?
Disability is a phenomenon that exists in all societies and tends to affect predictable proportions of each population (Metts, 2004). Although there are a number of definitions in use to describe disability, disability largely depends upon context. And apparently, universally, it appeared there was no agreed definition of disability until 1980. Historically, disability was on the one hand, viewed as a medical condition, with a medical problem located within the individual. Hence, some definitions tended to reflect this understanding that disability was an individual pathology; i.e. a condition grounded in the physiological, biological and intellectual impairment of an individual (Shakespear, 2006). The medical definitions gave rise to the idea that people were "objects" to be "treated", "changed" or "improved" and made more "normal" (Wolfensburger, 1972). The medical definitions tended to perceive the disabled person as having to "fit in" rather than about how society itself should transform. They did not seem to adequately explain the relationship between societal conditions or expectations and the unique circumstances of an individual. (A diagrammatic representation of the medical model is shown in the figure below).
The Medical Model of Disability
Disability can be viewed as a highly varied and complex condition with a range of implications for social identity and behaviour (Ingstad and Whyte, 1995). Therefore, a growing realization to articulate a definition of disability, which was in conformity with human rights values, principles and practices was needed. Whilst some disabled people may have medical conditions which impede them and which may or may not require medical treatment, current knowledge, technology and collective resources are already such that their physical or mental impairments need not prevent them from participating in community lives. According to Rieser and Mason (1990), it is society's unwillingness to employ these means to altering itself that causes disabilities. But, it seems at the centre of society, lies the values that respect the variation in human cultures and the appreciation that people are different on several considerations such as gender, race, class, sexuality, and disability (Lauder, et al, 2006; 29).
On the other hand , while the medical model seemed to be in vogue, it was challenged by disability activists who reconstructed disability as a social phenomenon (Shakespear, 2006). The social model of disability seems to draw a clear distinction between impairments, handicaps and disability, because society tends to ignore the imperfections and deficiencies of the surrounding environment which in turn tends to disable people by its failure to recognize and accommodate differences. And also, through the attitudinal and institutional barriers it erects towards people. Disability thus seems to arise from a complex interaction between health conditions, the social context in which they exist and the individual. To some, disability is a relative term with certain impairments becoming more or less disabling in different contexts. The figure below of the social model of disability serves to illustrate the disabling forces at work where the 'social model' is applied.
The Social Model of Disability
In 1980, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified the terms disabilities, impairments and handicaps, and suggested a universal, more precise and at the same time realistic approach to their definitions and use (Metts, 2004;3). The World Health Organization made a clear distinction between "impairment", "disability" and "handicap". However, there were concerns that the definition of the terms "impairment" and "handicap" may still be considered too medical and too centred on the individual, and may not adequately clarify the interaction between societal conditions or expectations and the abilities of the individual. Hence, the need to separate and clarify the meanings of these terms. By description, the term "disability" tends to summarize different functional limitations occurring in individuals anywhere in the world. People may be disabled by physical, intellectual or sensory limitations, medical conditions or mental illness. Such limitations or illnesses may be permanent or temporary (United Nations, 1993).
The term "handicap" tends to mean the loss or limitation of opportunities to participate in the life of the community on an equal level with others (Ingstad and Whyte, 1995). It may describe the encounter between the disabled person and their environment. The term emphasizes the focus on the shortcomings in socially organized environmental activities; such as, access to information, communication technology, health services and to education, which prevent disabled persons from participating on equal terms with everybody else (Ingstad and Whyte, 1995). Although the term continues in use, its technical use was, according to Stone (1997) discarded by the United Nations in 1993. During the 1970s there had been a strong rejection among representatives of organizations of disabled persons and professionals in the field of disability of the term at the time (Ingstad and Whyte, 1995). The term "impairment" can be defined to mean "any loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological or anatomical structure or function" (WHO, 1980). The distinction and clarification of the terms "disability" and "impairment" and "handicap" seemed to perch the views on the medical and social models of disability in opposition to each other. This seemed to pave the way for a new and seemingly acceptable disability model framed along Human Rights. In the light of modern society values, it was a model, appealing to both advocates of equal rights and the United Nations (Shakespear, 2006).
In 1975 the United Nations General Assembly made its first Declaration on the Rights of the Disabled Persons (Priestley, 2001). After the declaration, the United Nations proclaimed 1981 as the International Year of the Disabled Persons and commenced on the development of World Programmes of Action that led to the adoption of the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities in 1994 (United Nations, 1993). As a result of the experiences gained during the 1983-1992 Decade of Disabled Persons, in the implementation of the World Programmes of Action and of the general discussions that took place, there was a deepening of knowledge and understanding concerning disability issues and the terminology used. At the same time disability was more clearly defined (Priestley, 2001; Ingstad and Whyte, 1995). (Although multi-culturally, there still seemed to be problems in defining disability in a global context-for instance, how could imperfections of the body and of the mind be understood in different societies? Or how could a person's culturally defined identity be affected by one's disability? (Ingstad and Whyte, 1995). Hence, according to Haddad (2001), President of the Canadian Medical Association, the term, disability, tends to have various meanings depending on the context in which the term is used. However, for the purpose of this essay the World Health Organization (WHO) functional definition of disability shall be used. The World Health Organization definition of disability is framed on the model of the International Classification of Diseases and "because it attempts to categorize the consequence of disease, it includes a consideration of social contexts" and at the same time captures aspects of Human Rights (Ingstad and Whyte, 1995; 5). According to this classification, disability is defined as "any restriction or lack of ability to perform an activity in the manner or within the range considered normal for a human being" (Mett, 2004; 3)
However many governments and organizations appear to have adapted this definition and developed legislation to suit their own social and economic situations as evidenced by the definitions from the following country examples. The Israeli Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law of 1998 notes a person with a disability;
as meaning "a person with a physical, emotional or mental disability, including a cognitive disability, permanent or temporary, as a result of which that person's functioning is substantially limited in one or more the major spheres of life. (Wolfgang, Preiser & Ostroff, 2003).
The United Kingdom Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 notes that "a person has a disability... if he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities." (Department for International Development 2000).
In the Zimbabwe Disabled Persons Act of 1992 which was enacted after the war of political liberation a "disabled person" means
a person with a physical, mental or sensory disability, including a visual, hearing or speech functional disability, which gives rise to physical, cultural or social barriers inhibiting him from participating at an equal level with other members of society in activities, undertakings or fields of employment that are open to other members of society(Government of Zimbabwe, 1992).
Evidently, the few illustrations serve to show that the definition of disability seems to be framed along the individual circumstances and social contexts of particular nation states but also seems to imply an empowerment of disabled people through recognizing them along equality of rights.
The global extent of disability
To measure national regional and local disability populations, let alone the global population is according to Metts (2004) almost impossible. There is therefore a wide variation in the estimated disability rates reported by the developed and developing countries (Thomas, 2005). Most United Nations agencies, use estimates developed by the Rehabilitation International in the 1970s and by the United Nations Development Programme (1997) that approximately ten percent of any given population are born with a disability or acquire one during their lifetime (Disability World, 2003). This however, appears to have changed over time because in the United States of America as Stone (1997; 4) observed, the prevalence of disability, is about twenty percent of the population. In developing nations and elsewhere, especially in Africa, the percentage appears to be a lot lower that ten percent. The Zimbabwe Inter-Censal Demographic Survey of 1997 conducted by the Central Statistical Office established that out of a population of about twelve million, 218 421 persons were disabled (Government of Zimbabwe 1997). This figure is less than 2% of the population but in the developed countries, the percentages are higher. The SINTEF table below seems to give a sympnosis of the situation. This seems to be the trend globally. This is an irony, but not surprising, if the causes of disabilities were to be discussed. (Unfortunately this paper will not discuss these because it would be a detour from topic). However, at the global level, the United Nations note that the primary causes of disability are disease (51.2%e), malnutrition (20%), accidents, war and trauma 15.6$% and other causes and aging 13.2%. (Metts, 2004).
Apparently the variation in numbers in the different countries can also depend, to a large extent, on the definitions of disability used, which either expand or diminish the disability groups and also the difficulties in the data collection procedures and the different assessment systems used in the different countries. This may be a probable reason most data gathered by national governments of the developing states are perceived by organizations working in disability, as underestimating and downplaying the extent of disability in their countries. However, to me, it appears the research data may be representation of the real situation on the ground despite popular ‘western' wisdom that the contrary may be true. The census figures gathered by The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF) shown in the diagram overleaf seem to vindicate this representative scenario. The SINTEF report most probably reflects the correct perspectives in the light that the world seems to be experiencing a demographic evolution and also that the more sophisticated urban environments become, the more they tend to be disabling because they tend to erect barriers that limit or diminish human functioning; thus in a sense 'creating' disabled people (Harwood, Sayer and Hirschfield, 2004). (For instance a mentally challenged person in the unsophisticated agricultural farms of Africa is capable of productive activities in terms of demonstrating agricultural skills whereas if the same person were brought to an urbanized environment would become useless because the means of production in that situation differ and may present challenges to the individual)
Developed countries
Developing countries
Country
Year
%
Country
Year
%
Canada
1991
14.7
Kenya
1989
0.7
Germany
1992
8.4
Namibia
1991
3.1
Italy
1994
5.0
Nigeria
1991
0.5
Netherlands
1986
11.6
Senegal
1988
1.1
Norway
1995
17.8
South Africa
1980
0.5
Sweden
1988
12.1
Zambia
1990
0.9
Spain
1986
15.0
Kenya
1989
0.7
UK
1991
12.2
Zimbabwe
1997
1.9
Table 1; Prevalence (%) of disability in selected countries (The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research, SINTEF, 2004).
Another research by The Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF) research done in Zimbabwe seems to reinforce this assertion as it found higher disability rates in urban than in rural areas, suggesting that ‘complex societies in a sense produce disability'(Arne, Nhiwathiwa, Muderedzi, and Loeb, 2003).
In the developed countries there also appears to be an increased life expectancy because of improved medical technology and health care meaning that more people will reach old age and experience age related disabilities (Harwood et al, 2004). Today, demographic statistics indicate that there are approximately more than half a billion people with disabilities globally. The World Health Organization predicts a huge increase in the global population which is set to rise dramatically between 2000 and 2050.and consequently, a proportionate increase in the global number of people with disabilities (Harwood et al, 2004). It is forecast that over the period, the Indian Sub-continent could have an increase in population of approximately 120%, China, 70%, the Sub-Saharan Africa, 257% and Burkina Faso, Congo, Liberia, Niger, Somalia, Palestine, Uganda, could have a combined increase of over 400%. (Harwood et al, 2004).
Disability in the Global Context
There is growing evidence that disability as an issue seems to have shifted significantly over the past few years from the periphery to the centre of the international human rights agenda (Mett, 2004;1), and also of numerous literature that disability policy agenda has risen to be a global policy issue (Barton & Oliver, 1987; Priestley 2001); and also that it has become a challenge to policy planners who map out development oriented policies and strategies for social and economic programmes for disabled people. The processes of globalization seem to be shifting not only the populations of person with disabilities but also their experience of disability. People with disabilities globally seem to be empowering themselves to assert greater involvement and equality in global challenges affecting them. Such claims are not only about control over individuals' lives, but also about greater influence over the societies and economies within which they live (Swain, Finklestein, French and Oliver, 1993). Thus, the observance of the International Day of Disabled Persons ( IDDP) declared in 1982 and commemorated on 3 December tends to focus on the active involvement of disabled persons in the planning of strategies and policies that affect their lives. The annual observance of the day, with the slogan "Nothing about Us without Us," seems to offer an opportunity to foster changes in attitudes towards disabled persons to eliminate barriers to their full participation in all aspects of life (Stone, 1997; Rowland, 2001; Swain, et al 1993).
The declaration of 1981 as the International Year of the Disabled Person (IYDP) further elevated disability onto the international human rights agenda (Priestley 2001). A major outcome of the International Year of the Disabled Persons was the formation of the World Programmes of Action concerning Disabled Persons, which the United Nations General Assembly adopted at its 37th regular session in 1982, by its resolution 37/52 (United Nations, 1982). Subsequent International Years were supposed to bring focus to a particular area and create new links and opportunities (Swain, et al. 1993).
In Southern African countries like Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, the motto has been "Disability is Not Inability" (Salmonsson, 2006). This slogan and motto tend to rely on the principle of participation, and has been used by disabled people's organizations throughout the years as part of the global disability movement, to achieve the full participation and equalization of opportunities for, by and with disabled persons (Watermeyer, Swartz, Lorenzo, Schneider & Priestley (2006). Therefore, to disentangle the lived experience of disability from the social context of disabling societies at the local, national, and global levels appears impossible.
Thus, the recognition of disabled people, to improve their lives has been demonstrated by the United Nations, as is implied in the active involvement of disabled persons in the on-going elaboration of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006), and in the Standard Rules for the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (UNESCO, 1993). These conventions seem to have proved to be excellent examples of how the principle of full participation can be put into practice and how disabled people can contribute to the development of truly inclusive communities to shape a better future for all.
The United Nations' establishment of the World Programmes of Action, led to the UNESCO Framework for Action of the World Conferences on Education for All held in 1990 in Jomtien (Thailand), The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Special Needs Education (UNESCO, 1994) and the Dakar Framework on Education for All (UNESCO, 2002). To demonstrate the importance of placing disability on the global level, more than one hundred and fifty-five countries from all over the world were represented by leaders of government, international agencies, non-governmental organizations and professional bodies who committed themselves to recognizing the education of all disabled individuals, attended the Jomtiem conference (Ndawi, 1997). The Dakar World Education Forum conference, in April 2000 attracted more than 1,100 participants from one hundred and sixty four countries (UNESCO, 2002). Participants ranged from teachers to prime ministers, academics to policymakers, non-governmental bodies to the heads of major international organizations. They adopted the Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All (UNESCO, 2002). The Dakar Conference was complemented by earlier conferences which all addressed issues related to the challenges and empowerment of disabled people. These were namely, the Sub-Saharan Conference on Education for All held in South Africa in 1999; Asia and Pacific Conference on Education For All held in Bangkok in 2000; The Arab Regional Conference on Education for All held in Cairo; The Third Inter-Ministerial Review Meeting on the E-9 Countries held in Recife, Brazil; Conference on Education for All in Europe and North America held in Warsaw, Poland in 2000 and The Regional Education for All Conference in the Americas held in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic in 2000 (UNESCO, 2002).
GLOBAL DISABILITY CHALLENGES TO THE EQUALIZATION OF OPPORTUNITIES
It appears disabled people are most challenged in four fronts, namely, by poverty, wars, access to education and work.
Poverty
With the disability policy agenda having reached the highest levels of global recognition, globalization seems to have constructed a universe that offers endless opportunities and new life patterns to all; for instance easy access to education, information and technology, health and social amenities and etcetera. But, according to Ghai (2001), the paradox is that on the one hand, globalization places emphasis on economic power to improve the livelihood of mankind but on the other, methodically marginalizes certain groups of people, in particular disabled people by its use of modern technology and its removal of these people from participating to contributing to the gross national product of individual nation states. And in this way, globalization seems to have created challenges to the equalization of opportunities to disabled people. More so, the apparent disparity in economic, social and technological developments between the different nation states has led globalization to seem to have a different meaning for disabled people and to challenge them differently in the different communities (Ghai, 2001); with some communities wealthier than others. Poverty seems to be afflicting the half a billion disabled people or so in the world today, According to Ghai (2001), more disabled people seem to be suffering on every continent, perhaps more than ever before. Most of them are on the lowest end of the socio-economic scale (Beresford, 1996; Frieden, 2002).
Consequently, disabled people have tended to be more vulnerable to, their incapability to combat poverty, exclusion, stigma and lack of access to basic education and services. Disabled people seem to experience poverty more intensely but have fewer opportunities to escape from it. A former President of the World Bank observed this and asserted that "unless disabled people are brought into the development mainstream, it will be impossible to cut poverty by half by 2015..." (Richler, 2005, 37). Hence, according to Beresford 1996), combating global poverty is a key issue in the disability movement.
Wars and political upheavals
Another aspect that appears to challenge the equalization of opportunities for disabled people is war and its associated political upheavals (Priestley, 2001). As Driedger (1987) observed, war and political upheaval have had adverse effects on disabled peoples' lives and their rights seem grossly violated in war times anywhere in the world; effectively excluding them from participating in the social and capital capacity building of affected nations. Priestley (1987) also notes that wars have resulted in millions of disabled refugees and displaced persons in and around war tone zones. Supposedly, in Central Africa, the Middle East, and Afghanistan and in Central America, war is perceived as a major cause of disability. War landmines have also massively contributed to causing disability of various sorts and thus the achievement of peace has become a global disability issue. The European Union's commitment to eradicate landmines on a global scale seems illustrative, but the role of the United Nations in this matter appears "invisible".
