Supreme Court Trilogy Decisions in 1960 Case Study

Supreme Court Trilogy Decisions in 1960 - Case Study Example The Steelworkers' Trilogy has significantly changed the way Arbitration is dealt with in America. The principles of law lifted from these cases served as the guidance and the primary basis in almost all of the decisions of the U.S. courts in arbitration cases that came into their attention for the succeeding years. This study will present the principles of law in relation to arbitration that were lifted from these cases. Specifically, this study aims to know, discuss, and analyze 1) the nature of the collective bargaining agreement, 2) the grievances that must be subjected to arbitration, 3) the scope of authority and powers of the arbitrators, and 4) the role of the courts in arbitration cases. 1) The basis for determining who has the authority for grievance proceedings is the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) which is the contract entered into between the management and a recognized bargaining union of a company. 2) Arbitration is a contractual issue. As such, the courts should not intervene if both parties voluntarily agreed under the CBA to authorize an arbitrator to resolve disputes arising from different interpretations of the negotiated agreement. 3) Courts cannot look into the merits of the arbitration award. The courts' judicial review is only limited to the question of whether the contract authorizes arbitration of the particular issue in dispute. The resea4) If the agreement does not explicitly authorize arbitration or does not provide the forum for grievances, the courts should determine it. Methodology and Scope The researcher carefully read and thoroughly analyzed the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in these cases. He also researched and examined the opinions and findings of legal personalities and writers after these cases were decided. Aside from the trilogy cases, the researcher also made use of one additional case and six commentaries and/or researches, all were taken from reputable sources in the Internet. Review of Related Literature Rainseberger enumerated the common law treatment of voluntary remedies: "Traditionally, in the United States, the courts have looked with disfavor at efforts of private citizens to use voluntary methods to resolve contractual disputes. Many states courts have seen arbitration of disputes as an undesirable alternative to litigation. It is often viewed as an effort to supplant to jurisdiction of the courts. Under the common law, arbitrating agreements were regarded as purely executory. In other words, an agreement to arbitrate a dispute could unilaterally revoke at any time prior to the issuance of a final award." Gershenfeld stated that: "From the 1930s to the 1950s, it was not uncommon for management to argue that an arbitrator's task in disciplinary matters was limited to determining whether or not the incident of which the employee was accused had occurred. If it had, management claimed the arbitrator's task was over, and the assigned penalty should be upheld. This view did not prevail in the following years." In the case of Raceway Park v. Local 47 Service Employees International, the U.S. Court of Appeals (for Six Circuit), citing the International Association of Machinists v. Cuttler-Hammer (67 N.Y. S.2d 317), said: " Prior to 1960, states courts hesitated to enforce grievance arbitration provisions. Even where state courts were willing to enforce CBAs, they often did so

Significance of HRM in the travel and tourism sector

Significance of HRM in the travel and tourism sector The purpose of this report is to evaluate the significance of IHRM for the companies within the travel and tourism sector. The report will address this issue with reference to the case of the British Airways Lpc (BA) one of the largest international airlines. The report will begin by outlining the brief overview of BA, its market and current global position. Besides, the significance of culture change within the company will be identified. Furthermore, the hard and soft models of HRM will be critically analysed in the process. The report also will discuss the staffing issues such as recruitment, selection, and training and development for the planned global expansion. The ways in which these issues may need to change will be illustrated through the strategic evaluation. In addition, all figures will be justified and referenced to the appendix. Moreover, the report will outline the appropriate conclusions and recommendations. Company overview, its markets and current global position British Airways Plc (BA) was created in the 1974s after merger between BEA (British European Airways) and BOAC (British Overseas Corporation) (Air flights, 2010). BA is the United Kingdoms major international airline with two main hubs located in Gatwick and Heathrow airports, and the fifth worlds top airline. BA is a recognized brand within airline industry and the success could attribute to its constant global flight expansion and mergers with other global airlines. The merger between Iberia and BA (International Airlines Group) in 2010 is expected to create the third