Employment Discrimination Lawyers and Labor Law Lawyers

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Report: Texas should revise school tax-break incentives
AUSTIN (AP) — Texans are paying too much to attract major economic development projects, particularly farms of wind-powered electric generators, according to a study by the office of Texas Comptroller Susan Combs.
The War on Drugs Has Failed

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Can my employer reduce my pay?

I work at a resort in the state of Florida. I am a supervisor of a bar at a restaurant. When I received the promotion to bartender supervisor, I was told I would receive $8.50 an hour plus service charge/tip. Also, any other time when I was not working as a bartender, but as the Manager On Duty (MOD) only, I would make $12.50 an hour only. Recently, I was told that the "supervisors" at only our restaurant would receive a $4 an hour pay cut, therefore, making only $8.50 an hour at all times, even when only having an MOD shift. Is it legal for them to do this? I have done some reading about state of Florida employment laws and almost all employees in Florida are considered at-will correct? Does this mean my boss can do whatever he wants? If further clarification is needed, please let me know.
And what are the elements of a written contract?

Unless you have a written contract, there is nothing preventing an employer from cutting your pay.

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Would Texas fair better today as an independent country?

This is just a curiosity question and nothing against the U.S. I was wondering with Texas' business laws, taxes, natural resources, labor laws etc., would Texas fair better as its own nation, even if they had to make their own international treaties and print their own money, than remaining in the U.S.?

it would fare better than any other state

Hiring Rights

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How can I declare my employment to the UK government if my employer don't want to do so?

Hello all,

Get in contact with your local Customs & Excise

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/index.htm

Labour Inspection in Italy by an elite unit of the Carabinieri and the Ministry of Labour

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Sheriff's Industry Station increases efforts in response to weakened parole restrictions
HACIENDA HEIGHTS - A policy that puts "low risk" offenders on minimal parole supervision has prompted Los Angeles County sheriff's authorities to step up their efforts in monitoring parolees.

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PHUKET: In response to recurring suggestions from readers that a donation channel be set up to raise funds to help the mother and two young children of murder victim
Chauncy on BLR's 2009 National Employment Law Update

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What Makes for a Quality Business Agreement - or a Contract?

The contract is the foundation of doing business. Does that sound too formal to you? Is a handshake agreement good enough for many? Well, even though it may not be as air tight as, say, a contractor agreement, a handshake deal is still a contract. The moment two people agree to terms when it comes to the exchange of goods and services for a price, they have entered into a legal contract. It's why knowledge of contracts and the issues involved should be important to all people in business, and why knowing the difference between a good and bad contract can protect your interests.

In fact, knowing more about contracts is like knowing more about life and history in general. Contract law is certainly not the creation of a few thoughtful individuals, nor is it part of any kind of grand design. Indeed, contract law has much of its roots in the common law foundation of American society.

That is, contract law is somewhat a textbook example of how common law developed in Britain and the United States. People engage in business transactions. Eventually, some of these become sources of disputes between various parties. Some laws already on the books may cover the dispute. Very often, they don't. So that's where a court needs to step in to cover so-called tricky cases and establish new laws. These are called precedents, which are then carried over to similar cases in the future.

It's the establishment of these precedents alongside legislated law that forms the foundation of common law in general, and contract law specifically. Although it's certainly not necessary to do extensive research in case law to gain a better understanding of things like legal contracts and the contractor agreement; contacting those specialists who do might be wise. They're called lawyers. Alternatively, just knowing that contract law isn't always written in stone should perhaps make it more imperative that good contracts can cover your interests in as many situations as possible.

It is the desire to avoid grey areas and matters of interpretation that creates the need to form contracts to protect your interests. In other words, a handshake can get you in trouble, since the specifics of such a contract can be a matter open to interpretation. What is less open to interpretation is a legal contract or contractor agreement that specifically states the obligations of all parties of a contract. The more the contract clearly outlines these obligations, the better off all parties will be, especially if there ends up being a dispute.

It's not just the simple exchange of goods and services for a fee that are subject to contractual arrangements, of course. There are numerous components of business and related activities that come under the umbrella of contracts.

If you want to outsource your activities to someone else, that's a contract. You hire people for a period of time, that's a contract. You hire people to fix something in your office, that's a contract. Almost any decision to form an arrangement with someone else, especially when money is involved, can form the basis of a contractual arrangement carrying with it all the duties and obligations of a legal contract.

Another way of putting it is this: If you're doing business with anyone to any degree, there's a contract involved there somewhere. And if it could potentially impact you and your business, you better get it down on paper. Some contracts may not need to be as formal as a contractor agreement, but the more specific a legal contract it is, the better position you can be in to protect your interests and that of your business.

Indeed, laying out as much specificity in the contract, while keeping it simple, goes a long way towards creating the good legal contract. It should lay out things like the parties obligated to the contract, the financial arrangements agreed upon, what circumstances would lead to the termination of the contract, what mechanisms can be used to resolve disputes, and what jurisdiction applies to the terms of the contract. The more that's outlined in the contract, while making it easy to understand for all parties involved, the less of a chance that a court will even be needed to sort it all out.

After all, one of the benefits of a good legal contract is that it discourages people to resort to the courts to try and settle disputes in their favor. If most applicable terms are laid out in a good contract, the temptation to try and score through a lawsuit will be mitigated. No one wants to waste time and resources disputing an air tight contract. If the terms are laid out properly, and each party knows specifically what their obligations are, then further difficulties down the road are that much more unlikely.

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than with respect to the contractor agreement. Companies are hired to do projects of all sorts for all kinds of clients. While it's great to answer the phone, learn that someone wants to contract for your services, and pay you a lot to do it, it really doesn't hurt if you already have prepared a contractor agreement that covers both your interests before getting started. It lets the client know what kind of people they're hiring, while also protecting you from somebody who plays loose with the notion of what a business contract is.

About the Author

James Cochran is the founder of ContractEdge, a provider of legal contracts and agreements designed specifically for IT professionals and contractors. Created by attorneys who specialize in Information Technology law, ContractEdge contractor agreements and legal contracts go beyond the standard provisions and include critical special provisions unique to the IT industry.

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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-parentis had 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:

1. Child study
2. Guidance and counseling advertisement
3. Testing
4. Visiting teachers and social workers
5. Speech and hearing therapy
6. Medical and nursing
7. 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.

USA Reality - Legal Discrimination

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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

Scott Parks’ Wish List for Dallas Schools

Scott Parks is the education columnist for the Dallas Daily News. He had some interesting items on his January 2007 wish list for the Dallas schools. Some are poignant and in dire need. Some are possibilities during this new year. Others are down right wishful thinking without much chance of succeeding, regardless of the need. Here are only a few items from his wish list for 2007:

• Bilingual Education Programs. Parks would like Governor Rick Perry and the Texas legislature to standardize the teaching of bilingual and “English as a second language” students. Currently, the bilingual education programs are different from district to district. All students should learn English as soon and as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the bilingual students are held back from succeeding only because of the language barrier.

• Dallas Schools Leadership. Parks cited several wishes from the Dallas schools leadership:

o Board of Trustees & Superintendent Hinojosa. Though the Dallas schools’ board of trustees is stronger now than in the past, Parks believes that Superintendent Michael Hinojosa is the district’s best hope for getting the Dallas schools back on track. Hinojosa also has the support of business leaders and the public. Parks was encouraged that trustees Edwin Flores, Jack Lowe and their board colleagues now are focused on education, rather than politics, as in the past.

o Texas Association of School Boards. The board of trustees should reject the TASB’s recommendations. Instead, board members regularly should visit individual Dallas schools, themselves, speaking with both teachers and staff. Then, they will know firsthand what is truly happening within the Dallas schools. Parks makes an accurate point that the Dallas schools’ superintendent and Dallas schools’ board are not a team. The Dallas schools’ board is the boss, and the superintendent is “a valued employee” — and the TASB is not part of the Dallas schools district.

o Special Education Students. Parents of these children have enough to do above and beyond the typical parent. Dallas schools’ administrators need to team with these parents to help them understand what the law requires the Dallas schools to do for their special needs children. The current attitude that parents of special needs children are the enemy, who may potentially bring lawsuits against the Dallas schools district, is only hurting the children and their education. As Parks noted, “It’s the right thing to do.”

o College Preparation. Somewhere along the line, someone decided that if a child did not attend college, he/she would not succeed in life. Not all children are meant to go to college. Some do very well in careers that began in high school vocational education programs. Neither my daughter nor my son graduated from college — their choice, even though we discussed at length the benefits of a college degree. They each earn more than $60,000 a year — one is self-employed and the other works for a computer-related company that nearly rivals Microsoft®. My children proved me wrong and proved Parks correct — not all children are meant to go to college in order to succeed. So, stop focusing only on college preparation and refocus some of the energy and resources to provide solid vocational education programs.

o Textbooks. The law requires that every student receive a textbook for the course they take. Some secondary Dallas schools fear too many children will lose or damage the books, costing them some of the precious funding they receive each year for their meager budgets. Children learn better, when they can take textbooks home to study — give them out.

Additionally, lawmakers continually advocate the replacement of textbooks with laptops. Stop it! I fully agree with Parks’ assessment of the situation. He believes a course in media literacy should be required for all high school students within the Dallas schools. They need to be able to analyze the barrage of advertising aimed at them now and in the future, as well as to understand current events and the unobjective biases built into the reporting of the news by the owners of the media.

o Freebies to School Leadership. Nothing should be taken from companies wishing to sell products or services to schools, even a free lunch. This should apply to administrators, superintendent and board members. As Parks cited, “It looks bad”.

• Teachers. It is understandable that teachers are under a lot of pressure to meet prescribed standards set by federal, state and Dallas schools’ officials, not just to meet funding requirements but also performance goals to keep schools open. Because of this, the Dallas schools are losing many excellent teachers to the business world, where they are amply compensated for the headaches. Parks wish is for these great teachers to focus on the challenges and rewards that first got them interested in teaching, continue teaching because so many children need them, and stop obsessing about those things that have little to do with the reason they became teachers in the first place.

• Parents. Too many times when a child gets into trouble at school or receives an undesirable grade, some parents conclude that the teacher is at fault or picking on their child. Like you, parents, the teachers have a hard job to do in seeing that your children obtain a valuable education. It is time for parents to team with the teachers to ensure each child works hard and receives an education that will take them far in life. I remember my son always complaining that a particular teacher was picking on him. When his report card arrived, he was failing English and reminded me that the teacher did not like him. Unfortunately for my son, I had this same teacher in seventh grade English and knew the integrity of the man. His next report card had a much better grade on it. So, parents, first assume the teacher is right and then discuss with them and your child how to resolve any problems with grades or discipline.

One of Parks’ best points concerns private sector companies and volunteers. Dallas schools’ students need as much encouragement to succeed as can possibly be given them. Presentations and mentoring by these private sector volunteers will give our Dallas schools students not only encouragement but ideas for opportunities that come from those who are there.

About the Author

Patricia Hawke is a staff writer for Schools K-12, providing free, in-depth reports on all U.S. public and private K-12 schools. Patricia has a nose for research and writes stimulating news and views on school issues. For more information on dallas schools visit www.schoolsk-12.com/texas/dallas/index.html

Holiday sales plummet for Blind Recording Artists: Access for Blind Net Surfers Blocked by CDBaby

When Mary Sten-Clanton (Dorchester, Mass.) went online in September, she planned to visit CDBaby and purchase "Unconditional" by Lisa Ostrow. Mary had often used the site to sample and buy new releases from the indie recording artists who pay CDBaby to sell their music. This time, she could no longer listen to samples of the songs. Mary, who is blind, uses a "screen reader." CDBaby was always accessible before. She decided to buy the CD anyway, but she couldn't.

Mary's e-mail to CDBaby went unanswered. She recently returned to the site, but the problems had not been fixed.

"I always find it particularly frustrating, and even hurtful," Mary says, "when a company whose Web site has always been perfectly accessible suddenly takes that access away."

CDBaby is the oldest and largest online outlet for indie recording artists. When musician Derek Sivers started the company in 1998, accessibility was part of his level-the-playing-field philosophy. He sold CDBaby, however, and the new owners redesigned the site in July without regard for blind customers and musicians.

Lisa Ostrow, a blind Harvard grad, is concerned about her blind fans as well as other blind CDBaby artists. She worries that this issue will cause blind fans to go elsewhere such as Amazon or CDUniverse.  She believes that blind artists, now unable to easily update their CDBaby pages, will also lose valuable revenue because they won't be able to directly impact their own sales presence.

" It's not only the importance of our blind fans that should cause CDBaby to sit up and take notice," says Lisa, " the blind artists  are also affected. It is the inaccessibility of sites like CDBaby that tie our hands and make it more difficult for us to get our jobs done.  As for our blind fans, of which there are many, the level of frustration that they encounter when visiting inaccessible sites, is a guarantee that they won't be back."

Other blind customers have contacted CDBaby. A country and folk music fan from Buffalo, New York, who prefers to be known only as Cay, wrote to them in July.

"I first got a response that they had lost all their email and to re-submit," she says, "So I wrote again. They didn't respond to me. I really enjoyed the site. Many years back I recall there was a problem on the site where I couldn't access it and they were caring.  Now they don't care about blind customers."

Music critic Ken Lawrence (New Jersey) recently received an e-mail from Girls on Film, an electronic/dance group, about their new release on CDBaby. Unable to preview the music, Lawrence, who is blind, wrote to the company.

CDBaby's response states, "I'm sorry our update removed the functional use for our blind customers.  Our programmers are all in house and are looking forward to making it more friendly to the blind. Unfortunately, there are a few other programming issues they need to finish first."

A few other programming issues? When Sten-Clanton phoned the company in October, she learned that even sighted customers were affected.

"Apparently, people are trying to pay for their CDs and getting thrown back to a previous page," she says. 

Mary wonders what "improvements" they were trying to make. Others like Ken are baffled that CDBaby's "in house" programmers haven't fixed this yet.

Lawrence is a member of the National Federation of the blind (NFB). NFB provides advocacy, rehabilitation services and conducts research through its Jernigan Institute in Baltimore. Ken, who hopes to go into radio one day, fosters friendships between sighted indie recording artists and the blind. His friend, a sighted CD Baby artist, singer-songwriter Jenifer Jackson, wrote on his behalf.

CDBaby's response raises more questions than it answers.

"We are aware that our website upgrade was actually a huge downgrade for the blind," the letter says, "Our site used to be VERY user friendly, and I think that it was overlooked by our programmers. It IS a priority though, and we are working on making a dial up site that will be readable. This isn't going to happen anytime in the next 2-3 months, … We were really proud of how accessible our site was before …"

One wonders how "really proud" they could have been. Apparently, not proud enough to remember it when their in-house programmers redesigned the site. Furthermore, a "dial-up site?" According to Sten-Clanton, whose husband is a computer programmer, it will likely be a separate text only site, accessible for mobile phones and screen readers. This concerns Mary. She once tried Amazon's text only site and found that many of the features were missing.

"In that case, I just went back to the regular Amazon," says Mary, "Since Amazon is accessible to begin with."

