“
The wild pursuit of status and wealth has destroyed our souls and our economy. Families live in sprawling mansions financed with mortgages they can no longer repay. Consumers recklessly rang up Coach handbags and Manolo Blahnik shoes on credit cards because they seemed to confer a sense of identity and merit. Our favorite hobby, besides television, used to be, until reality hit us like a tsunami, shopping. Shopping used to be the compensation for spending five days a week in tiny cubicles. American workers are ground down by corporations that have disempowered them, used them, and have now discarded them
”
”
Chris Hedges (Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle)
“
If you're not a smart worker, it's about how hard you work double the amount from the heart; if you're not a hard worker, it's about how smart you work but times two from the brain.
”
”
Criss Jami (Healology)
“
Many presume that integrating more advanced automation will directly translate into productivity gains. But research reveals that lower-performing algorithms often elicit greater human effort and diligence. When automation makes obvious mistakes, people stay attentive to compensate. Yet flawless performance prompts blind reliance, causing costly disengagement. Workers overly dependent on accurate automation sleepwalk through responsibilities rather than apply their own judgment.
”
”
I. Almeida (Introduction to Large Language Models for Business Leaders: Responsible AI Strategy Beyond Fear and Hype (Byte-sized Learning Book 2))
“
We can afford the workers’ compensation, Harry—he’ll watch what he says the time next, won’t he?” Nils would say. “The ‘next time,’ Nils,” Grandpa Harry would gently correct his old friend.
”
”
John Irving (In One Person)
“
Pilfering was common in Communist China’s state-owned enterprises, as the Party secretaries were slack in guarding properties that belonged to the government and poorly paid workers felt it fair compensation for their low pay. The practice was so widespread that it was an open secret. The workers joked about it and called it "Communism," which in Chinese translation means "sharing property.
”
”
Nien Cheng (Life and Death in Shanghai)
“
Denmark recently became the first country to pay worker compensation to women who had developed breast cancer after years of night-shift work in government-sponsored jobs, such as nurses and air cabin crew. Other governments—Britain, for example—have so far resisted similar legal claims, refusing payout compensation despite the science.
”
”
Matthew Walker (Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams)
“
In the legal world, a sickened worker may be compensated far more than a killed worker.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Be careful, as once you lose your health, it may be gone forever.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Disability and Workers Compensation pits a very sick person against a lawyer. Can you guess who most frequently loses?
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Of course you can pull every dirty lawyer trick to deny my Disability and Workers Compensation benefits...but there will be payback for you at a later time.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The Disability system is really bad and the Workers Compensation system for occupational diseases is far worse!
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Everyday is Sunday when you are disabled.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Your government is the biggest threat to the long term survival of your family.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
America is a beautiful country with an ugly government.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The earliest health insurance policies were designed primarily to compensate for income lost while workers were ill.
”
”
Elisabeth Rosenthal (An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back)
“
Having experienced the Disability and Workers Compensation systems, I can understand why they drive people to suicide.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The USA has created a system of extreme poverty for the permanently disabled by allowing social security and workers compensation to deny the majority of occupational disease claims.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
A wealthy CEO could justify his or her advantages to a lower paid worker on a factory floor as:
"I am not worthier then you nor morally deserving of the privileged position I hold. My generous compensation package is simply an incentive necessary to induce me and others like me, to develop our talents for the benefit of all. It is not your fault that you lack the talent society needs, nor is it my doing that I have such talents in abundance. This is why some of my income is taxed away to help people like you. I do not morally deserve my superior pay and position, but I am entitled to them under fair rules of social cooperation, and remember, you and I would have agreed to these rules had we thought about the matter before we knew who would land on top and whom at the bottom. So please do not resent me, my privileges make you better off than you would otherwise be, the inequality you find galling is for your own good.
”
”
Michael J. Sandel (The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?)
“
One of the ways in which cooperatives rectify the injustices of capitalism is by instituting a relatively equal compensation-scheme for their members. While in the U.S. the average ratio of CEO compensation in the Fortune 500 companies to the ordinary worker’s has recently been reported as 344:1,49 in co-ops the pay-differential between management and the average worker rarely exceeds 4:1. In collectives, everyone is usually paid the same amount. For example, a British study from the 1980s reports that all of the dozens of small co-ops it researched had lower pay-differentials than conventional businesses, and most had little or no differential at all.50 At Arizmendi Bakery everyone currently receives about 20 dollars an hour plus a percentage of the year’s profits. The worker-owners of Mondragon Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Canada earn the same rate of pay. At Equal Exchange, a relatively large co-op, there is a 4:1 pay ratio.
”
”
Chris Wright (Worker Cooperatives and Revolution: History and Possibilities in the United States)
“
You do not seriously think that a corrupt government that is under the control of toxic corporations is going to uphold your legal rights to Disability and Workers Compensation payments, do you?
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Cooperative Care in Wisconsin, which provides care to the elderly, was able to give its 81 members in 2004 relatively high pay, workers’ compensation, ten days’ paid vacation, and 50 to 75 percent health insurance coverage, all only three years after beginning operations.79 Similarly, Cooperative Home Care Associates in the Bronx, New York, founded in 1985, offers its 1700 members “significantly better pay and working conditions than most home health aides.”80
”
”
Chris Wright (Worker Cooperatives and Revolution: History and Possibilities in the United States)
“
The word union itself seemed to be a dog whistle in the South, code for undeserving people of color who needed a union to compensate for some flaw in their character. As the workers spoke, I realized that it couldn’t be a coincidence that, to this day, the region that is the least unionized, with the lowest state minimum wages and the weakest labor protections overall, was the one that had been built on slave labor—on a system that compensated the labor of Black people at exactly zero.
”
”
Heather McGhee (The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (One World Essentials))
“
When people scratch their heads and wonder how it can be that the stock market is booming and executive compensation is at an all-time high but the overall economy is less dynamic and workers are not benefiting, look no further than the trillions of dollars in stock buybacks.
”
”
Alec Ross (The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People - and the Fight for Our Future)
“
There have been ample opportunities since 1945 to show that material superiority in war is not enough if the will to fight is lacking. In Algeria, Vietnam and Afghanistan the balance of economic and military strength lay overwhelmingly on the side of France, the United States, and the Soviet Union, but the will to win was slowly eroded. Troops became demoralised and brutalised. Even a political solution was abandoned. In all three cases the greater power withdrew. The Second World War was an altogether different conflict, but the will to win was every bit as important - indeed it was more so. The contest was popularly perceived to be about issues of life and death of whole communities rather than for their fighting forces alone. They were issues, wrote one American observer in 1939, 'worth dying for'. If, he continued, 'the will-to-destruction triumphs, our resolution to preserve civilisation must become more implacable...our courage must mount'.
Words like 'will' and 'courage' are difficult for historians to use as instruments of cold analysis. They cannot be quantified; they are elusive of definition; they are products of a moral language that is regarded sceptically today, even tainted by its association with fascist rhetoric. German and Japanese leaders believed that the spiritual strength of their soldiers and workers in some indefinable way compensate for their technical inferiority. When asked after the war why Japan lost, one senior naval officer replied that the Japanese 'were short on spirit, the military spirit was weak...' and put this explanation ahead of any material cause. Within Germany, belief that spiritual strength or willpower was worth more than generous supplies of weapons was not confined to Hitler by any means, though it was certainly a central element in the way he looked at the world.