largest European carrier (see Appendix 1). In addition, the merger with AA (American Airlines) in 2008 will expand the company globally on transatlantic flights. These mergers will make stronger the global position of the new company with strong market capitalisation and will be able to complete with rivals such as Lufthansa and KLM-Air France (See Appendix 2) (Datamonitor, 2009; Euromonitor, 2010). BA is a global leader with a network of 550 destinations internationally via code-sharing relationships serves nearly 95 million passengers a year, using 441 airports in 86 countries and approximately 1,000 planes and a world air share of 2.9% (See Appendix 3) (Brave New Talent, 2008-2010; Wikipedia, 2010). BA operates mostly in the EU and US and employs 40,627 people (Datamonitor, 2009). In addition, BA is a part of Oneworld alliance, which serves some 819 destinations worldwide and enables to compete more successfully around the world with other global alliances (Wikipedia, 2010). Since privatisation in 1987, BA has had a sharp success in income and achieved financial independence, while other European airlines were dependent on state support and their US counterparts resorted to bankruptcy protection (Ledwidge, 2007 and BBC, no date). Despite the BAs HR hard times (appendix) and recent global economic recession in 2008/2009 with the global GDP decline from 5.1% in 2007 to 3.1% in 2008 , BA had a net profit of  £8 billion in 2009/2010 that is an increase of 2.7% over FY2008/2009, which improves its stable geographic increase (Datamonitor, 2010). Besides, BA is the worlds first airline to establish a carbon-offset scheme in 2005 to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and to introduce online boarding passes in 2004 (British Airways, no date and AccessMyLibrary, 2007). Despite BA calls itself as The Worlds Favourite Airline it strives to become the worlds most responsible airline (GreenAir, 2007-2010 and Street, 1994). Cultural change and HRM models Culture is very powerful; it influences people and it is vital for managers to understand the employees: what they believe, its customs and traditions, life style and values, beliefs and morals, to understand how people react, and their expectations in the company after the employment. Legge (2005) identifies culture as a set of shared meanings, or taken-for-granted assumptions. According to Alzira and Easerby-Smith (1993), BA was arrogant before its privatization in 1987. BA believed the customers did not know what they wanted. The managers did not involve the staff in decisions, as they wanted to have distance from staff. The priority was safety of aircrafts and technical skills. Even the competition and profitability were not the main idea. The BA organisational culture was bureaucratic, strict, and formal. Thus, the careers developed slowly. Besides, the cost-leadership strategy is applied that leads BA to cut costs through a hard HRM approach and use staff as any other business resource. The staff is being used as cheaply as possible. In contrast, Ledwin (2007) argues that since 1976 till nowadays it was a big cultural change for BA, where the product-centric approach has started to shape into customer-centric approach and the hard model started to adopt the elements of soft developmental humanism or Harvard model, where the core idea are human assets. The differentation strategy would reach the competitve advantage and try to avoid less prone to disruptions and PR blunders. Moreover, it would present a very effective framework for completely integrating HR with the business strategy (Ledwin, 2007). To improve the organisational performance and to achieve the employee commitment BA promoted the motivational culture change programmes in the 1980s.However, its argued if these programmes were successful or not as according to Hopfl (1992, cited in Legge, 2005), these programmes engaged the mind but left hearts untouched. Despite the HR difficulties during the last five years (See Appendix 4), the company has achieved a respect from its employees in a way that helps the company fence the strike actions. In June 2009, BA told its 42,377 staff to work without pay for a month or take unpaid leave to reduce costs. Almost 6,000 non-cabin crew staff helped during the days of industrial action helped the company to run anoperation (Euromonitor, 2010 and Anglotopia, 2010). Staffing approaches BA can apply one of the three staffing approaches (Dowling et al., 2008): Ethnocentric:- The main idea is to manage staff from the home country (PCNs). The company can apply this approach to all its foreign operations, where the staff holds central jobs, and subsidiaries and headquarters follow the home country resource management practice. Polycentric/Regiocentric:- The idea is to develop HR management practices locally. Geocentric/Global:- The purpose is to manage the employees on a worldwide basis, where the company employs staff from diverse countries. 