And, they've committed themselves to not fixing the problem for at least two or three months? Over six months from the new launch? This lag means no holiday purchases by blind consumers and no holiday revenue from those sales for struggling blind musicians.

Hit hard are artists with Christmas albums with an appeal to blind fans. Veronica Elsea of Laurel Creek Music Designs (Santa Cruz, Ca.) has her Christmas CD, "We Woof You a Merry Christmas," by The Guide Dog Glee Club, on CDBaby.

"I just can't understand," says Veronica, "what they think the actual gain is. I can't understand why having a mouse hover over something is an improvement over a standard link. My sighted friends don't get it either. Thank goodness I can at least tell blind customers to come to my web site to buy CDs, but I was really counting on CD Baby as the most accessible place to purchase the mp3 download version."

The holiday pinch also affects the NFB's Performing Arts Division (PAD), a volunteer-run non-profit. Revenue from "Sound in Sight," a multi-genre compilation of eighteen original tracks and covers donated by blind recording artists, helps fund PAD's projects. PAD's President, Dennis Holston, a blind Manhattan-based talent recruiter, wrote to CDBaby expressing his concern and offering to help them restore the accessibility which blind fans and recording artists have long enjoyed.

In their response, CD Baby ignored Holston's offer of help and encouraged him to have people use the company's toll-free number: 1 800 BUY-MY-CD. This only helps if the customer knows what they want, however.

CDBaby's response to Holston attributes the problem to flash technology," but they seem unaware of some important facts.

"Flash is a product of Adobe," says Wes Majerus, an access technology specialist with the NFB's Jernigan Institute, "It can be made accessible, if Adobe's accessibility guidelines are followed."

The Accessibility Issue in Context

Many blind people feel that CDBaby is treating them "like second-class citizens." To understand why this is such a big deal to blind consumers, we need to look at how the internet is used in modern society, internet access and the realities facing blind Americans.

People rely on the internet for everything from shopping and social networking to research and career advancement. According to Majerus, there are laws mandating that government web sites be accessible, but most sites are not under such obligations. Internet access is a major issue for blind computer users, because it places unfair and unnecessary limits on their ability to lead full, productive and independent lives.

The NFB's Access Technology Center has resources for sites trying to become accessible. Their Accessibility Web Certification program acknowledges sites which have made significant improvements. There is also a form to report inaccessible sites. Visit:
http://www.nfb.org/nfb/Technology_Center.asp?SnID=326767672

According to Majerus, the majority of problems encountered by blind net surfers involve improperly labeled forms and images which don't have associated "alternate attributes" tags, which enable text-to-speech software to recognize them.

The CDBaby problem comes during a year in which blind people have lost many services and programs. Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic closed seven studios which produced student textbooks, and the American Foundation for the Blind closed the New York Talking Book Studios, the nation's oldest producer of recorded books for the Talking Book program of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS),.  Also, the 100-year-old Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind, which produced Braille and recorded compilations of selections from current periodicals, has been downsized into a social network for blind people with links to articles about blindness. To the horror of many, this measure was taken by the Ziegler's board in order to funnel large sums into vision research. NFB President Dr. Marc Maurer estimates that only 5% of all reading materials are available in formats which blind and low vision citizens can access.

In addition, the year began with the publication of a disturbing report about illiteracy among America's blind citizens and the devastating effect it is having on employment and income. Efforts to engage the public on the issue have had limited success.

On March 26, 2009, the NFB published "The Braille Literacy Crisis in America: Facing the Truth, Reversing the Trend, Empowering the Blind:"
http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/documents/word/The_Braille_Literacy_Crisis_In_America.doc" 

The research finds a statistically significant link between Braille literacy and a blind person's likelihood of finding employment, obtaining post graduate degrees and earning over $50,000 a year. Even though blind people are successfully employed as lawyers, engineers, mechanics, chemists and in many other fields, the unemployment rate for blind Americans of working age is over seventy percent. Of those who work, however, over eighty percent read Braille. Nonetheless, Braille literacy is being neglected in the nation's schools.

Congress acknowledged the severity of the crisis by authorizing the Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar as part of its commemorative coin program which supports two non-profits each year. Proceeds from the sale of the Braille coins go to the Braille Readers are Leaders campaign:
http://www.braille.org
 
Despite a PR campaign which included NASA launching the coin into space onboard the Atlantis, the Braille coins, unlike other commemoratives, have not sold out. Time is short. The coin is only available through the end of 2009. Currently, the program stands to receive far less than the $4 million maximum set by Congress.

Update from CDBaby

In a mid November phone interview, CDBaby representative Joel Andrew calls the accessibility issues a "total oversight" by the company. He explained that the new launch has had many problems not the least of which was that major glitches caused CDBaby to be in violation of its contract with its artists.

"For a while," he says, "They couldn't even tell if we owed them money."

Addressing these issues has been the company's main priority. According to Andrew, fixing the site has been like "trying to move a whale."

Mr. Andrew confirmed that the company is, indeed, considering a text-only site. He was not aware of the concerns blind customers like Sten-Clanton have about that. He also had no idea that there was a way to make flash accessible. He said that he would pass on the information, adding that he and the other people at CD Baby are activists.

"CDBaby has always been and continues to be a strong advocate for independent musicians. We are totally in support of the activism that is going on with regard to accessibility," he said, "the way people are organizing to bring their concerns to the forefront."

Some changes impacting sighted customers and artist have been addressed. Nonetheless, blind people cannot expect that their issues will be resolved soon and certainly not in time for the holidays.

Other blind CDBaby recording artists include Neal Ewers, Kevin Reeves, Sarah Alawami and the author of this article.

About the Author

Donna W. Hill is an author, singer/songwriter, speaker and avid knitter. A volunteer publicist for the Performing Arts Division, National Federation of the Blind, she works for improved opportunities for blind Americans.
http://www.padnfb.org
A breast cancer survivor, she promotes self-exam. Hear clips from The Last Straw at:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/donnahill

Pratighaat (1987)The year Hamas and Mental Health Act were Founded In India

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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Local Law School Pipeline Programs and High School Students Benefit From Sheppard Mullin Diversity & Inclusion
Dianne Baquet Smith Recognized With Firm's First Diversity & Inclusion Award
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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.

California Labor Law Attorney Announces New Blog

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

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 .

WorkersCompensation.com NewsLine 10/10/2006

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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/


He can be contacted at: timb001@phmainstreet.com


Copyright © 2007 MBA. All rights reserved.

06/21/10: Press Briefing by Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton

Bilingual Services in Call Centers

The global nature of products & services and the rise in purchasing power of developing countries have increased the customer base of an ordinary business. Imagine a scenario. A prospect or customer calls up a business to ask for clarification or information but is unable to communicate due to differences in language. This peeves the customer as he feels unimportant and his problems are resolved. He leaves your business or worse moves to your rival business

How do smart businesses tackle such problems? Simple. They ensure that the call center they hire offer bilingual services at their call center.

So now if you are the business who has hired an ordinary call center for customer support, remember you just lost a prospect or a customer. And I’m sure that in these hard times you feel like I do- Each and every customer is important.

Changes in demography along with change in State policies have increased the need for efficient models of providing language services to people with Limited English Proficiency (LEP). The sharp rise in the Latino community in the US has increased the need for Spanish language Customer Service Support. There is a steep demand for bilingual employees in all industries – healthcare, education, finance, sale and marketing. Employees with knowledge of English and Spanish are sought after. Other languages sought out are –German, Japanese, and Russian.

Since the world has become a global village using the vehicle of internet, it’s very important for the companies to target customers from all over the world. It would mean to be well versed in their language.

There is a need for bilingual customer service support system in call centers. This has led to formation of bilingual teams by Managers. The job description states the criteria of knowledge a minimum of two languages. It is deciding factor in selecting staff members. The business class or companies seeking customer are responsible for language assistance. They cater to the needs of the clients such as providing interpreters and translators. Telephonic services use bilingual staff to cater to the needs of LEP. Shortage of bilingual staff and trained professional interpreters are considered to be a resource constraint. In order to be successful the language needs of the customers are identified and steps are taken to introduce language access at the first points of client contact, for example at the front desk.

The bilingual staff performs multiple roles. Individuals with conversational proficiency in a second language may provide limited telephone assistance at the front desk while those with greater proficiency may interpret during interviews with the clients. In the field of medicine or other clinical needs assistance in the language of the patient is a must, even more so if the patient or person seeking information is LEP. The bicultural translators who act as cultural brokers provide accurate translation in a clinical sound culturally relevant manner.

Making any Organization bilingual I not one day’s job. Like any process of change, the actual implementation needs meticulous planning. The process differs with different organizations having different needs. The growth should be reviewed and the advantage should be assessed.

In the State of California there is a Law, Dymally Alatorre Bilingual Services Act which provides for bilingual staff in State offices and departments. It states its objective as, “Employment of bilingual persons in public contact positions to ensure the position of importance and service to the public in language of the non-English speaking persons.” Even in Canada commercial leases have to be drafted in both English and French, which are the official languages. The Canadian Heritage funds various organizations under official language support programs. These funds are used to create linguistic duality.

Bilingual community is a reality. Government offices were quick to realize it and smart businesses do the same. Keep the options for your customers open. When  customers are asked about their language preference and get to talk in their preferred language they are at ease and are more relaxed. Now the chances of closing the order and making him a loyal customer increases.

About the Author

Randall J. Harmat is the President of Ansafone Communications a full Service Call Center located in downtown Santa Ana, CA. Some call center services include bilingual inbound/outbound telemarketing, third party verification, seminar reservations and appointment setting, database management, order taking, voice mail and customized customer service operations. During his tenure, Ansafone has succeeded in its quest to recruit and retain a premier management team to carve its course into the 21st century.

California BSIS seems to condone American Police Force (APPF/APF) unlicensed security activity

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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

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Can anyone help with UK employment law ?

I'm currently employed to work 40 hours per week from 8:30 to 17:00 monday to friday with half hour lunch unpaid, And Saturday mornings from 8:30 to 12:30 on a rota basis. The position is salaried (no overtime applicable). My gripe is that I do not get paid at all for working Saturdays. I spoke to my boss and he said that if I don't work Saturdays then I should find another job.
Is this Legal?

What does your contract say? If it says 40 hours then that takes care of Monday-Friday and saturday should be paid in addition. Your boss simply cannot make you work extra hours without pay, especially on a regular basis. However if youre on a salary, and youre contract doesnt stipulate the exact hours (which it should, either the times or hours per week) you need to multiply your gross pay x 12 and divide by 52 (to get a weeks wage) then divide by 40+ the average hours you do on a rota ie +2 if its every other saturday, +1 if its once a month, then youll have your hourly pay which should be over the nmw which is £5.25 over 22 (i think).
If its less than national minimum wage, you can complain to an Industrial tribunal as this is a breach of your statutory rights (as you can if your contract doesnt state the hours).
To not pay you is also a breach of your statutory rights, its an 'illegal deduction from wages' and you can also take your boss to a tribunal to get this back.
Best bet is to contact your local CAB or ACAS or an employment solicitor if you have any in your area. To do anything you need to first put in a grievance to your employer and there are specific procedures to follow if you want your case to be successful.

Man Says Home Depot Fired Him Over God Button

New Miami-Dade law targets wage theft by employers
Miami-Dade workers have a new tool for collecting their wages: a law requiring companies to pay them within 14 days of doing the work. Sparked by stories of low-wage workers going unpaid, the county commission enacted the rule Feb. 28, making Miami-Dade County one of the few places in the country with such protection.
Annette Bernhardt and Amy Carroll on Unprotected Workers

Life Insurance and the Law. A layman's introduction.

There are no laws in the UK that require a person to have life insurance. It's an entirely voluntary insurance. About 40% of the UK's working population are covered by life insurance either through their own policy or via an arrangement through their employer.

So the simple things first. You have to be a UK resident in order to buy a life insurance policy from a UK based insurance company. This is not a requirement laid down in UK law, but UK laws and tax arrangements make it impossible for a UK based insurance company to offer insurance to anyone other than a UK resident. But be aware that if, having taken out life insurance, you later live abroad, your policy will be invalidated. Naturally, invalidation does not apply if you are on holiday but if you have a short-term work assignment abroad you are well advised to inform your insurance company before you go.

All UK Insurance Companies are subject to UK Corporate Laws. However, there are special regulations that only apply to insurance companies. These control the value of the risks the companies take on in relation to their financial reserves. These regulations are designed to ensure that your insurance company will be in a position to pay if you claim.

The Data Protection Act 1998 is concerned with way all UK businesses store, safeguard and use the data they collect about people. This is particularly important within the life insurance industry as the companies store significant amounts of very personal information about you - including your age, health record and life style. One of the key provisions of the Data Protection Act says that if a business wishes to pass on your information for marketing purposes, the business collecting the data must tell you of its intention and give you the opportunity of refusing permission for your data be used in that way. Incidentally, all reputable web sites selling life insurance will have a "Privacy Statement" which tells you how they handle your information and how it is used.

The Financial Services and Markets Act (2000) is the most important piece of legislation affecting the promotion of financial services in the UK including life insurance. The Act is highly complex but is primarily concerned with protecting you the customer. The implementations of the Act is overseen by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The FSA regulates all forms of the promotion of financial products and services including the activities of financial and mortgage advisors in the UK. Their aim is to ensure you receive clear professional advice that reflects your personal circumstances. They also ensure you have a route to compensation should it be proved that you received inadequate or poor advice.

For the layman, the FSA's biggest impact is reflected in the advisors they talk to. The FSA seeks to ensure that all financial advisors are trustworthy and competent which includes being well supervised and well trained, and that any advice is given in your best interests. The FSA also ensures that you are given full and accurate information about the products you are being advised to buy both before and after you have bought them. They also closely oversee the organisations that actually create the financial products.

In fact everyone and every organisation giving financial advice in the UK must be authorised by the Financial Services Authority.

However, the Act makes a distinction between financial products bought as a result of a recommendation from a Financial Adviser and "Execution Only" business. Execution Only is where a customer is wholly responsible for the selection of the investment and therefore the financial advisers' sole responsibility is to process the purchase efficiently. Under Execution Only, the Adviser bears no responsibility for the products suitability for the clients needs.

You should be aware that many of the web sites promoting life insurance operate on this Execution Only basis. However, most web site operators provide extensive information to enable the client to make an informed choice. Sometimes the information is published on the web site and sometimes provided during a follow-up telephone call. Either way, within their Terms of Business the web site will have to tell you on what basis they provide financial services and as part of your application, you will normally be required to confirm that you have read those Terms.

Those Terms of Business will always include details of a complaints procedure. In outline, if a customer wishes to complain, then the customer must detail the complaint in writing and send it to the Compliance Officer for the business employing the advisor. That business then has to investigate the complaint and reply to the customer in writing. If the Compliance Officer upholds the complaint, and the customer has suffered a financial loss as a result, then the business must agree a financial settlement with the customer. Ultimately, if the customer has suffered financial loss and cannot accept either the organisations' conclusions or their proposed financial settlement, then the situation can be referred to the Financial Ombudsman. The Financial Ombudsman's service is free to the customer and they are wholly independent. The Financial Ombudsman's decision is usually binding on both parties.

