...MINIMUM WAGE Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams Thomas Sowell views Minimum Wage as a "Living wage kills jobs." As the wage rates rise, so do job qualifications, so that less skilled or less experienced workers become "unemployable." Think about it. Every one of us would be " unemployable" if our pay rates were raised high enough. Thomas Sowell http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell110503.asp I have been a victim of not being so skilled in a area and with a high wage I was laid off so a more skilled worker could earn that pay. I went unemployed for 4 months because of this. People in minimum wage jobs do not stay at the minimum wage permanently. Their pay increases as they accumulate experience and develop skills. It increases an average of 30 percent in just their first year of employment, according to the Cato Institute study. Other studies show that low-income people become average-income people in a few years and high-income people later in life. Thomas Sowell http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell110503.asp The upside of the minimum wage laws is that most companies will give you raises as you learn and become skilled in what they want you to do so there is a plus to the wage laws. Walter Williams on his view of the Minimum wage laws as a racial attack. During the peak of what has been dubbed the Great Recession, the unemployment rate for young adults (16 to 24 years of age) as a whole rose to above 27 percent. The unemployment...
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...Julie Moua Minium Wage Should Remain The Same. Do you think increasing or decreasing the minium wage will solve any problem or make more problems. I believe that it does not give a remedy of solving any problems such as in these areas. Unemployment, Proverty, and Lower chance of getting a job.The minimum wage should remain the same not decreased or increased. Consequently, people tend to believe that if you increased the wage it'll cause unemployment but the center of Policy Research concluded that "the minimum wage has little or no discrenible effect on the employment prospects of low wage workers. Therefore, there is proof of increasing minimum wage will result in unemployment. Futhermore, supporters argue that is an effective way of anti-poverty tool. Business pay their low wage workers more and fewer of them should live in proverty.Higher wage should fight proverty. However, labor economists have repeatedly studied the effects of wage increase.They find no correlation between higher wage and lower poverty. Raising the wage to $9 an hour would not reduce poverty. According to the saying of labor economist I also believe it because there is no evidence of lower wage cause poverty I would believe it has to do more with how people deals with their savings. Moreover, several academics studies have found that increasing minimum wage had no significant effect on employment levels in this country. Since, it is to be said that increasing wage will not cause the possibilty of...
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...and compensation to employees. Landslide Limousines is no exceptions to compete in the transportation marketplace they must maintain their employees and hold their skill personnel. In this paper, several recommendations benefits and compensation packages shall be made for Landslide. Results of a Market Evaluation On account of tight competition, hiring qualified and experienced limousine drivers in Austin, Texas for a small start-up business is challenging. Austin has a large number of competing limousine businesses operating in or near the Austin area. 441 competing companies in Austin create a number of issues when it deals with human resources. Among the problems one could expect in this market is high employee turnover because to low wages. Another factor to consider is the tightening of the US job market in current years. The number of qualified applicants is decreasing as the US economy improves and employment in US job market pick-up. The Bureau of Labor Statistics published the newly released, November 8, 2013, Government figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows that total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 204,000 in October, 2013. “Employment increased in leisure and hospitality, retail trade, professional and technical services, manufacturing, and health care,”...
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...One of the most renowned companies in the technology word today is Apple. Created by Steve Jobs, Apple revolutionized the computer in 1976 with the release of the Apple 1. From that point on Apple has always been on the top of the market with its products. Presently they lead the market in Smart Phones, Tablets and Personal Computers. With the huge demand for their products, there comes an enormous responsibility for manufacturing the devices in a quick and cost effective matter. With the rapidly growing market of Apple computers and the technology/electronic industry as a whole, Apple eventually had to rethink how they manufactured their products to create the most efficient outcome; the highest revenue with the lowest cost. The competitive nature of the technology industry causes companies to look for a competitive advantage, which will make them much more profitable than their competitors. For the majority of the company’s history, they have been known to manufacture their products in the USA and even prided themselves with building the Macintosh computer which Steve Jobs described as “a machine that is made in America”. In 2004, when the company was not nearly as financially profitable as they are today, they decided their best option was to start manufacturing their products in other countries. The company, who is now a leader in foreign manufacturing, was lagging behind many American companies in terms of manufacturing abroad at that point in time. The majority of...
