Free Essays on Sexual Orientaion In The Workplace

More and more companies are developing policies and practices that respect and accommodate employee’s beliefs and practices in a way that does not undermine the company’s ability to conduct business, according to the Business for Social Responsibility. By doing this, it helps prevent lawsuits as well as giving everyone an equal opportunity of freedom of religion. The Bill of Rights to the US Constitution gives public employees the right of freedom of expression of religion. Although private employees are not protected by the Constitution, there are state and federal laws that can. People should not be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs or any belief for that matter. People should be evaluated based on their job performance and not their sexual orientation or religion. While reading the article, â€Å"Religion in the workplace†, I came across some very valid points on how companies can approach religion in the workplace. Some of these points include spreading the word; being specific; being fair; educating yourself; sharing information. The most important thing, though, is never to forget the nonreligious. Gays and lesbians are discriminated against, but there weren’t many laws to protect them from that. Times are changing now. According to the article Sexual Orientation Discrimination in the Workplace, there are 13 states that have laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in both private and public jobs: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. Seven states have laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in public employment only: Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. A company's handling of policies on sexual orientation impacts productivity and employee recruitment and retention. Greater awareness of gay and lesbian issues ... Free Essays on Sexual Orientaion In The Workplace Free Essays on Sexual Orientaion In The Workplace More and more companies are developing policies and practices that respect and accommodate employee’s beliefs and practices in a way that does not undermine the company’s ability to conduct business, according to the Business for Social Responsibility. By doing this, it helps prevent lawsuits as well as giving everyone an equal opportunity of freedom of religion. The Bill of Rights to the US Constitution gives public employees the right of freedom of expression of religion. Although private employees are not protected by the Constitution, there are state and federal laws that can. People should not be discriminated against because of their religious beliefs or any belief for that matter. People should be evaluated based on their job performance and not their sexual orientation or religion. While reading the article, â€Å"Religion in the workplace†, I came across some very valid points on how companies can approach religion in the workplace. Some of these points include spreading the word; being specific; being fair; educating yourself; sharing information. The most important thing, though, is never to forget the nonreligious. Gays and lesbians are discriminated against, but there weren’t many laws to protect them from that. Times are changing now. According to the article Sexual Orientation Discrimination in the Workplace, there are 13 states that have laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in both private and public jobs: California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin. Seven states have laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in public employment only: Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. A company's handling of policies on sexual orientation impacts productivity and employee recruitment and retention. Greater awareness of gay and lesbian issues ...

Comstock Law and Its Role in Birth Control History

Comstock Law and Its Role in Birth Control History Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, Obscene Literature and Articles for Immoral Use The Comstock Law, passed in the United States in 1873, was part of a campaign for legislating public morality in the United States. As its full title (above) implies, the Comstock Law was meant to stop the trade in obscene literature and immoral articles. In reality, the Comstock Law was targeted not only at obscenity and dirty books but at birth control devices and information on such devices, at abortion, and at information on sexuality and on sexually transmitted diseases. The Comstock Law was widely used to prosecute those who distributed information or devices for birth control. In 1938, in a case involving Margaret Sanger, Judge August Hand lifted the federal ban on birth control, effectively ending the use of the Comstock Law to target birth control information and devices.

Global organizations ethical & cultural issues Essay

Global organizations ethical & cultural issues - Essay Example Such challenges may include ethical and cultural issues that corporations face as they seek to expand their presence in the global arena. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. faces ethical, social responsibility & cultural issues as it seeks to expand its operations outside the United States. Indeed, this research paper addresses and analyzes the cultural, ethical, and social responsibility issues affecting the operations of Wal-Mart outside America. Wal-Mart is a global retail corporation that operates a chain of large retail stores in various formats across the world (Forbes, 2013). The global organization has its headquarters in America and stands out as the largest private employer with more than two million employees across the world. The corporation has about 8500 stores, which operates in 50 states in the United States and in 26 countries across the globe (The New York Times, 2013). The global organization has a low price philosophy, which attracts a wide a customer base (Forbes, 2013). Neve rtheless, with the diversity of its operations and many employees the corporation faces numerous ethical, cultural, and social responsibility issues relating to its operations and workforce. Walmart has been expanding its operations outside US especially to areas where it can establish a strong retail store. The global organization opened retail stores in Japan, Germany, China, and South Korea but faced various cultural issues that limited its success and sometimes led to the closure of such retail stores. Notably, Germany was the first place that Walmart opened its stores outside Europe (Landler & Barbaro, 2006). Nevertheless, cultural issues in Germany grounded its operations. The cultural issues included the corporation’s failure to provide all products and services under one roof as seen in American stores (Landler & Barbaro, 2006). Moreover, the merchandise at the Walmart stores in Germany was inefficient for the customers. The retail store irritated the German customers by placing all the premium products at an eye level and placing the discounted products at the bottom or the top most shelve where customers struggled to get the discounted products (Landler & Barbaro, 2006). Additionally, the WalMart’s product line in Germany did not suit the shopping and cultural traits of the customers. In fact, the German culture negated the American culture that Walmart propagates in that shoppers opt to shop daily in various local stores dealing in household goods and groceries instead of shopping once a week as Walmart advocates (Landler & Barbaro, 2006). Walmart had issues in satisfying the cultural and shopping habits of a normal German shopper who seeks to the most efficient and limited time in shopping (Landler & Barbaro, 2006). The retail store in Germany mandated customers to spend longer time in shopping to the dismay of the German shoppers. Additionally, the retail store introduced strange management practices that did not conform to the Germa n culture. Indeed, the management requires employees to attend the morning exercise before the shift that annoyed many German employees (Landler & Barbaro, 2006). Furthermore, the store required sales clerks to smile at customers. This negated the German culture where men viewed this as flirting and the German culture viewed the behavior of smiling at strangers as an abnormality (Landler & Barbaro, 2006). In fact, this trend disturbed many German cashiers and derived hard feelings as the smiles were

