...Title: Group Debate: Individual Essay Topic: Penalty wage rates for work done outside the ‘normal’ Monday-Friday working week should be abolished. (Defending) Introduction Penalty rate wage were introduced to compensate employees for working during the so-called unsocial hours. Unsociable hours of work occur during the days of the week or hours of the day when most of the people do not have to work. The idea behind the term is that there are only some times of day when others are available for social contact, and if the workers are expected to be at their workplaces at these times, social contact becomes very difficult (Bittman, 2005). Reducing standardisation of working hours makes scheduling and social coordination increasing difficult, if not impossible. The International Labour Organization (ILO) describes unsocial hours as ‘night works, weekend work and long shifts during peak periods’ (ILO, 2008). In practice, unsociable hours have been defined as anytime outside 9am to 5pm Monday (Dawkins, 1985). Traditionally, penalty payments were defended on the grounds that work at "socially unacceptable" times needs to be compensated. This was most obvious with respect to work on Sundays, the traditional day of rest in Christian societies, but this became a principle extended to Saturdays and evenings. (Visontay, 2011). Factors considered in defending penalty rates include the effects on religious, social and family life; lack of access to public transport, and the harmful...
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...Abolish or Sustain? The Minimum Wage Debate Sarah Campbell May 8, 2013 Abstract In 1938 the Fair Labor Standards Act established a federal minimum wage. Minimum wage has continuously increased throughout the years due to interest rates and the value of a dollar. Since its introduction the minimum wage has risen from 25 cents an hour to 7.25 dollars per hour in 2009. In President Obama’s recent State of the Union Address he states, “Working folks shouldn’t have to wait year after year for the minimum wage to go up while CEO pay has never been higher.” He hopes to raise the minimum wage by 2014 to 9 dollars per hour. Following the President’s support on minimum wage increase Sen. Tom Harkin (Democrat-Iowa) and Rep. George Miller (Democrat-California) formalized a proposal known as S.460, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 to increase the minimum wage by 2015 to $10.10. This proposal includes increasing the minimum wage (in three incremental increases of $.95) and then indexing it to inflation (“as prices rise, so would the minimum wage” (Cooper, Hall 2013)). Also, the tipped minimum wage (the minimum wage paid to workers who earn a portion of their wages in tips) would be increased in $0.85 increments from its current value of $2.13 per hour, where it has languished since 1991, until it reaches 70 percent of the regular minimum wage (Cooper, Hall 2013). However, in the current tough economic times many people argue that an increased minimum wage will only hurt and that...
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...IN PAKISTAN PILDAT is an independent, non-partisan and not-for-profit indigenous research and training institution with the mission to strengthen democracy and democratic institutions in Pakistan. PILDAT is a registered non-profit entity under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860, Pakistan. ©Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency - PILDAT All rights Reserved Revised Edition: December 2009 First Published: June 2005 Second Published: November 2006 ISBN: 978-969-558-147-6 978-969-558-021-1 978-969-558-021-9 Any part of this publication can be used or cited with a clear reference of this publication and PILDAT Published by Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development And Transparency No. 7, 9th Avenue, F-8/1, Islamabad, Pakistan Tel: (+92-51) 111-123-345; Fax: (+92-51) 226-3078 E-mail: info@pildat.org; URL: www.pildat.org P I L D AT BRIEFING PAPER FOR PARLIAMENTARIANS UNDERSTANDING LABOUR ISSUES IN PAKISTAN CONTENTS Foreword Profile of the Author Overview Labour in the Informal Economy Wages and Workers Finance Bill 2006 and Anti Labour Legislation Finance Bill 2008 and Labour Legislation Industrial Relations Act 2008 Strengths Weaknesses State of Trade Unionism in Pakistan Impact of globalization and economic growth on labour in Pakistan State Institutions State Tripartite Institutional Arrangements Pakistan Tripartite Labour Conference Provincial Minimum Wage Board National Committee on the Rights of the Child National Steering Committee on...