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...other Western companies demand of Chinese consumers snapping up its products by the millions, but the company soon found out that one of the big reasons the company like china-the low wages rates-also meant that few Chinese workers could afford to buy the product they are producing. Chinese wage rates are currently one third of those in Mexico and Hungary, and 5 percent of those in United States or Japan. So Philips hit on a new strategy; keep the factories in china but export most of the goods to the United States and elsewhere. By the mid-2000s, Philips had invested over $2.5 billion in china. The company now operates 25 wholly owned subsidiaries and joint ventures in china. Together they employ approximately 30,000 people. Philips accelerated its Chinese investment in anticipation of Chinese entry into the World Trade Organization. The company plans to move even more even production to china in the future. In 2003, Philips announced it would phase out production of electronic razors in Netherlands, lay off 2000 Dutch employees, and move production to China by 2005. A week earlier Philips had started that it would expand capacity at its semiconductor factories in China, while phasing out production in higher cost locations elsewhere. The attention of China to Philips include continuing low wage rates, an education workforce, a robust Chinese economy, a stable exchange rate that is pegged to the U.S dollar, a rapidly expanding industrial base that includes many other Western...
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...teams. The most organized being the Sarto and Clark groups. Employees in these groups and some within smaller groups have developed a system where one person in the group stays after the manager leaves at 5:00pm. The alternating individual staying late punches out the other employee’s timecards at 7:00pm allowing most of the staff to go home early without losing pay. This problem occurs because the manager arrives later and leaves earlier than any other employee. The workers are unsupervised for many hours per day and are often not supervised at all on weekends. Proper supervision and coordination of authority is paramount to improving the existing problem at the Slade Plating Department. These practices also occur because the hourly wage offered is low and the system being used is fairly easy to manipulate. There is no reason that in this modern age of technology employees are so easily able to steal from the Slade Company. Many options exist to this agency that are both inexpensive and cost effective. Modernization or implementation of new video monitoring and/or clock-in/out systems could eliminate the temptation and ability to steal. Within the Slade Plating Department there are some employee conflicts that currently cause tension and decrease productivity. Members of both the Sarto and Clark groups work hard to keep up with high productivity demands. They produce high quality products and are very creative in solving problems. However one...
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...1. Case Summary Northern Drilling (“Northern”), an exploratory diamond drilling contractor, was invited to submit a request for proposal from Mond Nickel Company (“Mond”), one of the largest players in the Canadian mining industry. Northern only has three weeks before the proposal deadline. However, Northern currently does not have a drill or the crew necessary to work on the contract, which requires experienced drillers. Northern needs to consider whether the contract is financially feasible for the company; whether the contract is worth the risk of spoiling Northern’s relationship with their current biggest customer, Noranda Nickel (Noranda); whether the contract would help in strengthening the business; and if it would aid the growth of the business as a whole. Would Northern be able to handle these issues? 2. Problem Definition (1) How to respond to Mond’s request for proposal? Bid high or low? (2) How to secure necessary resources to implement the job? (3) How to maintain the relationship with Noranda, and a reputation in the closed mining guild? 3. Criteria Selection (1) ROI (%): Will Northern be able to generate profit in line with management requirement? (2) Labor availability: Does Northern have enough labor to handle the contract or not? (3) Noranda: How does Northern’s decision affect its relationship with Noranda? (4) Future growth: Is Mond’s contract essential for Northern’s future growth or not? 4. Alternative Development (1) Will Northern respond...
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...1. Yes, in my opinion the company should set up a formal salary structure based on a complete job evaluation. There is a need for this because of the high staff turnover, the inconsistent pay rates compared to the market, because of the different pay rates for male and female workers, and also because there is no mechanism of communication to address employees’ problems regarding wages and salary. They need this formal salary structure because there is no employee involvement in setting up salary structure, and there is no job evaluation committee. Also, this structure is necessary to be able to evaluate the relative worth of each job compared to key jobs, to categorize, rank jobs into rate ranges, to ensure there’s no discrimination in terms or gender, race and religion, and to make sure that the salary is related to the employees’ performance and capability. 2. Paying 10% more attracts more applicants to this job. Jack believes that it provides employee loyalty and reduces turnover. The problem with this is that it makes employees loyal to high pay rate and it reduces the turnover for only those employees who only concern about the salary rate, however indirect financial payments and other factors also influence the employee’s turnover. 3. Carter’s male-female differential is not wise in my opinion. The salary should be based on performance, and not gender. This disobeys the Equal Pay Act, and it doesn’t maintain individual equity. It is discrimination against female...