4.1. Ethnocentric and polycentric approaches BA uses mainly the ethnocentric approach: it controls all its operations from London (the locations of the head office) as it understands local culture, the economy language and avoids relocation costs. Regarding to BA job applications, the key management positions are filled by parent company personnel, where the priorities are given to UK nationals. Besides, it hires host country nationals in foreign countries instead of transferring its domestic staff to work. Depend on the staff role, a polycentric or geocentric approach can be recommended. The polycentric approach would be ideal for BA to employ front line staff and cabin crew. The company should consider the cultural as the core competence and hire more people who speak other languages than English and think differently. Along with the cultural change BA needs to ensure the employees understand their role within the marketing progress and overall marketing orientation within the organization. The best staffing approach to hire key management people and pilots is geocentric approach, where the company strives to reach the global expansion by combining the best from headquarters and the subsidiaries. Also, the nationality is ignored in favor of ability. BA could promote promote diversity, inclusion, and equality of opportunity in employment regardless of sex, marital or civil partnership status, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origins, sexual orientation, disability, religion or belief, political affiliation and age (British Airways, no date). Staffing issues The organisations stage of growth characterises with the integration of business strategy with HRM policies such as training development, appraisal and recruitment and selection. Recruitment is mailny linked to proactive attitude of employees, where training and development has to do with formal or informal education, enabling the staff to know inside out of the organisational mission and its products, thus leading to the quality service. 5.1Recruitment and selection Effectiveness in recruitment and selection is vital as it avoids poor work performance, unacceptable conduct, internal disagreement, low morale and job satisfaction and dysfunctional labour turnover. In addition, luck of management quality and teamwork, and employee motivation and communication can lead to loss of customers, loss of organisation, and loss of life. Recruitment seeks to attract best technical professional talent and then manage rapid internal labour market movements (Legge, 2005:142). BA also tends to attract the most talented people, then assess and appoint a suitable candidate (Appelbaum and Brenda, 2002; Pilbeam and Corbridge, 2006). For example, the pilots employment issues had been based just on flying and technical skills before 1987. Nowadays, BA considers the pilots can work well in a crew situation. Interpersonal skills are appearing as crucial achievement factors for pilot performance and safety. In addition, it cares about quality frontline people as well. G ood (1999, cited by Appelbaum and Brenda, 2002), stresses the point that the single most reliable predictor of overall excellence is the ability to attract and hold on to talented employees. The success is dependent upon the ongoing hard work, attitudes, and dedication of its staff. Thus, to expand globally and to achieve the companys long-term success BA should look not only at education related skills but also at staff attitude within the company, as skills can be trained but attitudes cannot be changed (Milmo, 2010 and Horn and Barkin, 1998). 5.2Appraisal, training, development The globalisation of markets leads to emergence of multinational companies, operating on a worldwide basis. Good training enables the employees to perform their current and future roles effectively as, both organisations and their employees benefit (Beardwell and Claydon, 2006). To achieve a high value added services the staff should be well educated, trained, and committed. To increase competence and go high-class with high quality the company should consider the staff as the most valued resource and do investment in the core workforce. The accent is to include employee loyalty and reliance, internal labour market structures with promotion ladders and skill training. The individualistic approach should be applied to reach the quality and competitive advantage (Legge, 2005). If the quality of service depends on the quality of the employee, the company should look on the society and organisations commitment to developing skills appropriate to a national economic policy and organisational corporate objectives (Legge, 2005). BA committed to customer care programmes and has had many motivational staff programmes for both existing and newly recruited staff since 1987, that at very least heightened employee awareness of quality issues. The programmes such as Putting the Customer First,Putting People First, Customer First teams, Managing People First, A Day in the Life, To be the Best and Winning for Customers . In addition, to promote the values of customer services BA launched the re-educative online-learning programs for cabin crew how to teach in-flight sales system. Besides, BA tried to develop a self-direct learning that motivates and develops its staff not only professionally but personally (Ledwidge, 2007). Conclusion The report began with a brief nature of British