 I came across this interesting news today, the International Labor Union has released a list of companies that make their “Sweatshop Hall of Fame”.
The Sweatshop Hall of Shame 2010 highlights apparel and textile companies that use sweatshops in their global production. Hall of Shame inductees are responsible for evading fair labor standards and often are slow to respond or provide no response at all to any attempts by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), workers, or others to improve working conditions.
The official inductees of the 2010 Sweatshop Hall of Shame are: Abercrombie and Fitch, Gymboree, Hanes, Ikea, Kohl’s, LL Bean, Pier 1 Imports, Propper International, and Walmart. This list also includes an Honorable Mention to the American Apparel and Footwear Association, a national trade association representing apparel and footwear companies. This association has exhibited a flagrant disregard for workers’ rights by primarily focusing on maintaining trade with Honduras in the middle of a military coup.
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Steinar Skipsness wanted to understand why some of his friends succeed in interviews and why some go for multiple interviews and never succeed in getting hired. He got the idea from seeing one his friends go on multiple unsuccessful interviews. In his own words:
“I consider him a really outgoing sharp guy, he was getting interviews, which is half the battle, but for whatever reason he wasn’t getting hired. It made me curious to what makes certain candidates stand out. I thought, if I could experience the interview from the other side of table, I’d have the ultimate perspective to what makes a candidate an attractive hire. I could then take that knowledge and cater my behavior in any future job interview to give myself the best chance of getting hired.”
So armed with a $2000.00 budget, a rented office and some hidden cameras he set up a realistic corporate presence and started interviewing candidates. With the resulting footage Skipness created 20 tips to “nail” an interview. The outcome is some of the funniest and informative tips I’ve seen in a long time.
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 MAYNARD, Mass. – October 14, 2009 – New research from Monster.com and Human Capital Institute reveals a dramatic difference in how employers and workers perceive the impact of the current recession, potentially leading to employers facing mass talent drains as the labor market begins to turn. The reason – employers are vastly overrating the morale of their employees as 84 percent of those surveyed indicated a belief that their workforce is content to simply to have a job while only 58 percent of workers feel that way.
“Today’s employers feel that employees are loyal due to the economic times, but the reality is they are not,” said Katherine Jones, HCI Research Fellow. “Because of this, there is a strong likelihood that when the economy turns for the better, employers could find themselves with valued employees jumping ship. This places pressure on them to put retention measures in place now.”
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Marketing Leads The Way Out of Economic Gloom
The marketing sector appears to be shrugging off the recession with a 10.8% rise in marketing vacancies in October alone, rebounding from a 1.1% drop in September.
 get paid to post your resume
London, UK (PRWeb UK) 2 November 2009 — Figures from the Ashdown Group Jobs Index show it is one of the best performing sectors of the month.
Demand has been driven by a number of factors, including a recent upsurge in online and search engine optimisation (SEO) positions. Figures from data analyst firm IT Jobs Watch show the number of SEO vacancies rose by a massive 50% year on year.
John Lynes, director of marketing recruitment agency (http://www.ashdowngroup.com/marketing-recruitment) the Ashdown Group, said, “There has been a scramble for marketers with a strong understanding of online marketing, as businesses of all sizes wake up to the need to be found online.”
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WASHINGTON — The economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, the best showing in two years, fueled by government-supported spending on cars and homes. It’s the strongest signal yet that the economy has entered a new, though fragile, phase of recovery and that the worst recession since the 1930s has ended.
Going forward, many analysts expect the pace of the budding recovery to be plodding due to rising unemployment and continuing difficulties by both consumers and businesses to secure loans.
“This welcome milestone is just another step, and we still have a long road to travel until the economy is fully recovered,” said Christina Romer, President Barack Obama’s chief economist. “It will take sustained, robust … growth to bring the unemployment rate down substantially. Such a decline in unemployment is, of course, what we are all working to achieve.”
The much-awaited turnaround reported Thursday by the Commerce Department ended the streak of four straight quarters of contracting economic activity, the first time that’s happened on records dating to 1947.
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With the unemployment rate in the United States reaching new heights each month, many are forced to contemplate relocating to reduce their costs of living. Many areas of the country are facing next to zero, or negative growth in salaries. However, there are still some areas in the country where salaries are actually growing (mostly in the East coast and many larger metropolitan areas). Kiplingers just released a new article highligting the growth in salaries from the last quarter of 2008 to the 1st quarter of 2009 across the country (this isn’t job growth, but growth in salaries of the employed):
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Wellesley, MA (PRWEB) October 22, 2009 — The U.S. division of Sun Life Financial Inc. (NYSE:SLF, TSX:SLF) today released the latest edition of its Unretirement℠ Index, which reveals 65 percent of American workers will delay their retirement by at least one year - an 11 percent increase since the end of 2008. The Index also indicates 27 percent of Americans now believe they will need to work at least five years longer than expected because of the current economic environment. The third release of Sun Life’s biannual Index gauges how economic, financial, and societal forces affect working Americans, and forecasts their future retirement decisions that will impact individuals, the government, employers and the larger economy.
Sun Life’s current research also shows more Americans plan to remain in the workforce past the traditional retirement age of 67. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed say they will work full- or part-time at 67, and another new high of 28 percent of US workers across all age groups are planning to work full time past the age of 67.