In a speech to the European Union parliament, the European Union's Commissioner for External Affairs noted that one hundred and forty four countries have so far ratified the Mines Ban Treaty (Waldner, 2005). Numerous other summits have been held to discuss the reduction of the number of people either killed or maimed by landmines. Waldner conceded that the annual number of landmine victims has dropped from 26 000 to below 15 000 (Waldner, 2005). The Disabled Peoples International (DPI, 1998) took issue with this matter at their World Assembly in 1998 in Mexico City and a subsequent visit by the DPI World Council to Hiroshima, the site of the Second World War atomic bomb, resulted in the International Peace Declaration by the global disability organizations.
However, war and political upheaval have ironically also, had a positive impact on the lives of disabled people. In countries where there were revolutions such as Vietnam, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Nicaragua, Ingstad and Whyte (1995) and Montero (1998), observe that disabled people, in the process were venerated and "practically considered national heroes and were given all the opportunities possible to develop and strengthen their organizations", and to access funding, education, jobs, and other services. War veterans seemed to experience disability in positively very different ways as compared to those disabled before the revolutions.
Work
For many disabled people, the demand for access to work may be perceived as a major signifier of independent adulthood and a crucial component to the struggle for equality. Yet, as Priestley (2001; asserts, disabled people globally "continue to be disproportionately unemployed, underemployed and underpaid…" This assertion is reflected in, for instance in the focus of the British Government's proposal to tackle oppression of disabled people on the work place (Barton and Oliver, 1997). The British Government cut back on the Access to Work scheme and the disabled people's organizations fought that decision asserting that the right to a job is a fundamental human right (Barton and Oliver, 1997). Such challenges for access to jobs by disabled people appear to have become common in many countries. Hence in 1983, the International Labour Organization adopted a Convention Concerning Vocational, Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons) (ILO, 1983) to ensure equality of opportunities and equalization of treatment of disabled people at work and social integration. However, despite much effort at the global level to include disabled people in the work world, at the local level, some would continue to be excluded by their impairments because some tend not to be capable of producing goods or services to contribute to the social and economic capital base. To this, Barton and Oliver (1997;35) comment that this is so "because in any society........certain products are of value and others are not regardless of the efforts that go into their production."
Education
Education occupies a unique position in modern society today because it tends to benefit both society and the individual as it is considered a public good (Psacharopoulos and Woodhall (1985). The advances in knowledge and scientific understanding seem to strengthen the optimism that society holds of education (Lauder et al.2006). Education offers optimism to influence the well being of people and nation state because according to Lauder et al. (2006), education is perceived by almost all people as the means by which to improve individuals' lives and an understanding of their place in the world.
.Typically, therefore, as global market trends and technologies continue to develop in new pathways, education tends to become commdified and free access to education seems to also become even more important for everyone. However, disabled people seem to continue to be challenged in their quest to access educational opportunities available. In their zeal to acquire knowledge and skills needed in the evolving world of work, Peters (1996) notes that the inequitable access to educational benefits results in the inaccessibility to work; thereby propelling further the creation of an impoverished community. In some societies, for instance the Pakistani, disabled girl children education is not considered important (Shah, 1990). And from a personal viewpoint, it appears this perspective is in existence among some religious communities in Southern Africa. Such barriers to access to education challenge many disabled people and compel them to be dependant upon their families in many countries (Priestley, 2001). In addressing these matters, the United Nations, through the various protocols such as the Salamanca Statement, the Dakar Framework, the Jomtien Conference and others, seeks to
Ensure equal educational opportunities at all levels for children, youth and adults with disabilities in integrated settings, taking into full account of individual differences and situations (World Summit on Social Development, Commitment 6, item f, 1995).Consequently, at the national level, governments the world over have had to formulate legislation and initiatives consistent with the vision of the United Nations.
However, in most African States, these policies and legislation were absent and a concerted effort was made to put them in place through the African Unions' Continental Plan of Action which is aimed at implementing priority activities on disability during the African Decade of Persons with Disabilities (1999-2009) (Secretariat of the African Decade, 2004). In order to create an equitable society in Africa, the Secretariat of the African Decade facilitates the development of highly progressive policies and legislation, which if properly used, can over periods drastically reform the social disadvantages experienced by all disabled persons. For example, Ghana adopted the Free, Compulsory and Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) (Sawyerr 1997), initiative in line with this United Nations vision. In Zimbabwe, the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM) was initiated cognizant of the same vision. The USA initially passed Public Law 92-142 (PL 92-142) Education for All Handicapped Persons Act (Gearheart, Weishahn and Gearheart, 1982). Then in 1975, the American Congress enacted the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) from which initiatives like the "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) (Astoria 2007), were born. In the United Kingdom, the "Every Child Matters" Green Paper (The Stationery Office, 2003) is similar in principle to the American IDEA.
Several nations have put in place similar protocols to deal with equalization of educational opportunities to all people in their systems. To emphasize this, the United Nations Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development included specific pledges on equal educational opportunities for disabled children and young people. (World Summit on Social Development 1995).
A PERSONAL THOUGHT
It may be naïve to conclude that globalization alone has caused the challenges experienced by disabled people, or that nothing can be done to improve the equalization of opportunities in their situations. In real essence, it appears; the less developed countries have not been able to integrate disabled people within the global economic and social development as quickly as others, partly because of their chosen policies and partly because of factors outside their control such as imposed economic structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), debt burden caused by the Bretton Wood Institutes and wars and conflict. In my opinion however, it appears no nation state, least of all the poorest, can afford to remain isolated from the global social and economic capacity building initiatives. Every country should seek to provide for the needs and access to the basic services of all its citizens in order to reduce challenging situations and to increase equal opportunity initiatives to ameliorate suffering among its disabled people populations. The self organization of disabled people into groups seems to raise their values and voices, and is also a fundamental right that disabled people should continue to exercise. Through globalization principles, the international community should endeavour to invest in disabled people. On economic grounds, investment in disabled people is justified as long as the consequential capital investment does not exceed the cost of benefits derived. .
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, this essay discussed the concepts of globalization and disability. Descriptions and definitions of both terms were made. Within the globalization concept, disability was discussed. Then a historical framework of disability in the global context was suggested. It seems definitions of disability vary across communities. The challenges that face disabled people in their zeal to achieve full independence in the control of their lives and to contribute to the social and economic capacity were also highlighted. However, as globalization progresses; living conditions seem to improve significantly in virtually all countries. But that the economic disparities between developed and less developed countries seem to have grown wider and wars and political upheaval as well the incapability of escaping from poverty are matters of concern that seem to affect the majority of disabled people. The number of the world's citizens who are in poverty seems disturbing- let along among the population of the disabled people.
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About the Author
Partson Musosa Phiri is a candidate for the Ed. D degree in Policy and Values at the University of Hull(UK).He also holds M.Ed. from the same University. Additionally, Partson M. Phiri also holds the following qualifications: B. Ed. (Planning and Policy)(U.Zim); Dip.Ed (Special Education); Cert.Ed. He won scholarships from the following bodies:. Canon Collins Education Trust for Southern Africa, Joint Japan World Bank Graduate Scholarship Programme Wakeham Trust, All Saints Educational Trust
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PERCEPTIONS OF PRINCIPALS’ RESPONSIBILITIES IN-LOCO-PARENTIS IN NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS
This paper reviewed the perceptions of principals’ responsibilities in-loco-parentis in Nigerian secondary schools, using the theoretical method, applied precedent cases and administrative examples. This work also suggested that possible modifications may be needed especially where past laws of operations have been revised. This approach could allow for more harmony among parents, students, teachers and principals, in assuming a peaceful teaching and learning atmosphere, thereby discouraging unnecessary litigations based on unreasonable rules and regulations.
Key words: Principals’ responsibilities, In-loco-parentis, and Nigerian secondary schools
INTRODUCTION
The term “in-loco-parentis” is a Latin derivative, which means “in place of parents”. It is universally acknowledged that principals stand in-loco-parentis to students, with corresponding privileges and responsibilities which they carry out on behalf of parents. The doctrine of in-loco-parentis applies “in place of parents”, principals having some rights and duties of parents. It is recognized that in terms of expressed contract, teachers, tutors, principals or principals have responsibilities of parents within and outside the school. This obligation is that while children are in schools, principals are made to assume the full responsibility of caring for the students (Akiri, 1990). This full responsibility assumed by principals and teachers is known as ‘the doctrine of in-loco-parentis’. On this basis, principals have a full right to mould the childrens’ moral character, assist them in mental and physical development, and cater for the fostering of the spirit of national consciousness in the children, who are in daily attendance in primary and post primary schools (Bendel State Gazette, 1988).
However, the right of principals in-loco-parentis is not absolute when considering the control they have over students in the Nigerian school system. It should be realized that when teachers and principals are not absolute in considering the control they have over students in the Nigerian school system within the scope of their duties in terms of reasonable and executing possible rules and regulations, the courts may assist in promoting proper and effective teaching and learning atmosphere in the schools. This is because the courts in democratic societies as in case of Nigeria, as it is all over the world viewed school officials as standing in-loco-parentis, allowing them to regulate the students in any manner since parents agree to delegate school principals the parental authority to control their children’s conduct in a manner which will be of the best interest to the children in the schools. Every Nigerian school has a set of rules and regulations meant to guide students towards good conduct and behaviour in order to maintain general discipline, peace and order, necessary for effective teaching and learning.
The Doctrine of In-Loco-Parentis
Principals have the power, authority and responsibility for administering a school’s disciplinary programme. This power to control and discipline students for infractions is traceable to the age-old doctrine of in-loco-parentis (in place of parents). This position of the principals with regards to disciplinary control of students is well explained in the Corpus Juris Secundum (79 C.J.S. 493).
As a general rule, a principals, to a limited extent at least, stands in-loco-parentis to student under his charge, and my exercise such powers of control, restraint, and correction over them as may be reasonably necessary to enable him to properly perform his duties as teacher and to accomplish the purpose of education; he is subject to such limitations and prohibitions as may be defined by law. The courts in the Nigerian school system viewed school officials as standing in-loco-parentis,regulating the students in and manner – subject only to the standards and restraints that parents would use in supervising the welfare of the child. For example, in Gott V. Berea College in the U.S. (1913), the justice held that:
Principals stand in-loco-parentis concerning the physical and moral welfare and mental training of the pupils, and we are unable to see why, to that end, they may not make any rule or regulation for the Government or betterment of their students that a parent could for the same purpose.
The implication of this statement is that courts ordinarily will not interfere with the authority of a school to make rules governing students’ behaviour unless such rules are unlawful, unreasonable, and capricious or against public policy.
The doctrine of in-loco-parentishad been based on the assumption that by sending their children to school, parents agree to delegate to school officials the power or parental authority to control their children’s conduct in a manner that will be of the best interest to the child. Alexander (1980), however, points out that today, this situation is drastically changing. Parents now argue that when the concept originated, education was voluntary and personal, the parent voluntarily committed the child to the authority of the teacher who usually spent the entire day with the child in a small classroom or school, thereby developing something akin to a parent/child relationship with the pupil. Most teachers today instruct children for only part of the day and have fewer opportunities to form close relationship in large classes and schools. It is in the light of this latter point the Ohio Department of Education in the United States has come to reject the idea that schools may act in place of the parents. The Department was of the view that to stand in-loco-parentis, one must assume full duties, responsibilities and obligations of a natural parent to a pupil. Alexander stated thus:
That students’ relationship to School and to parents are entirely different. The School/Child relationship is intermittent with different adults involved at different times of the day and year; they often at superficial levels and for short periods of time stayed with the child. Parents’ relationship on the other hand ordinarily incorporates deep feelings of mutual love and affection. For this reason, corporal punishments inflicted by parents would have an entirely different effect than the same punishment meted out by School authority (1981), p. 4).
What this mean is that the doctrine of in-loco-parentis is on the wane not only in the United States but also in Europe and even in Nigeria.
Principals In–Loco–Parentis
Principals are also teachers in the Nigerian school system, who in their positions in-loco-parentis to the children in their charge, act reasonably in this capacity provided their actions are in accordance with general and approved educational practice, and provided that they take such case of their children as careful fathers would take, and they have little to fear from mischance of school life.
In a case, some grammar school students were playing, contrary to the school rule, with a cricket-pitch roller which can cover one of them. The parents sued the principal and the master in charge, claiming damages for negligence. The case was headed at LEEDS Assizes in March 1998 under Mr. Justice Hilbery’s summing up, who has a mastery exposition of the doctrine of a careful father. He said “it was not suggested for the plaintiff that anybody could reasonably say that a master must watch boys not merely in classes, but throughout every moment of their school lives”. Thus, a teacher has the right in-loco-parentis to control the child during and after school premises. A teacher is not only known and called that professional name “teacher” as it is with “doctors”. “Engineers”, “Pastors” etc within the system only but also outside the organizations. Hence, teachers as professionals should not be involved in any professional misconduct but to abide to the various codes of ethics of the teaching profession.
Freedom of Expression
It is considered that in a democratic society, principals like other citizens should possess the freedom of expression. Principals’ freedom is curtailed that whatever is said may not lead to any disorder on the art of students and does not disrupt effective administration of the school.
Principals’ freedom of expression can be categorized into three areas:
- Outside school environment
- On school grounds, and
- Within classrooms
Outside School Environments
It is stated in Article 38 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution (Nigeian Constitution, 1989) that every person is entitled to freedom of expression which includes that to hold possible opinions, receive and import ideas as well as, information without interruption from any person or group of persons. Principals are restricted by virtue of the fact that they are not as free as the ordinary citizen. An employee such as an educator who is in service undertake making reckless and false statements that can be of damage to a school system especially, where such interest of the school takes priority over the teacher’s freedom of expression.
On School Ground outside Classroom
It is very clear that one’s utterances on the job is restricted to the disadvantage of the employee with such restriction makes it possible for principals to have more protection and control over educators. This allows teachers to be guided on the following:
- Staffs are not expected to have labour meetings during school hours unlike meeting having to do with school.
- Civic and charitable organizations could be given access during school period.
- Meetings allowed for teachers after school hours are normally censored.
Within Classroom
The fundamental human right of expression though guarantees freedom of expression but principals are still limited within reasonableness of the prescribed curriculum provided. The possibility of this surround the fact that the state provides a prescribed guideline through the Teaching Service Board called the curriculum which specified on what, who and how it’s to be taught. This is a public employee, and educator needs to be careful about the type of doctrine that is propagated especially when it has to do with biology, politics, sex, education and religion. This restriction is encouraged to allow the teacher focus on the curriculum directed on the audience so required. Consequently, if a teacher gets into a controversial and sensitive area, such a principal should be able to direct discussion by showing maturity and expertise so as not to loose sight of the goal.
Freedom of Association
Freedom of association is very necessary for principal and it is likened to the freedom of expression which makes it possible for people who share the same values, norms and profession come together to examine issues affecting such organization. Article 39 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution states that people shall be accorded the right to assemble freely and associate with each other. Thereby in particular the person may form or belong to any political party, union or other associations for both personal protection and interest. By virtues of being a public servant, principal cannot belong to secret cults, political parties or organizations that promote subversive activities. They are encouraged to collectively belong and promote their interests demands.
Search and Seizure of Students in Schools
A principal acts in the capacity of in-loco-parentis in the absence of the national parents. School authorities are privileged to oversee the activities of student and in the process of performing such functions; some principals arrogate so much power to themselves by acting outside the reasonable scope of their duties. The doctrine of in loco-parentis does not cover a principal who misuses power by unnecessary confiscating the belonging of students where these have violated school rules by either wearing on active regarded as unconventional and shoes with heel plates that can disrupt the learning atmosphere of an institution. Article 35 of the 1989 Nigerian constitution, specify the right to fair hearing before one’s private property and liberty (Nigerian constitution, 1989), can be taken away. The relevance of this to educators and principals is to allow for all exhaustive remedies which enable teachers demonstrate their maturity and skills in dealing with criminal situations.
Principal should be properly exposed to article 12 of the 1989 Nigerian constitution in the process of carrying out administrative duties either on school premises or off school premises. Both educators and proper provision of information in school property since their intentions are that of providing safety, conducive, learning and peaceful atmosphere, while the doctrine of in loco-parentis and sovereign community, are properly applied.