Airways, overview of its markets and current global position. It analysed the cultural change within the company and evaluated the HRM models. BA has had a big cultural change since 1987, where the company changed the product-centric approach to a customer-centric approach. The hard model need to adopt elements from the soft developmental humanism model, where the company would realize the importance of integrating HR policies with business objectives involving treating employees as valued assets, as the success depends on securing commitment from people, not controlling them. It should keep adopting the soft model to avoid losses of customers and the bankruptcy and to keep its brand. Over the past decade or so, British Airways has evolved from a loss making, state-owned national carrier into a customer focused, publicly listed and consistently profitable airline. However, cultural change and nowadays change require modification in top management values to make the change successful. To improve the organisational performance and keep the company expand globally BA need to keep these recent changes. Furthermore, the report addresses the issue of staffing approaches such as ethnocentric, polycentric, and geocentric approaches. Despite BA uses the ethnocentric approach, the recommendation are to develop polycentric approach for front line and cabin crew and apply a geocentric approach for pilots and key management staff. The final parts of the report examined the staffing issues such as recruitment and selection, appraisal, training and development. BA should look not only at education related skills but also at staff attitude within the company, as skills can be trained but attitudes cannot be changed. In addition, BA should motivate and develop its staff not only professionally but personally by creating the training centres where staff could learn the sense of humour, ability to work with others and friendliness. Moreover, the new industrial relations backgrounds should be developed as no-strike clauses, acceptance of flexible working, its support for direct employee involvement, staff status and employee development Recommendations According to the mentioned above issues, there is more research should be done regarding to staffing approaches and staffing issues to help expand company globally. The need of change should be analyzed and evaluated deeper. HRM Michigan and Harvard models issues should be more critically discussed. Word count: 2193 word

Standardized Tests :: Standardized Testing Essays

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Standardized tests are very common throughout the United States. They are used to measure students’ academic performances in school. These tests vary from state to state in all grade levels. However, these tests are believed to be biased towards those students who come from higher-class neighborhoods, simply because they have more educational resources. â€Å"The absence of standards virtually guarantees stratified resources and access to knowledge, based upon income, color of skin, and the community and neighborhood in which one lives† (French, 2003). The resources in the suburban areas differ from those in the urban areas, because of the gap within the difference of incomes. Families living in suburban neighborhoods have a bigger income, which enables them to have more resources than those living in urban neighborhoods. Most educational resources come from taxes, which plays a big part in the gap between urban and suburban neighborhoods.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This gap causes a disadvantage to those individuals living in lower class neighborhoods, because they do not see or have as many resources as those living in the suburbs. Because of the lack of resources that are provided to those living in the lower-class neighborhoods they are not as prepared for the standardized tests as their higher-class counterparts. These standardized tests are seeing new standards every couple of years or so. Some of the new standards include, students receiving a certain score in the tested subject areas in order to refrain from failing and being retained in the same grade, or even going to summer school just to be promoted. Are these standards helping or hurting?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is hard to say whether these tests are efficient in assessing a student’s knowledge. There have been studies done that shows how students perform contributes to a number of factors. Students are individuals just as adults and can easily slip up on a test, just as many adults have done because of numerous reasons. They suffer from stress, lack of sleep, how they are feeling, whether they ate, and many other reasons. â€Å"These influences most dramatically affect low-income students and students of color† (French, 2003). From the rise of immigration there have been tests (IQ and Stanford-Binet) that were used to sort and track students based on race and income. According to a study it has been concluded that these tests will continue to hinder the ability of Black and Latino students to graduate from high school (Orfield and Wald, 2000; Haney, 1999; McNeil, 2000).