The other central piece of protection for the customer is the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. This provides the customer with a level of protection if a financial organisation regulated by the FSA becomes insolvent and cannot properly meet its financial responsibilities to its clients.

Postscript
The above information represents the legal aspects we think you will have found most useful. The information is neither definitive nor exhaustive but is simply an introduction for the layman.

If you would like more detailed information relating to the regulation of life insurance companies, insurance brokers, or financial advisers you should visit the Financial Services Authority's web site at: www.fsa.gov.uk

About the Author

Michael Challiner has 15 years experience in financial services marketing at senior level. Michael now works as the editor of Brokers Online Life Insurance

Futher reading Life Insurance Home Page
Futher reading Life insurance topics

Volunteers & the law: Incapacity Benefit

Why does the Democratic Party has to lie about supporting small businesses?

The Democratice Party supports policies that harm small businesses such as affirmative action, minimum wage law, etc. The Democratic Party complains that corporates are harming small businesses and yet they support/create those policies. For example, if you own a bakery shop, do you have to hire a minority group or would you rather hire based on their experience and not race. And, do you have to pay them based on the minimum wage law or pay them based on the market. Everybody knows that a good worker demand higher wage or else he/she will work for another company. Everybody knows that the cheaper the wage, the worst service will be provided to their customer.

They don't - I agree business under Clinton thrived. Many small business owners are good business people and great humans. Then there are the others. When I hire people I pay them well because I want them to do a good job - color or gender does not matter.

If people do not have a living wage how do you expect them to buy your product?

Go pyar

Employment Law.mp4

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Florida Job Injury Question - Back Injury Settlement

The following is an expert answer given by Florida job injury lawyer, Joseph M. Maus, and taken from AllExperts.com, a free Q & A service on the internet:

Question: I was hurt at work and had surgery on my back - disc surgery. I got paid for time off and now I'm back to work. I am working normally with slight pain. The workers comp insurance called me and sent me mail to settle the case. They are offering me $49,999 to settle my case without lawyers. I did not ask for anything - they called me and offered me a settlement.

What should I do? Can I settle it myself? How do I go about getting the money and would that be the best solution for me without risking my employment? Is it better to get a lawyer and why?

What can I do to improve my case with the workers comp insurance? Do I have to settle the case? Would I get a better deal if I hired a lawyer to represent me?

Answer: The most important factor affecting the answer to your questions was left out.  That is, what state you live in.  Workers compensation laws, and the benefits you may be entitled to, vary from state to state.  I am a Florida attorney specializing in serious injury and accident claims, including workers compensation.  I can only tell you how the laws work in a Florida job injury, so my advice to you is to speak with an accident injury lawyer in your area to get specific advice.

There are many factors that affect a workers compensation settlement.  The primary issue is how much exposure the insurance company has in the future if your claim were to remain open.  For example, what exposure does the insurance company have for future medical care, wage benefits, vocational retraining, is there any exposure to permanent total disability benefits, etc.  Without having a chance to review your medical records, it would be next to impossible to give you an accurate estimate of the settlement value for your case.

Your email indicates the insurance company has offered you $49,999 to settle.  Most likely, the insurance company is referring to "impairment benefits" which are paid out to a claimant based upon the impairment rating given to them by the doctor.  At least in Florida, an insurance company is required to pay these to you once you receive the impairment rating from your doctor, so their offer to pay them to you as a settlement offer seems a little ridiculous.

The best advice I can give you is do speak with an attorney that specializes workers compensation.  He can advise you what the law is in your area, and what your options are.  Workers Comp in most states is entirely a creation of the State's statutes and as such, all rights you have, and obligations the employers insurance company have, are set out in the Statutes.  You may, and I emphasize may b/c I don't know your State's laws, have rights different than what we have in Florida.  The settlement value of your claim would be based in part upon options that still exist for you within the WC laws of your state.

Most attorneys specializing in workers compensation claims handle the claims on a contingent basis,i.e. their attorney fees are a percentage of any money they recover for you. In a Florida job injury, it is usually about 25% of the gross settlement amount.  Most workers comp attorneys also offer a free, no-obligation consultation to discuss whether you have a viable case.  So you really have nothing to lose by speaking to an experienced workers compensation lawyer.  If you don't like what you hear, you're not obligated.

I get asked quite often whether it is best to hire an injury accident lawyer to settle a claim.  My response is always - absolutely yes.  In 17 years of doing accident injury claims, I have yet to have a client come into the office with what I considered to be a fair offer from an insurance company, without the assistance of an attorney.  I wouldn't attempt my own dental or medical work, do a serious repair on my car, or re-wire my house on my own. Leave it to the experts.  The old saying is don't be penny wise, but pound foolish.

If you are an injured worker in Florida, I would tell you that there really is no way to give you an accurate answer to all your questions without spending some time with you speaking about your case, your employment history and job skills, your age, and looking at your medical records and doctor opinions.  You do not have to settle a workers compensation claim in Florida, so you should be careful about negotiations directly with the insurance company.

For more information about a Florida job injury claim, contact Florida work accident compensation lawyer Joseph M. Maus at 1-866-556-5529 or email him today.

About the Author

South Florida Attorney Joseph M. Maus and Associates has been helping victims of injuries and accidents for close to 16 years. The firm prides itself on having the resources and experience of the largest state-wide law firms, yet providing individualized attention to each and every client.

In-Trans Heart: Tranny Vs McDonald scandal part 2

Dealing With Bad Weather In Hr

When heavy snow is piling up on the roads, suddenly the daily commute into work isn't so simple for thousands of employees used to catching the bus or driving to the office. And even if it isn't just snow - it could be torrential rain, ice or wind storms - the problems caused by severe weather are numerous. Not only can employees' daily commute be interrupted by hazardous roads and the closure of public transport services, but power outages can occur, as well as business closure due to brutal conditions.

Foul weather can be a nightmare for the HR department. As a business, it's important to strike a balance between caring for employees and ensuring their physical and mental well being whilst ensuring the company remains up and running. However, the foremost concern for any company should be the safety of its employees. This means understanding when a worker cannot travel into the office due to poor conditions, as well as knowing when it's time to give up and close up the building for a day or two until it's safe to return to work.

Of course, some places of work aren't so lucky as to have a warm office to hide away in. Outdoor work obviously has different requirements when it comes to employee health and safety and it's crucial that the well being of employees in severe conditions is kept at the top of the priority list. If work is continuing in poor weather, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) advises that workers are given frequent breaks to get warm, enabled to drink hot beverages, requested to abstain from smoking as it can restrict blood flow and that the buddy system is put in force so employees work in teams that look out for one another.

Knowing when to tell your employees to stay and work from home isn't easy, and it's a good idea to circulate a message detailing the company policy on if the weather is preventing people from travelling. It should include what to do if schools are closed and parents have no alternative means of childcare and strive to ensure that employees who do make it to work are not going to end up being trapped there in case of worsening conditions.

Although, there is no legal right for staff to be paid by an employer for travel delays, the Trades Union Congress advises against withholding pay or forcing holidays onto staff members due to conditions that cannot be prevented as this can make employees feel resentful towards the company, thus decreasing employee satisfaction.

It's important to ensure your business is operating within employment law during periods of bath weather, so stay up to date with changes and revisions and apply these as you see fit.

About the Author

Andrew Regan writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.

7-13-03 Terroristic Stalking AirLifeHelicopter @HouseForRent

Leaders shocked at vet aid gap
When a veteran acquaintance showed up at his front door on Christmas Day, threatening to end his life, Allan Morrison said he saw a seriously broken safety net in Wasco County and surroundings for gorge-area veterans.
vzume.com - Sean McMahan Employment Interview (law,sf,ca)

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The California Workplace Labor Law Posters

In California, employers have rules and regulations related to the workplace and they are displayed in the California labor law posters. Employers are strict about the various laws and try to enforce them in their businesses so that employees do their work properly to achieve the business goals and likewise these laws make the employees aware of the different labor laws affecting them.  Labor laws are stringent in every country and America is no exception as is amply displayed by the labor law posters and California labor law posters related to the workplace has all the laws concerning an organization.  

It is mandatory in America, for all the businesses and organizations across the country to put up these labor law posters and California too has to follow the rules as employees have a right to know about their rights and organizations similarly have to tell the employees about their duties and laws related to the workplace. It is in a way beneficial for both the parties and goes a long way in building the relationship between the two as both of them are aware of their responsibilities. The labor laws get updated from time to time and it is the duty of the organizations to inform the employees about them. The California labor law posters contain information regarding different labor laws.

The State of California has California Labor Law Posters for all businesses big or small and organizations and safety posters for workplace safety are required to put them up in places in the workplace where employees can see and read them easily. It concerns them basically and so it can be said that the labor law posters are meant for the employees. There are labors laws that need to be adopted by businesses where the employer has 50 or more employees working under him and in such workplaces posters are must. There are separate labor laws for the minors and adults and they are displayed in the organizations through California labor law posters. Labor lawposters are well designed and neatly written in a simple language that can be understood by all he employees. They are pasted in places within the organization where the employees gather on a daily basis so that they can get all the necessary information they require related to the various labor laws.

About the Author

IDSTC provides MLM Software , Network marketing software for MLM, direct sales industry. Get business solutions with Multi Level Marketing Software, Direct Sales Software, party plan software .

Federal Minimum Wage Posting Changes, July 2009

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Where do i stand if the end date of my work contract is before my start date?

I accepted a job starting last November and have recently been looking over my contract only to notice the start date is November 2009 and the end date is April 2009. What does this mean for me as an employee? Is it a simple typo or are there legal ramifications for having a fixed term employment contract of minus 8 months? UK law only please.

It is obviously a typo.
Go to the HR dept or your line manager and get it sorted out.

Employment Law - Legal Advice Panel with Attorney Joel Baruch

State Laws and Employer I-9 Employment Verification Responsibilities

Many states have enacted “mini-I-9” laws. Employers, especially companies that operate in more than one state, must closely monitor their compliance with the employment eligibility and verification laws for each state in which they do business.




The most common regulation states have imposed on businesses in recent years is requiring employers to use the federal E-Verify system to confirm workers’ immigration status and employment eligibility or work authorization, specifically illegal immigrant employment eligibility, work authorization and immigration status.

E-Verify is an Internet-based system operated by Department of Homeland Security (DHS/U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in partnership with the Social Security Administration (SSA). E-Verify is currently free to employers and is available in all 50 states. E-Verify provides an automated link to federal databases to help employers determine employment eligibility or work authorization of new hires and the validity of their Social Security numbers.

Employers or "Designated Agents" (e.g., payroll companies) must register online and agree to the terms of participation to use E-Verify. [Registration includes agreeing to the DHS/Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). A discussion of the ICE E-Verify MOU is outside the scope of this post.]

E-Verify will soon be required of all federal contractors. DHS is now promulgating "final" E-Verify regs. I present an E-Verify overview and update in this post.

(The National Conference of State Legislatures does a remarkable job of monitoring these new developments and I include a variation of their chart and summary of the new state legislation below.)




Review of Relevant State Laws

State Laws Requiring Use of E-Verify







Arizona


Arizona

The Arizona Fair and Legal Employment Act (HB 2779), enacted in 2007, prohibits employers from knowingly hiring unauthorized workers and requires all employers to use the Basic Pilot Program to verify employment eligibility. It establishes substantial penalties and threatens noncompliant employers with suspension and potential revocation of their business licenses. Effective date Jan. 1, 2008.



Colorado


Colorado HB 1343 (signed 6/6/2006) prohibits state agencies from entering into contract agreements with contractors who knowingly employ illegal immigrants and requires prospective contractors to verify legal work status of all employees. The contractor must confirm that the Basic Pilot Program has been used to verify the status of all employees. If the contractor discovers that an illegal alien is employed, the contractor must alert the state agency within 3 days.



Georgia

The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, SB 529, covered employment, enforcement, and benefits and was signed by the Governor on April 17, 2006. The bill requires public employers, contractors and subcontractors with 500 or more employees to participate in E-Verify for all new employees beginning July 1, 2007. The law is phased in for public employers, contractors and subcontractors with 100 or more employees effective July 1, 2008; and for all employers by July 1, 2009.



Idaho
Executive Order


On December 13, 2006, Governor Jim Risch issued an executive order requiring that state agencies participate in the E-Verify system. Also, all workers employed to the state through contractors must also be from companies that have been verified to have eligible employees.




Minnesota
Executive Order


Governor Tim Pawlenty issued an executive order on Jan. 7, 2008, stating that all hiring authorities within the executive branch of state government as well as any employer seeking to enter into a state contract worth in excess of $50,000 must participate in the E-Verify program. The Executive Order’s effective date is January 29, 2008.



Mississippi


Mississippi SB2988 (signed 3/17/08) requires public and private employers to participate in E-Verify. The phase-in period is: all government agencies and businesses with more than 250 employees by July 1, 2008; companies with 100 to 250 employees by July 1, 2009; those with 30 to 100 employees by July 1, 2010; and all remaining companies by July 1, 2011. An employer violating the law is subject to the cancellation of public contracts, ineligibility for contracts for up to three years, and loss of business license for up to one year. The law also makes it a felony to accept or perform employment knowing or in reckless disregard of the immigrant’s ineligibility to work, with penalties from one to five years of imprisonment and/or $1,000 to $10,000 in fines.



North Carolina

All state agencies, offices, and universities must use E-Verify, required by SB 1523 in 2006. This applies to employees hired on or after January 1, 2007, except for employees of local education agencies hired on or after March 1, 2007.



Oklahoma

The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 (HB 1804) addressed multiple issues: transporting and harboring, driver’s licenses, public benefits, law enforcement and employment. It made it a felony to transport or harbor unauthorized immigrants, with exceptions for health or benefits guaranteed by federal law. It requires public employers, contractors and subcontractors to participate in a federal electronic employment verification system and requires income tax withholding for independent contractors who do not have valid Social Security numbers. The law became effective Nov. 1, 2007.



Rhode Island
Executive Order


On March 27, 2008,Governor Carcieri issued an executive order requiring executive agencies to use E-Verify; and for all persons and businesses, including grantees, contractors and their subcontractors and vendors to use E-Verify.



Utah


SB 81 was signed into law 3/13/08. The law address multiple issues, including driver’s licenses, law enforcement, harboring and transporting, public benefits and employment. It requires public employers to register and use the Basic Pilot program for new employees; state contractors must use Basic Pilot effective July 1, 2009. The law makes it a Class A misdemeanor to conceal, harbor, transport or shelter undocumented immigrants, though church, charitable and humanitarian assistance groups are exempted.


Encourages the Use of E-Verify (1)



Tennessee


HB 729, signed into law on June 26, 2007 and effective January 1, 2008 states that employers who "knowingly employ, recruit or refer for a fee for employment an illegal alien" are subject to a temporary suspension of their business license; repeat offenders are subject to a one-year suspension. Employers who comply with the requirements of the current I-9 process or who verify new hires through the E-Verify within 14 days of employment are shielded from sanctions.




One State Limits The Use of E-Verify


Illinois


Illinois enacted HB 1744, which bars Illinois companies from enrolling in any Employment Eligibility Verification System until accuracy and timeliness issues are resolved. Illinois also enacted HB 1743, which creates privacy and antidiscrimination protections for workers if employers participating in E-Verify don’t follow the program’s procedures.