The contrary is the case when off school property search is carried principal and educators can take the laws into their hands because the lack of the constitutionality by boldly going to search a property off school premises. There are normal channels that such principal must follow: Establish the issue with the police since it is a criminal offence and a search warrant is obtained.
The police and the school authorities could go but the duty is strictly that of the police who can carry out the search. The principal’s control cannot be extended beyond school grounds, since it is not within the jurisdiction as specified in the scope of duties.
Corporal Punishment in Schools
It is by definition subjecting an individual to torture, in human or degrading treatment or punishment. It is simply seen as mere inflicting of physical punishment on another person. The duty of the teacher is explicitly mentioned when the teacher is standing in proxy for the nation through his obligation to the state.
It is also assumed that the limitation of how far teachers can go with students, especially when disciplining them within the scope of duties. It is not all teachers that carryout discipline except the one authorized by the principal. Therefore, either discipline masters or marshals are authorized to enforce discipline on the pupils. The possible reason that can be advanced for such are:
The person carrying out the punishment is normally biased if the offence was committed against him / her.
- There is vested interest and
- Punishment could be regarded as malicious, arbitrary and capricious.
This assumption can be dangerous and when there is an unusual injury in the process of administering the punishment, it is difficult to convince others of non-biased punishment. This is why it is advisable to pass the punishment role to some neutral persons who cannot be accused of bias. This is established in a case on “teacher has authority to parents, students for acts / offences committed off school premises between O’Rourke V. Walker in Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, 1925, 102 com. 130, 128 A.25.
Article 33 of the 1989 Nigerian constitution and5 of the United Nations charter specify that people’s right to be free from torture and attain personal liberty indicate that persons who have attained the adult suffrage may not be unnecessarily denied personal liberty based on educative and welfare purposes. (Nigerian constitution, 1999; United Nations Charter, 1948) The only reason to have pupils’ punishment is the reformative and corrective measure necessary to the offence committed. The courts have accepted unreasonable punishments, administered and unprescribed paddle that have been utilized maliciously, especially when the offence is not commensurate to the punishment. Several instances which include Nwakwo vs. Ajaegbu (Nigerian Constitution Law Report, 1978) Kukoyi vs. Ikhure and Board of Education, all involve bodily injuries and permanent damages of which, huge compensations were awarded to the plaintiffs based on the trespass of their personal right.
The suggestions from possible court rulings can include that children’s age, sex, physical fitness, mental alertness and emotional balance of the child can determine such punishment. The validity of such punishment can only stand when such element which include the following are available.
- Documentation is needed and punishment cannot be first means to deter mis-behaviour.
- The child must be well informed of the punishment before hand.
- A witness is required and
- A well documented report is necessary to be made available to the parents (Nwagwu, 1987).
The Alaboh vs. Boyes and Ajaha (Nigerian Constitution Law reports, 1984) can advance the principle described above and obviously the features were violated. Based on this, the decision of a lower court was upheld and the court declared that the constitutional right of the student was violated. Generally, the burden of proof is normally on the student especially when teachers are acting within scope of their duties. The only reason the courts may rule against educators is when there is evidence of abuse of power.
Enforcing Released Time
The idea of educators enforcing released time includes the constitutionality of the student having the freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as specified in article 37 of the Nigerian constitution of 1999. Released time per se, is granting time off to the student based on religious constitutional right to worship on / off school premises.
In situations of this type, an educator must be acquired with students’ access to space where worship can take place. In case space is a problem, there is need to schedule each religious denomination on how long space could be utilized as to equally allow each individual the opportunity to worship. The constitutional right of an individual is infringed upon where one is denied access to such a space. On the other hand, educator ought to be in firm control when students worship outside environment especially during Lent and the Rahmadan feast period for Christians and Muslims respectively. This relates to the role of in loco-parentis which principals assume based on the fact that, the to and fro of the students point to safety which is the responsibility of an educator. Normally, school principals who may entrust such supervisory role to more matured students, still need to oversee from time to time what the situation on safety of the students so as to avoid problems and obligations resulting from neglect.
Finally, it would be unconstitutional to enforce religious doctrine on an individual student instead of letting alone the student to practice his religious belief. In past, student who attended post primary schools, fell victim of such circumstances. It was such that they were either converted to the seat other than theirs or they held until schools were on holidays before practicing their faith. Consequently, these made it mandatory for students to only attend secondary schools in Nigeria not only of their choice but based on their religious lines as to ensure that their consciences were not mortgaged.
Loyalty
The principal has to be loyal to the nation in which they serve. It is very crucial and vital. A principal can be terminated if the duties carried out by such educator are not in compliance with the oath of office. This could be in form of when students are indoctrinated with information which have a national ethics and civic duties of the citizens in the process of educating such students, then, such a principal could be dismissed. This is because such information could be bordering on subversive preaching which is against the constitution of the land.
This is why principals need to be well acquainted with articles 23 and 24 of the 1999 constitution in Nigeria which can promote national ethnic and civil duties of the citizen. This situation today was unlike in the past, when foreigners came into Nigeria and picked jobs in the school system without necessary exposure to National values but concentrated on personal gains through teachings. Educators’ loyalty to the nation is significant since they are to be involved in promoting socialization at the school level which is invariably in the grass root. Therefore, loyalty by principal will include;
- assure public trust and willingness to assist the constitution
- discouraging falsehood, perjury and admitting guilt and
- upholding the constitution by discouraging violence, overthrow of governments and illegal activities. It is no doubt the responsibilities of principals by implication, include indicate to student that loyalty to the nation comes before self and ethnicity.
Self Incrimination
Principals, by virtue of the office held, may as anyone else commit crime through self incrimination. Principals may do this virtue of providing necessary assisting information to the government through law enforcing agency. The information is one that may not incriminate one but can be interpreted as an admission guilt. Articles 32 and 34 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria relate to personal liberty but not when it has to do with constitutional matters involving the state. It is understood that one constitutional right is secondary when one considers matters affecting the state, meaning that the state takes precedence over one’s constitutional rights.
It is important to note that there can be presumptions made coming out of the information provided by individuals. In a situation where one refuses to answer questions posed by a jury or committee such silence is not seen as a constitutional right instead it is unconstitutional and attempting deliberately to block government from promoting peace and providing safety. Principals by their virtue of the doctrine of in – loco – parentis in Nigerian Secondary Schools should constantly help in school settings to discourage crimes and promote conducive learning atmosphere.
Discrimination
Article 4 of the 1999 Nigerian constitution forbids an individual from being discriminated against so long as, one is either by birth or by naturalization, a citizen of Nigeria. This relates to the school system that anybody who is qualified, trained and certified in the teaching field with the basic Nigerian Certificate of Education can enable to move any where within the country not minding either the state of origin or ethnic background, that person can be employed. This provided that the person has met the states certification required; and that there is evidence of vacancy and need for personnel skill in the subject area required. Labour is mobile and fluid so principals who are marketable should not be restricted only to their state of origin. The implication of this is to be able to integrate and learn the different cultures and promote National consciousness in the school system. Among secondary school students in the country.
Contract
A contract is usually a mutual agreement between two or more parties and in this case, the individual trained principals and the Teaching Service Board which is the employer. It is recognized that for a proper contract to be in existence, five possible basic elements prevail. These include;
In terms of offer and acceptance, a value must be attached to them and both parties must be legally competent. A contract cannot be signed on a subject prohibited by law and lastly the contract must be agreed upon to the partners in the form as required by law (Reutter and Hamilton, 1976). The features normally prevail in an appointment made available to a teacher.
A principal is normally made aware of the assigned duties as spelt in the civil handbook and through indicative on the job. Thereby in terms of law, the principal cannot be excused for inadequate performance based on ignorance of the rules and regulations. As spelt out in a Latin matein “Ignorantia Iuris Non Excusat” that is, legis est lata culpa, which means it is a gross neglect to be ignorant of the law is quite apt.
Confirmed Appointment
The principal should have a confirmation of appointment after he has met the requirements within periods which may be one to two years. There is need for such principal to understand certain right accorded to him/her in the employment within local government in which the employee serves, except such a principal resigns, retires or dies. It could be noted that where the principal violates or commits a sensitive offence, such a teacher can be dismissed.
Principals’ Responsibilities In-Loco-Parentis
The principal is responsible for the right to inflict corporal punishment on students. Any authorized teacher who contravenes this stipulation, certainly act outside his powers and in case any litigation arises from there, he might be found guilty of committing assault and battery.
Principals In-Loco-Parentis and Students’ Personnel
One of the major responsibilities of the principal in-loco-parentis in the secondary school is that of students’ personnel services. Activities included within the operational area of student personnel, embrace those services to students’ that supplement regular classroom instructions. Except in schools with very small enrolment, the chief role of the principal in the student personnel area is one of integrating the personnel functions with instruction and of co-ordinating the various kinds of personnel services. The developments, such as special programs for the talented and the growth of external existing have placed even more emphasis on student personnel services. Some of the major tasks in student personnel are as follows:
a. Students’ inventory and organization
b. Students accounting
c. Students personnel services and
d. Control of students’ behaviour in schools
Students’ Inventory and Organization
In most of the secondary schools in Nigeria, principals determine how many pungsters there are of school age in the community. It does so by means of a school census, by keeping enrolment and attendance data of the children. It is usually necessary that the number of students be determined by grade level, which is an important responsibility of the principal in-loco-parentis.
With this information in hand, the principal is in a position to determine to what extent school rooms in the existing building will house the students of the community. If certain buildings appear to be overcrowded and others have capacity to spare, the principal may find that attendance boundaries need to be altered. In recent years, with charges of de facto segregation in many areas in the country, the establishment of attendance area has taken on new significance. The social and racial composition of the attendance area is important as the consideration of number of students to be enrolled in the schools.
Students’ Accounting
A school census system is established to help school students with this responsibility of in-loco-parentis. There is a compulsory education law in nearly every state in Nigeria, and a school census is a necessary step in the enforcement of such laws through principals. However, procedures may be followed in the accounting process.
Another responsibility facing principals in-loco-parentis in every school system is the development and the operation of students’ accounting system. A plan for dealing with students’ absence and tidiness must be developed. If such a plan is to be followed by teachers and principals on the principal’s role as part of their regular duties, it needs to be relatively simple, if specialized attendance personnel are to be employee, the plan may be somewhat more ambitious. In any case, teachers should have some invoice in deciding upon the plan, and their own part in the operation will need to be clearly understood.
It seems appropriate to say at this point that the “hook cop” approach to attendance leaves much to be desired. There is usually substantial cause back of non-attendance of school pupils. The school needs personnel who can both determine these basic causes and work toward their alleviation. Such cause often decide in the family, or the culture of which the family is a part and thus non-attendance may actually be a social symptom towards which school workers, social agencies, ad society itself ought to be directing their efforts.
Another duty common in student accounting is the issue of work permits in most states, student may be excused at age fourteen or sixteen if they are needed to help support a family, or if they can benefit no further from school attendance. These are important decisions in the life of a child, and should be made only after facts are ascertained and appropriate counseling has been given to the student and the family. Small School Communities, Principals and Vice Principals ordinarily perform these functions in larger communities specialized personnel are usually employed.
Students’ Personnel Services
A very important aspect of the student personnel area of principals’ responsibilities in-loco-parentis in the Nigerian school system is the provision of appropriate student personnel services. Large school community may have services such as the followings:
Child study
Guidance and counseling advertisement
Testing
Visiting teachers and social workers
Speech and hearing therapy
Medical and nursing
Special education
Recently, another consideration has been injected into students’ personnel services like mounting concern about the kinds of data appearing in students’ record, such as test results and teachers’ judgments on students’ behaviours. If pupil personnel services are to supplement regular classroom instruction, it seems quite clear that some specialized personnel would be necessary.
Control of Students’ Behaviour in Schools
Schools attempt to determine the cause of misbehaviour of students through the efforts of principals, and they also treat the cause and not the symptom of such actions. However, there are times when students must be corrected or disciplined. Policies governing these matters are clear. For instance, the responsibilities of teachers and other staff members in this area are understood. Principals exercise appropriate controls over their students. Actually, and contrary to the views of some beginning principals, students prefer those principals who are seen as fair, helpful, setting high standards and allowing no ‘monkey business’.
Even with the best of principals in Nigerian schools, however, there are times when the principal, guidance counselor, or some other non teaching staff member is placed in the role of disciplinarian. Many contend that guidance counselors and other student personnel workers should have no disciplinary function. The logic behind such an argument is that the guidance counselor should be individual and not group oriented or, perhaps better-stated, student centered in place of school centered.
In general, this position is accepted but when carried to its extreme, it would mean that both guidance counselors and principals would become less effective than they should be. When it is necessary for a principal to take part in a discipline problem, he should ascertain, if possible, the circumstance surrounding the misbehaviour prior to arrive at a plan of action. Some of this information he may get from the students, some from those workers who have specialized knowledge and the competence to place such knowledge in its appropriate context. The best diagnosis possible is needed if the principal is to be effective in helping youngsters towards the ultimate goal of self – discipline through the doctrine of in-loco-parentis.
Conclusion
Principals in-loco-parentis are bound by law, rules and regulations in the process of carrying out school operations. In order to avoid unnecessary litigations, enlightenment of teachers, educators, principals, student parents and the society in general become very necessary, since the totality of the system must work together. It is not unusual to say that such principals who cannot meet up the required standards should be allowed to seek for more knowledge from other professionals, in order to improve the image of the teaching profession.
REFERENCES
Akiri, A. A. (1990)”Nigerian Primary and Secondary Schools Institutional Perception of the Sensitive Areas of Examination and Law” In: Journal of Educational Leadership, Vol. 5 No. 1, Lagos: Lagos State University.
Alexander, K. (1980) School Law, St. Paul Min. West Publishing Co.
Bendel State of Nigeria, Gazette, Edict No. 4 (1988) Bendel State, Post Primary Education Edict, Benin City: Government Printer.
Bendel State Education Law (1980) and Unified Teaching Service Staff Regulations, 1973.
Eribi vs. Tunbo Boyes and Celestine Ajalia (1984), Nigerian Constitutional Law Reports 5, NCLR.
Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999), The Handbook on the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Lagos: Federal Ministry of Information.
Kemerer, R. (1986), The Educators’ Guide to Texas School Law Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.
Major, W.T. (1978) The Law of contract 5th ed. Estover, Plymouth; Macdonald and Evans Ltd.
Nakpodia, ED (2007), Education Law, Warri: Jonakase Nig. Co.
Nwagwu, N.A. (1987) “Education and the Law in Nigeria”, The Rights of Teachers and Students, Owerri: Kay Beecee Publications Ltd.
Nwankwo vs. Ajaegbu, Lagos: The Law Reports of Nigeria, 2LRN.
Reutter, E.E. (Jr) and R.R. Hamilton (1976), The Law of Public Education, 2nd ed. Mineola, New York: The Foundation Press, Inc.
The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999), Lagos: NERDC Press.
The United Nations Charter, 1948
Olu-Aderounmu, W.O. and R. A. Adeboyeje (2005), The Law of Public Education in Nigeria, Ado Ekiti: Sof – Way Publishers.
Peretomode, V.F. (1992), Education Law–Principles, Cases and Materials on Schools, Owerri: International Universities Press Ltd.
About the Author
Dr. E.D. Nakpodia is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Educational Administration and Policy Studies, Delta State University Abraka Nigeria. He has his Ph.D. degree in Educational Administration.
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Online Accredited College Degree Program: for the New Student Committed to Success
An online accredited college degree program allows you to take individual online college courses and to get an impressive college degree, without having to attend on-campus classes.
These programs are ideal for non-traditional adult students, who can study at their convenience, while meeting their work and family responsibilities. They get a second chance to complete their college education and to acquire a degree that will add to their career portfolio.
You can join an online accredited college degree program and get a Bachelor's degree, Master's degree or Doctorate in a subject of your choice. Some of the popular subjects are business, information technology, computer science, education, psychology, social work, counseling and journalism.
Many students prefer to join professional certificate programs in subjects like stress management, security management, law enforcement and public health nursing, that will help them in their careers.
What you need to consider before you sign up
Before you join an online accredited college degree program you need to be sure about your personal goals and how an online college degree will help you to reach them. If there is a clearly defined benefit that an online college degree can provide, like a pay raise, promotion or a better job, you must go ahead and join the course.
A college degree doesn't come cheap and you need to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of joining an online accredited college degree program. Find out if your employer offers some type of tuition assistance as an employee benefit.
You need the support of your family and employer and be prepared to find time to work on the online degree program, in spite of having a packed schedule. You must be fully committed, have a positive attitude and believe that you can succeed through your own efforts.