Porter's Five-Force model Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Porter's Five-Force model - Essay Example It is crucial for any international business to critically study the competitive environment of the industry. The number of close substitutes, availability of resources, buying power of the consumers, threat of new entrants and the level of rivalry between existing firms must be studied closely to determine whether the industry would present the firm with a favorable and profitable environment. Porter’s Five forces model allows a firm to critically analyze each and every factor in the respective elements of industry competitiveness noted above (Swaan et al, 1999). Porter describes five forces which affect the industry’s competitiveness. The Threat of Substitute Products available in the market determines the power which a business may have in the industry. If the product is a generic one which has high substitutes in the market, the industry will be considered as highly competitive. Similarly, high level of close substitutes means that the buyers’ cost of switching is low and imposes a high threat to the firms. Besides this factor, all the factors are included in Figure 1 (Swaan et al, 1999). Likewise, if the buyers in the industry have a high negotiating power, the firms will be lead to lower their profit margins and the prices. A high negotiating power means that there would be less number of buyers as compared to the number of sellers in the market. Also, switching costs would be low and the products would be common rather than differentiated. Simultaneously, when there are fewer suppliers in the market who sell highly technical or hard to procure raw materials, they would have more negotiating power (Swaan et al, 1999). The ability and the ease of new entrants in the market also say how much competition a firm can expect in the future. With all these specifics, comes rivalry between firms. If one promotional campaign is followed aggressively by competing firms, the rivalry would be high. Similarly, the level of product

Article review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 9

Review - Article Example Both the international comparative and German Cranfield surveys give a clear overview of the current human resource practices in German (Festing, 2012). German faces challenges such as recruitment due to a demographic change, which in addition to low unemployment rates led to inadequately qualified personnel. Hence, most major companies use active employer branding while smaller ones use selected employer branding practices with an aim of attracting candidates. German uses a formal selection of the workforce such as psychological or legal writing less often as compared to other countries. After a semistructured interview of applicants, the required number for the position are picked based on their curricula vitae (Festing, 2012). The elected body representing the interest of employees may be the cause of the lack of formal selection methods. The work council neglects the use of the devices. Although the German companies tend to show a consistency in the use of carefully local selection procedures based on work experience, educational training, and internship report. It clearly brings out the employment system in Germany (Festing, 2012). Most of the companies in German use extensive staff development and long-term career planning which include technical capability and functional proficiency as central values. It influences the retention of most employees resulting in a steady job security making dismissal very carefully. Because of the job security, the company wins most employees who work for many years. Regarding compensations, the amounts vary according to the individual monthly earnings. The wages and salaries of most of the German workers, however, results from tariff agreements from collective bargaining. In the international comparison of HR practices as per the Granfield network in 2011, most of financial participation and performance-related pay are frequently used in United States than in Germany. German mainly majors in the use