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...CHILD DOMESTIC LABOUR IN PAKISTAN: OVERVIEW, ISSUES AND TESTABLE HYPOTHESIS BY Sajjad Akhtar Saadiya Razzaq June 2005 CENTRE FOR RESEARCH ON POVERTY REDUCTION AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION (CRPRID) Ist Floor, P-Block, Pak Sectt. Islamabad Phone: 9202868 Fax: 9210254 www.crprid.org Abstract There is a dearth of in-depth empirical and qualitative research about the children in domestic work in Pakistan. The children in domestic work are not recognized as ‘child labour’ by society and by a number of governments, but rather as a normal feature of society. The objective of this paper is to present various dimensions of this neglected segment within the child labour phenomena. The purpose is not only to highlight the similarities and differences in dimensions such as labour market characteristics and its arrangements, working conditions, violence, exploitation from the all inclusive and parent “child labour” category, but also to spell out testable hypothesis that can be the basis for future data collection and empirical analysis on the subject. Our premise is that the labour arrangements of child domestic worker in Pakistan are segmented along non-resident and resident. Thus working conditions, violence, exploitation and dynamics of demand and supply vary with this widely observed segmentation. Although legislations and action plans on child labour in Pakistan, do not include any clause specifically on child domestic labour but the reality is that the vast majority of children...
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...1 Davis-Bacon Act Elizabeth Wiedemeier Business law Kenneth Lynch (Instructor) Park University Explain what you are going to do. Will you prove a point? Will you be looking at various opposing views and weighing up the merits? Spell out exactly what you will achieve in your term paper right here. * A brief explanation of the problem * Aim of your term paper * What questions will be answered in the term paper * A brief outline of current research * Relevance of the term paper topic * The research process Introduction: Contractors bid on U. S. Federal Construction projects and most contracts for federally assisted constructions exceeding $2,000 required to pay their employees the standard wage and benefit package that workers in the area performing similar work are earning the “prevailing wage”. Prevailing Wage typically means the local union wage. In government contracting, “a prevailing wage is the hourly wage, benefits and overtime, paid to the majority of workers, laborers, and mechanics within a particular area”. The culprit of all of this is the “Davis Bacon-Act” (DBA) The act was amended several times and has been attacking by opponents claiming its racist, unnecessary, expensive and costing taxpayers and the government a lot of money. Republicans have been attacking and trying to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act on the grounds that it is outdated, expensive and bureaucratic. Their latest effort last year was claiming, the repeal will...
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...Justice in the workplace: Why it is important and why a new public policy initiative is needed Provocation Series Volume 2 Number 3 Professor Paul Edwards FBA, Industrial Relations Research Unit, Warwick Business School and Senior Fellow, Advanced Institute of Management Research Justice in the workplace Contents Executive summary 3 Introduction 6 Job quality and limited success in dealing with it 8 The proposals: building workplace justice 13 Workplace justice 19 Limits to legally based solutions 24 Labour market and employer-led changes 27 Constraints and possibilities 31 Concluding remarks 39 References 42 Notes 45 Acknowledgements The help and encouragement of Keith Sisson have been crucial to the production of this paper, which is a completely revised version of the 2005 Annual Employment Relations Lecture, Keele University. I am grateful to colleagues at Keele and to the audience there, and also to David Coats and Paul Marginson, for comments and suggestions. I take sole responsibility for the views expressed. 2 Justice in the workplace Executive summary The goal of improving fairness in the workplace has been central to UK public policy since 1997. For rather longer, companies have spoken of employee empowerment through such things as teamwork. Much has been done in both areas, but major concerns remain. In relation to fairness, employee rights give entitlements, but these rights also need to be meaningful and effective. In the workplace,...
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...The Bureau of Corporations, predecessor to the Federal Trade Commission was created as an investigatory agency within the Department of Commerce and Labor in the United States. The Bureau and the Department were created by Congress February 14, 1903, during the Progressive Era. The main role of the Bureau was to study and report on industry, looking especially for monopolistic practices. Its 1906 report on petroleum transportation made recommendations that became part of the Hepburn Act of 1906, and was used when the Justice Department successfully prosecuted and broke up Standard Oil in 1911. In 1912 the Bureau issued a report on the development of water power in the United States, including its ownership or control, and fundamental economic principles involved in utilization of this new and rapidly growing energy source. The report noted an increasing concentration of ownership and control of widely separated waterpower developments in the hands of a few; a substantial interrelationship among leading water-power interests, as well as a significant and increasing affiliation between water-power companies and street-railway and electric-lighting companies. The report stressed the importance of promptly adopting a definitive public policy concerning water-power development.[1] The various concerns expressed would initially be regulated by the Federal Water Power Act of 1920. The business, managerial, and financial practices of these early utility holding companies would proliferate...