The irony was that Hitler's ambition to impose his will on others did perhaps more than anything to ensure that his enemies' will to win burned brighter still. The Allies were united by nothing so much as a fundamental desire to smash Hitlerism and Japanese militarism and to use any weapon to achieve it. The primal drive for victory at all costs nourished Allied fighting power and assuaged the thirst for vengeance. They fought not only because the sum of their resources added up to victory, but because they wanted to win and were certain that their cause was just.
The Allies won the Second World War because they turned their economic strength into effective fighting power, and turned the moral energies of their people into an effective will to win. The mobilisation of national resources in this broad sense never worked perfectly, but worked well enough to prevail. Materially rich, but divided, demoralised, and poorly led, the Allied coalition would have lost the war, however exaggerated Axis ambitions, however flawed their moral outlook. The war made exceptional demands on the Allied peoples. Half a century later the level of cruelty, destruction and sacrifice that it engendered is hard to comprehend, let alone recapture. Fifty years of security and prosperity have opened up a gulf between our own age and the age of crisis and violence that propelled the world into war. Though from today's perspective Allied victory might seem somehow inevitable, the conflict was poised on a knife-edge in the middle years of the war. This period must surely rank as the most significant turning point in the history of the modern age.
”
”
Richard Overy (Why the Allies Won)
“
General Electric, one of America’s largest corporations, made $14,200,000,000 in profits in 2010 and paid $0 in taxes—that’s right, fourteen BILLION dollars in profits, zero dollars in taxes. Jeffrey Immelt, GE’s CEO, doubled his own compensation package, and at the same time, is asking 15,000 of their unionized workers to make major concessions in wages and benefits.
”
”
Joseph Befumo (The Republicrat Junta: How Two Corrupt Parties, in Collusion with Corporate Criminals, have Subverted Democracy, Deceived the People, and Hijacked Our Constitutional Government)
“
Now, years later and with Carnegie’s blessing, Frick had launched his plan to further consolidate his rule over their industrial kingdom by destroying the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. The labor union, formed in 1876, was one of many that emerged in the industrial age to combat the cruel and oppressive treatment of workers. In the steel mills, workers typically put in 12-hour days, six days a week, for less than a dime an hour. There were no government agencies to inspect the work sites, no forms of compensation in case of injury, and more than 35,000 workers died each year in industrial accidents. Only the unions offered some hope by fighting for higher wages, eight-hour workdays, and improved working conditions.
”
”
James McGrath Morris (Revolution By Murder: Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and the Plot to Kill Henry Clay Frick (Kindle Single))
“
Some argue shareholder capitalism has proven to be more “efficient” than stakeholder capitalism. It has moved economic resources to where they’re most productive, and thereby enabled the economy to grow faster. By this view, stakeholder capitalism locked up resources in unproductive ways, CEOs were too complacent, corporations were too fat—employing workers they didn’t need, and paying them too much—and they were too tied to their communities. It is a tempting argument, but in hindsight a fallacious one. Any change that allows some people to become better off without causing others to be worse off is technically a more “efficient” use of resources. But when all or most of these efficiency gains go to a few people at the top—as has been the case since the 1980s—the common good is not necessarily improved. Just look at the flat or declining wages of most Americans, their growing economic insecurity, and the abandoned communities now littering the nation. Then look at the record corporate profits, soaring CEO pay, and jaw-dropping compensation on Wall Street. All Americans are stakeholders in the American economy, and most stakeholders have not done well.
”
”
Robert B. Reich (The Common Good)
“
Another Presidential election was less than two years off. There would have to be fast work to ward off disaster. Far-sighted people, North and South, even foresaw the laboring people soon forsaking both of the old parties and going Socialist. Politicians and business men shuddered at the thought of such a tragedy and saw horrible visions of old-age pensions, eight-hour laws, unemployment insurance, workingmen’s compensation, minimum-wage legislation, abolition of child labor, dissemination of birth-control information, monthly vacations for female workers, two-month vacations for prospective mothers, both with pay, and the probable killing of individual initiative and incentive by taking the ownership of national capital out of the hands of two million people and putting it into the hands of one hundred and twenty million.
”
”
George S. Schuyler (Black No More (Dover Literature: African American))
“
Unpaid internships lock out millions of talented young people based on class alone. They send the message that work is not labor to be compensated with a living wage, but an act of charity to the powerful, who reward the unpaid worker with "exposure" and "experience." The promotion of unpaid labor has already eroded opportunity—and quality—in fields like journalism and politics. A false meritocracy breeds mediocrity.
”
”
Sarah Kendzior (The View From Flyover Country: Essays by Sarah Kendzior)
“
In 1980, the compensation of the average chief executive officer was forty-two times that of the average worker; by the year 2004, the ratio had soared to 280 times that of the average worker (down from an astonishing 531 times at the peak in 2000). Over the past quarter-century, CEO compensation measured in current dollars rose nearly sixteen times over , while the compensation of the average worker slightly more than doubled. Measured in real(1980) dollars, however, the compensation of the average worker rose just 0.3 percent per year, barely enough to maintain his or her standard of living. Yet CEO compensation rose at a rate of 8.5 percent annually, increasing by more than seven times in real terms during the period. The rationale was that these executives had "created wealth" for their shareholders. But were CEOs actually creating value commensurate with this huge increase in compenstion? Certainly the average CEO was not. In real terms, aggregate corporate profits grew at an annual rate of just 2.9 percent, compared to 3.1 percent for our nation's economy, as represented by the Gross Domestic Product. How that somewhat dispiriting lag can drive average CEO compensation to a cool 9.8 million in 2004 is one of the great anomalies of the age.
”
”
John C. Bogle
“
Nature as a means of reproduction is important for these intellectual workers because the specialisation and one-sidedness of their work generates psychological instability and requires periods of complete relaxation without jarring sensorial stimuli (noise, media, social contacts). Nature is the most efficient compensation for intellectual stress since it represents the unity of body and mind against the capitalist division of labour. Extensive consumption of nature has traditionally been an element of the re-production of intellectual workers. (It started with Rousseau, then came the Romantics, Thoreau, the early tourists, Tolstoi, artists’ colonies in the Alps, etc). The ecological movement responds directly to the class interests of the intellectual sector of the proletariat and the struggle against nuclear power plants is a mere extension of this struggle.
”
”
Anonymous
“
The chief signifi cance of the comprehensive systems of unemployment compensation that have been adopted in all Western countries, however, is that they operate in a labor market dominated by the coercive action of unions and that they have been designed under strong union influence with the aim of assisting the unions in their wage policies. A system in which a worker is regarded as unable to fi nd employment and therefore is entitled to benefit because the workers in the fi rm or industry in which he seeks employment are on strike necessarily becomes a major support of union wage pressure. Such a system, which relieves the unions of the responsibility for the unemployment that their policies create and which places on the state the burden not merely of maintaining but of keeping content those who are kept out of jobs by them, can in the long run only make the employment problem more acute.