State Laws Targeting Employers On Immigration Status

Current Litigation Over State Laws: Federal Pre-emption


Two lawsuits now making their way through the federal court system could restrict states’ ability to continue to crack down on businesses that hire unauthorized workers. One is a court challenge to the 2007 Arizona employer sanctions law filed by a coalition of Arizona trade groups. In February, a federal judge denied the coalition’s request to delay implementation of the law with a temporary restraining order, and the plaintiffs took their case to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Oral arguments are scheduled for this summer and a decision is expected in the fall.




Another lawsuit making its way through the federal courts originated last year in Hazleton, PA, where a local ordinance enacted in 2006 denies business permits to employers who hire illegal immigrants and fines landlords who rent to them. In a ruling issued last summer, a federal judge struck down the Hazleton ordinance, saying it treads on federal terrain and violates illegal immigrants’ constitutional right to due process.




The town is appealing the decision, and the case will be heard in the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals this summer. A decision in this case is also expected in the fall.




If the two appellate courts hand down similar rulings; either both upholding the local laws, or both asserting federal authority, the battle over federal preemption could end there. But if the courts hand down opposing decisions – one supporting state authority and the other backing federal preemption – the debate will likely go to the Supreme Court. The consequence: no clear direction for state lawmakers for at least a year or two.




Many legal experts say the bills being passed in state capitals are not constitutional, and many of the new laws are being challenged in court. The U.S. Constitution gives federal law “supremacy” over state statutes. My personal understanding of the fundamental “pre-emption” issue is that the federal laws do not pre-empt these state laws. Frankly, this is a very complex constitutional issue.




The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) explicitly prohibits states from imposing sanctions on businesses that hire unauthorized workers. But one phrase in the 1986 law – a seven-word parenthesis allowing states some leeway in the matter of “licenses and similar laws” – has created a contested gray area.




Many states have taken the IRCA parenthesis to mean they have the authority to suspend or revoke the business licenses of employers who hire unauthorized workers. Businesses and many constitutional lawyers disagree.




“You have this complex overlay of statutes and regulations and court cases, and you’ve got this federalism question of what has traditionally been federal power and what the states can do,” Jan Ting, a Temple University law professor, told the Washington Post. “There could not be an area of law that is less clear than this.”




Because states have until recently stayed away from imposing sanctions for immigration violations, federal preemption has rarely been tested and few court precedents exist.




Private Rights of Action

While E-Verify requirements have so far proven the most popular method to deter the hiring of illegal immigrants, some states are beginning to make use of another tool: giving employees a “private right of action.” Oklahoma was the first state to pass such legislation, in 2007, allowing fired U.S. workers to sue their employers if unauthorized workers were subsequently found to be working in their place. Mississippi, Utah and South Carolina followed with similar provisions this year, allowing fired workers to sue if they are then replaced by illegal immigrants. Some say the laws could open businesses to lawsuits if they employ any unauthorized workers, whether or not they have hired them to replace fired legal workers. Other states are expected to adopt this approach next year.




Also still in place are provisions mandating that all businesses in Arizona enroll in E-Verify and allowing prosecutors to investigate anonymous tips made against businesses alleged to be employing unauthorized workers.




State Felony Laws

Companies should also be concerned about a Mississippi law that makes it a felony for illegal immigrants to accept unauthorized employment. Violators are subject to imprisonment from one to five years and fines of between $1,000 and $10,000. And while the measure seemingly applies only to unauthorized workers, if I had clients who do business in Mississippi I would be strongly cautioning them. I have many clients, both individual and business, where the kind employer assists driving the very good employee to work because the employee does not have a valid state driver license because s/he lacks immigration status. In my opinion a business can be prosecuted for aiding and abetting a felony or harboring a felon under this law.

Oklahoma also imposed felony penalties, in 2007 – in that case, against anyone caught transporting, concealing, harboring or sheltering illegal immigrants in any location,


including any building or means of transportation. Utah, Missouri and South Carolina passed similar measures this year, and many fear the provisions could be used against employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers.











About the Author

About Immigration Attorney Gerald Goulder


I have been a licensed attorney and counselor at law for over 28 years. I practice exclusively immigration and visa law for individuals, families and businesses, not just in North Carolina, but in many states and throughout the world.

Jeff Murray - Managing Absenteeism

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In california is christmas day a paid holiday?.?

I work for a small family business and work around 30-40 hrs a week and I didn't get paid for christmas. People are telling me that I should get paid for that day. I don't know if its a employment law regarding this or not. I have been there for about 4 months now and won't be considered for any type of beneftis until the 6 month mark.

It depends on the company or business you work for. Some pay for holidays like Christmas, Easter ,even 4th of July and some count it as just a day off. It's not a "legal" obligation unless you work for the government or a business who states it pays you for those holidays even if you are closed for business.

San Francisco Immigration Attorney - Happy Holiday - Immigration lawyer

Maryland Dwi Laws

There are two different types of charges for drunk driving cases in the state of Maryland. They are based on the amount you have had to drink and they vary in severity of consequences.

You will be charged with driving under the influence (DUI) if your blood alcohol level (BAC) is .08 or greater. You will be charged with driving while impaired (DWI) if your BAC is at a level of .07.

When the police suspect you have been drinking, they will ask you to perform a field sobriety test to assess your reaction time, coordination, and reflexes. During this test, they will also evaluate you for other signs of intoxication, including:

· Slurred speech

· Watery eyes

· Scent of alcohol on breath

You will also be given a breathalyzer test to verify your BAC. Refusal to take a breath test comes with severe consequences. Your driver’s license will be suspended for a mandatory 120 day period, and your refusal to submit to the test will be used against you in court as an admission of guilt.

Consequences

In Maryland, the consequences for DUI and DWI vary in degree. For a DUI conviction, you will receive:

· Maximum $1,000 fine

· Up to one year in jail

· 45 day suspension of your license

· 12 points on your license

For a DWI conviction, you will receive:

· Maximum $500 fine

· Up to 60 days in jail

· Maximum 60 day suspension of your license

· 8 points on your driver’s license

Your insurance company will most likely take one of two actions when they are notified of your conviction. They will either drastically raise your rates or they will cancel your policy.

You Don’t Have to Lose Your License

The state of Maryland offers you a chance to appeal the suspension of your driver’s license. However, the police rarely inform you of this right and time is of the essence when appealing your suspension.

You have ten days to ask for a hearing with the Motor Vehicle Administration. Hiring an experienced DUI attorney will greatly help you at this hearing. It is not advisable to defend yourself. If you don’t file for your hearing within the allotted ten day time frame, your license will automatically be suspended.

Other Implications of your DUI

Your DUI conviction can affect your entire life. Your conviction will stay on your record for the rest of your life. Depending on your occupation, you may have trouble with employment. If you work in education, government, or medicine, you may lose your job. Furthermore, your DUI could prevent you from getting hired in these fields at a later date.

The best way to minimize the damage done by a DUI is to hire an attorney to represent you. Lawyers who specialize in DUI cases will know how to pick apart the evidence against you to help reduce your sentence. Considering the widespread impact on your life, you can’t afford to pass up this assistance.

About the Author

If you have been charged with a DUI or DWI in the Baltimore, Annapolis, and Columbia, Maryland area, please contact the law firm of Jimeno & Gray today for an initial consultation.

Maryland Military Divorce Lawyer

wasting police time uk?

hi there my dad keeps calling the police when he is drunk telling them that my mum is beating her kids. and she got a man who is a sex offender who he is not.

Yes, he should , but take into account that he's your father.

Employment claims | No win No fee compensation | Winston Solicitors LLP

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Fair pay in UK employment?

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.

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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anyone know laws on employment in england?

please can you tell me if you reach a companys level for sicknes can they sack you if you have provided a doctors note and or some of the sickness incured were due to incidents at work.

It would matter what country you were from they shouldn't sacking you ring your local government also any business should be insured for accidents call and insist on their insurers number that should scare them

March 2009 BlogTV LIVE Why the South sucks!

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California Professional Employer Organizations

Effectively managing Human Resources in California has become a daunting and complex task for small to mid-market business owners. California-based corporations must grapple with one of the most complicated systems of employment laws in the country. While statistics report that many corporations are leaving the state, another trend has risen to assist overwhelmed business owners – California Professional Employer Organizations, or PEOs.

In just the first months of 2008, dozens of laws effecting numerous topics of employment law have been enacted in California. This includes a laundry list of unfriendly policies, including laws governing hiring and termination, family leave, sexual harassment, paying employees, leaves of absence, employee benefits, and workers' compensation. These trends have led to an unprecedented rise of employment litigation, labor regulations, and tax laws.

Employers continue to face fluctuating risks, and the high expense of conducting business has restricted the opportunities for business owners to remain competitive. Furthermore, it has become clear that the expertise required to manage a small to mid-sized operation has outgrown the experience and training of many entrepreneurs who started these businesses.

These complexities have led to one of the hottest business trends in California, and the nation as a whole: Professional Employer Organizations, or PEOs. PEO firms help companies reduce costs and efficiently manage HR-related issues, while navigating the complex business labyrinth, an intricate combination of policies and regulatory standards that are difficult to escape.

Outsourcing Human Resources to the Experts

PEO firms enable companies to shift responsibility of non-revenue generating competencies that can be handled easily, and inexpensively, by off-site experts. These functions include the areas of labor compliance, risk and safety, payroll, benefits, and other complex workplace regulations. The PEO firm helps companies reduce costs by effectively managing HR functions while allowing businesses to focus on their core operations that impact profitability.

Once HR and other operations are outsourced, many companies are showing a strong return on investment, according to a recent survey of American executives, by IDC, a global provider of market intelligence. The 2006 survey of executives at the IDC Midwest Conference in Chicago showed nearly 85 percent of the respondents saved as much as they spent on outsourcing, with 26.4 percent reporting a savings of twice as much. And the savings, according to nearly 95 percent of the respondents, went toward operational performance and innovation, which improved shareholder value.

Co-Employment

The PEO industry, formerly known as Employee Leasing, or Staff Leasing, has become a rudder for companies trying to navigate choppy seas. Taking on the responsibility of all human resource functions, the PEO can serve a multitude of functions. Primarily, the PEO creates a "co-employment" relationship with its clients, thereby sharing the risks and responsibilities of being an employer. The PEO assumes the role of the Administrative Employer, whereby the PEO pays the employees, files payroll taxes, provides health insurance, issues the workers' compensation insurance, and manages most aspects of employment. The client maintains the role as the Administrative Employer and continues to manage and oversee all day-to-day functions relating to their internal operations. This includes hiring, firing, establishing wages, and directing the workforce.

Helping Businesses and Their Employees

Through a co-employment relationship, small organizations access the economies of scale enjoyed by large corporations. The PEO client can offer premium benefit packages and retirement plans, typically provided by their larger competitors. They can maintain a simple in-house HR infrastructure or none at all by relying on the PEO. The client also can reduce hiring overhead. Costs related to monitoring of, and compliance with, employment laws are reduced, as are the often significant costs of failure to comply with such laws. In addition, the PEO provides time savings by handling routine and redundant tasks for its clients. This enables the business owner to focus on the company's core competency and grow its bottom line.

In addition to providing important services to their business clients, PEOs offer substantial advantages to worksite employees. In many cases, these employees would not be provided the number, or quality, of benefits that a PEO can offer. These benefits may include health insurance, retirement savings plans, disability insurance, life insurance, dependent care reimbursement accounts, vision care, dental insurance, employee assistance plans, job counseling and educational benefits. Each individual small business's cost of establishing and administering this range of plans would be prohibitive. However, due to economies of scale, PEOs can sponsor and offer these plans at an affordable cost.

A Surging Industry

After a decline in the number of PEOs in 2003, a strong economy has resulted in a surge over the past four years. The PEO industry serves between two and three million employees per year, with most assisting companies with less than 50 employees. The average PEO is on the rise, too, with a growth rate of more than 20 percent per year for the last six years, according to a survey by the NAPEO, the national trade association for the industry.

For an annual fee that easily trumps the cost of an HR staff, PEOs manage training and education, health benefits, payroll, benefits, workers' compensation issues and employee relations. It is apparent that the frustration brought on by obtrusive human resource standards can be offset by the value found with PEOs, and other PEO providers.

About the Author

Ari Rosenstein is the Director of Marketing at CPEhr, a Human Resources Outsourcing and Professional Employer Organization company. With 15,000 serviced employees and hundreds of clients in 26 states, CPEhr is one of the largest, independently owned PEOs in the nation. CPEhr provides an array of HR services including labor law compliance, employment administration, employee health insurance, safety consulting, payroll and tax services. Learn more about HR Outsourcing and Professional Employer Organizations at http://www.cpehr.com.

Marianne Jones on the 2008 California Employment Law Update

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Ed Koch: Questioning Sexual Orientation Is Out of Bounds
May 17, 2010 Solicitor General Elena Kagan's sexual orientation is the subject of much discussion in blogs and mainstream newspapers. The White House response denied...
Measure 49 Public Hearing Oregon Legislature on Measure 37

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does anyone know employment law....on potential unlawful sacking?

my son told a white lie to have a long weekend with his family-his, and booked 2 days annual leave, the boss who is also the owner of the company was constantly ringing him during that time but my son didn't respond. when he returned to work his boss had obviously been checking on my son's story and wanted my son to sign a statement admitting to this, my son refused. my son has also asked for 2 day annual at bank holiday but the boss has refused again saying that noone else is as experienced as him at that time although this is rubbish. | think he is waiting for my son to walk out.

I think you have a good case for constructive dismissal. The fact that your son had to lie in order to secure a holiday indicates to me that he works under conditions that are abhorrent. Perhaps he broke rules in terms of notice of holiday.
I could understand his boss' grievance if your son was pretending to be ill. However your boss has no rights to check up at all on your son's free time if he has granted holiday.
The statement that your boss asked your son to sign is crucial. Even though your son refused to sign it, do everything you can to obtain a copy of that statement. it is likely to be poorly worded and incriminating to your son's boss. Then look up in the phone book or listen to adverts on local radio and find a solicitor who advertise a no fee no win basis. They are likely to give you a free half hours advice. However when you make the appointment exaggerated your claim otherwise they will not take you seriously. Take anyone you know with you who you trust and feel may understand the law.
If you feel I have been helpful contact me.

Haleigh Cummings:Nancy Grace, Misty Croslin and her various recent interviews.

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Parkinson's Law in I.T.

"As computer hardware capacity increases, software becomes more bloated."

- Bryce's Law

INTRODUCTION

Ever wonder why our computers typically last no more than three years? Many contend it is because of the fast pace of technological advancements. Maybe. But I tend to believe there is a little more to it than just that, namely "Parkinson's Law." For those of you who may have forgotten, "Parkinson's Law" was devised by C. Northcote Parkinson, noted British historian and author. His original book, "Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress," was introduced in 1958 and was a top-selling management book for a number of years (it is still sold today). The book was based on his experience with the British Civil Service. Among his key observation's was that "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Basically, he suggests that people make work in order to rationalize their employment. Consequently, managers create bureaucracies and superfluous work to justify their existence, not because it is really needed.