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...of Economics North South University Paper presented at the Workshop on Governance and Development organized by the World Bank and BIDS at Dhaka on 11-12 November 2006 I. INTRODUCTION The 100 percent export-oriented readymade garments (RMG) industry of Bangladesh has witnessed remarkable growth since its inception in the late 1970s. Paradoxically, this flagship industry of Bangladeshi private entrepreneurial talent took roots through the first export consignment of shirts from Bangladesh made by the state-trading agency, the Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB), in the mid-1970s under countertrade arrangements and the destination was some East European countries. Subsequently, however, private entrepreneurs entered the industry and phenomenal growth took place in RMG exports from Bangladesh. Export of RMG increased from US $40 thousand in 1978 –79 to US $6.4 billion in 2004-05. The industry has also provided employment to nearly 2 million workers, most of them women drawn from the rural areas. Explosive growth of RMG exports is of course not unique to Bangladesh. The annual compound growth rate of RMG export industries in Indonesia (31.2%), Mauritius (23.8%), and Dominican Republic (21.1%) compares favourably with that of Bangladesh 1 (81.3%) over the 1980-87 period . However, while initial conditions were favourable for export growth in the countries noted above, this was far from true in the case of Bangladesh. This makes research into the factors responsible for the...
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...neoliberal ideologies, which has adapted to the economic and social conditions of the current day. The recent phenomenon of globalization is in essence a modern form of global hegemony and dominance that establishes control through financial domination and capital exploitation. This paper focuses on this process of domination by examining the effects of neoliberal policies and structural reforms using the nation of Brazil as the unit of analysis. As will be discussed later in this report the government of Brazil has undergone significant structural changes over the last few decades that have resulted in an economic shift towards neoliberal policies. Policies promoting free enterprise capitalism, privatization of national assets, deregulation, tax reforms, flexible interest rates, trade liberalization and reductions in public expenditure have resulted in devastating outcomes for poor and marginalized groups within Brazil. These economic reforms have reordered government priorities resulting in cuts in social spending, worsening of wage inequality, displacement of workers, intensification of national debt and the weakening of labor bargaining and the conditions for meaningful work. The argument that this paper seeks to prove is that neoliberal policies in Brazil have altered political and social structures resulting in economic imbalance and economic, social and cultural human rights infringements. In order to fully understand the impacts of globalization in Brazil it is necessary to...
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...Content Introduction 3 What is Collective bargaining? 3 Research Objectives 3 Literature Review 4 Social Problems brought by strikes 7 Short term social problems 7 1. Affect companies’ normal daily operation 7 2. Reduce competitiveness of certain industry 8 Long term social problems 9 1. Reduce investors’ confidence 9 2. Increase turnover rate 10 Recommendations for Large Enterprises and SMEs 11 For Large Enterprises 11 1. Performance appraisal- Graphic rating scale 12 2. A clear promotion mechanism 13 3. Provide more channels for employees to voice out grievances 14 4. Envisage the requests of employees 14 Recommendations For Small and Medium Enterprises 15 1. Salary Review System to increase the mutual understanding 15 2. Envisage the working equity of employees 16 3. Encourage employees participate in the job redesign with manager 17 How can collective bargaining be adopted in Hong Kong? 18 Cultural limitations in application of collective bargaining power in Hong Kong 18 1.Low entry barrier for Labor Union in Hong Kong 18 2.Role and function of labor union 19 3.Foreseeable difficulties for small and medium enterprises’ employees 20 4.Inequality between employers and employees 20 Features of collective bargaining it should possess 21 Recommendations for the adoption of collective bargaining in Hong Kong 22 1. Define a clear list of interest members 22 2. The bargaining statement must be legally binding 23 3...
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...policy; regulation of stock exchanges and the role of SEBI; banking sector reforms, challenges facing public sector banks; growth and changing structure of non bank financial institutions; problem of non performing assets in Indian Banks. UNIT-IV Trend and pattern of India's foreign trade and balance of payments; latest EXIM policy-main features; policy towards foreign direct investment; globalisation trends in Indian economy; role of MNC's; India's policy commitments to multilateral insitiutions - IMF, World Bank and WTO. NOTE : The question paper will be set by the external examiners. The external examiner will set 8 questions in all, selecting not more than two questions form each unit. If a case study in included in the question paper then it will carry marks equivalent to two questions. The candidates will be requited to attempt five questions in all, selecting atleast one question from each unit. However, in question paper (s) where any deviation is required, special instructions will be issued by the...