”
”
Friedrich A. Hayek (The Constitution of Liberty)
“
Interruptions are especially destructive to people who need to concentrate – knowledge workers like hardware engineers, graphic designers, lawyers, writers, architects, accountants, and so on. Research by Gloria Mark and her colleagues shows that it takes people an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from an interruption and return to the task they had been working on – which happens because interruptions destroy their train of thought and divert attention to other tasks. A related study shows that although employees who experience interruptions compensate by working faster when they return to what they were doing, this speed comes at a cost, including feeling frustrated, stressed, and harried. Some interruptions are unavoidable and are part of the work – but as a boss, the more trivial and unnecessary intrusions you can absorb, the more work your people will do and the less their mental health will suffer.
”
”
Robert I. Sutton (Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst)
“
In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other's control techniques. A worker is a part-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation… The demeaning system of domination I've described rules over half the waking hours of a majority of women and the vast majority of men for decades, for most of their lifespans. For certain purposes it's not too misleading to call our system democracy or capitalism or -- better still -- industrialism, but its real names are factory fascism and office oligarchy. Anybody who says these people are "free" is lying or stupid.
”
”
Bob Black (The Abolition of Work)
“
At the moment, most organizations remain stuck in the productivity quicksand of the hyperactive hive mind workflow, content to focus on tweaks meant to compensate for its worst excesses. It’s this mindset that leads to “solutions” like improving expectations around email response times or writing better subject lines. It leads us to embrace text autocomplete in Gmail, so we can write messages faster, or the search feature in Slack, so we can more quickly find what we’re looking for amid the scrum of back-and-forth chatter. These are the knowledge work equivalents of speeding up the craft method of car manufacturing by giving the workers faster shoes. It’s a small victory won in the wrong war.
”
”
Cal Newport (A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload)
“
Economic growth springs not chiefly from incentives—carrots and sticks, rewards and punishments for workers and entrepreneurs. The incentive theory of capitalism allows its critics to depict it as an inhumane scheme of clever manipulation of human needs and hungers scarcely superior to the more benign forms of slavery. Wealth actually springs from the expansion of information and learning, profits and creativity that enhance the human qualities of its beneficiaries as it enriches them. Workers’ learning increasingly compensates for their labor, which imparts knowledge as it extracts work. Joining knowledge and power, capitalism focuses on the entropy of human minds and the benefits of freedom. Thus it is the most humane of all economic systems.
”
”
George Gilder (Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World)
“
This cult of distraction, as Rojek points out, masks the real disintegration of culture. It conceals the meaninglessness and emptiness of our own lives. It seduces us to engage in imitative consumption. It deflects the moral questions arising from mounting social injustice, growing inequalities, costly imperial wars, economic collapse, and political corruption. The wild pursuit of status and wealth has destroyed our souls and our economy. Families live in sprawling mansions financed with mortgages they can no longer repay. Consumers recklessly rang up Coach handbags and Manolo Blahnik shoes on credit cards because they seemed to confer a sense of identity and merit. Our favorite hobby, besides television, used to be, until reality hit us like a tsunami, shopping. Shopping used to be the compensation for spending five days a week in tiny cubicles. American workers are ground down by corporations that have disempowered them, used them, and have now discarded them.
”
”
Chris Hedges (Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle)
“
The demographic ageing of Europe and other leading industrial countries is multiplied by the economic burden of immigration. For the time being, we can still hold out, but this will not last. The lack of active workers, the burden of retirees and the expenses of healthcare will end, from 2005-2010, with burdening European economies with debt. Gains in productivity and technological advances (the famous ‘primitive accumulation of fixed capital’, the economists’ magic cure) will never be able to match the external demographic costs. Lastly, far from compensating for the losses of the working-age native-born population, the colonising immigration Europe is experiencing involves first of all welfare recipients and unskilled workers. In addition, this immigration represents a growing expense (insecurity, the criminal economy, urban policies, etc.). An economic collapse of Europe, the world’s leading commercial power, would drag down with it the United States and the entire Western economy.
”
”
Guillaume Faye (Convergence of Catastrophes)
“
Apple's approach to career development is yet another way it runs contrary to the norms at other companies. The prevalent attitude for workers in the corporate world is to consider their growth trajectory. What's my path up? How do I get to the next level? Companies, in turn, spend an inordinate amount of time and money grooming their people for new responsibilities. They labor to find just the right place for people. But what if it turns out all that thinking is wrong? What if companies encouraged employees to be satisfied where they are because they're good at what they do, not to mention because that might be what's best for shareholders?
Instead of employees fretting that they were stuck in terminal jobs, what if they exalted in having found their perfect jobs? A certain amount of office politics might evaporate in a corporate culture where career growth is not considered tantamount to professional fulfilment. Shareholders, after all, don't care about fiefdoms and egos. There are many professionals who would find it liberating to work at what they are good at, receive competitive killer compensation, and not have to worry about supervising others or jockeying for higher rungs on an org chart.
”
”
Adam Lashinsky (Inside Apple)
“
But guess what happened. Once salaries became public information, the media regularly ran special stories ranking CEOs by pay. Rather than suppressing the executive perks, the publicity had CEOs in America comparing their pay with that of everyone else. In response, executives’ salaries skyrocketed. The trend was further “helped” by compensation consulting firms (scathingly dubbed “Ratchet, Ratchet, and Bingo” by the investor Warren Buffett) that advised their CEO clients to demand outrageous raises. The result? Now the average CEO makes about 369 times as much as the average worker—about three times the salary before executive compensation went public. Keeping that in mind, I had a few questions for the executive I met with. “What would happen,” I ventured, “if the information in your salary database became known throughout the company?” The executive looked at me with alarm. “We could get over a lot of things here—insider trading, financial scandals, and the like—but if everyone knew everyone else’s salary, it would be a true catastrophe. All but the highest-paid individual would feel underpaid—and I wouldn’t be surprised if they went out and looked for another job.” Isn’t this odd? It has been shown repeatedly that the link between amount of salary and happiness is not as strong as one would expect it to be
”
”
Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)
“
The market is the first force that has led to the shriveling of citizenship. The classic case is the Wal-Mart effect. A town has a Main Street of small businesses and mom-and-pop shops. The shopkeepers and their customers have relationships that are not just about economic transactions but are set in a context of family, neighborhood, people, and place. Then Wal-Mart comes to town. It offers lower prices. It offers convenience. Because of its scale and might in the marketplace, it can compensate its workers stingily and drive out competition. The presence of Wal-Mart leads the townspeople to think of themselves primarily as consumers, and to shed other aspects of their identities, like being neighbors or parishioners or friends. As consumers first, they gravitate to the place with the lowest prices. Wal-Mart thrives. The small businesses struggle and lay off workers. They cut back on their sponsorship of tee ball, their support of the food bank. As the mom-and-pops give way to the big box, and commutes become necessary, lives become more frenetic and stressful. People see each other less often. The sense of mutual obligation that townsfolk once shared starts to evaporate. Microhabits of caring and sociability fall away. In this tableau of libertarian citizenship, market forces triumph and everyone gets better deals—yet everyone is now in many senses poorer.