Two-year schools offer associate degrees and certificate programs, while four-year schools and universities provide bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees. Two-year schools are suitable for students who are very concerned about the cost and are not sure of their long-term goals or academic capabilities.
Four-year schools are suitable for students who are clear about their goals and are confident about their academic capabilities. Certificate courses are suitable for people who want to update their work skills, while degree courses are suitable for people who require an advanced degree and want to enter a professional field.
Institutions offering accredited online college degree programs
The University of Maryland University College (UMUC) offers several online bachelor's degrees and undergraduate certificates. It is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education, Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, Philadelphia.
The University of Phoenix Online is the nation's largest, accredited private university. It is a member of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
Before you sign up for an online accredited college degree program, you must be clear about your career goals. Look for a school and a program that will help you to achieve what you want and be fully committed to success.
About the Author
Jim Zorn is web master of the Guide to Distance Learning. Visit us to learn more about online colleges and universities, distance learning degrees, majors and courses offered. http://www.guide-to-distance-learning.com
Business & Office Management and Technology Program at Bevill State Community College
does anyone know about employment law and employees rights? need advise asap?
i have had my shifts altered after nine years of doing same shifts and i chose this because of my family life, my employer has told me if i dont change i have sacked myself is this right !!!!!!!!! need help!
You need to check your contract of employment. Check for a flexibility clause, a variation term or a mobility clause. Without these your employer cannot vary your conditions. If the firm has recently changed hands different legislation may apply. You should write a letter to your employer and make it clear that you do not accept the changes. Sign and date the letter. Do this as soon as possible because if you start to work the new shifts you will have deemed to have accepted the changes. Your employer does not need it in writing to say you have accepted. After you have given your employer the letter and if you have to work the new shifts make it clear that you are doing this under protest. You cannot do this indefinitely, you have to then take further action. Unfortunately this would be to resign and take them to an employment tribunal for breach of contract. Under recent employment law changes, employers must be more family friendly and take family circumstances into account. This depends on the size of the company. Unfortunately although you have these rights if you really can't work the new hours and your employer insists you must, then an employment tribunal would seem the most likely outcome. There is a strict process to follow, which is time limited and really you need help. Try ACAS and also look up your CAB. We have a great employment advisor in our area, it is free, they compose the letters and they do representation work at the tribunals. Good luck. DO NOT DO ANYTHING WITHOUT SPEAKING TO AN EMPLOYMENT SPECIALIST. Solicitors are often a waste of time in this field unless they are specialists in employment.
Trevor Phillips on the need to actively seek equality
Courts on relatively new ground with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders
CHICAGO — As long as his mom could remember, Matthew Link was impulsive, making bad choices and not understanding right from wrong. He required constant supervision and would tell "off-the-wall" stories that made him look tough and powerful. SCOPE: "Together Our Voice Can Change The World"
After the Icelandic volcano: what the lawyers expect next
The stragglers among the stranded volcano victims may be arriving home but we are not out of the ash cloud yet. Indeed — from a legal perspective — the crisis has barely started. Only now, as people dust themselves down and turn to the paperwork, can we start to get a glimmer of what lies ahead. Working Time and Holidays: a practical legal guide by Lucy McLynn
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Do I Need An Attorney To Fight A Traffic Ticket?
Like clockwork I'm asked at least once a week whether I would suggest a potential client retain my services to fight a traffic violation in court. Like everything else in life, there are no cut and dry answers to this question. However, there are some general rules of thumb as to when it's in your interest to have a criminal defense lawyer or DUI lawyer by your side in court and when it might not be the wisest financial choice.
1.) If charged with a criminal traffic offense such as Operating a Motor Vehicle While Intoxicated, Driving While Suspended, Reckless Driving, etc., it is almost always in one's interest to have a criminal attorney by your side. Any traffic offense that can land you in jail and/or with a suspended license is one that should be handled by a criminal attorney. Depending upon the jurisdiction, too many good people make the critical mistake of thinking that a court appearance is not a big deal if it is heard in traffic court. After all, "I'm not a criminal" such people say to themselves, why do I need to retain a criminal defense lawyer? Whether one likes it or not, drunk driving, driving while suspended , reckless driving etc. are considered criminal offenses in nearly all American courtrooms.
Unfortunately, one always has to keep in mind that a traffic law prosecutor often gets promoted on the severity of the criminal sentence imposed and NOT in looking out for one accused of a driving offenses best interests. As a result, it is often imperative that one accused of such a criminal offense in traffic court not leave potential criminal penalty and/or license suspension in the hands of one assigned to prosecute you for a criminal offense. By sending a message to a prosecutor that you will not be taken advantage of, it is often only the services of a criminal attorney that can eliminate the prospect of jail and/or probation with costly impediments to your liberty and livelihood.
By finding ways to reduce criminal charges that may otherwise prevent license suspensions with costly increases in high risk insurance rates or by impressing upon a prosecutor that it will require more effort than a prosecution is worth not to resolve the case in a prompt and fair manner, an effective criminal attorney is often well worth the financial investment. Depending upon the state, it is always advisable to consult with a criminal lawyer for free as to the criminal offense charged in traffic court and a winning strategy to employ within the particular courtroom one finds themselves in.
2.) One does not need to employ a criminal defense lawyer or DUI attorney if charged with a traffic "infraction" that may not result in possible jail time or possible driver's license suspension. In most American courtrooms a traffic infraction is a traffic violation that is punishable by monetary fine and/or adverse points to your driving record.
Unless circumstances exist where too many traffic infractions accumulated may result in a license suspension by your state's department of motor vehicles, it is usually a wiser financial move to save whatever monies would be payable to a criminal attorney and use it to pay for any potential traffic fine for the violation. Yes, a defense attorney may be willing to fight an infraction for you in court at trial. However, in good conscience there are many criminal attorneys such as myself who take the position that such actions usually do more to benefit the financial interests of the trial attorney as opposed to the client paying them.
"But the police officer was wrong to ticket me, do I not have the right to go to trial?" Yes, you have the right to trial. However, unlike a criminal case standard whereby a prosecutor must find a criminal defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to sustain a criminal conviction, a traffic infraction is far different. To sustain a conviction for a traffic infraction, a prosecutor need only prove evidence of a driving offense by a "preponderance of the evidence," or in plain English, "more likely than not."
In the real world "in my opinion" too many judges are constrained in siding for those challenging traffic infractions, for to side with one challenging a ticket is to rebuke a police officer who will undoubtedly come before that same judge on a regular basis. Are there courageous and principled jurists in infraction trials, undoubtedly yes. However, weighed against the significant financial resources one must pay a criminal attorney or DUI lawyer to fight such an infraction and the steep odds against the average person's word against a police officer's, one may find it far less costly to pay the ticket at an early stage in the proceedings without being victimized further at a later date.
Alternatively, if one's driving record is good, it is always wise to inquire whether the local prosecutor and/or court has a traffic deferral program, safe driver program or some other program with a name touting the virtues of safe driving. Often for less than the price of paying a ticket, one with a good driving record can have their case dismissed upon payment of fine and no further traffic violation within a prescribed period of time.
About the Author
For a Top Indiana Criminal Defense Lawyer serving Indiana. Stark Law Offices, 201 N. Illinois, Indianapolis, IN (317) 273-8888, 450 E. 96th St., Ste. 500 Indianapolis, IN (317) 818-6035, 450 E. 96th St., Ste. 500 Indianapolis, IN 46240 (317) 818-6035 Indiana traffic tickets.
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California Hispanic Discrimination Lawyer And Latino Civil Rights Attorney Discusses Discrimination Against Hispanics, Latinos And Mexican-Americans
As the economic downturn worsens and unemployment rises in America, civil rights advocates and lawyers and Hispanic, Latino and Mexican-American discrimination attorneys in California fear the result may be an increase in discrimination toward Hispanics, Latinos and Mexican-Americans in the U.S.
If you have been the victim of discrimination toward Hispanics, Latinos or Mexican-Americans, visit our website at http://www.CaliforniaAttorneysLawyers.com and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.
While America has always stood for being a country with diverse ethnic cultures that make us great, the fear is that those who have the least, may suffer the most in this economic downturn as unemployment rises and jobs, even those that were previously unwanted, now become a precious commodity.
At the Law Firm of R. Sebastian Gibson, California Hispanic, Latino and Mexican-American Discrimination Lawyer, Sebastian Gibson has always stood for the protection of the civil rights of everyone living in the U.S. We fight for the rights of Hispanics, Latinos and Mexican-Americans to be treated with the same respect and the protections afforded to them under the law as every one else should be in America. And we are concerned that in these uncertain times, Hispanic, Latino and Mexican-American families do not become the object of discrimination when we should all be pulling together to help each other in times of need.
While African-Americans in this country have for many decades, always suffered the most unemployment, Hispanics and Latinos are not far behind. And while African-Americans can now look to President Obama as an inspiration to what a person can do of any race, Hispanics, Latinos and Mexican-Americans as well as other minorities, still suffer from discrimination in the work place and in daily life.
Instead of becoming a society where the rich cultures of Hispanics and Latinos are shared with other cultures in America, too much of the country remains segregated where Hispanics, Latinos and Mexican-Americans either choose to live or can only afford to live where the majority of their citizens are concentrated in parts of cities away from where Caucasians, African-Americans or other minorities live. There are many causes of discrimination, all of which are idiotic, but the less interaction different cultures have, the more likely it is there will be discrimination by those who do not relate to each other.
Studies have found that nearly three in every ten Hispanic workers feel they have been discriminated against in their employment. Some report being referred to with racial slurs at work while one in four feel they are paid less and have reduced career advancement prospects than their Caucasian counterparts. In many organizations, there is a scarcity of Hispanics, Latinos and Mexican-Americans in management positions.
FBI statistics show a dramatic increase in anti-Hispanic hate crimes. And sadly, hate groups are increasing due to anti-illegal immigration concerns.
One would have thought that as a result of this situation, that there would be a flood of civil rights advocates and anti-discrimination lawyers fighting for the rights of Hispanics, Latinos and Mexican-Americans. Yet, that is not the case.
A symbol of discrimination to many Hispanics, Latinos and Mexican-Americans is the construction of the U.S.-Mexico border fence which is actually several separation barriers designed to prevent illegal movement of goods and people across the U.S. and Mexico border.
The U.S.- Mexico border fence is reportedly nearing completion as this article is being written in March 2009. While much of the purported reasoning for the multi-billion dollar fence was based on preventing the entry of terrorists into the country, many feel that reasoning is flawed while our border with Canada remains open. While the efforts have also been aimed at stopping the flow of drugs into the U.S. a secondary effort is to prevent the flow of weapons bought in the U.S. and smuggled into Mexico.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said that even the fence will not stop illegal immigration along the border with Mexico, although it may help prevent those who are crossing illegally from blending immediately into some town populations. However, the fence is not continuous and where there are gaps, surveillance technology must be utilized. And then, there remains the fear that tunnels will be used even more extensively than in the past.
Over forty tunnels have been found since 2001 and some have been extremely sophisticated. One such tunnel from Tijuana to San Diego was half a mile long, sixty to eighty feet deep, and eight feet tall. It had drainage, electricity and a concrete floor, and its entrance from the California side was in a modern warehouse. The entrance to the tunnel in Mexico was in another building.
It should be noted that the border with Mexico is 1,951 miles in length. The fence that is reportedly nearing completion was only completed for approximately 600 miles in February 2009, when news reports came out that the fence was nearly finished.
As a result of the construction of the barrier, there has now been an increase in the number of people trying to cross in such areas as the Sonoran Desert and over the Baboquivari Mountain in Arizona where no fence exists. This requires crossing 50 miles of inhospitable terrain to reach the Tohono O'odham Indian Reservation, which many fear may lead to an increase in migrant deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border if the smugglers try these more difficult routes.
In the last thirteen years, there have been around five thousand migrant deaths along the border. The U.S. Border Patrol Tucson Sector reported on October 15, 2008 that its agents saved 443 illegal aliens from almost certain death after being abandoned by their smugglers. Without the efforts of these border patrol agents, many more deaths would have occurred and may occur in the future.
The U.S.-Mexico border fence has been controversial, to say the least, since its inception. It has been condemned by the government of Mexico and opposed by many in the U.S. as well. Tribal lands of three American Indian Nations will be divided by the border fence and the campus of the University of Texas at Brownville will be divided into two parts according to a vice president of the university. A section of the barrier was even mistakenly built inside Mexican territory requiring its removal and rebuilding at a cost of over three million dollars.
Visit our website at http://www.CaliforniaAttorneysLawyers.com and call us if you have been the victim of discrimination toward Hispanics, Latinos or Mexican-Americans.
There is no excuse for discrimination in America. If you have been the victim of discrimination against Hispanics, Latinos or Mexican-Americans, call California Civil Rights Lawyer Sebastian Gibson for a consultation.
About the Author
Visit our website at http://www.CaliforniaAttorneysLawyers.com if you have been the victim of discrimination toward Hispanics, Latinos or Mexican-Americans. We have the knowledge and resources to be your California Civil Rights Lawyer and California Civil Rights Attorney anywhere in Southern California from San Diego to Orange County, and Santa Barbara to Palm Springs and all points in between.
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Consult a California Mesothelioma Lawyer About Mesothelioma Lawsuits Due To Asbestos Exposure
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.
Vote 2010: A guide to Berks County's primary election
The Pennsylvania primary will be held May 18 to nominate candidates for the Nov. 2 general election. The state uses a closed primary system, meaning only registered Democrats and Republicans may participate and can vote only for candidates in their own party. Employment Law : How to Create a Certificate of Authenticity
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Unlike most Chinese immigrants of his time, Gin Lin found respect and a mountain of gold
The last thing Chinese were generally despised, discriminated against and performing dangerous, backbreaking work for 60 to 75 cents a day in the American West, Gin Lin stood out in the crowd. He not only gained the respect of the business and civic leaders of southern Oregon but also became wealthy beyond most men's wildest dreams.
Fast clipper ships carried the news of the 1848 gold strike at Sutter's Mill across the Pacific. Peasants toiling in China's rice paddies heard that gold had been discovered in California almost as soon as factory workers in Boston and New York did. Soon the Chinese were calling America's West Coast Gum Shan, or the "Mountain of Gold." By February 1849, the first of the Far Eastern gold-seekers had landed in San Francisco. Hordes would follow
Like thousands of his countrymen, Gin Lin fled crushing poverty, war, overcrowding, disease and civil unrest in his homeland to seek his fortune in the gold fields of America.
Living conditions in mid- 19th-century China were almost unbearable, particularly in Kwangtung (Canton) province. For thousands of years the fertile delta of the Pearl River in southeast China had been the country's rice basket, but farms that once flourished had been subdivided and parceled out to generations of descendants, leaving plots too small to support a family. Squalor and filth along the teeming waterfronts caused typhoid, malaria, cholera and plague to run rampant. Social unrest and civil war added to the misery The Taiping Rebellion, which lasted from 1851 to 1864, claimed more than 20 million lives.
Young men who could only hope to make 10 cents a day in China, if they could find employment, jumped at the chance to earn 60 to 75 cents a day as miners or railroad workers in the New World. Not even the dangers of a Pacific voyage or the uncertainties of living in a foreign land could deter them.
Unlike most European emigrants, who came to America seeking freedom and hoping to build a new life, the Chinese came as temporary residents intent upon improving their economic plight and returning to China. Known as sojourners, they were strangers in a strange land. About half the men were married, but very few brought their wives. They sent much of their earnings home. Only 5 percent of the Chinese who came to America in the mid-1800s were women, most of those having been orphaned or sold by their families.
Ill-clad and unprepared for cold weather, some of the early sojourners froze to death. Their standard wardrobe consisted of loose-fitting light-blue denim pants, blue tuniclike shirts, white stockings, skull caps and cloth shoes with paper soles. Many wore the large conical straw, or "coolie," hats that provided some protection from sun and rain as well as storage space. Later arrivals added coats and boots to their attire. The queue, or long pigtail, which hung down the middle of the back from an otherwise shaven head, was not a fashion statement but considered a necessity. Manchu dictators forbid returning workers to re-enter China without them.
The main staple of the Oriental diet was rice supplemented by a few fresh vegetables and dried fruit when available. Because they boiled their water to make tea, the Chinese often avoided the diseases that swept through the mining camps.
The clannish ways and strange customs of the sojourners caused the white population to mistrust and resent them. One Chinese practice the whites found especially disgusting was that of exhuming their dead so the bones could be transported back to China. Father Francis Xavier Blanchet, an early resident of the gold-rush town of Jacksonville, Ore., wrote: "Whenever a child of the deceased leaves for China to visit or on business, they dig up the body, scrape the bones, and carefully transplant them in China so that their souls will go to Paradise."