As an aside, CEO's clearly understood Parkinson's Law, which became the driving force behind the flattening of corporations in the 1990's, such as General Electric under Jack Welch's reign.

AS APPLIED TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Whereas Parkinson was primarily concerned with people, his law is equally applicable to machines, particularly computers; for example, Parkinson's Law can be applied to computing in terms of "Data expands to fill the space available for storage." Years ago I had a Compaq Presario computer with 50mb of disk space, which I considered substantial at the time. I never dreamt I would be able to fill up the hard drive. But, of course, I did (as well as other PC's I have had over the years). My current PC has a hard drive with a capacity of 224gb and though I'm a long way from filling it up, inevitably I know I will for two reasons: I now feel more comfortable with downloading large multimedia files (MP3, AVI, WMV, etc.), PDF files, data base files, and other larger file formats, and; Second, because developers have become sloppy in programming.

Back when memory and disk space were at a premium, there was great concern over the efficient use of computer resources. Program code was written very tightly and consideration was given to file size. For example, establishing a simple file index was scrutinized carefully. But as the computer capacity grew and hardware prices declined, developers became less interested in efficient programming. To illustrate, not too long ago packaged software installation programs were delivered on 3.5" diskettes. Today, it is not uncommon to use multiple CD's to install the same products. This means that as computer hardware capacity increases, software becomes more bloated. This is but one example of Parkinson's Law as applied in computing.

An another example, let's consider data transmission lines as used in networking. It doesn't seem long ago we were using 14.4 baud modems over telephone lines. I remember when we doubled the speed to 28.8 and then 56.4. It seemed like the sky was the limit with every increase. But eventually performance seemed to slow to a crawl. Was it because the technology was aging or was it because our web pages were becoming bigger and more complicated requiring greater data volume over the lines? Frankly, it was the latter. Today, DSL and cable are commonplace in households as well as in business and "dial-up" is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. But as data volume increases with the number of subscribers, will we ever hit a wall in terms of capacity with DSL and cable? Undoubtedly. Again, more due to Parkinson's Law then anything else.

Make no mistake, computer hardware and software vendors are acutely aware of the role of Parkinson's Law. It is what allows them to build-in planned obsolescence into their products. As consumers reach capacity, they can either add additional capacity or, more likely, purchase new computers.

There is undoubtedly an incestuous relationship between hardware and software vendors. Hardware enhancements are primarily implemented to increase capacity in order to overcome software inefficiencies, and software vendors make their products more bloated as hardware enhancements are introduced. To illustrate the point, is it a coincidence that every major release of Windows requires additional hardware support? Hardly. This is done more by design than by accident.

CONCLUSION

Parkinson's Law is just as much a part of computer technology as it is in the corporate world. But what would happen if we decided to "flatten" computer technology in the same manner that Jack Welch flattened G.E.? Keep in mind, Welch did so to eliminate bureaucracy and force his workers to become more efficient and focus on the true problems at hand. By flattening the "bloatware" we would probably get a lot more mileage out of our computers. But I guess that wouldn't be good for selling computers (or the economy).

I guess Parkinson's Law and the viscous circle of computing will be with us for quite some time.

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 training and consulting on an international basis. His corporate web page is at:

http://www.phmainstreet.com/mba/

He can be contacted at: timb001@phmainstreet.com

Copyright © 2006 MBA. All rights reserved.

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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....

not sure

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Why isn't constructing the border fence along the Mexican border part of the economic stimulus package?

If the politicians don't have the guts to enforce employment laws, maybe they can agree to build a border fence. American's need jobs in record numbers. It will be a disaster if any amnesty program is proposed before a fence is built. Stopping illegal immigration should be a top priority.

Who says it isn't!

Buy American clause means no crappy steel fencing from China, Or crappy concrete from Mexico. Both of which are used to build the border fence.

I hear along with the fence, they're going to put military back on the border.

Marketing For Lawyers Top 5 Social Media Strategies

Immigration policy issues grip Tennessee
Two new Arizona laws requiring police officers to request proof of citizenship from anyone they suspect may be an illegal immigrant is drawing national attention — much of it negative.
Phillip Russell on BLR's 2008 National Employment Law Update

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Hewitt on Europe
Euro squeeze brings fresh EU integration impetus
Europe, what's up? German Promotion for the EU elections 09

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When Should You Seek Advice From a California Personal Injury Lawyer?

When you suffer personal injury through negligence, you need to seek the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Some accidents that can be considered in this category include dog bites, motorcycle accidents, burn injury, brain injury claims and construction accidents just to name a few. Nursing home abuse also falls under this sector of the law. Any catastrophic injury is reason to consult a lawyer immediately.

Many people are injured on the job, and workers compensation can sometimes have long delays. Your expenses still go on, and even if you do receive your payments it may still be insufficient. Your attorney will make sure your expenses are covered, through meetings with your employer to make sure you are getting a fair assessment. If not, he will fight for you in court to make sure you are fairly compensated.

Many accidents are traumatic, and cause long term serious physical and psychological effects. Burn injuries can be especially devastating, because of the expanse of time it takes for healing, the scars that remain, and the staggering financial costs.

California personal injury lawyers understand California state laws, and what they can do to get their clients the compensation they deserve. Often, the circumstances behind hiring an attorney are caused by negligence and outright disregard by another person for the safety of the victim. Tragically, some accidents are caused by intentional misconduct.

If you become injured through the negligence of another, consulting a California personal injury lawyer is the first step you should take after seeking medical attention. An experienced attorney will help you decide if you have a claim, and if so help you get diagnostic tests to provide necessary information that could actually strengthen your case.

What are some other steps a good attorney will take? A dedicated lawyer will get involved from the minute you arrive at their office, and contact the insurance company if you need to get your vehicle repaired. They will also start the process for the injury claim, and make sure that you get the proper care to make a full recovery from your injuries to help alleviate future suffering.

When you decide to search for the best injury lawyer, there are a few characteristics that should help you make the right choice. Legal expertise, skill, professionalism and knowledge are a good foundation for choosing an attorney that will win your battle. You should also be provided with past testimonials or case results to ensure you are hiring a lawyer or attorney with expertise in their industry.

Most reputable lawyers will set up a free initial consultation, to make sure that you have a case. With their knowledge of the laws in California, they will use the facts to decide if your case is legitimate. They will also help you decide what a fair compensation would be for your injuries and other losses you have suffered such as vehicle, medical and lost work expenses.

If you have been injured through negligence, contact a California personal injury lawyer who has legal expertise in this field. Doing so will allow you to be compensated fairly for your pain and suffering!

About the Author

Joel McLaughlin

Learn more about Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney

Learn more about Los Angeles California Personal Injury

Menekshe, Cardwell & Ruiz, Attorneys at Law

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Are there any law short courses?

I was wondering if any Universities in the Midlands or Manchester area offer any kind of legal short course. I'm particulary interested in family law, employment law, constitutional & Adminstration law and child protections issues. I need to pep up my CV and can't afford a Masters just yet.

No, there is no thing as a short course in Law but there is is no legal requirement under English law to study Law in order to call yourself a Solicitor.

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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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Where the Grass Isn't Greener
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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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.

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

I think so, but I don't think you can count on it.

News Conference on SB66 - Part III

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The Origin of Man

Anyone who seeks an answer to the question of how living things, including himself, came into existence, will encounter two distinct explanations. The first is "creation," the idea that all living things came into existence as a consequence of an intelligent design. The second explanation is the theory of "evolution," which asserts that living things are not the products of an intelligent design, but of coincidental causes and natural processes.

For a century and a half now, the theory of evolution has received extensive support from the scientific community. The science of biology is defined in terms of evolutionist concepts. That is why, between the two explanations of creation and evolution, the majority of people assume the evolutionist explanation to be scientific. Accordingly, they believe evolution to be a theory supported by the observational findings of science, while creation is thought to be a belief based on faith. As a matter of fact, however, scientific findings do not support the theory of evolution. Findings from the last two decades in particular openly contradict the basic assumptions of this theory. Many branches of science, such as paleontology, biochemistry, population genetics, comparative anatomy and biophysics, indicate that natural processes and coincidental effects cannot explain life, as the theory of evolution proposes.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN

Darwin put forward his claim that human beings and apes descended from a common ancestor in his book The Descent of Man, published in 1871. From that time until now, the followers of Darwin's path have tried to support this claim. But despite all the research that has been carried out, the claim of "human evolution" has not been backed up by any concrete scientific discovery, particularly in the fossil field.

The man in the street is for the most part unaware of this fact, and thinks that the claim of human evolution is supported by a great deal of firm evidence. The reason for this incorrect opinion is that the subject is frequently discussed in the media and presented as a proven fact. But real experts on the subject are aware that there is no scientific foundation for the claim of human evolution. David Pilbeam, a Harvard University paleoanthropologist, says:

If you brought in a smart scientist from another discipline and showed him the meagre evidence we've got he'd surely say, "forget it; there isn't enough to go on."(( Richard E. Leakey, The Making of Mankind, Sphere Books Limited, Barcelona, 1982, p. 43.))

And William Fix, the author of an important book on the subject of paleoanthropology, makes this comment:

As we have seen, there are numerous scientists and popularizers today who have the temerity to tell us that there is 'no doubt' how man originated. If only they had the evidence...(( William R. Fix, The Bone Peddlers, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1984, pp. 150-153.))

This claim of evolution, which "lacks any evidence," starts the human family tree with a group of apes that have been claimed to constitute a distinct genus, Australopithecus. According to the claim, Australopithecus gradually began to walk upright, his brain grew, and he passed through a series of stages until he arrived at man's present state (Homo sapiens). But the fossil record does not support this scenario. Despite the claim that all kinds of intermediate forms exist, there is an impassable barrier between the fossil remains of man and those of apes. Furthermore, it has been revealed that the species which are portrayed as each other's ancestors are actually contemporary species that lived in the same period. Ernst Mayr, one of the most important proponents of the theory of evolution in the twentieth century, contends in his book One Long Argument that "particularly historical [puzzles] such as the origin of life or of Homo sapiens, are extremely difficult and may even resist a final, satisfying explanation."(( "Could science be brought to an end by scientists' belief that they have final answers or by society's reluctance to pay the bills?" Scientific American, December 1992, p. 20.))

But what is the basis for the human evolution thesis put forward by evolutionists? It is the existence of plenty of fossils on which evolutionists are able to build imaginary interpretations. Throughout history, more than 6,000 species of ape have lived, and most of them have become extinct. Today, only 120 species live on the earth. These 6,000 or so species of ape, most of which are extinct, constitute a rich resource for the evolutionists.

On the other hand, there are considerable differences in the anatomic makeup of the various human races. Furthermore, the differences were even greater between prehistoric races, because as time has passed the human races have to some extent mixed with each other and become assimilated. Despite this, important differences are still seen between different population groups living in the world today, such as, for example, Scandinavians, African pygmies, Inuits, native Australians, and many others.

There is no evidence to show that the fossils called hominid by evolutionary paleontologists do not actually belong to different species of ape or to vanished races of humans. To put it another way, no example of a transitional form between mankind and apes has been found.

After these general explanations, let us now examine the human evolution hypothesis together.

The Imaginary Family Tree of Man

The Darwinist claim holds that modern man evolved from some kind of ape-like creature. During this alleged evolutionary process, which is supposed to have started from 4 to 5 million years ago, it is claimed that there existed some "transitional forms" between modern man and his ancestors. According to this completely imaginary scenario, the following four basic "categories" are listed:

1. Australopithecines (any of the various forms belonging to the genus Australopithecus)

2. Homo habilis

3. Homo erectus

4. Homo sapiens

Evolutionists call the genus to which the alleged ape-like ancestors of man belonged "Australopithecus", which means "southern ape". Australopithecus, which is nothing but an old type of ape that has become extinct, is found in various different forms. Some of them are larger and strongly built (robust), while others are smaller and delicate (gracile).

Evolutionists classify the next stage of human evolution as the genus Homo, that is "man". According to the evolutionist claim, the living things in the Homo series are more developed than Australopithecus, and not very much different from modern man. The modern man of our day, that is, the species Homo sapiens, is said to have formed at the latest stage of the evolution of this genus Homo.

Fossils like "Java Man", "Pekin Man", and "Lucy", which appear in the media from time to time and are to be found in evolutionist publications and textbooks, are included in one of the four groups listed above. Each of these groupings is also assumed to branch into species and sub-species, as the case may be.

Some suggested transitional forms of the past, such as Ramapithecus, had to be excluded from the imaginary human family tree after it was realised that they were ordinary apes.

By outlining the links in the chain as "australopithecines > Homo habilis > Homo erectus > Homo sapiens", the evolutionists imply that each of these types is the ancestor of the next. However, recent findings by paleoanthropologists have revealed that australopithecines, Homo habilis and Homo erectus existed in different parts of the world at the same time. Moreover, some of those humans classified as Homo erectus probably lived up until very recent times. In an article titled "Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential Contemporaneity with Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia", it was reported in the journal Science that Homo erectus fossils found in Java had "mean ages of 27 ± 2 to 53.3 ± 4 thousand years ago" and this "raise[s] the possibility that H. erectus overlapped in time with anatomically modern humans (H. sapiens) in Southeast Asia"

Furthermore, Homo sapiens neandarthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) also clearly co-existed. This situation apparently indicates the invalidity of the claim that one is the ancestor of the other.

Intrinsically, all findings and scientific research have revealed that the fossil record does not suggest an evolutionary process as evolutionists propose. The fossils, which evolutionists claim to be the ancestors of humans, in fact belong either to different human races, or else to species of ape.

Then which fossils are human and which ones are apes? Is it ever possible for any one of them to be considered a transitional form? In order to find the answers, let us have a closer look at each category.

Australopithecus: An Ape Species

The first category, the genus Australopithecus, means "southern ape", as we have said. It is assumed that these creatures first appeared in Africa about 4 million years ago, and lived until 1 million years ago. There are a number of different species among the astralopithecines. Evolutionists assume that the oldest Australopithecus species is A. Afarensis. After that comes A. Africanus, and then A. Robustus, which has relatively bigger bones. As for A. Boisei, some researchers accept it as a different species, and others as a sub-species of A. Robustus.

All of the Australopithecus species are extinct apes that resemble the apes of today. Their cranial capacities are the same or smaller than the chimpanzees of our day. There are projecting parts in their hands and feet which they used to climb trees, just like today's chimpanzees, and their feet are built for grasping to hold onto branches. They are short (maximum 130 cm. (51 in.)) and just like today's chimpanzees, male Australopithecus is larger than the female. Many other characteristics-such as the details in their skulls, the closeness of their eyes, their sharp molar teeth, their mandibular structure, their long arms, and their short legs-constitute evidence that these creatures were no different from today's ape.

However, evolutionists claim that, although australopithecines have the anatomy of apes, unlike apes, they walked upright like humans.