Online Media Has Become A Very Useful Tool Media Essay

Online Media Has Become A Very Useful Tool Media Essay The online media or the New Media has also been a consequence of dynamic communications technology developments and the need of a universal platform that emerges traditional media with the interactive power of computers and the participative aspect of the Internet. I strongly believe that online media has indeed become a very useful tool for citizens to play their role in political and social participation. The reasons are various: Internet is very popular and user-friendly, it give people the opportunity of engaging in civic discussion and there is a common lack of time, interest and proximity issues hinder their willingness in participating, As Margaret Scammell also pointed out in her paper The Internet and Civic Engagement: the Age of the Citizen-Consumer, (anul) the Internet, we hear constantly, will change everything. Thus far, however, the evidence for politics is rather small. We see vastly expanded information sources for citizens, new delivery systems for political institutions, greater opportunities for politics at the margins. But mostly we see the same old electoral and institutional politics with no evidence of huge new communities of participating citizens. What is actually emphasized here is the fact that we expect a greater involvement of citizens in political and social aspects on online media platforms, whereas new media online only endows us with brand new instruments of citizenship performance. Internet, as one of the 20th centurys most important developments, facilitates old and new functions of media, by orientating traditional media, like newspapers and television towards more participation, interactivity, flexibility, real time interaction, experiences and information sharing at a low cost. Politics and political participation of citizens is one of the topics of discussion over the Internet. The basic function of media informing people, is clearly seen in the huge World Wide Web community. Politicians have recently started to be aware of the impact that the Internet has, especially on young generations and therefore have moved online, where they have their own blogs, participate in online political forums, and get in direct contact with their electors. A very good example in this sense is Barack Obamas famous online campaign which helped him engage more with his voters and actually gave them the opportunity of integrating and even creating a political campaign. I think it helped us to access a lot of people by giving them to tools to organize, to create events, to connect with each others and giving them everything that they needed, so that when they had talking points to pass onto their families, videos, events in their area that were happening, community outreach pro grams in their state. Everything that we did was to connect people, because it was a movement that was fundamentally about people. (http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/12/04/felesky-rahaf.html Rahaf Harfoush interview) Moreover, even in 2000 American elections, American Online reported that seven of the all-time top ten live online chats were political, suggesting an increase in interest and involvement in the political process (Marlin 1999: 12 in CAROLINE J. TOLBERT AND RAMONA S. MCNEAL, KENT STATE UNIVERSITY). Another essential aspect of online citizenship is the civic engagement. One might argue that civic engagement online is one of the pioneer activities promoted online and which had a tremendous success among both nongovernmental organizations and participants to different online campaigns, petitions, manifestations. Its mobilizing character has had a very good outcome in community volunteer work, environmental causes and protest behavior, as it has engaged people in various discussions on social media platforms or in sharing experiences and thoughts about problems of common interest on YouTube, Blogs, MySpace, Facebook and websites. A very good example of a civic engagement campaign that has attracted many participants is the Greenpeace campaign. Promoting their activities in environmental causes and simultaneously asking for peoples direct involvement online has ensured the success of their campaign. Online medias main advantage that of offering great opportunities of sharing information and experiences to its users can sometimes turn into a disadvantage, because normal people are becoming journalists. This facilitates subjectivism and might sometimes lead to misinforming the other users. Moreover, many organizations, politicians or public figures have sensed the potential impact and success of online campaigns and therefore tend to control certain information flows for their own interest and even manipulate the content of forums, blogging, etc. The Web community facilitates the achievement of different types of citizenship, whether they are political, cultural, social or national. Citizens have often declared themselves dissatisfied with traditional media coverage; due to media concentration, the information and knowledge they get seems most of the times to be influenced by particular view that media moguls try to impose indirectly. Therefore the online media give them the opportunity of expressing themselves without restrictions and engage actively in different knowledge sharing activities and even direct participation to political decisions. Taken all this arguments into consideration, I believe that the new media indeed contribute to a better citizenship by means of more interaction, delivering own experiences and thoughts towards different political topics, being informed and having access to a greater range of knowledge sources. Online media, creates opportunities for all the Internet users to contribute to the main attribute of democracy and that is, being able to take part at political and social decision making process.

The Jungle :: essays research papers

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  If you are or you know someone that is an immigrant to this country, then you know the struggles and hardships that one must face. Forget the language barrier, problems such as no money, no food or shelter, even no job are all brutal circumstances. All these problems are tough to surpass, and doing so is a task in itself. In The Jungle Upton Sinclair portrays all the problems that a Lithuanian family must encounter to survive. This novel reflects the time period, the conflicts around the country, and the conflicts of a family struggling to survive. A truly great novel in my opinion, The Jungle should be read by everyone for enjoyment, and even for knowledge.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The main characters in this novel are a immigrant family from Lithuania. The family consisting of Jurgis and Antanas Rudkus, Ona and Elizabeth Lukoszaite (with all six of her children), and many personal friends and enemies of the family. The Lukoszaite family have come to America to gain wealth after their recent death of their father. Jurgis who is madly in love with Ona comes along with his father to America. A family from the poor roots of Lithuania come oversees to seek great wealth and success in the United States, escaping the slums of their native country. The setting is in Chicago, in the town of Packingtown.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Escaping poverty in their native country, with a heartbreaking loss of a family member, the entire group packs up and heads for the highway so to speak to achieve wealth in America. The novel begins with a lovely wedding between Ona and Jurgis. The reception followed tradition, but the younger generation didn’t participate in the usual customs of a wedding. This just went to show how different the two countries really are. Struggling to pay the cost of the reception, everyone must leave early to go to work the next morning, including the wife and groom. Of all the family members, Jurgis is the most suited for the job because he is physically fit and has a workers attitude. The children are to go to school, and the women would have to find a job. With the help of Jonas, who is the brother of Elizabeth, the family finds a rotten apartment in a rat infested, run down building. Jurgis decides to spend the remaining of their money to buy a house because a