Violence was commonplace in the mining camps, and the sojourners were often blamed for anything that went wrong. Since nonwhites were not allowed to testify against whites until 1862, and often did not get fair treatment in the courts even after that time, Chinese were frequently beaten, robbed and even killed with impunity. In some mining camps, shootings were almost a nightly occurrence.
Following the gold rush north, the first Chinese began trickling into southern Oregon shortly after the 1852 strikes were made on Jackson Creek, where the rowdy town of Jacksonville mushroomed almost overnight. More strikes quickly followed in the Siskiyou Mountains, as well as along the Applegate and Rogue rivers and their tributaries. By 1870 there were between 2,500 and 4,000 Chinese miners in southern Oregon.
The sojourners were welcomed to Jackson County with a $2-per-month head tax in 1857, and it was doubled in 1858. In addition, the state adopted a law in 1862 that directed every Negro, Chinaman, Kanaka (Hawaiian), and Mulatto" living in Oregon to pay an annual $5 poll tax. As if that were not enough, any Chinese engaged in any kind of trading was charged a $50-per-month fee. An article that appeared in the September 1, 1866, issue of The Oregon Sentinel, Jacksonville's Republican newspaper, expressed the resentment and open hostility directed toward the Chinese: We hope that during the present legislative session, the very important question of taxing the Chinese miners will not be overlooked.... It seems an unwise policy to allow a race of brutish heathens who have nothing in common with us, to exhaust our mineral lands without paying a heavy tax for their occupation. These people bring nothing with them to our shores, they add nothing to the permanent wealth of this country and so strong is their attachment to their own country, they will not let their filthy carcasses lie in our soil. Could this people be taxed as to exclude them entirely, it would be a blessing."
Those whites who put aside their prejudices long enough to get to know the Chinese found them, on the whole, to be peaceable, respectful, friendly dependable, generous and very hard-working. Celebration of the Chinese New Year was always observed with fireworks and candy that the sojourners happily shared with their non-Oriental neighbors. Although the mining camps and "shanty towns" in Oregon were filthy, Chinese miners practiced better personal hygiene than most of their white counterparts, taking daily baths with soap and warm water and changing their clothes before dinner.
Some may have drifted in from California on their own, but most sojourners arrived in Oregon under contract to a Chinese boss who farmed them out to work for white mine owners. The mine owner paid the boss in a lump sum and he, in turn, deducted any amount the worker still owed on his transportation across the ocean. All purchases of food and supplies were also made through the Chinese boss.
Gin Lin was such a boss. His arrival in southern Oregon went unnoticed and unrecorded, but it was soon apparent that he was different from most of his countrymen. Elmira McKee Thurman, an earlyday Oregon resident, remembered him as dark, heavy-set and rather youthful looking. Instead of the usual queue, he sported a full head of bushy hair.
Oregon did not allow Chinese to stake mining claims or own mining property yet by 1864 Gin Lin managed to buy mining property from John Wilson near the settlement of Buncom at the confluence of Sterling Creek and the Little Applegate River for $900.
White men were frequently eager to sell what they considered "played out" mines to Chinese. "The white man's philosophy was to get as much gold as he could and then move on," says Marjorie Edens of the Southern Oregon Historical Society. The industrious Chinese seemed happy to take over "played out" mines, and when they moved on to richer diggings, the claims they left behind were truly worthless.
Soon many of the laborers Gin had formerly contracted out to other mine owners were working for him on the Little Applegate River. He treated his men with honesty and fairness, even helping some of them purchase their own claims. He made sure the claims were legally recorded by Jacksonville attorney Charles Wesley Kahler and that the proper taxes were paid.
Gin's crew worked hard for him. Rich veins of gold were uncovered at his mining operation, and the Gin Lin Mining Company began to play an important role in southern Oregon's economy.
Gin continued to work his Little Applegate mine through the 1870s until the deposits waned. In 1881, he purchased more claims in the Palmer Creek and Flumet Flat area farther up the Applegate River.
As Gin Lin's wealth grew, so did his status among Jacksonville's citizenry. The sight of him driving a handsome buggy pulled by a high-stepping horse around town became a familiar one. He became friends with several of the area's most prominent business leaders, including pioneer photographer Peter Britt, who took several photographs of him; banker C.C. Beekman; attorney Wes Kahler; and cabinetmaker David Linn.
David Linn's son, Fletcher, described the Chinese miner in his book Memories: "Gin Lin was a large, robust character, not at all like the 'Coolie' or laboring Chinese who constituted the laboring force in his operations; and on one of his visits to 'China Town,' he came across the street to meet father, and introduced himself as 'Gin Lin alle same Dave Linn's cousin,' and he and father became quite good friends."
Gold deposits found along the Applegate River and its tributaries were soon depleted; new mining methods had to be developed to excavate the yellow metal buried in ancient streambeds along the hillsides. Hydraulic mining was the answer, and Gin Lin was the innovator of this type of mining in southern Oregon. He had the equipment he needed hauled in by pack train from Crescent City Calif, and set his Chinese crew to digging water ditches.
Hydraulic mining used pressurized water to loosen the packed gravel of the slopes. The success of hydraulic mining depended upon a reliable source of water. In order to divert water from the larger streams to the mining operations, the Chinese used picks and mattocks to dig hundreds of miles of ditches through the dense brush and rocky slopes of the upper Applegate Valley Many of these ditches can still be seen.
Water from the ditch flowed into a large wooden structure called a"headbox" From the headbox it was diverted into a penstock made of riveted steel pipes that lined a trench leading downslope. The abrupt drop in elevation increased the water pressure. The penstock pipe delivered the water to a large nozzle the miners called a "giant." Water blasted from it into the exposed hillsides. Loosened material was washed through a series of sluice boxes, or wooden troughs, which separated the gold-bearing silt from the gravel. Worthless gravel and cobbles were cast aside into tailing piles.
Fletcher Linn told about visiting Gin Lin's hydraulic mining operation: "When I was home from college for a brief visit on Christmas in 1887, father suggested that I join him on a Sunday trip to visit Gin, as he had often asked father to do. We hitched a horse to the light buggy, and started very early as the mine was ten or twelve miles from Jacksonville, over the hills into the Applegate Valley When we arrived, the operation was closed down for a 'clean-up'; so we missed seeing the operation, but 'Gin' surely entertained us in showing us some of the results of his week or ten days run. I had seen several other hydraulic operations, but never one to equal this one of 'Gins.' The work done, and earth removed by those huge Hydraulic Giants, was really amazing. The 'clean up' was the largest of its kind that I ever saw; and the Chinese workers were carrying out the gold in small buckets full, under the protection of a couple of armed guards pacing the upper ledge or rim of the mine. All 'Gin' would say as he glanced at the buckets and then to father, was 'Putty good, Cousin, Putty good.' We had a fine visit with 'Gin' and a mighty interesting day"
As a result of his mining activities in the Applegate Valley Gin Lin deposited between $1 million and $2 million worth of gold dust and nuggets in the Beekman Bank in Jacksonville. He became a familiar face in town.
Gin Lin went to great lengths to keep good relations with the white people of the community even employing several white men in his mines. He was known to shut down operations periodically through the summer months so farmers could use the water from his ditches to irrigate. It is also said that when an Indian burial was exposed, he ordered that the area be left undisturbed.
It is known that Gin Lin had at least four different wives while in southern Oregon. He made several return trips to China, each time bringing back a delicately featured, almond-eyed beauty dressed in fine silks and brocades and younger than her predecessor. He would then simply sell his former spouse to one of his men. Gin Wye, born in Jacksonville, was the son of Gin Lin's youngest and last wife, Gen Shen.
When the gold grew scarce in southern Oregon as in other parts of the West, most of the Chinese went to work on the railroads. They provided the railroad bosses with a reliable yet inexpensive source of labor.
Of the several thousand sojourners residing in southern Oregon during the height of the gold-mining era, only a handful remained by the turn of the century The 1900 census counted a mere 43 Chinese residents in Jackson County
No one is exactly certain of Gin Lin's fate, but he disappeared from southern Oregon in the late 1800s. He may have left because of racism or simply because he had made enough money and wanted to return to his homeland, or, as Marjorie Edens says, "all of the above." One story says that he sold his Oregon holdings, withdrew his money from the Jacksonville bank (hiding it on his person) and sailed in 1894 for China, where he was robbed and fatally beaten as he stepped off the ship onto the wharf at Canton. Another version of the story says he lived in China three years with his wife and son before his death in 1897.
Although Gin Lin's fate may never be known, his legend lives on in southern Oregon. Today the U.S. Forest Service maintains the Gin Lin Trail above the Applegate River where visitors can take a self-guided tour of Gin Lin's Palmer Creek operation. Part of his story is etched on the moss-covered tailing piles, the overgrown water ditches and the hydraulic cuts in the "mountain of gold" that made him rich.
Tax Law Changes That Will Impact your 2007 Tax Return
Expect some changes when you file your 2007 tax return! Here are a few highlights from the Small Business and Work Opportunity Act of 2007.
Do you own real estate?
At the very end of 2007, Congress passed a bill with several tax law changes impacting real estate. Qualified Joint Ventures by Married Taxpayers If a husband and wife who file a joint return are the only members of a qualified joint venture, they can elect not to be treated as a partnership for Federal tax purposes. Applies to tax years beginning after December 31, 2006.
§179 Deductions: This great deduction has been extended through 2010. Taxpayers with $500,000 or less in assets placed in service on or after January 1, 2007 can elect to expense immediately up to $125,000.
GO ZONE §179 Deductions: For 2007 Taxpayers with $1,050,000 or less in assets placed in service on or after January 1, 2007 can elect to expense immediately up to $212,000.
FICA Tip Credit: The FICA tip credit will continue to be based on the old minimum wage of $5.15 even though the minimum wage is scheduled to increase to $7.25 over the next two years. Applies to tips received for services performed after December 31, 2006.
Work Opportunity Tax Credit: The Work Opportunity Tax Credit is extended an additional 44 months through August 31, 2011. (Note that with respect to an employer that hires a targeted individual on August 31, 2011, the credit will be available for wages paid through August 30, 2012.) The targeted veterans group is expanded to include veterans with service-connected disabilities, and doubles the maximum credit for hiring those veterans. The "high-risk youth" targeted group has been replaced with a much broader group that includes older individuals (up through age 39), and individuals who reside in certain rural counties. The rehabilitation referrals group has been expanded to include individuals referred through a Social Security Administration Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program. Applies to individuals who begin work for the employer after May 25, 2007.
Waiver of AMT Limits on Work Opportunity and FICA Tip Credits: The work opportunity tax credit and the credit for portion of FICA taxes paid with respect to employee cash tips may offset alternative minimum tax liability. The waiver of AMT limits apply to credits determined in tax years beginning after December 31, 2006, and to carrrybacks of such credits. Effective for tax years beginning after December 31, 2006, and to carrybacks of such credits.
Sale of Stock in a Qualified Subchapter S Subsidiary: An S corporation's sale of a QSub's stock is treated as a sale of an undivided interest in the QSub's assets followed by a deemed creation of the subsidiary in a §351 transaction. These new rules are not intended to affect current law treatment of transfers of QSub stock in otherwise nontaxable transactions. For example, certain pro rata distributions of QSub stock by a parent S corporation to its shareholders can qualify for tax free treatment if the requirements of §355 and §368(a)(1)(D). Applies to tax years beginning after December 31, 2006.
What changes are in store for your 2008 taxes?
Kiddie Tax: The kiddie tax is expanded to apply to any child who is 18 years old or is a full time student over the age of 18, but under age 24. However, the kiddie tax will not apply to such individuals if their earned income exceeds half of their support for the year. Does not apply until 2008.
Passive Investment Income of S Corporations: S corporation capital gain from the sale or exchange of stock or securities is no longer characterized as passive investment income. Gross receipts from more regular income streams (those derived from rents, royalties, dividends, interest and annuities) remain subject to the passive investment income limitations. Becomes effective for tax years beginning after May 25, 2007.
About the Author
Tom Wheelwright is not only the founder and CEO of Provision, but he is the creative force behind Provision Wealth Strategists. In addition to his management responsibilities, Tom likes to coach clients on wealth, business, and tax strategies. Along with his frequent seminars on these strategies, Tom is an adjunct professor in the Masters of Tax program at Arizona State University. For more information, visit http://www.provisionwealth.com.com .
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Do's and Don'ts in the Workplace (part I)
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/
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Fair Opportunity for Disabled Employees
There are certain forms of workplace discrimination that are not allowed in the United States under the Employment Law. The employer must be discriminating on the basis of a protected category in order for the discrimination to be considered illegal.
Such forms of illegal discrimination protected under the area of Federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Laws include age, gender, race, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, pregnancy, and disability discrimination. This article will discuss on the latter: disability discrimination.
The Federal Law which forbids employment discrimination against “qualified individuals with disabilities” in the private sector, and in state and local governments falls under the Title I and Title V of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990.
ADA defines disability, with respect to an individual, as:
a. A mental or physical impairment that significantly limits one or more of the major life activities of such individuals; (Major life activities are actions that an average person can perform with little or no difficulty such as walking, seeing, breathing, hearing, speaking, learning, working, and caring for oneself..)
b. A record of such an impairment; or
c. Being considered as having such impairment
A qualified employee or applicant with a disability is described as an individual who possess the legitimate skills, experience, education or other requirements of a position. Further, he or she can perform the essential functions of the job in question with or without reasonable accommodation.
Reasonable accommodation is any modification or adjustment to a job or work requirement that will enable a qualified applicant or employee to participate in the application process or to perform essential job functions.
An employer is required to make reasonable accommodations to the known disability of a qualified applicant or employee if it would not impose an “undue hardship” on the operation of the employer’s business.
Job discrimination against people with disabilities is illegal if practiced by:
• Private employers
• State and local governments
• Employment agencies
• Labor organizations
• Labor management committees
Under the ADA, it is unlawful to discriminate a disabled person in any aspect of employment, including:
• Hiring and firing
• Compensation, assignment, or classification of employees
• Transfer, promotion, layoff, or recall
• Job advertisements
• Recruitment
• Use of company facilities
• Training and apprenticeship programs
• Fringe benefits
• Pay, retirement plans, and disability leave
• Other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment
Unfair prejudice denies disabled people the chance to participate and compete equally with other workers. They are also denied the opportunity to live independently and be self-sufficient. The laws on discrimination prevent these from happening.
Now, if unlawful discrimination is practiced by an employer or any entity, a disabled applicant or employee may file a claim. He or she may file it with the local office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or the anti-discrimination agency of the state where the employee works. In the state of California, this agency would be the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH).
Once the EEOC has determined that a person has a right to sue, the plaintiff will normally have 90 days to file a lawsuit in court. An expert disability discrimination attorney will be a great partner in taking a legal action.
If you think you have been discriminated by your employer due to your disability, seek the aid of our vigorous Los Angeles lawyers. Just log on to our website and know how to contact our expert legal team.
About the Author
Before becoming an online writer, Claysphere worked as a legal researcher, data analyst, and lyricist in a local band in his hometown. He has a degree in law, and worked for several law offices as a paralegal, office staff and as a researcher. He has continued to write topics relating to his learning in law.
HIV & AIDS Discrimination in San Francisco - Dolan Law Firm
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]uk employment law night work[/mage] Is there such a thing in UK employment law as unsocial hours payment?
I have been asked to work from 16.00 - 02.00 for one night a month. Is there anything in UK law which states that an unsocial hours payment should be paid for working these hours and if so between what hours should it be paid.
My normal shift pattern is 7.5 hours anywhere between 07.00 and 18.00 it can vary daily.
Jordyn and chris you must think I came out with the Ark. Go spam someone else.
There should be unsociable hours payments after 6pm increasing after 8pm and again after 11pm.
You should check with your Human Resources department, or contact the DWP (Department of Work and pensions) for clarification
What is the biggest key to being successful online?"
Ok, I work for a fairly well known British company, and if I work late I get paid up until 1am, regardless of whether we finish earlier or later.
Needless to say, we usually finish later, so I'm wondering if this in some way breaks the law, as I effectively work without being paid?
it depends on whether you get paid by the hour or whether you are a salaried employee. If you are paid hourly you should get paid for the hours you work BUT look at your contact and employee handbook very carefully as information on extra or less hours payment may be contained in there
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How To Smartly Give Away Assets During Your Lifetime
Giving away your financial assets can be more complicated than just writing a check. If you want to engage in lifetime gifting of some of your assets, you should be aware of certain rules. For instance, in 2008, the maximum annual gift tax exclusion amount is $12,000 per person. The lifetime federal gift tax exclusion amount is currently $1 million, and it will remain at that level through 2009.