”
”
Eric Liu (The Gardens of Democracy: A New American Story of Citizenship, the Economy, and the Role of Government)
“
It is not surprising to see a corrupt government running a fraudulent disability and workers compensation system.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Your expectation should be that you will be blatantly denied disability and workers compensation payments for your disabling occupational diseases.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Labor also dominates stories of elite income at the next rung down. Although only three hedge fund managers took home over $1 billion in 2017, more than twenty-five took home $100 million or more, and $10 million incomes are so common that they do not make the papers. Even only modestly elite finance workers now receive huge paydays. According to one survey, a portfolio manager at a midsized hedge fund makes on average $2.4 million, and average Wall Street bonuses exploded from roughly $14,000 in 1985 to more than $180,000 in 2017, a year in which the average total salary for New York City’s 175,000 securities industry workers reached over $420,000. These sums reflect the fact that a typical investment bank disburses roughly half of its revenues after interest paid to its professional workers (making it a better three decades to be an elite banker than to be an owner of bank stocks). Elite managers in the real economy also do well. CEO incomes—the wages paid to top managerial labor—regularly reach seven figures; indeed, the average 2017 income of the CEO of an S&P 500 company was nearly $14 million. In a typical recent year the total compensation paid to the five highest-paid employees of each S&P 1500 firm (7,500 workers overall) might amount to 10 percent of S&P 1500 firms’ collective profits. These workers do not own the assets—the portfolios or the companies—that they manage. Their incomes constitute wages paid for managerial labor rather than a return on invested capital. The enormous paydays reflect what prominent business analysts recently called a war between talent and capital—a war that talent is winning.
”
”
Daniel Markovits (The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite)
“
Disabled in the USA? Expect to be mistreated by your toxic government.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Workers Compensation lawyers are one of the most toxic groups of people I have met in life.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
I will remember the USA as a country that scams their disabled.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
There’s nothing offensive about this pragmatism. The relationship between money and voluntariness is too complex to be summarized in one or even many paragraphs of a code. Most people wouldn’t go to work if they weren’t paid, and yet rarely is it suggested that there should be laws to stop them working. Workers in dangerous occupations tend to get paid more: again it is rarely suggested that compensation for risks is contrary to public policy.
”
”
Charles Foster (Medical Law: A Very Short Introduction)
“
Being terminated for any of the items listed below may constitute wrongful termination:
Discrimination: The employer cannot terminate employment because the employee is a certain race, nationality, religion, sex, age, or (in some jurisdictions) sexual orientation.
Retaliation: An employer cannot fire an employee because the employee filed a claim of discrimination or is participating in an investigation for discrimination. In the US, this "retaliation" is forbidden under civil rights law.
Reporting a Violation of Law to Government Authorities: also known as a whistleblower law, an employee who falls under whistleblower protections may not lawfully be fired for reporting an employer's legal violation or for similar activity that is protected by the law.
Employee's refusal to commit an illegal act: An employer is not permitted to fire an employee because the employee refuses to commit an act that is illegal.
Employer is not following the company's own termination procedures: In some cases, an employee handbook or company policy outlines a procedure that must be followed before an employee is terminated. If the employer fires an employee without following this procedure, depending upon the laws of the jurisdiction in which the termination occurs, the employee may have a claim for wrongful termination.
…
In the United States, termination of employment is not legal if it is based on your membership in a group protected from discrimination by law. It is unlawful for an employer to terminate an employee based upon factors including employee's race, religion, national origin, sex, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, or age (over 40), pursuant to U.S. federal laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967.
…
Many laws also prohibit termination, even of at-will employees. For example, whistleblower laws may protect an employee who reports a legal or safety violation by the employer to an appropriate oversight agency. Most states prohibit employers from firing employees in retaliation for filing a workers' compensation claim, or making a wage complaint over unpaid wages.
[firing someone for political affiliation or activism away from work is not on the list]
”
”
Wikipedia: wrongful dismissal
“
The victories these unions won reshaped work for us all. The forty-hour workweek, overtime pay, employer health insurance and retirement benefits, worker compensation—all these components of a “good job” came from collective bargaining and union advocacy with governments in the late 1930s and ’40s. And the power to win these benefits came from solidarity—Black, white, and brown, men and women, immigrant and native-born.
”
”
Heather McGhee (The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together (One World Essentials))
“
The Charlotte NC Work Comp Lawyers Group represents those people who have been injured on the job. We represent those workers in Charlotte North Carolina and the surrounding areas. Our work comp attorneys also represent those injured workers in all cities in North Carolina, including Greensboro, Raleigh, Wilmington and Asheville to name just a few. We are available for consultation and free case evaluation of your worker's compensation claim by appointment over the phone. We work with all insurance companies as wells as the medical community to provide the very best service to those who have been injured on the job.
”
”
Charlotte NC Work Comp Lawyers Group
“
Based in Queens, NY, K. L. Sanchez Law Office P.C. is a top-rated construction accident lawyer, car accident lawyer, immigration lawyer, workers compensation lawyer, and a criminal defense attorney. Spanish-speaking lawyers are available for a free consultation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. If you've been injured on a construction site in Queens, the Bronx or anywhere else in New York City, we may be able to help.
”
”
K L Sanchez Law Office
“
During the forty years from 1978 to 2018, typical workers saw their compensation rise by a meager 12 percent; CEO compensation, meanwhile, ballooned by 940 percent. As of 2020, home health and personal care aides, one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy, took home $27,080 per year on average. Other workers who provide socially necessary care, like preschool teachers, take home just over $30,500 a year. Food and service workers, meanwhile, take home just $21,250 a year. For the 7.5 million US residents who work these three jobs—and for the families dependent on them—staying afloat is a constant struggle, if not an impossibility. I wish I could say these occupations were the anomaly, but they’re not. What was once America’s working class is today its working poor.19 The
”
”
Mark V. Paul (The Ends of Freedom: Reclaiming America's Lost Promise of Economic Rights)
“
The worst mine fire in United States history, in 1909 in Cherry, Illinois, moved the country closer to worker’s compensation laws. Karen Tintori has documented the Cherry Mine catastrophe, in which 259 men and boys perished. Tintori cites Maryland legislation of 1902 “to protect injured workers” and adds, “but the concept of a comprehensive worker’s compensation act did not take firm hold until Cherry.
”
”
Alvin F. Oickle (Disaster in Lawrence: The Fall of the Pemberton Mill)
“
I am just one of the many Americans that has been blatantly denied their Disability and Workers Compensation benefits.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
I would never have realized how crooked the USA government was had I not gone through the OSHA, Disability and Workers Compensation systems.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
If you want to understand how legal fraud works, study the Workers Compensation system for occupational diseases that rarely upholds a genuine claim.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The safest assumptions that workers can make in the USA is that they do not have the right to a safe workplace and they will not get Disability and Workers Compensation for occupational diseases if they become too sick to work.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
As countries became postindustrial, educated, and internationally linked, their rulers had to adapt—or, at least, pretend to. Amid the third wave of democracy, liberal norms spread worldwide.