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So Halloween is right around the corner and lots of people start to think about it now. For most people, it centers around their children and the annual trick-or-treat festivities. However, for a growing number of Americans, Halloween is also celebrated at the office. I compiled a short posting today of funny Halloween costumes you can use at your next party:
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SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 16 (Reuters) - California’s unemployment rate edged down to 12.2 percent in September from a revised 12.3 percent in August but the recession’s grip on the state’s economy remained firm, shaving 39,300 jobs from nonfarm payrolls between the months, state officials said on Friday.
The most populous U.S. state is suffering from economic recession, marked by a sharp decrease in consumer spending, and the collapse of house construction and home mortgage booms.
Underscoring the Golden State’s hard times, California’s September jobless rate was considerably higher than its year-earlier 7.8 percent and the month’s the U.S. national average of 9.8 percent
Economist Steve Levy, of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy, discounted the tick down in the state’s jobless rate from August and said the woes weighing on California’s jobs market are far from over.
“The poor jobs report for California comes amidst reports of production and export gains throughout the economy and a sharp rise in stock prices,” Levy said. “September’s report emphasizes the disappointing truth that jobs are the last economic indicator to recover.”
He added that California has underperformed the nation measured by job trends over the past year due to worse than average trends in the construction and government sectors.”
Levy said local government and education job losses stung California last month, a reflection of lean municipal budgets, with 15,000 fewer jobs in local schools compared to a year ago and 17,000 fewer jobs in city and county government.
He said investments in public works, energy and health-care are picking up and will help bolster California’s economy at some point next year.
“Still, the good news for jobs remains in our future as the September report shows clearly,” Levy said.
 Hey, here’s an interesting tid-bit you may not know about your company: they want to work you until you die so they can collect large amounts of insurance money (queue evil laugh, glass of brandy, and fine Corinthian leather chair). All joking aside, it’s true, and fairly common. Companies will often take out life-insurance policies on employees. They last for years even after the employee has left the company. When the current or former employee finally kicks the bucket, the tax-free proceeds go to the employer, not the family. It’s known as dead peasants insurance because, well, you’re just a dead peasant in your company’s eyes. The loss of your life impacts the organization’s productivity. They deserve a payout, don’t they?
The company will use the proceeds to pay for retirement benefits and other perks not for you or your fellow worker, but for the company’s top executives.
Sounds crazy? Consider these statistics:
- Companies pay a whopping $8 billion in premiums each year for such coverage, according to the American Council of Life Insurers, a trade group.
- The policies make up more than 20% of the all the life insurance sold each year.
- Companies expect to reap more than $9 billion in tax breaks from these policies over the next five years.
- The policies are treated as whole life policies. So, companies can borrow against the policies (though the IRS won’t let them write off the interest) and the death benefits are tax-free.
- Hundreds of companies — including Dow Chemical, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney and Winn-Dixie — have purchased this insurance on more than 6 million rank-and-file workers
How do you know if your employer has purchased a dead peasants policy? You don’t. Here are a list of employers who may have purchased a policy on your life.
Some examples of dead peasant insurance include:
Jane St. John had two children and was pregnant with a third when her husband, a butcher at a Winn-Dixie store, was killed in an auto accident. When the Killeen, Texas, woman called the company to ask about insurance, she said she was told about a $17,500 policy to which she was entitled. St. John said Winn-Dixie told her nothing about the $102,000 the company collected from a corporate-owned policy on his life. She found out about it this summer, eight years after his death, from a lawyer who researched court records. The idea that the company would secretly insure lives, and then not share the benefits with the families, “is sick,” she said. “That is creepy.”
Mike Rice was a 48-year-old assistant manager when he died of a massive heart attack at the Wal-Mart store in Tilton, N.H. His widow, Vicki, became the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit against the company after she discovered Wal-Mart collected $300,000 from a life insurance policy it owned on him. Vicki Rice believes job-related stress contributed to the heart attack and says it is totally immoral for Wal-Mart to profit from his death.
“In a lot of circumstances, the families don’t get anything”, said attorney Mike Myers of Houstons McClanahan & Clearman, which represents survivors suing companies over corporate-owned policies. The company tries hard to keep the policy a secret.
Labor leaders and some lawmakers have denounced the policies as unjust and repulsive. The companies say profits from the policies can help offset the increased cost of employee benefits and enhance the businesses bottom line.
Corporate-owned life insurance actually comes in two flavors:
Executive or key person policies that insure the lives of top executives. This coverage has been around for decades and has a clear business purpose, since losing the expertise, knowledge and contacts of top managers can be financially devastating for companies.
Broad-based or janitors policies that insure rank-and-file workers. Here the purpose is basically profit. The life insurance proceeds are tax-free. The policies have an investment component that allows companies to earn tax-deferred returns while the employee is still alive. And, of course, companies can take out tax-free loans on the policies. All these gains and income are used to fund operations, pay for executive compensation or boost other benefits.
Congress recently tried to crackdown on the practice. However, companies insist that dead peasants policies have a legitimate business function. But the IRS has been cracking down, arguing that many of the arrangements are nothing more than tax shelters. The insurance industry has rallied against such reforms and so far has won. With all the other battles going on in congress right now, I doubt we’ll see any sort of reform or protection anytime soon. Companies are supposed to inform the employee that these policies exist, but there currently isn’t a good way to track if employees are being informed.
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