The top federal gift tax rate is 45% for 2008(the maximum that your heir may need to pay on your gift). In 2010, the top gift tax rate will equal the top individual income tax rate (currently 35%). Any portion of the gift tax exclusion used will reduce dollar-for-dollar your estate tax exclusion available at death. In light of all this, you may want to consider some creative lifetime gifts. For one, charitable trusts can offer you several financial benefits, including the potential deferral of capital gains taxes, as well as possible gift and estate tax savings. They may also serve as effective vehicles for transferring wealth.
A Charitable Remainder Trust is a tax-exempt way to distribute income from the trust to beneficiaries for a period of time after which remaining assets are distributed to charities of your choice. You determine the time frame of the trust—it can last a lifetime or for a fixed term of up to 20 years—as well as the amount of annual payouts. There are some requirements that you should know about. First off, the annual payout for the length of the trust or the life expectancies of the beneficiaries (which would be you or your spouse) cannot exceed 50% or be less than 5% of the value of the trust. And a private foundation or donor-advised fund may be named as the charitable remainder beneficiary.
Highly-appreciated assets owned by the trust can also be sold without an immediate capital gain, which may allow for an increase in current income as well as income tax deduction. However, the type of assets gifted and the type of charity receiving the gifts, as well as your adjusted gross income, are all taken into consideration in determining your charitable income tax deduction. What’s more, there may be income tax due on your annual payouts from the trust.
Charitable Lead Trusts are funded with assets that are, preferably, expected to appreciate. The charity of your choice receives a fixed annual payout from the trust, and the remainder goes to your family members at the end of the charity’s payout term.
Unlike charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts are not tax-exempt. However, tax implications differ between a grantor CLT and a non-grantor CLT. With a grantor CLT, you are treated as the trust’s owner for income tax purposes and are responsible for paying taxes on the income generated. However, there is the potential to receive an immediate charitable income tax deduction for a portion of your contribution to the CLT. In the case of a non-grantor CLT, on the other hand, no upfront charitable deduction is allowed for income tax purposes. However, the CLT itself receives a charitable income tax deduction each year for the qualifying distribution it makes to charity. The primary benefit of a CLT lies in its potential gift-tax advantages. The value of the donor’s initial gift to the trust is determined by three factors: a government-set interest rate, the length of the trust and the payout to charity. When the government-set interest rate is low, the value of the donor’s gift is reduced for gift tax purposes. So CLTs are particularly attractive in periods of low interest rates.
The Grantor Retained Annuity Trust A Grantor Retained Annuity Trust allows you to pass assets you believe will appreciate in value to family members at discounted levels. You contribute assets to a trust and receive a fixed annuity payment stream for a specified period of years. At the end of the trust term, the remaining assets and their appreciation (if any) are distributed to your beneficiaries. Since the value of the gift is reduced by the present value of the annuity payments, you could structure a payment schedule and payout amount that could result in a minimal gift-tax value. However, if you die before the end of the specified term, some or all of the remaining trust property would be included in your estate and subject to estate taxes.
Life Insurance You could use life insurance to help replace your estate and gift tax liabilities. Life insurance often provides a substantial benefit for relatively small costs. A life insurance policy may be used by itself to increase the size of your estate, or it may be used for cost-effectively paying estate taxes. Plus, the proceeds of life insurance are typically income-tax free to the beneficiary. And with careful planning, these proceeds may also be received estate tax-free.
The Limited Liability Company or Family Limited Partnership A Limited Liability Company or Family Limited Partnership may help reduce the size of your estate for transfer-tax purposes. The LLC or FLP is made up of managing or voting interests and nonvoting interests, and you could gift the nonvoting interests to your children and grandchildren . Since the non-voting interests gifted to your children and grandchildren lack voting rights and are not readily marketable, they might be discounted for gift tax valuation purposes .
The Dynasty Trust A Dynasty Trust could allow you to establish a source of funds for multiple generations. Here’s how it generally works: You would fund the trust with an amount up to your and your spouse’s lifetime gift tax exclusions. The trust assets, including any growth, will remain free of federal transfer taxes (i.e., estate, gift and generation-skipping transfer taxes) for as long as they remain in the trust. In certain states, such as South Dakota, the trust may theoretically last forever. And the plan could be designed so that any distribution from the Dynasty Trust would be free of gift- and generation-skipping transfer taxes.
Income or principal from the trust may be distributed to your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren as specified in the trust document. The provisions could tie those distributions to incentives, such as maintaining gainful employment, and permit distributions for funding businesses or purchasing homes for the use of beneficiaries or other activities. There also may be provisions in the trust document to gift a percentage of the assets directly to a charity or family foundation. Assets remaining in the trust are protected from creditors and divorce judgments.
Create Your Estate Plan Discuss your estate planning objectives and concerns with your Financial Advisor and your tax and legal advisors. Together, you can develop an estate plan that best addresses your financial and familial situations.
Graeme H. Patey is a Financial Advisor located in Cleveland, Ohio and may be reached at 216-523-3015.
Life insurance is medically underwritten. You should not cancel your current coverage until your new coverage is in force. A change in policy may be subject to additional insurance and investment-related fees as well as increased risks, and may also require a medical exam. New surrender charges may be imposed with a new contract or may increase the period of time for which the surrender charges apply. Surrenders may be taxable. You should consult your own tax advisors regarding tax liability on surrenders.
Citigroup Inc., its affiliates, and its employees are not in the business of providing tax or legal advice. These materials and any tax-related statements are not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used or relied upon, by any such taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding tax penalties. Tax-related statements, if any, may have been written in connection with the "promotion or marketing" of the transaction(s) or matter(s) addressed by these materials, to the extent allowed by applicable law. Any such taxpayer should seek advice based on the taxpayer's particular circumstances from an independent tax advisor.
INVESTMENTS AND INSURANCE PRODUCTS: NOT FDIC INSURED • NOT A BANK DEPOSIT • NOT INSURED BY ANY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AGENCY • NO BANK GUARANTEE • MAY LOSE VALUE
Smith Barney is a division and service mark of Citigroup Global Markets Inc. Member SIPC.
About the Author
Graeme H. Patey specializes in developing customized financial strategies. He employs a consultative approach on the financial and investment needs of high net-worth individuals and financial services to businesses.
Ellen Simon | Sexual Harassment | Employee Rights | Workplace Discrimination
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[mage lang="" source="flickr"]florida employment law and breaks[/mage] Pregnancy and layoffs...?
Our company is going through layoffs. I am pregnant. Would the company be breaking any employment laws if I was "sent packing?" I am afraid that the company will lay me off because of my pregnancy, and of course, use a different excuse for doing so. I live in Florida. I am a permanent, full - time employee ( and not in ny probation period). I have no attendence or performance issues, I just got a raise and my review scored close to perfect. I am just worried my pregnancy will cause them to "let me go" because they do not want to deal with my Short Term Disability and similar (later on). Any suggestions? Help please....
Who else believes that a woman who breaks up another womans relationship with a man should be held responsible
for her actions in a court of law??? This happened to me about 5 months ago. I have lost my source of income neccessary to sustain my life. My ex and I have been together for 10 years. We shared everything together. and we were to marry this year. He left and moved in with her instantly. I have been left with deep emotional and mental scars that will be with me for the rest of my life. This has negatively affected my ablility to find employment that will give me enough income to sustain myself, not to mention dealing with future relationships, my family, my friends etc.
If you agree there should be reprocussions by law for women like this, please let me know. I will be going to the courthouse this week to file a hearing. after all if she came and stole my TV, this act is punishable by law. Why is not stealing someones quality of life a punishable crime too. I know there are many out there that have been through this. Show of hands please for support. At 56, hard to start over.
There is a law that you can sue her under. It's called Alienation of Affections. I almost took my hubby's floozy (now x) to court for the same thing. But, according to the lawyers, it is VERY hard, expensive, and not worth the effort. Get a REALLY good lawyer, and you can even sue for Emotional Stress, Mental breakdown etc. (if the lawyer is really good, they will add to it) But Hon, is it really worth dragging all her dirty laundry out in court? Remember, they will both retaliate, and your dirty laundry will be on display too. Think long and hard about it first. Is it really worth it? I didn't think so. My best revenge was when she dumped him 5 months later, and I had kept my dignity, and hubby came crawling back, only to find that I had happily moved on, and met someone else!!
Theodore Roosevelt Social and Industrial Justice 1912
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]part time employment law nj[/mage] Mass firings based on nationality?
I've worked at my place of employment (golf driving range) part time for 2 years. With the exception of 1 guy, all of us are part time, over 18, dependents of parents, and full time college students. The other guy is full-time and has dependents.
Just recently, the business was bought by a Korean guy. His plans (he never discussed it with us, but the higher ups all feel this is very possible based on the new owner’s actions) are to fire everyone, with the exception of the Korean golf pro, and bring in Korean employees. He has already gotten new contractors (all Korean), and no longer calls the old contractors (who are American). Even if an employee calls a contractor, he cancels them and calls a Korean contractor. If this were to take place, do I have a case under any EEO laws, and the NJ Law against Discrimination (LAD)?
YES YOU DO . KEEP DOCUMENTING ALL THE IRREGULARITIES. KEEP A RUNNING LOG. HAVE THE OTHER GUYS THAT WORK THERE TO DO THE SAME.
SERGEANT JOHN BASILONE (USMC) 28TH ANNUAL MEMORIAL PARADE RARITAN NJ (PART 1)
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Longtime Pepper Pike Mayor Bruce Akers has presided over years of prosperity. Jan 5, 2008 Illegal Alien hiring hall Protest, Jupiter Fl
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[mage lang="" source="flickr"]california employment law on breaks[/mage] How does misdemeanor in petty theft effect employment in california?
First off let me say that I want concrete information. I don't care for any information that YOU think sounds correct. Or any information you pieced together from resources that are of little or not having to do with criminal justice and laws in the state of california. If you have no beneficial information then do not post and press the back button.
Hey ya'll! I need to know exactly how does petty theft affect employment for an individual in the state of california. There is a key answer I'm looking for. Is it required for an applicant to list such a thing on a job application form? I know that it's definitely required if the offense is related to drugs or an outright felony of any sort. This would have been the first law broken/offense or whatever you would call it for the individual
Need this information for a semester report which is due in several weeks. So take your time. Thank you.
Yes,makes a different As a X-law Enforcement officer and current a Self Employed Lic. Landscaper I do this briefly:
1) A Back Ground Investigations for a Gov. Jobs:
Local,Stae.Fed. County:
a) Any theft shows Red Flag on Trust,around Money,material items equipment intrusted with etc.
2) Privete Sectors,Fast Foods,Large Chain Stores,down to The General Contractors and other jobs,Stock Brokers,Real Estate,
Banking Accounts:
a) All have to be Bonded,Insurance.Lilabilty Do Back Grounds on
employees of trust to be around Money,Books doing legal documendations a job of Trust,good chartor able to work around people.
This goes further in that a person may go to other homes, business and be around items of temptations,money in open
areas. That people need to trust and employee that repersents a
Business, no matter how big or small and they have Insurance to protect that if they are thefts. That business pays for that employee actions. Yes, thats why business and insurance co.
refuse to let employers,supervisors Human Resorces Dept.
not hire some people that has petty theft arrest records be hired just like not allowing Drug Users or addicts get hired.
Not Trust worth or they are a Lilabilty on the business person policy and may get cancealed without any Bonded or Insurance Lilabity policy. This maybe a one million or two million policy.
That depends on Business or Agency:
LONG BEACH HYATT HOTEL WORKERS FILE CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT (Spanish news coverage)
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In Virginia, if an employee leaves a company at will, are they entitled to vacation time pay out?
Legally, I mean. Is there a law enforcing that or anything? If I have 5 days of vacation time accrued and I want to get paid out for it, do they have to? What are my options? Just for a little MORE detail, I will give my two weeks notice either tomorrow or on Monday, and my last day will be Feb 27. If I take time off in between they will be "on to me." Advice needed! Thanks
p.s. - this place moderately screwed me over already, but I don't want to be a total @$$ because its not in my nature and I don't want a scar on my permanent employment record.
Thanks!
I think so, but I don't think you can count on it.
News Conference on SB66 - Part III
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Has anyone else had this problem claiming unemployment benefits in Colorado?
I live in PA, worked in Colorado for the federal government just up until this past September. I worked in PA, but that was prior to my federal employment. I have been told by PA that I need to file with CO since federal law states that you must file with the state of your last official duty station. CO has told me that I need to file with PA since I live here and have worked here in the last base year. If federal law states that I need to file with CO, why am I being given the runaround? Any suggestions from someone who has had this issue? It would be much appreciated!
PA is correct. You must apply in the state where you last worked. Ask to speak to a supervisor in CO; you're dealing with a clueless level 1 toadie.
Personal Injury, Accidents & Malpractice Attorneys - Boulder Vail Colorado
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Reinstituting a Reformed Welfare-to-work Program
The current U.S. Welfare system needs to have a complete overhaul, not only to provide better programs for those who really need it, but to help close some of the loopholes currently ravaging the program. Some people, like Stephanie and her friend Maria, who currently work at the Columbus Port International Airport, have a familiar scheme they use to cheat the system.
Stephanie and Maria work as customer service representatives for an airline, where they make $9 an hour. They both work full-time and put in lots of overtime hours, but since each has three kids, according to their household income, they are qualified to receive welfare assistance for as long as they earn a certain salary amount per month which is below the poverty level. Therefore, each month, they report to the welfare office that they only work part-time. They don’t tell the exact number of hours they each have worked, and welfare equates their hours with cash assistance to make up what they didn’t earn at work. In doing so, they keep getting money from the welfare office plus their real monthly earnings.
Other examples of those who might be exploiting the welfare system are the cases of Angela, Jackie, John, and Helen.
Jackie is a 45 year old woman, who has two grown daughters. Her husband passed away when the kids were 19 and 17. She lives in a nice apartment in a Section 8 division where she doesn’t pay any rent. She never graduated from high school and only has had a few odd jobs on and off, in her whole life. If you go in her apartment, you will not think that she is a welfare recipient, because she has a large TV screen, DVDs for almost every movie ever released, and she smokes about two packs of cigarettes every day. Jackie is completely healthy and is capable of finding and having gainful employment, but because she chose not to, she doesn’t have to work because she relies on her welfare benefits.
Helen is a 29 year old young lady and has 6 kids. Her oldest daughter is 13 years old and each child has a different father. Helen doesn’t have to work and she probably never will, because she receives welfare. For each child, she receives a certain amount of money each month, and she too lives in section 8 housing where she doesn’t have to pay rent.
John is 52 years old and has 5 kids. Each of his children live with their different mothers. For years, he has been in and out of jail for selling drugs, and now lives with his girlfriend in a one-bedroom apartment in section 8 housing, where they don’t have to pay rent for as long as they have no income. His girlfriend works, but she gets paid under the table and she doesn’t have to file her federal income tax, because of fear of losing their welfare benefits. John still sells drugs, and they have three different cars, except not one car is in their names, but in his brother’s name and his oldest daughter’s name.
Angela is a 46 year old lady, who has been legally deaf since she was in the 8th grade. She doesn’t have to work, never has, and probably never will, because she is legally disabled and therefore she receives federal welfare, which are housing, food and money each month.
As portrayed in the above examples, the current welfare system does not have the needed tools in place to help forcefully combat welfare fraud. It also handicaps and makes people to become lazy, because the longer they stay on welfare and don’t have to work, then the more they lose the will to ever look for a job. In addition, they may even forget any work they might have done when they were employed. These are the people who could be out there working, helping to contribute to the national economy, but they simply chose not to work and live off of welfare without having to ever worry about working and paying for rent, utilities and food.
America is the richest country on earth with the largest economy. The American government is well known around the world for taking good care of its own people, in terms of social welfare and socio-economic empowerment.
Most Americans, even those who are on welfare or live below the poverty level are still far better off compared to those in many other countries. However, in continuing to provide unrestricted welfare to some citizens, the government has been handicapping some of the welfare recipients by continuing to provide them with all their necessities without ever trying to help them improve their skills in order to find jobs in the future.
In achieving these goals of caring for its people, the U.S. federal government has instituted many programs designed to implement policies to achieve the highest well-being for every legal resident. The U.S. Welfare system is one of the best social programs in the U.S. designed to provide the necessities for those who are unable to work and have income to support their well-being.