The force of this modernizing onslaught was what eventually caused the losers to rally. Today’s nativist populism—in both West and East—unites the economic resentment and obsolescent values of those hurt by the postindustrial transition. Workers and others from dying industrial regions; owners of polluting factories and mines; farmers and rural laborers; the illiberal old, disoriented by value change—all come together in a powerful but gradually shrinking coalition. That coalition furnishes support for populists in advanced democracies and spin dictators in semi-modernized autocracies. Instead of compensating and reintegrating economic losers, such leaders exploit them.
”
”
Sergei Guriev (Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st Century)
“
It was the difference, in other words, between a cobbler being paid to repair a shoe (a project that has a defined endpoint and a clear way to measure success) and a factory worker being compensated by the hour for performing tasks that theoretically could be repeated indefinitely. The latter creates financial incentives for people to keep working for as long as they can bear it, in order to earn more money.
”
”
Catherine Price (The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again)
“
In 1970 alone, 2.4 million union members participated in work stoppages, wildcat strikes, and tense standoffs with company heads. Their efforts paid off. Worker pay climbed, CEO compensation was reined in, and the country experienced the most economically equitable period in modern history.
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)
“
Founded in 1957, Lakewood Electrical Services has earned a strong reputation for quality, service, and professional reliability. Now led by Jim Ramsay, son of the founding father, Lakewood provides full electrical design and installation services to industrial, commercial, mining, construction, and government clients across Australia. With a commitment to delivering the best energy solutions, Lakewood ensures every project meets the highest safety standards. Backed by public liability and workers' compensation insurance, you can trust Lakewood to handle all your electrical needs with expertise and care.
”
”
Lakewood Electrical Services Pty Limited
“
You can deny my workers compensation for occupational disease and I can tell people you denied me when I was too sick to work because of your toxic workplace exposures.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The government follows a business model of enriching healthy workers and depletion of assets from the sick and disabled.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The government is toxic!
”
”
Steven Magee
“
The full implications of the new hiring arrangements instituted by the Blacks were now being felt. No longer employees of the shipping line, the musicians were not covered by insurance taken out for employees, nor were they covered by the Workmen’s Compensation Act (1906), which generally gave a worker “a right against his employer to a certain compensation on the mere occurrence of an accident where the common law gives the right only for negligence of the employer.
”
”
Steve Turner (The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic)
“
The only policy covering the musicians was one the Blacks and White Star took out jointly from the recently established (1907) Legal Insurance Company, but it soon transpired that the insurers were quibbling over the scope of the word dependent. Wives and children were obviously dependents, but could working fathers, such as Andrew Hume and Ronald Brailey, honestly describe themselves as such? This meant that neither of the two main parties—White Star and the Black brothers—was making immediate contributions to the families. Outraged by this, three of the fathers—Leon Bricoux, Andrew Hume, and Ronald Brailey—mounted a legal case against C. W. & F. N. Black in June 1912, arguing that as workers who had lost their lives while carrying out their duties and through no fault of their own, their sons should be covered by the strictures of the Workmen’s Compensation Act. There had never been any suggestion that they’d brought about their fate through negligence or misbehavior.
”
”
Steve Turner (The Band That Played On: The Extraordinary Story of the 8 Musicians Who Went Down with the Titanic)
“
When Karl Marx elaborated upon the savage exploitation of workers by the capitalists, he described that due to extensive mechanization and division of labour, the work of the proletarians lost its exclusive character and became dull and monotonous increasing the repulsiveness of work while decreasing the wages. However, in the case of dowry extortion, the women are oppressed in multiple ways. The authoritative Brahminic ideology that propagates the dowry, forcibly extorts wealth from a woman and her family, mercilessly exploits her labour, and simultaneously deprives of her any wages or any monetary compensation for her extensive contribution behind the veil of labour of love and the rhetoric of sacrifices for the sake of family.
”
”
Shalu Nigam
“
In 1970 alone, 2.4 million union members participated in work stoppages, wildcat strikes, and tense standoffs with company heads. Their efforts paid off. Worker pay climbed, CEO compensation was reined in, and the country experienced the most economically equitable period in modern history
”
”
Matthew Desmond (Poverty, by America)
“
When I stepped out of the conference room, the atmosphere had changed. I knew what this meant: a new fact was in circulation. It was horrible to see the excitement in the faces of my co-workers. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it changed my perception of them, for the worse. It changed my self-perception, too. Why had I committed so much of my life to these people? There is more to work than labor and compensation and being of service and achieving a state of flow. There is also the day-to-day human element. You want to look into the faces of your co-workers and like what you see there.
”
”
Joseph O'Neill (Godwin: A Novel)
“
H&S Law Group LLC is a full-service law firm located in Parsippany-Troy Hills, NJ. Some of their practice areas include personal injury law, criminal law, real estate law, workers’ compensation, civil litigation, employment litigation. We are dedicated to providing exceptional legal representation and personalized services to our clients. Our address is 1719 NJ-10 Suite 302, Parsippany-Troy Hills, NJ 07054.
”
”
H and S Law Group LLC
“
Barwick Boitano Lawyers has been catering to clients located in Parramatta & Sydney's West since 1991.Click here to view: http://bblawyers.com.au/
”
”
Sydney workers compensation
“
announced that families of victims would receive compensation for their loss based in part on the salary each victim was earning at the time of his or her death. After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Congress had taken the unprecedented step of assuming national responsibility for restitution to the families of the victims. Though the inspiration for this decision was to forestall expensive lawsuits against the airline industry, many observers took it as a signal of a new spirit in the land: in the face of national tragedy, political leaders were i nally breaking with the jungle survivalism of the Reagan-Clinton years. But even in death, the market—and the inequalities it generates—was the only language America’s leaders knew how to speak. Abandoning the notion of shared sacrii ce, Feinberg opted for the actuarial tables to calculate appropriate compensation packages. The family of a single sixty-i ve-year-old grandmother earning $10,000 a year—perhaps a minimum-wage kitchen worker—would draw $300,000 from the fund, while the family of a thirty-year-old Wall Street trader would get $3,870,064. The men and women killed on September 11 were not citizens of a democracy; they were earners, and rewards would be distributed accordingly. Virtually no one—not even the commentators and politicians who denounced the Feinberg calculus for other reasons—criticized this aspect of his decision. 28
”
”
Anonymous
“