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...making this stay possible, an anonymous referee, Nicolas Schlotthauer and Zhang Bin for their valuable comments. In particular, to Peter Bofinger and Heiner Flassbeck for their helpful comments and suggestions. The views expressed and remaining errors are the author’s responsibility. UNCTAD/OSG/DP/2008/2 ii The opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and are not to be taken as the official views of the UNCTAD Secretariat or its Member States. The designations and terminology employed are also those of the author. UNCTAD Discussion Papers are read anonymously by at least one referee, whose comments are taken into account before publication. Comments on this paper are invited and may be addressed to the author, c/o the Publications Assistant, Macroeconomic and Development Policies Branch (MDPB), Division on Globalization and Development Strategies (DGDS), United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland (Telefax no: (4122) 9170274/Telephone. no: (4122) 9175896). Copies of Discussion Papers may also be obtained from this address. New Discussion Papers are available on the UNCTAD website at http://www.unctad.org. JEL classification: E52, E58 iii Contents Page Abstract I. II....
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...RIGHTS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS IN KENYA: LESSONS FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. GODWIN KIPKIRUI LANGAT LAW/M/0985/09/12 ABSTRACT Many perspectives have been offered in the academic literature to explain the phenomenon of illegal immigration across the world. Unfortunately, most studies fail to adequately account for the rights of immigrants and how they are being violated. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT CHAPTER ONE 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of Study The purpose of this research is to show all the rights of illegal immigrants and the extent to which they are violated and/or respected in Kenya’s legal system by use of vital lessons from the American legal system. Respecting their rights is important because it shows that we are respecting the rule of law. It is important to note that all people are equal and therefore they should be treated equally without discrimination. People should also be allowed the freedom of movement and also that it should be ensured that the same freedom of movement should be regulated so that it ensures that one single country or state do not suffer the outcomes of immigration. Migration is a fact of life whereby people move to new countries to improve themselves economically and maybe to pursue their educations. Others leave to escape armed conflicts or other violations of human rights. Several statutory laws in Kenya provide means by which certain aliens/illegal immigrants can become naturalized citizens. Immigration law determines who may enter...
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...and policy; regulation of stock exchanges and the role of SEBI; banking sector reforms, challenges facing public sector banks; growth and changing structure of non bank financial institutions; problem of non performing assets in Indian Banks. UNIT-IV Trend and pattern of India's foreign trade and balance of payments; latest EXIM policy-main features; policy towards foreign direct investment; globalisation trends in Indian economy; role of MNC's; India's policy commitments to multilateral insitiutions - IMF, World Bank and WTO. NOTE : The question paper will be set by the external examiners. The external examiner will set 8 questions in all, selecting not more than two questions form each unit. If a case study in included in the question paper then it will carry marks equivalent to two questions. The candidates will be requited to attempt five questions in all, selecting atleast one question from each unit. However, in question paper (s) where any deviation is required, special instructions will be issued by the Chairman, PG Board of Studies in...
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...Source: DE ECONOMIST 150, NO. 3, 2002 HOW FAIR IS FAIR TRADE? ** BY ROBBERT MASELAND AND ALBERT DE VAAL* Summary This paper investigates to what extent fair trade programmes, are indeed ‘fair.’ This is accomplished by comparing fair trade with free trade and protectionist trade regimes on their compliance of the criteria set by the fair trade movement itself. This comparison is made using comparative cost based models and economies of scale models. It is found that whether or not fair trade is superior to free trade or protectionism is highly dependent on a number of characteristics of the products to which fair trade is applied as well as on the context within which international trade takes place. 1 INTRODUCTION A long-standing debate in development economics has been the one between advocates of free trade and proponents of protectionism in developing countries. While the former argued that free trade would offer large opportunities for poor countries to improve their situation, the latter considered trade to be harmful to poorer countries and typically preferred a combination of protectionism and development aid. This opposition tended to dominate the discussion about the role of international trade in the Third World. Bhagwati 1993 , Krueger 1990 However, in recent years, a third position has come up. This position maintains that international trade can be beneficial to developing countries as long as it is performed in a just manner. The idea behind this is that...
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