The U.S. Social Welfare system was first introduced after the Great Depression in the 1930’s. The U.S. Social Security Administration website states that beginning in 1932, the Federal Government first made loans, then grants, to States to pay for direct relief and work relief. After that, special Federal emergency relief and public works programs were started. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed to Congress economic security legislation embodying the recommendations of a specially created Committee on Economic Security. There followed the passage of the Social Security Act, signed into law August 14, 1935.
The current Welfare program provides necessary food coupons, known as food stamps, and housing assistance, known as Section 8 programs, for low income families and those who are unable to earn a living because of health related issues, as well as monthly cash stipend to some recipients.
Because of the current welfare system which most observers believe has loopholes, there have been talks about reforming the welfare system for many years. In 1997 President Clinton took the initial step in reforming the welfare system with his initiatives of a Welfare-to-Work program. The Welfare-to-Work program was specifically designed to help provide welfare recipients with the needed recourses, training and skills, so that they may get jobs in the future and not continue to solely rely on the federal welfare system. In doing so, the program will help more welfare recipients to return to the workforce.
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the Welfare-to-Work program was tasked to encourage states to provide certain logistical support such as funding for transportation, vocational training, child care, and substance abuse treatment assistance for welfare recipients. However, many states have complained that they could not meet some of the requirements such as providing transportation and child care. Due to logistical and political reasons, the program abruptly ended in September 2004.
Some applauded the program while many thought that the program was designed to force people to work. In 2003, O’Neil of the New York Post wrote that politicians from both left and right perceive the Welfare to Work program as a success beyond expectations, but yet the program is nonetheless under political siege that requires it to reauthorize its basic component and it is now a year overdue and seems like it may never pass through Capitol Hill politics. In this article, O’Neil simply characterizes how some politicians from both left and right may say one thing, just to score some political points for future re-election purposes, but fail to fulfill their obligations and do the opposite.
President Clinton’s goal and purpose were to reform the Welfare system in order to better serve its purpose. He reinforced his rigorous commitment to provide welfare recipients with opportunities of attaining educational training and development that further help improve their knowledge and necessary skills in finding better paying jobs in the future and that help rid them from continually receiving welfare assistance.
However, when Bush came in the office in 2000, he had his own agendas such as the No Child Left Behind program, but not to make sure that the Welfare-to-Work program survives the political hurdle. It was also just a few months of him in office when the U.S. was hit by the act of terrorism in September 2001, and thereafter the War on Terror in Afghanistan and Iraq followed in October 2001 and March 2003 respectively.
Thus, maintaining and continuing to fund certain programs such as the Welfare-to-Work program might not have been a priority for the U.S. government during these years of war on terror and the recession. The U.S. economy has been slowing down since the early part of 2000, and up to now, in the year 2008, the economy has really never recovered to the point where the government may want to include certain programs such as the Welfare-to-Work system in its monstrous budget to fight and combat terrorism.
The Welfare-to-Work program was designed to be a solution to the welfare system and to provide constructive benefits to the recipients. However, President Clinton’s plan collapsed because he and his advisors failed to study it more on how to make it work better, given its complex task and States’ requirement. An addition to the cause of its collapse, the House was mostly controlled by the Republican lawmakers who severely opposed and voted against most of President Clinton’s proposals.
Thus not having provided all the needed tools, recourses and funding might have helped to contribute to the collapse of the program. If it was well studied and developed, then it could have lasted for a long time to help provide better incentives to help some people and families from solely relying on the federal government welfare subsidies.
In the article “Welfare-to-Work Transition” by Jacqueline J. Kirby, which appeared in The Ohio State University's Human Development and Family Life Bulletin, she describes the history and the after effects of the Welfare to Work program and used data and information from various sources to compare her argument such as the concern related to the inadequate federal regulations mandating matches in state funding, the lack of specific eligibility requirement for each state around the country, and no stated guidelines and specific requirements about how or where the money will be spent in each state. She depicts a program, which was implemented for a good intention but lack proper execution.
There are a few federal programs that are well-managed and strictly designed to make it hard or almost impossible for anyone to cheat or take advantages of them. Programs such as the educational Pell grant and some states have programs such as unemployment benefits, which have some of the best controlling programs designed to measure and check qualifications for anyone who may apply for either.
The educational Pell grant has two prominent and strict rules – felony and time cap for completing the first undergraduate degree. Under these rules, when someone applies for the federal financial aid, in order to qualify for the Pell grant, the applicant must not have a drug felony on his or her record and must graduate for the first undergraduate degree within eight years. If one applies for the financial aid and has a drug felony on his or her record, then that applicant will not be qualified to receive Pell grant for his or her education. Also, if the financial aid recipient does not graduate with his or her first undergraduate degree within eight years, then after eight years, he or she will not be eligible to receive a Pell grant.
For unemployment, when someone has been laid off work for any reason other than quitting or resigning, when that person applies to claim unemployment benefits for every week, then he or she must provide complete details of him or her looking for work for each week claimed. If he or she fails to look for a job, then he or she is not eligible to claim unemployment for that week or any other weeks he or she has not looked for a job.
These two programs work fine and they have tools and resources in place that help prevent fraud and make it hard for anyone to continually receive the benefits. They encourage their recipients to make sure that they must follow and abide by their strict rules in order to be eligible for their benefits. However, the current welfare system does not have a limit of how long someone can continue to receive welfare benefits.
In some European countries such as Denmark, the government provides their citizens with government income subsidies, but they have an incentive program that encourages the citizens to work or do anything that may generate income for their households. In the U.S., it is different. For as long as one is unemployed and has a reasonable excuse to convince welfare officials, then he or she can perfectly and safely have access to government sponsored (section eight) housing without ever having to worry about paying rent.
Therefore, if the Welfare-to-Work program is reformed to equally and efficiently serve the needs of both the federal government, the states, and the welfare recipients, then it will help more welfare recipients to find jobs, which in turn will help them to become productive and that will help increase the GDP. A portion of the money spent in the program can be used towards other social programs.
Reforming the Welfare system has been a subject that has been discussed by many pundits over the years, but putting it into action yields little. Even our current presidential candidates, McCain, Clinton, and Obama rarely talk about it. But it is one of many issues that need immediate attention.
It poses no fair compliment to those who get up each morning going to work, just to help fund the welfare system for those who simply chose not to work, because they just do not want to work for as long as the welfare system finances their well-being.
In an article titled “Reforming welfare with work” Gueron decries how our country has been debating the question of how well to redesign the welfare system, especially the federally supported welfare Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, which is equipped and is tasked to provide them with cash assistance for single-female-parent households. Gueron questions whether the welfare program should be continued with focus on providing broad assistance or it should simply become a "reciprocal obligations" program, whereby recipients must be required to find work within a given time period.
There are many Jackies, Johns, and Helens in most neighborhoods around the U.S. Let’s reform the Welfare system in order to help rehabilitate and empower them, give them the necessary training and skills and put them to work in order for us to further strengthen our economy.
Work Cited
Welfare-to-Work (1996, June). U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Retrieved Wednesday, April 9, 2008, from http://www.opm.gov/wtw/index.htm.
O'Neill, J. (2003, April 14). Welfare Reform Works. New York Post, pp.A11, A14.
Kirby, J. J. (1995). Welfare-to-Work Transition. The Ohio State University's Human Development and Family Life Bulletin, Volume 1, Issue 4, Winter 1995. Retrieved Wednesday, April 9, 2008, from http://fcs.osu.edu/hdfs/bulletin/volume.1/bull14a.htm.
Gueron, J. M. (1987). Reforming welfare with work. New York: Ford Foundation.
About the Author
Simon Kapenda is a current economics student at the Ohio State University and creator of RentersQ at www.rentersq.com.
Segregation shaped black-white interactions in the post-Civil War North Carolina, where it reigned from the white supremacy revolt of 1898 until the 1960s. Jim Crow period was a crucial phase of race relations in American society. However, racial segregation had far deeper roots in the North Carolina past. Before the Civil War, slaveholders needed few regulations to isolate slaves and free people of color, who were kept apart by custom. After the Civil War, a white backlash against the former slaves began to legalize the customary distance between blacks and whites.
Planters intended to defy the emancipation guaranteed by the Thirteenth Amendment and exploit ex-slave workers. White employers flogged and even killed freed people who dared to assert their new liberties, even in the face of Union garrisons and Republican authority. While the state constitution of 1868 confirmed abolition and legitimated previous black and mixed-race births, it plainly stated that Black children and white children should study in different public schools (Franklin 73).
Despite the presence of federal and state militias, the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Republican voters and officeholders, black and white. In 1870, when conservative Democrats regained a legislative majority, Klansmen murdered 16 Republicans and whipped at least 121 (Franklin 88). An act of 1874 proclaimed that no white child could be apprenticed to a black adult. The amended state constitution in 1875 prohibited between white people and African-Americans and it reiterated the requirement for dual schools (Evans 55). The legislature soon established industrial and normal colleges for blacks, but it ignored the terror that drove thousands of them to Kansas and Indiana in 1879-80.
Blacks continued to vote and hold office in much of eastern North Carolina, backing "the Party of Lincoln" despite facing dangerous opposition (Anderson 37). For instance, between 1868 and 1889, fourteen black Republicans were elected to seventeen state house and six state senate terms from New Hanover County, home of Wilmington (Evans 54). Between 1874 and 1890, three blacks also won terms in Congress from the Second Congressional District, "a Republican and black stronghold." (Anderson 34).
Legislators in 1892 proposed to segregate railway travel, as eight other Southern states already had done. Republican and Populist assemblymen opposed the enabling bill.
Oppression increased as black North Carolinians persevered. Their votes enabled Fusion men to gain 74 of the 120 General Assembly seats in 1894 and win the governorship in 1896, while electoral reforms passed by the Fusionist legislature helped blacks to regain numerous local offices (Anderson 93). By 1897, in Wilmington, four aldermen, an audit board member, a justice of the peace, the deputy clerk of court, and the coroner were black (Edmonds 162). Clearly, 1898 marked a turning point in Jim Crow. The election that year brought into relief not only extreme white racism, but also fallout from the legal disfranchisement of blacks in South Carolina (1895) and the Supreme Court's "separate but equal" decision in Plessy v. Ferguson ( 1896) (Edmonds 165). Klansmen and White Supremacy Clubs frequently demonstrated at black and Fusion rallies, intimidating the crowds by a show of guns. In 1897-99 seven lynchings were reported in North Carolina, and racial intimidation and terrorism reached into even the most remote crossroads and towns during the fall of 1898 (Evans 87). Democrats reclaimed five of the state's nine congressional seats; Republicans retained three seats, reelecting the nation's only black congressman, George H. White, from the Second District (Evans 88). In state contests Democrats took ninety-four house and forty senate seats to the Republicans' twenty-three (four black) and seven (one black) and Populists' three and three (Evans 95).
During the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 legally selected Republicans were overthrown by white Democrats. As the result, Democrats established the government which was based upon white supremacy (Wilmington Race Riot 1). It symbolized the creation of a codified and brutal color line, one that would last through the first half of the twentieth century.
In 1899 lawmakers adopted voting restrictions based on the Louisiana model of a literacy test, poll tax, and grandfather clause. Scheduled for a referendum in 1900, the suffrage amendment promised significant reduction of the black electorate, thereby undermining a multiracial or working-class challenge to Democratic and white dominance. Adult illiteracy then was 40 percent for black males, compared to 20 percent for white males (Edmonds 180). Registrars did not expect or permit black men to read and explain a section of the state constitution as specified in the amendment. Nor could most blacks afford to pay poll taxes, for they earned only subsistence incomes. Virtually none had grandfathers who voted prior to January 1867, so, as descendants of freedmen, they lost by fiat the protection given to illiterate white men.
The assault on democratic citizenship quickened. At least two acts proscribed racially mixed fraternal orders and mental hospitals; five empowered the utilities commission to enforce Jim Crow in transport. In 1900 black leaders issued "An Address to the White People of North Carolina" protesting the imminent passage of the constitutional amendment that would disfranchise blacks (Edmonds 195).
Legal separation proceeded apace. The state required the board of education to operate all-black school districts and dictated that school librarians "fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library." (Jim Crow Laws, Libraries). One statute allowed for relief and pension benefits to "fire companies composed exclusively of colored men." (Edmonds 199). Furthermore, a "person of negro descent to the third generation, inclusive" was defined as black (Jim Craw Laws, Intermarriage). Any officer who failed to confine black and white prisoners separately should be considered guilty, according to an order on prisons. Three orders similarly charged operators of streetcars and trains.
The legal and informal contours of Jim Crow covered a wide domain. The restrictions betrayed white fears of black-Indian cooperation, black educational progress and competition for jobs, interracial sex, and blacks' political dissent. To wit, the state reordered the segregation of Indians in jails, homes of the aged, and hospitals. It warranted a curriculum of only "practical agriculture and the mechanical arts and such branches of learning as relate thereto" for black colleges (Murray 332). Toilets had to be "lettered and marked in a distinct manner, so as to furnish separate facilities for white males, white females, colored males and colored females." (Murray 339). Indeed, by the eve of World War I, almost every visible space had been separated. During the war, the state stopped the "organization of colored troops . . . where white troops are available, and while permitted to be organized, colored troops shall be under the command of white officers." (Murray 342). Even a breach of the color line among convicts meant a fine or jail sentence for their jailers.
A sample of legislative acts from 1917 to 1945 can be useful to suggest the vagaries of Jim Crow. Of sixty-one Jim Crow statutes enacted in that period, three concern black aliens (Anderson 90). Education is the subject of nineteen, including a 1935 stipulation that "books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools, but should continue to be used by the race first using them." (Murray 331) An act detailing punishment for violations of the toilet restriction applies to all categories of labor. Seventeen measures relate to provisions for the handicapped, and fifteen cover buses and trains (Murray 338). Not until 1947 did the state restrict cemeteries, which had long been separated by tradition.
State permission to segregate the races resonated locally. Cities and towns tended to replicate the Winston-Salem housing pattern. Winston-Salem's black residents had been segregated overwhelmingly into its southeastern corner by the 1920s. Black population clusters, always cordoned off by a main street, railroad track, or similar fixed barrier, shaped the social geography of every city and town. Hayti in Durham and Gilmer in Greensboro typified the urban ghettos (Woofter 67). In their segregated communities, veiled from white society, blacks forged a world of aspiration (Woofter 79).
Ordinances on accommodations (restaurants, theaters) and common spaces (auditoriums, stadiums) multiplied greatly. Lest there be trespassing, "White Only" and "Colored" signs policed entrances, exits, and seats. Banks, railroads, textile and tobacco factories, and other places of employment regularly exceeded statutory requirements. Tobacco plants in Durham, Reidsville, and Winston-Salem assigned "Negro and white workers to separate parts of buildings, or to different workrooms even when performing the same tasks, or to separate sides of the same room, or even to separate rows in the same room." (Woofter 100).
Many African Americans struggled against Jim Crow laws and promoted dignity and liberty of Black people. For example, Charlotte Hawkins Brown whose grandparents were slaves made substantial contribution to the development of African American education and established the North Carolina State Federation of Negro Women's Club (Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum 1).
The other examples include Murray and Mebane who were emblematic of the black men and women who survived Jim Crow and struggled for protection of African-American civil rights. In 1938 the University of North Carolina denied Pauli Murray admission for graduate study. Two years later at Petersburg, Virginia, she was arrested for sitting in the front seat of an interstate bus.
Blacks such as Murray and Mebane responded to Jim Crow by pursuing an array of community-building activities to soften segregation's harshest edges and build autonomy and self-respect. Within "autonomous institutions"--including the family, education, religion, cultural expression, labor, business, and politics--blacks built a sense of hope. Consider post-riot Wilmington: by 1930 institutions within the black community included one of five hospitals in the city, two of thirteen homes for the elderly, two of nine cemeteries, twenty-eight of fifty-two churches and four of fourteen public schools (Wilmington Directory 700).
Black colleges and universities which were founded after the Civil War contributed substantially to black North Carolina education. There are eleven Black higher institutions in North Carolina (Historically Black Colleges and Universities 1). Among them are Bennett College, Barberia-Scottia College, North Carolina A&T State University and others. These colleges also cultivated ambition and self-esteem in their students.
In 1960 a group of Black students from North Carolina A&T University was not served during lunch; they protested against such discrimination by their refusal to leave the lunch counter. The Greensboro sit-ins were started by four African-American activists such as Ezell Blair, David Richmond, Joseph McNeil and Franklin McLain (Greensboro sit-ins, Timeline, 1). This non-violent protest has continued to take place in many cities. Thus, within the period of two months the lunch counter sit-ins took place in 54 cities in 9 states (Greensboro sit-ins, Timeline, 2). Later the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was organized to support Sit-Ins (Six Years of the SNCC 2).