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...The recent National Basketball Association lockout captured nationwide attention. NBA ownership and its players fought for what each thought was best. The players were fighting to protect what they already had, while the owners tried to protect their investments in each franchise. If you own a television chances are high that you probably were aware of the recent lockout of players in the National Basketball Association (NBA). There were many complex issues surrounding both sides regarding this situation which I will get into during the course of this paper. The main goal of both the owners and the players was to come to agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement. The previous collective bargaining agreement expired in June of 2011. The 2011-2012 NBA season, was in jeopardy if a new agreement was not able to be reached. After hours of negotiations and back and forth momentum changes from each side, an agreement was finally reached on November 25, 2011, saving the season and allowing thousands of people to return to work. The NBA lockout has many twists and turns since July 1st 2011. The players and the owners of the teams have many decisions to make. In the meantime there is no guarantee that there will be a 2011-12 NBA season. Between revenue sharing and the salary cap of the players, there are negotiations that are still going on. This is leaving the players to look elsewhere for a salary including playing overseas and playing for smaller salaries. The fans are...
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...Since compensation and benefits are vital part of HRM in most of the organizations, education of compensation and benefits reflect many practices and concepts pertaining to HRM. Human Resources practices do not operate in parts. They need to be strategic, logical and planned in the situation of the bigger organization, of which they are a part. Anyone in HRM is first a business partner of the organization and then an HR professional in their individual disciplines such as compensation and benefits. A business partner is the one who is loyal to the company passionate about the business first and then to his or her respective discipline or area of work. This reflective research paper will also identify the major elements of compensation and benefits in addition to teaching strategies of these functions. It is important to implement compensation and benefits in a mutually beneficial way, for the individual and the organization. Prior to any discussion about compensation and benefits, it is important to understand the distinction between direct and indirect compensation. Direct compensation refers to any reward, usually in cash and stock, given in direct proportion to performance. Indirect compensation is not related to performance and is given in the form of various benefits. Compensation and benefits strategy must cascade from the organizational mission and the HR strategy. This is true of all the HR functions. However, it is particularly critical in compensation and benefits...
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...OSHA, Workers' Compensation and Employee Benefits | OSHA, Workers' Compensation and Employee Benefits | Week 7 Assignment | | Cindy | 10/19/2013 | The following five questions and answers pertain to the reading from Chapters 20, 21 and 22 for week 7 assignment. | OSHA, Workers' Compensation and Employee Benefits 1. Who is responsible for establishing OSHA standards? As referenced in the text (Moran 2011), “In establishing standards, the Secretary of Labor must set forth standards to prevent employees from suffering substantial harm to their health even if the employee worked at this job for most of his or her adult life. The Secretary of Labor must rely on research and experiments to establish reliable standards, which will be set forth objectively. The specific actions and the desired results must be set forth.” 2. If an employer is unable to comply with an OSHA standard, what alternative is available to the employer? As referenced in the txt (Moran 2011), “A temporary variance may be requested from the Secretary of Labor if the employees do not have the technical know-how or materials and/or equipment needed to comply or the plant or equipment cannot be altered by the required date. Employers must make every effort to comply as soon as possible. The time limit is one year, which may be renewed twice.” . 3. Steven Goldberg, who is Jewish, is a factory worker at Uranus Umbrella Company. His work shift has been changed on weekdays to 11:00...