Moreover, these changes occurred when most American households actually found their real incomes stagnant or declining. Median household income for the last four decades is shown in the chart above. But this graph, disturbing as it is, conceals a far worse reality. The top 10 percent did much better than everyone else; if you remove them, the numbers change dramatically. Economic analysis has found that “only the top 10 percent of the income distribution had real compensation growth equal to or above . . . productivity growth.”14 In fact, most gains went to the top 1 percent, while people in the bottom 90 percent either had declining household incomes or were able to increase their family incomes only by working longer hours. The productivity of workers continued to grow, particularly with the Internet revolution that began in the mid-1990s. But the benefits of productivity growth went almost entirely into the incomes of the top 1 percent and into corporate profits, both of which have grown to record highs as a fraction of GNP. In 2010 and 2011 corporate profits accounted for over 14 percent of total GNP, a historical record. In contrast, the share of US GNP paid as wages and salaries is at a historical low and has not kept pace with inflation since 2006.15 As I was working on this manuscript in late 2011, the US Census Bureau published the income statistics for 2010, when the US recovery officially began. The national poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, its highest level in nearly twenty years; median household income declined by 2.3 percent. This decline, however, was very unequally distributed. The top tenth experienced a 1 percent decline; the bottom tenth, already desperately poor, saw its income decline 12 percent. America’s median household income peaked in 1999; by 2010 it had declined 7 percent. Average hourly income, which corrects for the number of hours worked, has barely changed in the last thirty years. Ranked by income equality, the US is now ninety-fifth in the world, just behind Nigeria, Iran, Cameroon, and the Ivory Coast. The UK has mimicked the US; even countries with low levels of inequality—including Denmark and Sweden—have seen an increasing gap since the crisis. This is not a distinguished record. And it’s not a statistical fluke. There is now a true, increasingly permanent underclass living in near-subsistence conditions in many wealthy states. There are now tens of millions of people in the US alone whose condition is little better than many people in much poorer nations. If you add up lifetime urban ghetto residents, illegal immigrants, migrant farm-workers, those whose criminal convictions sharply limit their ability to find work, those actually in prison, those with chronic drug-abuse problems, crippled veterans of America’s recently botched wars, children in foster care, the homeless, the long-term unemployed, and other severely disadvantaged groups, you get to tens of millions of people trapped in very harsh, very unfair conditions, in what is supposedly the wealthiest, fairest society on earth. At any given time, there are over two million people in US prisons; over ten million Americans have felony records and have served prison time for non-traffic offences. Many millions more now must work very long hours, and very hard, at minimum-wage jobs in agriculture, retailing, cleaning, and other low-wage service industries. Several million have been unemployed for years, exhausting their savings and morale. Twenty or thirty years ago, many of these people would have had—and some did have—high-wage jobs in manufacturing or construction. No more. But in addition to growing inequalities in income and wealth, America exhibits
”
”
Charles H. Ferguson (Inside Job: The Rogues Who Pulled Off the Heist of the Century)
“
As an illustration of the excesses of our time, all three men point to the gross inflation of executive compensation, which was 20 times an average worker’s pay in 1973 and is roughly 260 times an average worker’s salary today.
”
”
Marc Lamont Hill (Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond)
“
Even when we can pinpoint “something good” that came out of a tragedy, it never balances out what we have lost. How could anything compensate Naomi for the loss of her husband and sons? What could possibly make up for Job’s losses of his children and his workers? Can any trade-off fill the void in a woman’s heart when her longings for a child go unanswered and her husband rejects her and turns to another woman? No, the balance sheet always comes up short when we try to confine God in some delicate balancing act where the physical blessings we receive match and somehow overcome our losses.
”
”
Carolyn Custis James (The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules)
“
With Hitler, too, we see a dedicated socialist who, shortly after assuming the leadership of the German Workers’ Party, changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). In statement after statement, Hitler could not be clearer about his socialist commitments. He said, for example, in a 1927 speech, “We are socialists. We are the enemies of today’s capitalist system of exploitation . . . and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”36 The Nazi Party at the outset offered a twenty-five point program that included nationalization of large corporations and trusts, government control of banking and credit, the seizure of land without compensation for public use, the splitting of large landholdings into smaller units, confiscation of war profits, prosecution of bankers and other lenders on grounds of usury, abolition of incomes unearned by work, profit sharing for workers in all large companies, a broader pension system paying higher benefits, and universal free health care and education. If you read the Nazi platform without knowing its source, you could easily be forgiven for thinking you were reading the 2016 platform of the Democratic Party. Or at least a Democratic platform drafted jointly by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Sure, some of the language is out of date. The Democrats can’t talk about “usury” these days; they’d have to substitute “Wall Street greed.” But otherwise, it’s all there. All you have to do is cross out the word “Nazi” and write in the word “Democrat.
”
”
Dinesh D'Souza (The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left)
“
Usenet bulletin-board posting, August 21, 1994: Well-capitalized start-up seeks extremely talented C/C++/Unix developers to help pioneer commerce on the Internet. You must have experience designing and building large and complex (yet maintainable) systems, and you should be able to do so in about one-third the time that most competent people think possible. You should have a BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or the equivalent. Top-notch communication skills are essential. Familiarity with web servers and HTML would be helpful but is not necessary. Expect talented, motivated, intense, and interesting co-workers. Must be willing to relocate to the Seattle area (we will help cover moving costs). Your compensation will include meaningful equity ownership. Send resume and cover letter to Jeff Bezos.
”
”
Brad Stone (The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon)
“
Most free trade economists would accept that there are winners and losers from trade liberalization but argue that their existence cannot be an argument against trade liberalization. Trade liberalization brings overall gains. As the winners gain more than what is lost by the losers, the winners can make up all the latters' losses and still have something left for themselves. This is known as the 'compensation principle'-if the winners from an economic change can fully compensate the losers and still have something left, the change is worth making.
The first problem with this line of argument is that trade liberalization does not necessarily bring overall gain. Even if there are winners from the process, their gains may not be as large as the losses suffered by the losers-for example, when trade liberalization reduces the growth rate or even make the economy shrink, as has happened in many developing countries in the past two decades.
Moreover, even if the winners gain more than the losers lose, the compensation is not automatically made through the workings of the market, which means that some people will be worse off than before. Trade liberalization will benefit everyone only when the displaced workers can get better (or at least equally good) jobs quickly, and when the discharged machines can be re-shaped into new machines-which is rarely.
”
”
Ha-Joon Chang (Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism)
“
If, as Ricardo had argued, all economic value was derived from human labor, then the capitalist prospered by paying workers less than the value that they had added and pocketing the difference. To secure the maximum profit, the capitalist paid the worker only enough for his subsistence. Surplus value, then, is the value produced by the worker beyond what he is compensated. Thus the capitalist's profit came from the exploiting the worker. Although unequivocal in his dogmas of history and of economics, Marx's lively mind occasionally rebelled at hints of orthodoxy. And he more than once declared, "I am not a Marxist.
”
”
Daniel J. Boorstin (The Seekers: The Story of Man's Continuing Quest to Understand His World)
“
But insurance is nothing more than a name we give to risk-pooling arrangements that are organized through private markets. When these markets fail, it is possible to pool risks in other ways. The corporation provides a perfect example of how people can arrange to share risks without the mediation of explicit market mechanisms. For example, there are many types of production processes that call for very specialized skills. The division of labour is itself an enormous source of efficiency gains. Unfortunately, acquiring highly specialized skills can be extremely risky for an individual, because the future is uncertain. While I may know that there is adequate demand for my skills now, I have no idea what things will be like five years down the road. As a result, no one may be willing to invest the time and energy needed to acquire specialized skills, because it is too risky. This efficiency loss could be avoided if it were possible to buy some kind of insurance that would compensate people when there was some fluctuation in the demand for their skills. Unfortunately, no one would ever want to sell this type of insurance because of obvious moral-hazard problems—people would lose all incentive to market or upgrade their skills. So private markets will simply fail to provide this type of insurance. Corporations, however, are able to provide such insurance to workers through bureaucratic means.