Thus, Black activists participated in college boycotts and other forms of nonviolent direct action, helping to catalyze the emergent civil rights movement in North Carolina. Their fight on the home front to abolish Jim Crow bequeathed a significant legacy of hope to the next generation. Due to the courage and high aspirations of those Black Carolinians of the post-Civil War Era, African-Americans in North Carolina can enjoy civil rights and liberties which they have today. Individuals on both sides of the color line started to take each other seriously, with neither preordained stereotypes nor false etiquette.
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2.26.09 Independent Investigator's Update to the Board Part II
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]ohio employment law breaks[/mage]
The Money Pit: Heath Insurance Executives' Pay
Last year was a very good year for H. Edward Hanway. The CEO of Cigna made $14.6 million in 2009.(1) Here is some of what this money could have paid for, based on national averages:
Health insurance for 3,000 individuals ($4,824 each) or 1,100 families ($13,375 each)
Did Hanway contribute as much to the nation's health as 241 full-time nurses would have?
The total compensation for the top four executives under Ms. Braly at Wellpoint totaled $20 million in 2009,(5) meaning Wellpoint paid out $33 million just to its top five executives.
Hanway's compensation isn't at all atypical. Ronald Williams, Aetna's CEO made over $18 million in 2009.(2) And Angela Braly, the CEO of Wellpoint, made $13.1 million in 2009.(3) This was a 51% increase over Ms. Braly's 2008 compensation, and it came at a time when Wellpoint's subsidiary, Anthem Blue Cross, proposed premium increases of up to 39% for Californians.
Hundreds of Millions of Dollars For Salaries, Not Care
And these are just the salaries of CEOs. Health insurance companies have many other highly compensated, top-level executives. At Wellpoint, at least three of them received compensation increases of up to 75% in 2009.(4) The total compensation for the top four executives under Ms. Braly at Wellpoint totaled $20 million in 2009,(5) meaning Wellpoint paid out $33 million just to its top five executives.
The ten largest health insurance companies insured roughly 118 million Americans in 2008.(6) Taking Wellpoint's compensation figures as typical suggests that these 10 companies paid over $300 million dollars to their executives in 2009. While this is only a crude estimate, it serves to define a ballpark figure for overall executive compensation: hundreds of millions of dollars, at minimum. This is all money paid for by health insurance premiums that buys little or no health care. Some might call it a money pit for health care dollars.
Executive compensation isn't the only reason health care costs are so high. Hospital procedures have grown more costly and doctor's fees have also risen. But it's hard to imagine a health care system without doctors or hospitals. A health care system without health insurance executives is not only possible, it existed well into the 20th century. And the first widespread health insurance companies were non-profits.
The current health care system is nothing more than an accident of history. Melissa Thomasson, an economic historian and professor at the University of Miami (Ohio), published an article in 2003 which details the development of the U.S. health care system from its infancy.(7) This article shows that the system in place today is not part of the natural order of the universe; it evolved through a series of historical accidents. There is nothing sacred about it.
How Health Insurance Plans Got Started
In the late 1920s, Baylor Hospital in Dallas became concerned that it had too many empty beds and too little income. It contracted with a group of Dallas teachers for them to pay 50 cents a month ($6 a year) and in exchange, Baylor would pay their hospital costs. This provided the hospital with a steady stream of income. When the Great Depression hit, almost every hospital in the country saw its patient load and income plummet, but not Baylor Hospital. The Baylor idea became hugely popular. It eventually evolved into Blue Cross, with coverage available in nearly every state. This was the origin of our employer-based health care system. A similar insurance program for physician costs, Blue Shield, also emerged.
While Cigna paid Hanway over $14 million to oversee the health coverage of 11.9 million people, Medicare's head, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) makes around $140,000 a year overseeing the health insurance coverage of 40 million people.
By 1940, the growth of both Blues suggested to private insurance companies that selling health insurance could be profitable, an idea that was previously unthinkable to them. Because the Blues were non-profit, they were required to offer the same rate to both healthy and sick subscribers. Commercial insurance companies had no such requirement. As a result, they could often offer relatively healthy groups lower premiums than Blue Cross and Blue Shield could, and were able to take away some of their customers.
But it took World War II and the war economy to cement the idea of for-profit, worker-based health insurance firmly into place. During the war, factories were ramping up production and needed to attract workers. Wage and price controls made offering high salaries impossible. So employers turned to fringe benefits, such as private health insurance, instead.
In 1943, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that employer-based health care should be tax free in certain instances. A second law, in 1954, made the tax advantages much more widespread. These tax breaks caused the number of people with private insurance to soar. By 1951, the number of people with private health insurance (41.5 million) first surpassed the number enrolled in Blue Cross and Blue Shield (40.9 million). Employer-based, for-profit, health insurance was now the rule, not the exception, a trend that has continued to the present day. An estimated 170 million Americans are now covered by private health insurance companies.(8) The current health care system wasn't inevitable. It arose because of a depression, a world war and government tax breaks. If it's not working, why can't it be replaced by a system that does work?
Toward A Better Health Care System
Medicare is one approach. While Cigna paid Hanway over $14 million to oversee the health coverage of 11.9 million people, Medicare's head, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) makes around $140,000 a year overseeing the health insurance coverage of 40 million people. Medicare doesn't have a CEO. It doesn't have stock options or golden parachutes either.
Some states, notably Hawaii and Massachusetts, have tried their own approaches to crafting a better health care system. Since 1974, Hawaii has required all employers to provide health care benefits to any employee who works 20 hours a week or more. In 2008, Hawaii launched a program designed to cover every child from birth to 18 years old who didn't already have health insurance. This program ended after only seven months, when the governor eliminated its funding, ostensibly over concerns that some families with private coverage were canceling it because they could now get coverage for free from the state.
In 2006, Massachusetts passed a health care reform law that required all residents to either have health insurance or face a fine of up to $912. Other provisions of the law extended the state's Medicaid program to cover children with family incomes up to 300% of the federal poverty level ($32,490 in 2009) and provided subsidized health insurance for individuals whose income was under 300% of the federal poverty level. Since implementation of the law, it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of those who were uninsured now have health insurance coverage.(9)
While opinions vary widely on the effectiveness and desirability of the Hawaii and Massachusetts laws, these states certainly deserve credit for at least trying to address some of the flaws in the current system.
There is still strong disagreement over whether health care in the U.S. should be a right, a privilege or a commodity. Yet proponents of all three systems should be able to agree that health insurance executives, whose primary responsibility is to their stockholders, not to those whose health they oversee, are draining badly needed resources away from health care. Executive compensation isn't the only reason for the high cost of health care. Medical procedures and prescription drugs both cost far more in the United States than in the rest of the world. Malpractice costs and excessive testing (often to avoid malpractice problems) have also contributed to rising health care costs. Crafting a functional health care system will require finding effective solutions to all of these problems. Freeing up the hundreds of millions of dollars now going to health insurance executives would be a good start in that direction.
Working out the time limit
It’s no secret that many staff working for small businesses put in some of the longest hours of any employees in the UK. The demands of working for a small business, where every member of staff’s contribution is crucial to making the company a success, mean it is commonplace for some smaller employers to ask their workers to put in longer hours.
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Lawyers Faq
a question for lawyers out there or anyone who knows about laws & rights & contracts.? I did some freelance modeling a while back. However, I wish to gain back the copyrights to my pictures because I realized that one of the photographers who has been shooting me has been posting all images online to the public. However, he.
do i have a good case? for the last 5mths i work at my job. i never receive a lunch break.now they fire me without a reason. ps. if you have any lawyers number email it to me. Call Legal Aid. - I think you're not being honest and telling the whole story. No employer in his right mind.
Do female lawyers face discrimination in the workplace/school? According to the Princeton Review, as well as several other reputable sources, women can be treated poorly by their male classmates in law school. In fact, the PR includes a list of 'women-friendly' universities because this sexism is so widespread. Also, I have read that often women often are passed over.
Do I have a chance in court without a lawyer concerning probate and civil suits? The probate has been going on since june 28 2003 and has not been resolved yet. My siblings have filed 4 civil suits against me concerning the probate. I should mention my siblings have plenty of money to hire numerous lawyers and I do.
Do judges need to be attorneys? Do appointed court judges need to be attorneys A college degree and work experience is the minimum requirement to be a judge. Most judges have worked as lawyers. In fact, Federal and State judges usually must have worked as lawyers. That means that they need to go to law school. Law school usually.
Do judicial laws truly favor the rich? (Those who can afford high powered lawyers/ can influence judges)? Note all those recent cases where criminals get away with commiting all kinds of crimes. Our system favors the rich in two ways. First, if you are rich enough, you can hire an army of the best lawyers, expert witnesses, and provide.
Do laws that are difficult to enforce or prove punish honest people? I am thinking of illegal immigration and the impact it has on employers who are unwilling to accept false social security numbers or pay in cash. I am also thinking of some of the ethical obligations imposed on lawyers like duties to disclose model rule 4.1. The.
Do lawyers ever agree to defend a case on contingency? Like, will a lawyer say, OK, I'll defend you and if you win the case, then you pay me $X. But if you lose, you don't owe me anything. The only cases I know of that are taken on a contingency are Civil cases where there is a settlement.
Do lawyers have initials? (i.e. M.D., PhD, etc)? doctors have M.D. or D.O. do lawyers have anything? A Juris Doctorat (JD) is the typical 3-year degree, but a lawyer may also choose to get an LLM degree, an advanced masters in a particular area of law (for example, you can get an LLM in tax law. - J.D. Juris.
Do lawyers vote liberal or conservative? Where's the stats? Liberal. Trial lawyers love Democrats, as they are anti-big business and tend to pass laws that give lawyers a greater chance to sue and make money. - Cheney's probably vote liberal. - why you need a lawyer? - not every lawyet is a trial lawyer. What about corporate lawyers,.
do productive people like lawers and docters smoke weed? You have no idea what kinds of drugs many lawyers and doctors will do. Although lawyers will try to stay away from it, I have heard of doctors smoking weed (think about it, if we already have a medical marijuana movement, don't you think a few docs are smoking.
Magistrate/Small Claims Question.Any lawyers out there? I have a question. When we moved from a house we were renting over a year ago, we owed $640.00 in rent which we had forgotten all about. We had all kinds of situations occue during that time which caused us to forget all about this.not working, wife in hospital, no money, etc..
Malpractice? 4.A neurosurgeon receives a patient consent to a complicated surgery, one of the risks of which is loss of the use of a limb. The surgery is successful, but the patient loses the use of an arm, and sues for malpractice. What will likely happen? Depends on the lawyers from both sides. If the risks are clearly explained.
My cousin, Kevin, has a medical malpractice lawsuit filed. His problem is that he is trying to find a lawyer.? He tried two *contingency fee lawyers and all that the first one did was order his medical records, but that lawyer made him wait for 8 months before the lawyer said that he was going to have a doctor.
Need a lawyers advice!!? Yesterday me and my fiance were hit from behind by a dooley truck at a red light. This truck driver is employed by Acme truck driving company!! It wasn't an 18 wheeler just a 4 door dooley truck. This was what happened. We were both stopped at the red light in the going staright lane..
Once a personal injury lawsuit has setteled how long does it take for the funds to be released? It should rarely take more than a week for the lawyers to disburse the final amount. If an insurance company is involved, they will send the check to your lawyer who will deposit it into a trust account, make their.
Please explain and discuss? in practice the consumer's right to goods that are of satisfactory quality is in confused state, making it difficult for lawyers to advise with certainty on any particular claim. the problem is compounded by the fact that the most important remedy, the right to reject the goods and secure a refund, is lost soon after.
Probono lawyers in dayton ohio? lawyers willing to talk about a possible sexual assault and fondling of a 6 year old boy by a 12 year old female that children services is not willing to investigate or get involved in Wow not a good situation at all. I have attached a site below of lawyers that handle these types.
Question are for lawyers? Is is ok to use marijuana while on probation in los angeles county while having a marijuana license? It is illegal. Marijuana is a controlled substance and the use or possession of it, without a doctor's prescription, is illegal and that is enough to let the county revoke your husband's parole. Here is another problem..
Question for lawyers or people who are familiar with the law? My brother is being charged with possession of marijuana but the police did not find the marijuana on him. They found it in his cousin's girlfriends purse. The police searched the house with a warrant but they were looking for an ak-47. You cannot find an ak-47 in.
Question for lawyers re: back child support. Only legitimate answers please? my dad left when I was a baby. My mom filed for child support in CA, but he moved back to NY. So she had CA petition NY to go after him for child support. When they contacted him about that, he left NY. I'm going to be.
Rights of a father? what rights do i have as a father even though the grandparent have custody of my child That depends. Why don't you have custody now? You should have some form of custody agreement, you may have to go to court, try not to use lawyers on either side, they will just suck $$$ out of.
Should Gonzales be treated for Alzheimers? They should have asked him the names of the 145,000 American Citizens his Agency spied on. - Dementia but we're probably splitting hairs. - Should clinton explain why he fired 93 lawyers when he took office? Politics as usual in washington. - Along with Hillary, I would think. - It's not Alzheimer's.
Should we make it easier to get executions ? for people that we have no doubt murdered someone ? by getting rid of al the endless appeals ? Stopping the lawyers, this will make the costs go down. for those people that say its cheaper to keep them in jail for life than to execute murderers and child molesters.
Signed quit claim deed but name not off mortgage. If ex dies or defaults, can I be held responsible? When I was getting divorced 4 years ago, my ex paid me a sum of money and I signed a quit claim deed giving him sole rights to the house. However, since he's medically disabled the lawyers didn't want me.
Someone said lawyers by earning huge money from Oil Companies is responsible for petrol price increment? There is a guy who told me that lawyers by earning huge money are responsible for petrol price increment. Does it make all American, British and Australian hand stained with Iraqis blood by not stopping their government to go to war (Omission same.
This is why I think some lawyers should just be shot, how about you? It is stupid law suits that tie up the courts while real cases take forever. This person should not be a judge if they are so unhinged as to sue for pants at a dry cleaner, especially not 67 million. Shooting's.
This teacher should be fired. I need insight from teachers and lawyers.? I currently have a teacher that I have grounds to get fired. She is guilty of extreme preferential treatment and threats to hurt a student. Her preferential treatment includes: grading papers with extreme bias. For example, two female students left on the same trip for choir and.
Umm I got COURT for drinking underage, and possation of alcahol.? I got court in 2 weeks. What will happen and do i need a lawyer. I am 18, so I don need parents. But will i get community serves? Any lawyers here? If this is NOT traffic involved, and you have no priors, you can plead guilty and.
Wanted: short (textable) Lawyer jokes? New boyfriend is a law student. I am looking for short/clean lawyer jokes to text him. 'What do lawyers eat for lunch?' 'I don't know, they don't itemize -- mine just bills me for the total!' What's black and brown and looks good on a lawyer? A Rottweiler. Why don't sharks attack lawyers? Professional.
Do they teach ethics and morals to lawyers in lawyer school? It has been know for ages that's the job of the lawyer is to win the case. And all I see is lawyers fighting to win even if he knew his client was wrong (I mean even Saddam has a lawyer). And whe all know what kind of.
[mage lang="" source="flickr"]ohio employment law vacation[/mage] Ohio Employment Benefits?
Does anyone know , in Ohio, if there is a law saying that if an employer is laying you off and you have vacation time left, if they are obligated to pay you before your leave?
Yes, I believe they are. Call your local Legal Aid office. I may be wrong, but they should be able to answer that question.
asserts, disabled people globally "continue to be disproportionately unemployed, underemployed and underpaid…" This assertion is reflected in, for instance in the focus of the British Government's proposal to tackle oppression of disabled people on the work place (Barton and Oliver, 1997). The British Government cut back on the Access to Work scheme and the disabled people's organizations fought that decision asserting that the right to a job is a fundamental human right (Barton and Oliver, 1997). Such challenges for access to jobs by disabled people appear to have become common in many countries. Hence in 1983, the International Labour Organization adopted a Convention Concerning Vocational, Rehabilitation and Employment (Disabled Persons) (ILO, 1983) to ensure equality of opportunities and equalization of treatment of disabled people at work and social integration. However, despite much effort at the global level to include disabled people in the work world, at the local level, some would continue to be excluded by their impairments because some tend not to be capable of producing goods or services to contribute to the social and economic capital base. To this, Barton and Oliver (1997;35) comment that this is so "because in any society........certain products are of value and others are not regardless of the efforts that go into their production."