This claim that australopithecines walked upright is a view that has been held by paleoanthropologists such as Richard Leakey and Donald C. Johanson for decades. Yet many scientists who have carried out a great deal of research on the skeletal structures of australopithecines have proved the invalidity of that argument. Extensive research done on various Australopithecus specimens by two world-renowned anatomists from England and the USA, Lord Solly Zuckerman and Prof. Charles Oxnard, showed that these creatures did not walk upright in human manner. Having studied the bones of these fossils for a period of 15 years thanks to grants from the British government, Lord Zuckerman and his team of five specialists reached the conclusion that australopithecines were only an ordinary ape genus and were definitely not bipedal, although Zuckerman is an evolutionist himself. Correspondingly, Charles E. Oxnard, who is another evolutionist famous for his research on the subject, also likened the skeletal structure of australopithecines to that of modern orang-utans.

Briefly, Australopithecines have no link with humans and they are merely an extinct ape species.

Homo Habilis: The Ape that was Presented as Human

The great similarity between the skeletal and cranial structures of australopithecines and chimpanzees, and the refutation of the claim that these creatures walked upright, have caused great difficulty for evolutionist paleoanthropologists. The reason is that, according to the imaginary evolution scheme, Homo erectus comes after Australopithecus. As the genus name Homo (meaning "man") implies, Homo erectus is a human species and its skeleton is straight. Its cranial capacity is twice as large as that of Australopithecus. A direct transition from Australopithecus, which is a chimpanzee-like ape, to Homo erectus, which has a skeleton no different from modern man's, is out of the question even according to evolutionist theory. Therefore, "links"-that is, "transitional forms"-are needed. The concept of Homo habilis arose from this necessity.

The classification of Homo habilis was put forward in the 1960s by the Leakeys, a family of "fossil hunters". According to the Leakeys, this new species, which they classified as Homo habilis, had a relatively large cranial capacity, the ability to walk upright and to use stone and wooden tools. Therefore, it could have been the ancestor of man.

New fossils of the same species unearthed in the late 1980s, were to completely change this view. Some researchers, such as Bernard Wood and C. Loring Brace, who relied on those newly-found fossils, stated that Homo habilis (which means "skillful man", that is, man capable of using tools) should be classified as Australopithecus habilis, or "skillful southern ape", because Homo habilis had a lot of characteristics in common with the australopithecine apes. It had long arms, short legs and an ape-like skeletal structure just like Australopithecus. Its fingers and toes were suitable for climbing. Their jaw was very similar to that of today's apes. Their 600 cc average cranial capacity is also an indication of the fact that they were apes. In short, Homo habilis, which was presented as a different species by some evolutionists, was in reality an ape species just like all the other australopithecines.

Research carried out in the years since Wood and Brace's work has demonstrated that Homo habilis was indeed no different from Australopithecus. The skull and skeletal fossil OH62 found by Tim White showed that this species had a small cranial capacity, as well as long arms and short legs which enabled them to climb trees just like modern apes do.

The detailed analyses conducted by American anthropologist Holly Smith in 1994 indicated that Homo habilis was not Homo, in other words, "human", at all, but rather unequivocally an "ape". Speaking of the analyses she made on the teeth of Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis, Smith stated the following;

Restricting analysis of fossils to specimens satisfying these criteria, patterns of dental development of gracile australopithecines and Homo Habilis remain classified with African apes. Those of Homo erectus and Neanderthals are classified with humans.

Within the same year, Fred Spoor, Bernard Wood and Frans Zonneveld, all specialists on anatomy, reached a similar conclusion through a totally different method. This method was based on the comparative analysis of the semi-circular canals in the inner ear of humans and apes which provided for sustaining balance. Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld concluded that:

Among the fossil hominids the earliest species to demonstrate the modern human morphology is Homo erectus. In contrast, the semi-circular canal dimensions in crania from southern Africa attributed to Australopithecus and Paranthropus resemble those of the extant great apes.

Spoor, Wood and Zonneveld also studied a Homo habilis specimen, namely Stw 53, and found out that "Stw 53 relied less on bipedal behavior than the australopithecines." This meant that the H. habilis specimen was even more ape-like than the Australopithecus species. Thus they concluded that "Stw 53 represents an unlikely intermediate between the morphologies seen in the australopithecines and H. erectus."

This finding yielded two important results:

1. Fossils referred to as Homo habilis did not actually belong to the genus Homo, i.e. humans, but to that of Australopithecus, i.e. apes.

2. Both Homo habilis and Australopithecus were creatures that walked stooped forward-that is to say, they had the skeleton of an ape. They have no relation whatsoever to man.

Homo Rudolfensis: The Face Wrongly Joined

The term Homo rudolfensis is the name given to a few fossil fragments unearthed in 1972. The species supposedly represented by this fossil was designated Homo rudolfensis because these fossil fragments were found in the vicinity of Lake Rudolf in Kenya. Most of the paleoanthropologists accept that these fossils do not belong to a distinct species, but that the creature called Homo rudolfensis is in fact indistinguishable from Homo habilis.

Richard Leakey, who unearthed the fossils, presented the skull designated "KNM-ER 1470", which he said was 2.8 million years old, as the greatest discovery in the history of anthropology. According to Leakey, this creature, which had a small cranial capacity like that of Australopithecus together with a face similar to that of present-day humans, was the missing link between Australopithecus and humans. Yet, after a short while, it was realised that the human-like face of the KNM-ER 1470 skull, which frequently appeared on the covers of scientific journals and popular science magazines was the result of the incorrect assembly of the skull fragments, which may have been deliberate. Professor Tim Bromage, who conducts studies on human facial anatomy, brought this to light by the help of computer simulations in 1992:

When it [KNM-ER 1470] was first reconstructed, the face was fitted to the cranium in an almost vertical position, much like the flat faces of modern humans. But recent studies of anatomical relationships show that in life the face must have jutted out considerably, creating an ape-like aspect, rather like the faces of Australopithecus.

The evolutionist paleoanthropologist J. E. Cronin states the following on the matter:

... its relatively robustly constructed face, flattish naso-alveolar clivus, (recalling australopithecine dished faces), low maximum cranial width (on the temporals), strong canine juga and large molars (as indicated by remaining roots) are all relatively primitive traits which ally the specimen with members of the taxon A. africanus.

C. Loring Brace from Michigan University came to the same conclusion. As a result of the analyses he conducted on the jaw and tooth structure of skull 1470, he reported that "from the size of the palate and the expansion of the area allotted to molar roots, it would appear that ER 1470 retained a fully Australopithecus-sized face and dentition".

Professor Alan Walker, a paleoanthropologist from Johns Hopkins University who has done as much research on KNM-ER 1470 as Leakey, maintains that this creature should not be classified as a member of Homo-i.e., as a human species-but rather should be placed in the Australopithecus genus.

In summary, classifications like Homo habilis or Homo rudolfensis which are presented as transitional links between the australopithecines and Homo erectus are entirely imaginary. It has been confirmed by many researchers today that these creatures are members of the Australopithecus series. All of their anatomical features reveal that they are species of ape.

This fact has been further established by two evolutionist anthropologists, Bernard Wood and Mark Collard, whose research was published in 1999 in Science magazine. Wood and Collard explained that the Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis (Skull 1470) taxa are imaginary, and that the fossils assigned to these categories should be attributed to the genus Australopithecus:

More recently, fossil species have been assigned to Homo on the basis of absolute brain size, inferences about language ability and hand function, and retrodictions about their ability to fashion stone tools. With only a few exceptions , the definition and use of the genus within human evolution, and the demarcation of Homo, have been treated as if they are unproblematic. But ... recent data, fresh interpretations of the existing evidence, and the limitations of the paleoanthropological record invalidate existing criteria for attributing taxa to Homo.

...in practice fossil hominin species are assigned to Homo on the basis of one or more out of four criteria. ... It is now evident, however, that none of these criteria is satisfactory. The Cerebral Rubicon is problematic because absolute cranial capacity is of questionable biological significance. Likewise, there is compelling evidence that language function cannot be reliably inferred from the gross appearance of the brain, and that the language-related parts of the brain are not as well localized as earlier studies had implied...

...In other words, with the hypodigms of H. habilis and H. rudolfensis assigned to it, the genus Homo is not a good genus. Thus, H. habilis and H. rudolfensis (or Homo habilis sensu lato for those who do not subscribe to the taxonomic subdivision of "early Homo") should be removed from Homo. The obvious taxonomic alternative, which is to transfer one or both of the taxa to one of the existing early hominin genera, is not without problems, but we recommend that, for the time being, both H. Habilis and H. Rudolfensis should be transferred to the genus Australopithecus.

The conclusion of Wood and Collard corroborates the conclusion we have maintained here:"Primitive human ancestors" do not exist in history. Creatures that are alleged to be so are actually apes that ought to be assigned to the genus Australopithecus. The fossil record shows that there is no evolutionary link between these extinct apes and Homo, i.e., human species that suddenly appears in the fossil record.

Homo Erectus and Thereafter: Human Beings

According to the fanciful scheme suggested by evolutionists, the internal evolution of the Homo genus is as follows: First Homo erectus, then so-called "archaic" Homo sapiens and Neanderthal man (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), and finally, Cro-Magnon man (Homo sapiens sapiens). However all these classifications are really only variations and unique races in the human family. The difference between them is no greater than the difference between an Inuit and an African or a pygmy and a European.

Let us first examine Homo erectus, which is referred to as the most primitive human species. As the name implies, "Homo erectus" means "man who walks upright". Evolutionists have had to separate these fossils from earlier ones by adding the qualification of "erectness", because all the available Homo erectus fossils are straight to an extent not observed in any of the australopithecines or so-called Homo habilis specimens. There is no difference between the postcranial skeleton of modern man and that of Homo erectus.

The primary reason for evolutionists' defining Homo erectus as "primitive", is the cranial capacity of its skull (900-1,100 cc), which is smaller than the average modern man, and its thick eyebrow projections. However, there are many people living today in the world who have the same cranial capacity as Homo erectus (pygmies, for instance) and other races have protruding eyebrows (Native Australians, for instance).

It is a commonly agreed-upon fact that differences in cranial capacity do not necessarily denote differences in intelligence or abilities. Intelligence depends on the internal organisation of the brain, rather than on its volume.

The fossils that have made Homo erectus known to the entire world are those of Peking man and Java man in Asia. However, in time it was realised that these two fossils are not reliable. Peking Man consists of some elements made of plaster whose originals have been lost, and Java Man is "composed" of a skull fragment plus a pelvic bone that was found metres away from it with no indication that these belonged to the same creature. This is why the Homo erectus fossils found in Africa have gained such increasing importance. (It should also be noted that some of the fossils said to be Homo erectus were included under a second species named "Homo ergaster" by some evolutionists. There is disagreement among the experts on this issue. We will treat all these fossils under the classification of Homo erectus)

The most famous of the Homo erectus specimens found in Africa is the fossil of "Narikotome Homo erectus" or the "Turkana Boy" which was found near Lake Turkana in Kenya. It is confirmed that the fossil was that of a 12-year-old boy, who would have been 1.83 meters tall in adolescence. The upright skeletal structure of the fossil is no different from that of modern man. The American paleoanthropologist Alan Walker said that he doubted that "the average pathologist could tell the difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a modern human."(( Boyce Rensberger, The Washington Post, November 19, 1984.))

Concerning the skull, Walker wrote that he laughed when he saw it because "it looked so much like a Neanderthal."(( Ibid. )) As we will see in the next chapter, Neanderthals are a modern human race. Therefore, Homo erectus is also a modern human race.

Even the evolutionist Richard Leakey states that the differences between Homo erectus and modern man are no more than racial variance:

One would also see differences in the shape of the skull, in the degree of protrusion of the face, the robustness of the brows and so on. These differences are probably no more pronounced than we see today between the separate geographical races of modern humans. Such biological variation arises when populations are geographically separated from each other for significant lengths of time.

Professor William Laughlin from the University of Connecticut made extensive anatomical examinations of Inuits and the people living on the Aleut islands, and noticed that these people were extraordinarily similar to Homo erectus. The conclusion Laughlin arrived at was that all these distinct races were in fact different races of Homo sapiens (modern man).

When we consider the vast differences that exist between remote groups such as Eskimos and Bushmen, who are known to belong to the single species of Homo sapiens, it seems justifiable to conclude that Sinanthropus [an erectus specimen] belongs within this same diverse species.

It is now a more pronounced fact in the scientific community that Homo erectus is a superfluous taxon, and that fossils assigned to the Homo erectus class are actually not so different from Homo sapiens as to be considered a different species. In American Scientist, the discussions over this issue and the result of a conference held on the subject in 2000 were summarised in this way:

Most of the participants at the Senckenberg conference got drawn into a flaming debate over the taxonomic status of Homo erectus started by Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, Alan Thorne of the University of Canberra and their colleagues. They argued forcefully that Homo erectus had no validity as a species and should be eliminated altogether. All members of the genus Homo, from about 2 million years ago to the present, were one highly variable, widely spread species, Homo sapiens, with no natural breaks or subdivisions. The subject of the conference, Homo erectus didn't exist.

The conclusion reached by the scientists defending the abovementioned thesis can be summarised as "Homo erectus is not a different species from Homo sapiens, but rather a race within Homo sapiens".

On the other hand, there is a huge gap between Homo erectus, a human race, and the apes that preceded Homo erectus in the "human evolution" scenario, (Australopithecus, Homo Habilis, and Homo rudolfensis). This means that the first men appeared in the fossil record suddenly and without any prior evolutionary history. This is a most clear indication of their being created.

Yet, admitting this fact is totally against the dogmatic philosophy and ideology of evolutionists. As a result, they try to portray Homo erectus, a truly human race, as a half-ape creature. In their Homo erectus reconstructions, they tenaciously draw simian features. On the other hand, with similar drawing methods, they humanise apes like Australopithecus or Homo Habilis. With this method, they seek to "approximate" apes and human beings and close the gap between these two distinct living classes.

Neanderthals

Neanderthals were human beings who suddenly appeared 100,000 years ago in Europe, and who disappeared, or were assimilated by mixing with other races, quietly but quickly 35,000 years ago. Their only difference from modern man is that their skeletons are more robust and their cranial capacity slightly bigger.

Neanderthals were a human race, a fact which is admitted by almost everybody today. Evolutionists have tried very hard to present them as a "primitive species", yet all the findings indicate that they were no different from a "robust" man walking on the street today. A prominent authority on the subject, Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist from New Mexico University writes:

Detailed comparisons of Neanderthal skeletal remains with those of modern humans have shown that there is nothing in Neanderthal anatomy that conclusively indicates locomotor, manipulative, intellectual, or linguistic abilities inferior to those of modern humans.

Many contemporary researchers define Neanderthal man as a sub-species of modern man and call him "Homo sapiens neandertalensis". The findings testify that Neanderthals buried their dead, fashioned musical instruments, and had cultural affinities with the Homo sapiens sapiens living during the same period. To put it precisely, Neanderthals are a "robust" human race that simply disappeared in time.

Homo Sapiens Archaic, Homo Heilderbergensis and Cro-Magnon Man

Archaic Homo sapiens is the last step before contemporary man in the imaginary evolutionary scheme. In fact, evolutionists do not have much to say about these fossils, as there are only very minor differences between them and modern human beings. Some researchers even state that representatives of this race are still living today, and point to native Australians as an example. Like Homo sapiens (archaic), native Australians also have thick protruding eyebrows, an inward-inclined mandibular structure, and a slightly smaller cranial capacity.