”
”
Joseph Heath (The Efficient Society: Why Canada Is As Close To Utopia As It Gets)
“
The 8 Basic Headers Work Family & Kids Spouse Health & Fitness Home Money Recreation & Hobbies Prospects for the Future Work The Boss Time Management Compensation Level of interest Co-workers Chances of promotion My Job Description Subordinates Family Relationship with spouse Relationship with children Relationship with extended family Home, chores and responsibilities Recreation & hobbies Money, expenses and allowances Lifestyle and standard of living Future planes and arrangements Spouse Communication type and intensity Level of independence Sharing each other's passions Division of roles and responsibilities Our time together Our planes for our future Decision making Love & Passion Health & Fitness General health Level of fitness Healthy lifestyle Stress factors Self awareness Self improvement Level of expense on health & fitness Planning and preparing for the rest of my life Home Comfort Suitability for needs Location Community and municipal services Proximity and quality of support/activity centers (i.e. school. Medical aid etc) Rent/Mortgage Repair / renovation Emotional atmosphere Money Income from work Passive income Savings and pension funds Monthly expenses Special expenses Ability to take advantage of opportunities / fulfill dreams Financial security / resilience Financial IQ / Understanding / Independent decision making Social, Recreation & Hobbies Free time Friends and social activity Level & quality of social ties Level of spending on S, R&H Culture events (i.e. theater, fairs etc) Space & accessories required Development over time Number of interests Prospect for the future Type of occupation Ratio of work to free time Promotion & Business development (for entrepreneurs) Health & Fitness Relationships Family and Home Financial security Fulfillment of vision / dreams Creating Lenses with Excel If you wish to use Excel radar diagrams to simulate lenses, follow these steps: Open a new Excel spreadsheet.
”
”
Shmaya David (15 Minutes Coaching: A "Quick & Dirty" Method for Coaches and Managers to Get Clarity About Any Problem (Tools for Success))
“
Compensation Level of interest Co-workers Chances of promotion My Job Description Subordinates
”
”
Shmaya David (15 Minutes Coaching: A "Quick & Dirty" Method for Coaches and Managers to Get Clarity About Any Problem (Tools for Success))
“
Republicans’ cultural and racial appeals. Union membership, once a bulwark for Democrats in states like West Virginia, declined. Being part of a union is an important part of someone’s personal identity. It helps shape the way you view the world and think about politics. When that’s gone, it means a lot of people stop identifying primarily as workers—and voting accordingly—and start identifying and voting more as white, male, rural, or all of the above. Just look at Don Blankenship, the coal boss who joined the protest against me on his way to prison. In recent years, even as the coal industry has struggled and workers have been laid off, top executives like him have pocketed huge pay increases, with compensation rising 60 percent between 2004 and 2016. Blankenship endangered his workers, undermined their union, and polluted their rivers and streams, all while making big profits and contributing millions to Republican candidates. He should have been the least popular man in West Virginia even before he was convicted in the wake of the death of twenty-nine miners. Instead, he was welcomed by the pro-Trump protesters in Williamson. One of them told a reporter that he’d vote for Blankenship for President if he ran. Meanwhile, I pledged to strengthen the laws to protect workers and hold bosses like Blankenship accountable—the fact that he received a jail sentence of just one year was appalling—yet I was the one being protested.
”
”
Hillary Rodham Clinton (What Happened)
“
Moreover, even if they are eventually weeded out, one-sided managerial compensation packages impose huge costs on the rest of the economy while they last. The workers have to be constantly squeezed through downward pressure on wages, casualization of employment and permanent downsizing, so that the managers can generate enough extra profits to distribute to the shareholders and keep them from raising issues with high executive pay (for more on this, see Thing 2).
”
”
Ha-Joon Chang (23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism)
“
consciousness. Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton (1848) and North and South (1855), Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley (1849), George Eliot’s Silas Marner (1861) and many other such literary portrayals appeared in these years to testify to this growing attention. A novel might have been written about the travails of Davitt’s life too. As a child he was employed in the cotton industry, working in the local mills that resounded to the din of vast and deafening spinning machines that regularly nipped off workers’ limbs and scalps; in 1857, Davitt himself lost an arm to one of these machines and was dismissed from the works without compensation. In his teens, he managed to acquire an education
”
”
Neil Hegarty (The Story of Ireland: A History of the Irish People)
“
DEVOTION TO GOD’S KINGDOM OVER SELF OR TRIBE ENABLES SACRIFICE People in a church with movement dynamics put the vision ahead of their own interests and needs. What matters to the members and staff is not their own individual interests, power, and perks, but the fulfillment of the vision. They want to see it realized through them, and this satisfaction is their main compensation. The willingness to sacrifice on the part of workers and members is perhaps the key practical index of whether you have become a movement or have become institutionalized. Members of a church with movement dynamics tend to be more self-motivated and need less direct oversight. They are self-starters. How does this happen? Selfless devotion is not something that leaders can create — indeed, it would be dangerous emotional manipulation to try to bring this about directly. Only leaders who have the vision and devotion can kindle this sacrificial spirit in others. A dynamic Christian movement convinces its people — truthfully — that they are participating in God’s redemptive plan in a profoundly important and practical way. Participants say things like, “I’ve never felt more useful to the Lord and to others.” Church meetings in movement-oriented churches feel deeply spiritual. There is much more “majoring in the majors” — the cross, the Spirit, the grace of Jesus. People spend more time in worship and prayer.
”
”
Timothy J. Keller (Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City)
“
[Obama] was highly praised, including by his supporters, for his statesmanlike attitude during the lame-duck session, bipartisanship, and getting legislation through. What did he get through? The main achievement was a huge tax cut for the extremely wealthy...Meanwhile, at the same time, he initiated a tax increase on federal workers. Of course, no one called it a tax increase. That doesn't sound good. They called it a pay freeze. But a pay freeze on public-sector workers is exactly the same thing as a tax increase. So we punish public-sector workers and reward the executives of Goldman Sachs, who just announced a $17.5 billion compensation package for themselves.
”
”
Noam Chomsky (Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire (American Empire Project))
“
Wave off your worries of getting in an auto accident at no fault of your own. Call Ron Schreiber at The Schreiber Law Firm for help with your case and let Ron go to bat for you.
”
”
The Schreiber Law Firm
“
physical activity level (PAL), the ratio of the energy you spend per day relative to the energy you would spend by resting in bed and doing absolutely nothing. PALs for male adults with clerical or administrative jobs that involve sitting all day long average 1.56 in developed countries and 1.61 in less developed countries; in contrast, PALs for workers involved in manufacturing or farming average 1.78 in developed countries and 1.86 in less developed countries.17 Hunter-gatherer PALs average 1.85, about the same as those of farmers or other people whose job requires them to be active.18 Therefore, the amount of energy a typical office worker spends being active on an average day has decreased by roughly 15 percent for many people in the last generation or two. Such a reduction is not trivial. If an average-sized male farmer or carpenter who spends approximately 3,000 calories per day suddenly switches to a sedentary lifestyle by retiring, his energy expenditure will decline by about 450 calories a day. Unless he compensates by eating a lot less or exercising more intensively, he’ll grow obese.