Nutritious Eating Habits

1/ I think one of the social criticisms of marketing’s impacts on individual consumers is the price. Because of the expensive costs of developing such as â€Å"long lead times, the need to enlist the help of nutritional experts around the world, and the need to develop products that appeal to the local population’s tastes† (598) Vitango and Nutristar have high price that is out of reach of people in those poor target countries such as Botswana and Venezuela. Moreover, fortified products are also criticized for containing large amount of harmful substance such as fat and sugar that could lead to obesity.  For example, high consumption of Nutristar when combined with McDonald can cause health issues to its customers as those products contain a large amount of fat, sugar, salt and cholesterol. 2/ In my opinion, political power is a social criticism of marketing’s impacts on society. Big companies want to promote and protect their interests. As a result, they don’t want to lose profit if they offer the product at a reasonable price, so Coca Cola and P&G want to work with the governments for favorable tax and tariffs. However, either those companies are distrusted or those governments either cannot afford or don’t have sufficient resources to educate their people about fortified food, makes those companies seek for help from non-profit organizations such as GAIN to help lobby for lower tax rates and promote their products by giving those governments money to create more demands. Although fortified food is promoted to deal with deficient nutrient, they cannot completely stop malnutrition; as a result, they create false wants for people in those countries. Through non-profit organization, big companies educate target population about fortifies food and other beverage drinks, but not educating people about nutritious eating habits which is the real needs for those countries. Nutristar sold with McDonald’s happy meals does not help fight nutrition deficient, but it creates worse eating habit with fast food, which can lead to obesity or other health problem. 3/ Products such as Vitango and Nutristar are not considered enlightened marketing.  First, those products ignore societal marketing, they see societal problems such as starvation or political corruption in poor countries as opportunities to promote and sell their products. Instead of educating people in those countries about nutritious food, those companies try to promote their products’ benefits. Vitango and Nutristar are pleasing products which deals temporarily with nutrition deficiency; but in the long run, it can stop malnutrition. When customers depend on supplement products, their interests such as health are affected. In addition, many big companies place its mission in products and profits over broad social terms. In Vitango and Nutristar case; such fortified products is to create an image of the company in order to earn the market and increase profits by selling other products such as snack or juices in the future. 4/ In my opinion, the development and marketing of fortified products are unethical. As discussed above, the development and launching of fortified products are just a small part of a bigger marketing plan. First, those companies try to allure people in poor countries by helping them deal with nutrition deficiency with fortified products, but that is just the base to selling other products. Besides, through non-profit organizations, they educate those people about their products’ values rather than educate them about the need of nutritious eating habits. Secondly, through funding and lobbying with the local governments, those companies can have influence over the market and the governments that could lead to many serious problems in politic. 4/ In my opinion, in order to succeed with product such as Vitango, Coca Cola must consider many factors beside the price. First, in poor countries where malnutrition is a major concern, it must place societal missions ahead by helping non-profit organizations educate people about the needs of nutritious eating. Besides, they should educate people about fortified food as a supplement, not a substitute against nutrition deficiency. Last but not least, Coca Cola has to find a solution for the price problem; they have to adjust the price, so Vitango is purchasable in poor countries. When the product is accepted and well-know, the company can earn a lot of profits without conducting unethical actions. Another thought about the case, although Vitango and Nutristar are criticized because of many ethical issues, I think that is a trade-off. To satisfy stockholder’s expectations, those companies always have to find a way to maximize profits, and that profits have to be traded with some critics. From the corporate viewpoint, those critics may not cost the company a lot, so there is no reason they would not conduct such negligent actions.