The group characterised as Homo heilderbergensis in evolutionist literature is in fact the same as archaic Homo sapiens. The reason why two different terms are used to define the same human racial type is the disagreements among evolutionists. All the fossils included under the Homo heidelbergensis classification suggest that people who were anatomically very similar to modern Europeans lived 500,000 and even 740,000 years ago, first in England and then in Spain.

It is estimated that Cro-Magnon man lived 30,000 years ago. He has a dome-shaped cranium and a broad forehead. His cranium of 1,600 cc is above the average for contemporary man. His skull has thick eyebrow projections and a bony protrusion at the back that is characteristic of both Neanderthal man and Homo erectus.

Although the Cro-Magnon is considered to be a European race, the structure and volume of Cro-Magnon's cranium look very much like those of some races living in Africa and the tropics today. Relying on this similarity, it is estimated that Cro-Magnon was an archaic African race. Some other paleoanthropological finds have shown that the Cro-Magnon and the Neanderthal races intermixed and laid the foundations for the races of our day.

As a result, none of these human beings were "primitive species". They were different human beings who lived in earlier times and either assimilated and mixed with other races, or became extinct and disappeared from history.

Species Living in the Same Age as Their Ancestors

What we have investigated so far forms a clear picture: The scenario of "human evolution" is a complete fiction. In order for such a family tree to represent the truth, a gradual evolution from ape to man must have taken place and a fossil record of this process should be able to be found. In fact, however, there is a huge gap between apes and humans. Skeletal structures, cranial capacities, and such criteria as walking upright or bent sharply forward distinguish humans from apes.

Another significant finding proving that there can be no family-tree relationship among these different species is that species that are presented as ancestors of others in fact lived concurrently. If, as evolutionists claim, Australopithecus changed into Homo habilis, which, in turn, turned into Homo erectus, the periods they lived in should necessarily have followed each other. However, there is no such chronological order to be seen in the fossil record.

According to evolutionist estimates, Australopithecus lived from 4 million up until 1 million years ago. The creatures classified as Homo habilis, on the other hand, are thought to have lived until 1.7 to 1.9 million years ago. Homo rudolfensis, which is said to have been more "advanced" than Homo habilis, is known to be as old as from 2.5 to 2.8 million years! That is to say, Homo rudolfensis is nearly 1 million years older than Homo habilis, of which it is alleged to have been the "ancestor". On the other hand, the age of Homo erectus goes as far back as 1.6-1.8 million years ago, which means that Homo erectus appeared on the earth in the same time frame as its so-called ancestor, Homo habilis.

Alan Walker confirms this fact by stating that "there is evidence from East Africa for late-surviving small Australopithecus individuals that were contemporaneous first with H. Habilis, then with H. erectus."(( Alan Walker, Science, vol 207, 1980, p. 1103.))

Louis Leakey has found fossils of Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus almost next to each other in the Olduvai Gorge region of Tanzania, in the Bed II layer.

There is definitely no such family tree. Stephen Jay Gould, who was a paleontologist from Harvard University, explained this deadlock faced by evolution, although he was an evolutionist himself:

What has become of our ladder if there are three coexisting lineages of hominids (A. africanus, the robust australopithecines, and H. habilis), none clearly derived from another? Moreover, none of the three display any evolutionary trends during their tenure on earth.

When we move on from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, we again see that there is no family tree to talk about. There is evidence showing that Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens continued living up to 27,000 years and even as recently as 10,000 years before our time. In the Kow Swamp in Australia, some 13,000-year-old Homo erectus skulls have been found. On the island of Java, Homo erectus remains were found that are 27,000 years old.

The Secret History of Homo Sapiens

The most interesting and significant fact that nullifies the very basis of the imaginary family tree of evolutionary theory is the unexpectedly ancient history of modern man. Paleoanthropological findings reveal that Homo sapiens people who looked exactly like us were living as long as 1 million years ago.

It was Louis Leakey, the famous evolutionist paleoanthropologist, who discovered the first findings on this subject. In 1932, in the Kanjera region around Lake Victoria in Kenya, Leakey found several fossils that belonged to the Middle Pleistocene and that were no different from modern man. However, the Middle Pleistocene was a million years ago. Since these discoveries turned the evolutionary family tree upside down, they were dismissed by some evolutionist paleoanthropologists. Yet Leakey always contended that his estimates were correct.

Just when this controversy was about to be forgotten, a fossil unearthed in Spain in 1995 revealed in a very remarkable way that the history of Homo sapiens was much older than had been assumed. The fossil in question was uncovered in a cave called Gran Dolina in the Atapuerca region of Spain by three Spanish paleoanthropologists from the University of Madrid. The fossil revealed the face of an 11-year-old boy who looked entirely like modern man. Yet, it had been 800,000 years since the child died. Discover magazine covered the story in great detail in its December 1997 issue.

This fossil even shook the convictions of Juan Luis Arsuaga Ferreras, who lead the Gran Dolina excavation. Ferreras said:

We expected something big, something large, something inflated-you know, something primitive. Our expectation of an 800,000-year-old boy was something like Turkana Boy. And what we found was a totally modern face.... To me this is most spectacular-these are the kinds of things that shake you. Finding something totally unexpected like that. Not finding fossils; finding fossils is unexpected too, and it's okay. But the most spectacular thing is finding something you thought belonged to the present, in the past. It's like finding something like-like a tape recorder in Gran Dolina. That would be very surprising. We don't expect cassettes and tape recorders in the Lower Pleistocene. Finding a modern face 800,000 years ago-it's the same thing. We were very surprised when we saw it.

The fossil highlighted the fact that the history of Homo sapiens had to be extended back to 800,000 years ago. After recovering from the initial shock, the evolutionists who discovered the fossil decided that it belonged to a different species, because according to the evolutionary family tree, Homo sapiens did not live 800,000 years ago. Therefore, they made up an imaginary species called "Homo antecessor" and included the Atapuerca skull under this classification.

A Hut 1.7 Million Years Old

There have been many findings demonstrating that Homo sapiens dates back even earlier than 800,000 years. One of them is a discovery by Louis Leakey in the early 1970s in Olduvai Gorge. Here, in the Bed II layer, Leakey discovered that Australopithecus, Homo Habilis and Homo erectus species had co-existed at the same time. What is even more interesting was a structure Leakey found in the same layer (Bed II). Here, he found the remains of a stone hut. The unusual aspect of the event was that this construction, which is still used in some parts of Africa, could only have been built by Homo sapiens! So, according to Leakey's findings, Australopithecus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus and modern man must have co-existed approximately 1.7 million years ago. This discovery must surely invalidate the evolutionary theory that claims that modern men evolved from ape-like species such as Australopithecus.

Footprints of Modern Man, 3.6 Million Years Old!

Indeed, some other discoveries trace the origins of modern man back to 1.7 million years ago. One of these important finds is the footprints found in Laetoli, Tanzania, by Mary Leakey in 1977. These footprints were found in a layer that was calculated to be 3.6 million years old, and more importantly, they were no different from the footprints that a contemporary man would leave.

The footprints found by Mary Leakey were later examined by a number of famous paleoanthropologists, such as Donald Johanson and Tim White. The results were the same. White wrote:

Make no mistake about it, ...They are like modern human footprints. If one were left in the sand of a California beach today, and a four-year old were asked what it was, he would instantly say that somebody had walked there. He wouldn't be able to tell it from a hundred other prints on the beach, nor would you.(( Donald C. Johanson & M. A. Edey, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981, p. 250.))

After examining the footprints, Louis Robbins from the University of North California made the following comments:

The arch is raised-the smaller individual had a higher arch than I do-and the big toe is large and aligned with the second toe… The toes grip the ground like human toes. You do not see this in other animal forms.(( Science News, Vol 115, 1979, p. 196-197.))

Examinations of the morphological form of the footprints showed time and again that they had to be accepted as the prints of a human, and moreover, a modern human (Homo sapiens). Russell Tuttle, who also examined the footprints wrote:

A small barefoot Homo sapiens could have made them... In all discernible morphological features, the feet of the individuals that made the trails are indistinguishable from those of modern humans.

Impartial examinations of the footprints revealed their real owners. In reality, these footprints consisted of 20 fossilised footprints of a 10-year-old modern human and 27 footprints of an even younger one. They were certainly modern people like us.

This situation put the Laetoli footprints at the centre of discussions for years. Evolutionist paleoanthropologists desperately tried to come up with an explanation, as it was hard for them to accept the fact that a modern man had been walking on the earth 3.6 million years ago. During the 1990s, the following "explanation" started to take shape: The evolutionists decided that these footprints must have been left by an Australopithecus, because according to their theory, it was impossible for a Homo species to have existed 3.6 years ago. However, Russell H. Tuttle wrote the following in an article in 1990:

In sum, the 3.5-million-year-old footprint traits at Laetoli site G resemble those of habitually unshod modern humans. None of their features suggest that the Laetoli hominids were less capable bipeds than we are. If the G footprints were not known to be so old, we would readily conclude that there had been made by a member of our genus, Homo... In any case, we should shelve the loose assumption that the Laetoli footprints were made by Lucy's kind, Australopithecus afarensis.

To put it briefly, these footprints that were supposed to be 3.6 million years old could not have belonged to Australopithecus. The only reason why the footprints were thought to have been left by members of Australopithecus was the 3.6-million-year-old volcanic layer in which the footprints were found. The prints were ascribed to Australopithecus purely on the assumption that humans could not have lived so long ago.

These interpretations of the Laetoli footprints demonstrate one important fact. Evolutionists support their theory not based on scientific findings, but in spite of them. Here we have a theory that is blindly defended no matter what, with all new findings that cast the theory into doubt being either ignored or distorted to support the theory.

Briefly, the theory of evolution is not science, but a dogma kept alive despite science.

The Bipedalism Impasse of Evolution

Apart from the fossil record that we have dealt with so far, unbridgeable anatomical gaps between men and apes also invalidate the fiction of human evolution. One of these has to do with the manner of walking.

Human beings walk upright on two feet. This is a very special form of locomotion not seen in any other mammalian species. Some other animals do have a limited ability to move when they stand on their two hind feet. Animals like bears and monkeys can move in this way only rarely, such as when they want to reach a source of food, and even then only for a short time. Normally, their skeletons lean forward and they walk on all fours.

Well, then, has bipedalism evolved from the quadrupedal gait of apes, as evolutionists claim?

Of course not. Research has shown that the evolution of bipedalism never occurred, nor is it possible for it to have done so. First of all, bipedalism is not an evolutionary advantage. The way in which monkeys move is much easier, faster, and more efficient than man's bipedal stride. Man can neither move by jumping from tree to tree without descending to the ground, like a chimpanzee, nor run at a speed of 125 km per hour, like a cheetah. On the contrary, since man walks on two feet, he moves much more slowly on the ground. For the same reason, he is one of the most unprotected of all species in nature in terms of movement and defence. According to the logic of the theory of evolution, monkeys should not have evolved to adopt a bipedal stride; humans should instead have evolved to become quadrupedal.

Another impasse of the evolutionary claim is that bipedalism does not serve the "gradual development" model of Darwinism. This model, which constitutes the basis of evolution, requires that there should be a "compound" stride between bipedalism and quadrupedalism. However, with the computerised research he conducted in 1996, the English paleoanthropologist Robin Crompton, showed that such a "compound" stride was not possible. Crompton reached the following conclusion: A living being can either walk upright, or on all fours.(( Ruth Henke, "Aufrecht aus den Baumen", Focus, Vol 39, 1996, p. 178.)).

A type of stride between the two is impossible because it would involve excessive energy consumption. This is why a half-bipedal being cannot exist.

The immense gap between man and ape is not limited solely to bipedalism. Many other issues still remain unexplained, such as brain capacity, the ability to talk, and so on. Elaine Morgan, an evolutionist paleoanthropologist, makes the following confession in relation to this matter:

Four of the most outstanding mysteries about humans are: 1) why do they walk on two legs? 2) why have they lost their fur? 3) why have they developed such large brains? 4) why did they learn to speak?

The orthodox answers to these questions are: 1) 'We do not yet know'; 2) 'We do not yet know'; 3) 'We do not yet know'; 4) 'We do not yet know'. The list of questions could be considerably lengthened without affecting the monotony of the answers.

Evolution: An Unscientific Faith

Lord Solly Zuckerman is one of the most famous and respected scientists in the United Kingdom. For years, he studied the fossil record and conducted many detailed investigations. He was elevated to the peerage for his contributions to science. Zuckerman is an evolutionist. Therefore, his comments on evolution can not be regarded as ignorant or prejudiced. After years of research on the fossils included in the human evolution scenario however, he reached the conclusion that there is no truth to the family tree in that is put forward.

Zuckerman also advanced an interesting concept of the "spectrum of the sciences", ranging from those he considered scientific to those he considered unscientific. According to Zuckerman's spectrum, the most "scientific"-that is, depending on concrete data-fields are chemistry and physics. After them come the biological sciences and then the social sciences. At the far end of the spectrum, which is the part considered to be most "unscientific", are "extra-sensory perception"-concepts such as telepathy and the "sixth sense"-and finally "human evolution". Zuckerman explains his reasoning as follows:

We then move right off the register of objective truth into those fields of presumed biological science, like extrasensory perception or the interpretation of man's fossil history, where to the faithful anything is possible - and where the ardent believer is sometimes able to believe several contradictory things at the same time.

Robert Locke, the editor of Discovering Archeology, an important publication on the origins of man, writes in that journal, "The search for human ancestors gives more heat than light", quoting the confession of the famous evolutionist paleoantropologist Tim White:

We're all frustrated by "all the questions we haven't been able to answer."

Locke's article reviews the impasse of the theory of evolution on the origins of man and the groundlessness of the propaganda spread about this subject:

Perhaps no area of science is more contentious than the search for human origins. Elite paleontologists disagree over even the most basic outlines of the human family tree. New branches grow amid great fanfare, only to wither and die in the face of new fossil finds.

The same fact was also recently accepted by Henry Gee, the editor of the well-known journal Nature. In his book In Search of Deep Time, published in 1999, Gee points out that all the evidence for human evolution "between about 10 and 5 million years ago-several thousand generations of living creatures-can be fitted into a small box." He concludes that conventional theories of the origin and development of human beings are "a completely human invention created after the fact, shaped to accord with human prejudices" and adds:

To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as bedtime story-amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.

What, then, is the reason that makes so many scientists so tenacious about this dogma? Why have they been trying so hard to keep their theory alive, at the cost of having to admit countless conflicts and discarding the evidence they have found?

The only answer is their being afraid of the fact they will have to face in case of abandoning the theory of evolution. The fact they will have to face when they abandon evolution is that God has created man. However, considering the presuppositions they have and the materialistic philosophy they believe in, creation is an unacceptable concept for evolutionists.

For this reason, they deceive themselves, as well as the world, by using the media with which they co-operate. If they cannot find the necessary fossils, they "fabricate" them either in the form of imaginary pictures or fictitious models and try to give the impression that there indeed exist fossils verifying evolution. A part of mass media who share their materialistic point of view also try to deceive the public and instil the story of evolution in people's subconscious.