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...$33,500 Work-in-process Inventory (Jan. 1) $28,100 Finished Goods Inventory (Jan. 1) $36,700 Cost of materials purchased $192,000 Total direct labor costs $168,300 Depreciation – factory machinery $36,200 Small tools expense $8,100 Office supplies $13,400 Machine helpers wages $48,500 Miscellaneous factory expenses $19,600 Presidents salary $125,000 Power - factory $27,100 Factory insurance expense $10,600 Factory supervisors salary $39,500 Sales and advertisement $18,000 Power-office $11,200 Depreciation – office equipment $8,500 Materials inventory (Dec. 31) $28,200 Work-in-process inventory (Dec. 31) $34,700 Finished Goods Inventory (Dec. 31) $13,900 The sales for Transcontinental Inc. during this year were $1,050,000 and a total of 4,800 units were completed during the year. Compute the following for the year: 1. Cost of materials used? _$197,300____ [Cost of Material Purchased + (Difference between Material Inventory Jan 1 - Material Inventory Dec 31)] 2. Factory overhead? ___$189,600____ [Depreciation – factory machinery + Small tools expense + Machine helpers wages + Miscellaneous factory expenses + Power – factory + Factory insurance expense+ Factory Supervisor Salary] …..All other costs are Administrative overhead and not Factory Overhead 3. Total manufacturing cost? $_555,200__ [Cost of Material Used + Factory Overhead + Direct Labor Cost] 4. Cost of goods...
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...Fundamental lessons which we can all learn from the bus strike Against the backdrop of the now famous bus strike, there have been efforts undertaken by the following parties: The Singapore Government calling on all parties to voice their grievances through the appropriate channels and a flurry of measures adopted by SMRT in response to public and government sentiment. Whilst the reactions and actions undertaken after the strike are laudable, one can’t help but express concern that the underlying issues of wages, worker’s living conditions and a clear lack of communication channels between all relevant parties have surfaced only via the drastic action of a strike. Indeed, all parties involved have to clearly reflect on the events of the past week and do their utmost to prevent future occurrences of such incidents. Complacency setting in Citing how strikes would affect workforce productivity and deter potential investors, the Singapore Government has long taken a dim view towards strikes and strikes have been few and far between throughout the annals of Singapore’s history. This has and still must be the key driving policy: A zero tolerance towards illegal strikes. In an attempt to maintain the welfare of general workers in Singapore, the National Union Trade Congress, businesses and National Employer’s Federation had been established. Tripartism was vaunted as the the way to progress and to cultivate the symbiotic relationship between businesses, employers and employees...
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...| WHIRLPOOL CORPORATION GLOBAL PROCUREMENT | Cost Analysis | | | | | Whirlpool is the world’s largest producer and marketer of small and large home appliances such as mixers, food processors, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, etc. Whirlpool also has a long standing relationship with Sears, which sells Whirlpool products under the brand name Kenmore. In addition to its North American presence (both manufacturing and sales), Whirlpool also has a strong presence in Mexico, and Europe. Being the largest producer in the world has helped Whirlpool to compete on lower costs through economies of scale and through its Global Procurement Organization (GPO). In addition, its large networks also help in distribution, marketing, and ultimately in its sales. Another key factor how it competes is through its relationships with customers such as Sears. Our cost model was based on the “Principles of Cost Modeling” from the article Competitive Cost-Analysis: Cost-Driver Framework by Timothy Laseter, et al. Based on the article, we continuously pondered over not only the cost elements, but also the cost drivers, so as to get a better picture and to arrive at a more accurate analysis. To capture all the elements, we constructed our own template, so that we could customize it to Whirlpool, so as to capture as many cost drivers as possible. In addition, to ensure that we accounted for all parts contributing to the actual cost, we thought about total cost of ownership...
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...franchise variety store near his home in Arkansas. His idea was to provide a vast array of products for his customers, while keeping the prices low to out compete the neighboring stores. His unique low priced strategies allowed him to boost sales and negotiate lower prices with his wholesalers. Once Walton’s retail operation started to take off, he decided to change the name to Walmart, by the use of his last name. He then established more than 9,600 factories, stores, and warehouses (Sam’s Club), throughout the United States, Asia, Mexico, Europe, and South America. Walmart has low prices, friendly workers, and many locations, but protesters will argue that the gender discrimination, harsh impact on the surrounding communities, and low wages, outweigh the benefits to Walmart. We thought gender discrimination ended with the ratification of the 19th amendment, but according to Wake-up Wal-mart.com, several cases have been recorded in the Walmart workplace. For example, in 2001, studies proved that for the same job classification, even after taking into account factors such as seniority and performance, women earned from 5 to 15 percent less than their male colleagues. Walmart was sued on this matter by six women claiming that Walmart systematically denied them promotions, and were paying them less than men. This lawsuit gathered more than 1.6 million women, which soon was declared the largest class action lawsuit ever. Due to these conditions, women and men wanted to leave...
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