David Walker’s Appeal Summary

David Walker was an abolitionist, orator, and author of David Walker's Appeal. Although David Walker's father, who died before his birth, was enslaved, his mother was a free woman; thus, when he was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, in September 1785, David Walker was also free, following the â€Å"condition† of his mother as prescribed by southern laws regulating slavery. Little is known about Walker's early life. He traveled widely in the South and probably spent time in Philadelphia. He developed early on an intense and abiding hatred of slavery, the result apparently of his travels and his firsthand knowledge of slavery. Relocating to Boston in the mid-1820s, he became a clothing retailer and in 1828 married a woman named Eliza. They had one son, Edward (or Edwin) Garrison Walker, born after David Walker's death in 1830. An active figure in Boston's African American community during the late 1820s, David Walker had a reputation as a generous, benevolent person who sheltered fugitives and frequently shared his in-come with the poor. He joined the Methodist Church and in 1827 became a general agent for Freedom's Journal, a newly established African American newspaper. During the two years of the newspaper's existence, he regularly supported the New York City-based publication, finding subscribers, distributing copies, and contributing articles. He was also a notable member of the Massachusetts General Colored Association, an antislavery and civil rights organization founded in 1826. In lectures before the association, Walker spoke out against slavery and colonization, while urging African American solidarity. In September 1829, he published David Walker's Appeal. In this pamphlet, which quickly went through three editions, he fiercely denounced slavery, colonization, and the institutional exclusion, oppression, and degradation of African peoples. His Appeal was a militant call for united action against the sources of the â€Å"wretchedness† of African Americans, enslaved and free. Often reprinted, widely circulated, and highly regarded by a number of African American readers, Walker's Appeal generated a vehement response from white Americans, especially in the South. Several southern state legislatures passed laws banning such â€Å"seditious† literature and reinforced legislation forbidding the education of slaves in reading and writing. The governors of Georgia and Virginia and the mayor of Savannah wrote letters to the mayor of Boston expressing outrage about the Appeal and demanding that Walker be arrested and punished. In Georgia, a bounty was offered on him, ten thousand dollars alive, and one thousand dollars dead. In the North, newspapers attacked the pamphlet, as did white abolitionists Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison, who admired Walker's courage and intelligence but condemned the circulation of the Appeal as imprudent. Walker died in the summer of 1830. Although the cause and circumstances of his death are mysterious, many have suspected that he was poisoned. After his death, the Appeal continued to circulate in various editions, including Henry Highland Garnet's 1848 reprinting of the Appeal along with his own â€Å"Address to the Slaves† in a single volume. As one of the earliest and most compelling printed expressions of African American nationalism, militancy, and solidarity, the Appeal has remained a vital and influential text for successive generations of African American activists. Walker's Appeal circulated widely throughout the South and North. In 1830, members of North Carolina's General Assembly had the Appeal in mind as they tightened the state's laws dealing with slaves and free black citizens. The resulting new laws, sparked by Walker's work and fueled a year later by Nat Turner's rebellion, led to more policies that repressed African Americans, freed and slave alike. David Walker's Appeal addresses the African Americans and the European Americans, challenging each group to take action. He acknowledges the â€Å"wretchedness† of blacks, which he believes is a result of slavery and the whites' fears of freeing enslaved blacks. He continuously challenges Thomas Jefferson's Notes on Virginia and uses direct quotes to analyze, criticize, and mock Jefferson's work to the utmost, proving that Jefferson contradicts himself numerous of times. Walker believes that oppression will one day be lifted from the shoulders of black men and that they will rise together as one. He stresses the wrongdoings of the whites and uses the Declaration of Independence to contradict them and also, stresses the importance of the blacks to take a stand against their oppressors. Walker's attitude shifts throughout the text, displaying courage, contempt, disregard, and resentment towards the whites, and bravery, conviction, weariness, and hopefulness towards the blacks. The cruel and unusual punishment that whites inflicted on blacks through slavery cannot be compared to any other enslavement nor can it be refuted. Through his Appeal and the help of the Almighty, Walker hopes to â€Å"open your hearts to understand and believe the truth† so that blacks can act to remedy their â€Å"wretchedness† and replace it with happiness, life, and liberty.