No matter how hard they try, the truth is evident: Man has come into existence not through an evolutionary process but by God's creation. Therefore, he is responsible to Him.

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Darwin's Imagination

The person who put forward the theory of evolution the way it is defended today, was an amateur English naturalist, Charles Robert Darwin.

Darwin had never undergone a formal education in biology. He took only an amateur interest in the subject of nature and living things. His interest spurred him to voluntarily join an expedition on board a ship named H.M.S. Beagle that set out from England in 1832 and travelled around different regions of the world for five years. Young Darwin was greatly impressed by various living species, especially by certain finches that he saw in the Galapagos Islands. He thought that the variations in their beaks were caused by their adaptation to their habitat. With this idea in mind, he supposed that the origin of life and species lay in the concept of "adaptation to the environment". Darwin opposed the fact that God created different living species separately, suggesting that they rather came from a common ancestor and became differentiated from each other as a result of natural conditions.

Darwin's hypothesis was not based on any scientific discovery or experiment; in time however he turned it into a pretentious theory with the support and encouragement he received from the famous materialist biologists of his time. The idea was that the individuals that adapted to the habitat in the best way transferred their qualities to subsequent generations; these advantageous qualities accumulated in time and transformed the individual into a species totally different from its ancestors. (The origin of these "advantageous qualities" was unknown at the time.) According to Darwin, man was the most developed outcome of this imaginary mechanism.

Darwin called this process "evolution by natural selection". He thought he had found the "origin of species": the origin of one species was another species. He published these views in his book titled The Origin of Species, By Means of Natural Selection in 1859.

Darwin was well aware that his theory faced lots of problems. He confessed these in his book in the chapter "Difficulties of the Theory". These difficulties primarily consisted of the fossil record, complex organs of living things that could not possibly be explained by coincidence (e.g. the eye), and the instincts of living beings. Darwin hoped that these difficulties would be overcome by new discoveries; yet this did not stop him from coming up with a number of very inadequate explanations for some. The American physicist Lipson made the following comment on the "difficulties" of Darwin:

On reading The Origin of Species, I found that Darwin was much less sure himself than he is often represented to be; the chapter entitled "Difficulties of the Theory" for example, shows considerable self-doubt. As a physicist, I was particularly intrigued by his comments on how the eye would have arisen. (( H. S. Lipson, "A Physicist's View of Darwin's Theory", Evolution Trends in Plants, Vol 2, No. 1, 1988, p. 6.))

While developing his theory, Darwin was impressed by many evolutionist biologists preceding him, and primarily by the French biologist, Lamarck. According to Lamarck, living creatures passed the traits they acquired during their lifetime from one generation to the next and thus evolved. For instance, giraffes evolved from antelope-like animals by extending their necks further and further from generation to generation as they tried to reach higher and higher branches for food. Darwin thus employed the thesis of "passing the acquired traits" proposed by Lamarck as the factor that made living beings evolve.

But both Darwin and Lamarck were mistaken because in their day, life could only be studied with very primitive technology and at a very inadequate level. Scientific fields such as genetics and biochemistry did not exist even in name. Their theories therefore had to depend entirely on their powers of imagination.

While the echoes of Darwin's book reverberated, an Austrian botanist by the name of Gregor Mendel discovered the laws of inheritance in 1865. Not much heard of until the end of the century, Mendel's discovery gained great importance in the early 1900s. This was the birth of the science of genetics. Somewhat later, the structure of the genes and the chromosomes was discovered. The discovery, in the 1950s, of the structure of the DNA molecule that incorporates genetic information threw the theory of evolution into a great crisis. The reason was the incredible complexity of life and the invalidity of the evolutionary mechanisms proposed by Darwin.

These developments ought to have resulted in Darwin's theory being banished to the dustbin of history. However, it was not, because certain circles insisted on revising, renewing, and elevating the theory to a scientific platform. These efforts gain meaning only if we realise that behind the theory lay ideological intentions rather than scientific concerns.

Useful Links:

Videos:

THE COLLAPSE OF EVOLUTION :

http://www.harunyahya.com/m_video_detail.php?api_id=1245

THE COLLAPSE OF ATHEISM :

http://www.harunyahya.com/m_video_detail.php?api_id=1244

THE CREATION OF THE UNIVERSE:

http://harunyahya.com/m_video_creation_universe.php

The miracle of man's creation :

http://www.harunyahya.com/m_video_detail.php?api_id=1249

Books:

The Collapse Of The Theory Of Evolution In 20 Questions:

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The Disasters Darwinism Brought To Humanity:

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Millions of Proofs that Refute Darwinism

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A Definitive Reply To Evolutionist Propaganda:

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How Fossils Overturned Evolution:

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The Religion Of Darwinism

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Not By Chance:

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A Definitive Reply To Evolutionist Propaganda

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Why Darwinism Is Incompatible With The Qur'an :

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The Disasters Darwinism Brought To Humanity

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Fascism The Bloody Ideology of Darwinism

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The Dark Spell of Darwinism

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The Golden Age

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About the Author

9-4-02 Terr Stalk SAPD-H & L Plane (Pt 1 of 2)

describe how the federal and state systems of governement may or may not differ in their application of employ

-ment laws.Provide at least one example of an employment protection that is provided by Georgia state system,but not by the federal system.

more homework?

Managing Employment Litigation Risk with Proactive Statistical Analyses (Part 2 of 3)

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Cher - Did Babies Violate Child Labor Laws
An Associated Press report that speculated that the filmmakers behind the documentary Babies may have violated California child labor laws by including a California infant as...
California Employment Development Department "FAIL!"

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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.

Fisher College Business - Career Fair - Fall 2009

Jim Crow and Civil Rights in North Carolina

Jim Crow and Civil Rights in North Carolina

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

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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)
• 241 nurses ($60,000 per year each)
• 209,000 additional prescriptions filled ($70 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.

See http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/content/healthcare/art2914.html for Footnote references.

About the Author

Neil Wagner is a freelance writer with a Masters in Biological Sciences from CUNY.

The CNN Daily - 2010 03 01.avi

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Extra benefits fail to halt tide of long-term jobless
By the time William Reeve gets his very last unemployment check in the mail next week, it will have been nearly two years since he started getting benefits while looking for work - and the 35-year-old still hasn't found a job.

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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Berkeley Law students take action for Haiti and Haitian nationals
In response to Haiti's devastating earthquake, several Berkeley Law students are helping Haitian nationals apply for temporary protected status in the U.S. Others are exploring U.S. immigration policies toward Haiti, holding fundraisers, and aiding a new lawyers' alliance for Haiti.
POLICE RECRUITMENT - Policing the Urban Edge

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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.

More Lawyers questions please visit : LawFreeFAQ.com

About the Author

LawFreeFAQ.com

Gender Employment Discrimination - Dealing With It By The Law

When does the concern arise?


In case of women in workplace, gender employment discrimination could turn to be a serious concern. The law covers various issues against discrimination within the workplace. This includes equality of pay, pregnancy rights and sexual harassment. This piece of information would explore several facets concerned with gender employment discrimination speaking about the various rights women in workplace have these days.


Equal Pay Act 1963


The most primitive bias related to gender employment discrimination got seriously prohibited in 1963; The Equal Pay Act of 1963. The act stresses that no matter whether it is a man or a woman, they should be ensured to get paid equally for equal work when within the same organization. However jobs need not be identical though must be significantly equal. Here it is evident that it is all about the substance in relation to the job and never the title the job holds which determines if job is substantially the same. Being substantially equal also means that they are equal in performance, skill including experience, education and training, ability, effort, responsibility, the total amount of physical stab required to have the job done or even the degree of liability required. The entire environment should too be equal. Conditions within the workplace should also be the same, which covers the corporal surroundings such as different hazards and the temperature as well. This law which protects equality of pay for work alike pertains only to jobs within the same enterprise.


Sexual harassment


Sexual harassment is a further variant in gender employment discrimination which is also proscribed by law. It must be realized and considered that even though women are most commonly affected by such discrimination, men too have been victims of the same. Sexual harassment encompasses within itself different issues like request for sexual favors, unwelcome sexual advances, non-verbal or verbal or even any physical behavior which is sexual in nature as distinct by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Sexual harassment could happen in a number of circumstances uninvited! It sometimes happens that the facing victim is not an associate of the differing sex. Furthermore, the harasser in question need not be any immediate or dotted line supervisor, nor is it required that the sexual harassing act should be direct or even influences loss of pay. It could come up concerning and defining the harasser as suggested by the victim.


Pregnancy Discrimination


Pregnancy discrimination is another deviation within gender employment discrimination. Any employer should not make refusals to take on a woman for her pregnancy or any pregnancy related stipulations. If the job cannot be performed by a pregnant employee, due to her pregnancy, the employer should treat her just like any other member who is momentarily disabled. If the organization allows temporarily disabled people to modify their jobs or carry out different assignments, it must allow the similar modifications for the employee who is pregnant. In a case where the pregnant woman is absent from work following pregnancy concerned reasons, then the employer may not entail that she proceeds with her leave till the delivery of the kid. Lastly, the company should hold open an employment for any absence associated with pregnancy for same duration of time employment is held for employees when they are unwell or on medical leave.

About the Author

Abhishek is a Career Counselor and he has got some great Career Planning Secrets up his sleeves! Download his FREE 71 Pages Ebook, "Career Planning Made Easy!" from his website http://www.Career-Guru.com/769/index.htm . Only limited Free Copies available.

Climate Change Conference - Part 4

How to file a 1099-Misc from a class action law suit?

I was a class member in a class action law suit and received a 1099-Misc for the settlement amount of a little over $1,000. I'm not exactly sure where I need to file this, as in, which line. I am using a form 1040. I am also filing 2 schedule Cs for other self-employment business/income but it just didn't seem to fit with those and was not really from being self employed. I'm kinda stumped on this one. I always file my own taxes so please, nobody refer me to H&R Block or TurboTax just to get some points, k? Appreciate it! Also, I am mainly asking about my Federal return but if you have any info on AZ state, that would be helpful, too!

Settlement for injury is not taxable. If it is for lost wages or interest, it is taxable. Read about settlement taxes http://taxipay.blogspot.com/2008/08/us-income-tax-topics-1.html

Arizona Immigration Dilema: Mistaken Education & Labor Laws

Does anyone know Robert Noel and Yenni Fuglei, Tim and Monica Fuglei?

The Fuglei's own Denver based RSA Companies (a staffing agency), and have refused to pay the 5 weeks of wages they owe me. They have been sued by over 90 different parties in the past 5 years in CO alone, and have over 85 liens against them in CO. They have several companies, spanning several states: NY, NV, DE, NJ, CO, CA, NE, MN, FL. They may also be affiliated with Fuglei & Associates aka CustomsInfo.com (a MT company) Any help you could give me in confirming their actual identity or additional information for law enforcement would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I know them well. I, too have been shorted by them. They owe a lot of people money. Unfortunately, RSA declared Chapter 7 last month in Colorado.

Case number 09-24335-SBB

Andrew Snyder is the attny 303-409-7777

Bankruptcy Trustee is Cynthia Skeen 303-569-3134

Denver injury lawyers provide personal attention for clients

Mismatched Social Security Numbers: an Employer's Dilemma

A federal district court judge from the Northern District of California ruled that the government cannot use mismatched Social Security data to root out illegal immigrants from the workforce, declaring that such enforcement actions would do 'irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers." Judge Breyer issued a preliminary injunction temporarily preventing the Department of Homeland Security from beginning a program to punish companies that do not clear up discrepancies between their workers' names and Social Security numbers within 90 days after receiving a letter from Social Security advising them of the discrepancy.

What does this mean for employers? What should they do if they are faced with an employee's name that does not match the Social Security Number? Employers have to tread lightly in California in summarily terminating employees because of discrepancies in Social Security numbers. Mismatched Social Security data could be evidence that someone is unauthorized to work, or it could also be caused by a typo or name change. If an Employer takes the position that an employee with a mismatched Social Security number is unauthorized to work and therefore should be terminated, the employer is looking for trouble.

First, the new Homeland Security provisions place a burden on employers to comply with a new 90-day time frame for resolving mismatches. The scope of the rule would have staggering effects on employers, prompting them to develop costly personnel systems and fire workers who may be legally employed, thus exposing them to liability for wrongful termination. The liability exposure for employers summarily terminating employees with mismatched numbers could be staggering.

Under California law all individuals who have applied for employment or who are or who have been employed in the State are entitled to all protections, rights, and remedies available under state laws, except any reinstatement remedy prohibited by federal law, regardless of immigration status. The law further provides that for the purposes of enforcing state employment and civil rights laws, a person's immigration status is irrelevant to the issue of liability. No inquiry is permitted into a person's immigration status except when necessary to comply with federal immigration law.

All employers are required to have an employee execute an INS I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification and give documents verifying his or her legality to work. An employer complies with the verification requirements for document examination if the documents reasonably appear on their face to be genuine. An employer is not required to further investigate the authenticity of documents that meet that criterion. An employer is liable for accepting documents if the employer knows or has reason to know that the documents are false.

In summary, if the employer knew or should have known, because of the availability of certain information, that the applicant alien held an unauthorized status and had no right to work, the employer will be held liable.

The new Homeland Security provision basically takes the employer's duty further than just asking for verification to work in the United States, but makes an employer an INS agent by requiring the employer to investigate the validity of documents presented for verification.

Will employers begin to target certain ethnic and racial groups and systematically not hire them, because they are known by the employer as a group that receives mismatched social security letters? Even if a mismatch letter is sent, this does not give the employer the right to terminate. If an employer receives a mismatch letter, the employer should re-verify work authorization by allowing the employee another opportunity to present acceptable documentation and complete a new I-9. If the employee is unable to produce acceptable documentation, then an employer may be faced with termination of the employee's employment to avoid penalties for 'knowingly continuing to employ' an unauthorized worker. However, if the employee presents the same documentation for a new I-9 and maintains the documentation he or she originally provided to verify the first I-9 is valid, an employer is still taking a substantial risk in terminating.

In California, employers have been exposed to large monetary judgments because they use the mismatch letter as an excuse to get rid of employees who are foreign born, or want to take leave, such as pregnancy, after they are employed. Do not think a mismatch letter gives an employer carte blanche to exercise their authority to terminate, especially if the employee is a member of a protective class. It is time that the federal government adopts comprehensive immigration reform and work in partnership with American businesses to ensure compliance with reasonable measures which do not over burden the employer, especially the small business. As the law exists now, a mismatched social security number and name places an employer in a dilemma as to terminate or retain an employee, and when doing either, is faced with liability.


About the Author

Elizabeth A. Moreno is a mediator and arbitrator and is a principal of Centurion Mediation, LLC which provides quality mediation for less than $300 per hour at a location convenient to the parties in the Los Angeles, California area. Ms. Moreno has mediated and arbitrated over 300 matters. She is serving a three year appointed term with the State Bar of California ADR Committee. Ms. Moreno practices in the following areas Insurance, Personal injury, Employment, Business Disputes,Real Estate, Malpractice, and Residential Construction Defect.

California Employment Attorneys, Employment Lawyers, Wage Class Action - Carter Law Firm

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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.