”
”
Daniel E. Lieberman (The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease)
“
In order for a person to work at a church legally as an independent contractor, we believe it is prudent to consider the following guidelines: · The church cannot substantially direct the person’s duties; the church can only give them overall tasks to complete. · The church cannot control or set their hours that they work. · Since their “company” provides the service, they can send anyone to do the job. · They cannot have an office at the church that is their primary office. · It cannot be their only source of income. · The church needs to have a written contract in place including cost, delivery of Services, duration (i.e. six months, one year, etc.) and a termination clause. · They cannot participate in any employee benefits plans (insurance, retirement plans, etc). · The contractor must provide annual proof of worker’s comp and liability insurance naming the church as additionally insured or the church could be held liable in the event of a claim. · The church must issue a 1099 at the end of the year for all contract wages paid if the total amount for the year exceeds $600.00 to one contractor. We strongly recommend that no payments are made until an accurate and fully completed W-9 is completed by the contractor and on file at the church. Given these requirements, many workers such as those in the nursery, kitchens, and other service areas are not 1099 contractors, but employees. Regarding interim pastors, there is disagreement over whether they should receive a W-2 or 1099. Factors such as length of service, who supervises them, and whether they are a contractor, come into play in the decision on how to report their salary. For the best practice we recommend always using the W-2 to report salaries, but seeking tax and legal counsel would be wise to avoid any future IRS issues. While there are advantages to the church to pay independent contractors who regularly work for the church such as avoiding the need to pay the employer's part of the FICA tax and the ease of terminating their services, we would recommend against their regular use. We recommend against the use of independent contractors (that regularly work at the church) because we believe it can create the following problems for the church: · Less control over the position · Leaves the church open to an IRS challenge, which the church only has a 50/50 chance of defending, not to mention the cost and hassle of litigation · In the event of insurance claims, the church may encounter issues with worker’s compensation coverage or liability insurance coverage such as sexual misconduct, etc. · The church is open to contract disputes with the independent contractor · Based on how the individual/company is filing their taxes, it could bring an unwanted tax audit to the church Our conclusion is that we do not see enough cost-saving advantages for the church to move in this direction. It also creates unnecessary red flags for the IRS. The other looming question is, why is this such an important issue for such a small incremental (if any) tax break for the individual? Because the independent contractor will have to pay employer FICA, we don’t see any large tax advantage for this shift. They can claim mileage and some home office expense (maybe), but it just does not amount to enough to place the church at risk. Here are some detailed guidelines
”
”
Jeffrey A. Klick (Pastoral Helmsmanship)
“
high cash compensation teaches workers to claim value from the company as it already exists instead of investing their time to create new value in the future.
”
”
Peter Thiel (Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future)
“
But the latest improvement comes amid other signs of diminishing slack in the labor market. More and more workers are quitting jobs for better ones, after years in which they settled for anything they could find, forcing companies to consider boosting compensation.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Carlton Church: Japan Finally Acknowledges Negative Nuclear Effects
One of the leading sources of news and information, Thomson Reuters, has just reported about Japan’s acknowledgement of casualty caused by the Fukushima nuclear power plant wreckage. However, it may be too late for the victim as the young man, an unnamed worker in his 30s working as a construction contractor in Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima Daiichi plant and other nuclear facilities, is already suffering from cancer since 2011.
The ministry’s recognition of radiation as a possible cause may set back efforts to recover from the disaster, as the government and the nuclear industry have been at pains to say that the health effects from radiation have been minimal. It may also add to compensation payments that had reached more than 7 trillion yen ($59 billion) by July this year. It can also cause a lot of setbacks from a lot of nuclear projects which were supposed to be due in the succeeding years.
A streak of legal issues and complaints are also to be faced by Tokyo Electric, mostly on compensations for those affected. According to further reviews, it is estimated removing the melted fuel from the wrecked reactors and cleaning up the site will cost tens of billions of dollars and take decades to complete.
Despite the recognition, a lot more people are still anxious. The recognition would mean acknowledgment of possible radiation effects still lingering in Japan’s boundaries. When it was once denied, the public are consoled of the improbability of being exposed to radiation but now that the government has expressed its possibility, many individuals fear of their and their families’ lives.
Hundreds of deaths have been attributed to the chaos of evacuations during the crisis and because of the hardship and mental trauma refugees have experienced since then, but the government had said that radiation was not a cause. Yet now, it is different. The trauma and fear are emphasized more.
Anti-nuclear organizations, on the other hand, are happy that their warnings are now being regarded. Carlton Church International, one of the non-profit organization campaigning against nuclear proliferation, spokesperson, Abigail Shcumman stated, “I don’t think ‘I told you so’ would be appropriate but that is what I really wanted to say”. She added, “We are pleased that at last, we are being heard. However, we continue to get worried for the people and the children. They are exposed and need guidance on what to do”.
- See more at: carltonchurchreview.blogspot.com
”
”
Sabrina Carlton
“
The government’s plan for my disabling sickness was to send me into poverty.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Disability is a fraudulent system that is ran by fraudulent people.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
By the time I had been through the disability and workers compensation systems, I had developed an extreme dislike of the government.
”
”
Steven Magee
“
Other data confirms this pattern, and perhaps there is no better illustration of how the average workers are losing out than the dramatic shift in the relationship between productivity growth and wage growth of nonsupervisory workers—the regular Americans we interviewed. Historically, up through the mid-1970s, there was an extremely tight relationship between productivity growth and wage-compensation growth. If workers were more productive, their pay went up proportionately, an outcome that spread the rewards of growth broadly, because economic growth and productivity growth are tightly coupled. For example, between 1948 and 1972, productivity grew 92 percent and wage compensation 88 percent—and they tracked each other closely each year. That meant that if workers produced more economic output for their employers, they were compensated with increased wages mirroring almost exactly the increase in output—fairness in the extreme. In 1972, however, that relationship broke up, and between 1972 and 2018, while productivity grew by 84 percent, growth in wage compensation barely budged, growing just 13 percent, or 0.25 percent per year for forty-six years (see figure I-2).
”
”
Roger L. Martin (When More Is Not Better: Overcoming America's Obsession with Economic Efficiency)
“
Would you like a government that denied you your earned disability benefits when you became too sick to work?
”
”
Steven Magee
“
An ironic aspect of this story is that in 1993, federal securities regulators forced companies, for the first time, to reveal details about the pay and perks of their top executives. The idea was that once pay was in the open, boards would be reluctant to give executives outrageous salaries and benefits. This, it was hoped, would stop the rise in executive compensation, which neither regulation, legislation, nor shareholder pressure had been able to stop. And indeed, it needed to stop: in 1976 the average CEO was paid 36 times as much as the average worker. By 1993, the average CEO was paid 131 times as much. But guess what happened. Once salaries became public information, the media regularly ran special stories ranking CEOs by pay. Rather than suppressing the executive perks, the publicity had CEOs in America comparing their pay with that of everyone else. In response, executives’ salaries skyrocketed.
”
”
Dan Ariely (Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions)