Others   

TRADE FREELY & LiVE LONGER

Stop ranting: Judge orders woman

SINGAPORE

But each time, Mdm Linda Lai Swee Lin, 54, blatantly ignored the judge’s order — even after she was warned she could be held in contempt of court and policemen were called in.

Yesterday, Mdm Lai created a stir in the High Court as she insisted on reading out a prepared speech and disregarded the court procedure, prompting a visibly-annoyed Justice Lai Siu Chiu to ask her to “stop your ranting”.

Mdm Lai, who is representing herself, is hoping to get reinstated at the Land Office of the Law Ministry.

On Monday — the first day of the hearing — the Government conceded there was a breach in its employment contract when Mdm Lai lost her job in December 1998.

The hearing resumed yesterday and Mdm Lai took the opportunity to begin her speech — in which she ranted against the civil service — when she was asked to cross-examine her former superior Liew Choon Boon.

Mdm Lai passed up her chance to cross-examine five other witnesses — comprising mostly her former colleagues — as she continued reading from the piece of paper.

“I am totally exhausted. However, if I walk away ... the truth would be buried,” she said. The hearing continues.

— Time and again, the judge warned the former civil servant, who is seeking redress for alleged wrong dismissal, to stop talking.NG JING YNG

 

 

“So the search will now be on for labour market policies that deliver more people in work with less money, which has an inevitable air of the holy grail about it.”

In Denmark, employers have carte blanche to hire and fire, and in most cases laid-off people are guaranteed about 80 per cent of their wages in benefits, a figure capped for high earners. In turn, they must participate in retraining and job placement programmes tailored to get them back to work, which the government has intensified.

Each year, a remarkable 30 per cent of Danes change jobs, knowing the system will allow them to pay rent and buy food so they can focus on landing a new position.

About 80 per cent belong to unions, which manage the workplace, help run the unemployment insurance programme and press the laid-off into retraining.

But as the financial crisis erased jobs, the government, Denmark’s largest employer, has had to provide more temporary work and intensify coaching. Unemployment is at 4.2 per cent today, lower than most European countries, though more than twice the 1.7 per cent rate two years ago. As in Germany and some other European countries, hundreds of Danish employers have also embraced government-subsidised short-work programmes, a tactic adopted to keep a lid on unemployment. The plans allow companies to cut working hours to hold onto highly-skilled workers, rather than laying them off when times are tough.

Danish politicians say their programme is still working well. But unions argue that the cutbacks in the safety net go too far, and they are planning to press companies to lengthen the typical one- to three-month notice period before dismissals.

Business leaders fear that would push Denmark toward the type of rigid systems found in Spain, Italy and France, where it can take a year or more to lay off most employees, which drains finances and raises the danger of more job cuts.

“If unions start requiring longer job-cut notices in exchange for reduced benefits, you’ll lose the flexibility to adapt to changes in the economy,” said Ms Stine Pilegaard Jespersen, head of labour market policy at the Danish Chamber of Commerce. Mrs Inger Skouby, at 58 a longtime nurse, has seen the system shift from the inside. She was in and out of unemployment for nearly four years after she fell ill. She took a year off for treatment, paid for by the state. She then tapped jobless pay, receiving about 80 per cent of her former wage.

To get with the times, she received information technology training, leading to a telemarketing position until the financial crisis hit.

When she returned to unemployment, she said, the government had tightened up, requiring weekly job applications, meetings with job counsellors, and repetitive training that produced scant results. She was put into a work programme as a school secretary, until something better came along.

Many others spoke in interviews about being required to take make-work or menial jobs that have eroded their morale. “Before, it wasn’t like this,” Mrs Skouby said. “Now, it’s about controlling people.”

Ms Lisbeth Halvorsen, 30, had her first brush with unemployment last month, after her part-time teaching job expired.

She will get 70 per cent of her salary, but is frantically sending resumes to get out of the system as soon as possible.

The government has created a lot of incentive to do so, she said. To improve its job activation programme, Denmark has outsourced some of it to private companies, which receive bonus payments for every person placed into job training or a new job.

That has led to cases where laid-off workers spend an entire month in courses to improve their resumes, or tied up in “sit-around-and-drink-coffee meetings” to obtain unemployment checks. Occasionally, they offend Danish sensibilities.

Mr Torben Frederiksen, 32, a plumber out of work for three months, said his employment centre forbade him from attending his mother’s funeral because it conflicted with a meeting with his counsellor.

“They told me that a funeral was no excuse for missing my appointment,” he said. Mr Frederiksen went anyway, and was granted another meeting.

From the perspective of Finance Minister Frederiksen, Denmark is carefully laying the groundwork for the future by changing its policies to make more people eligible for work when the economy picks up.

“In two years, we expect to be out of the crisis — and we’ll need to be ready,” he said. 

THE NEW YORK TIMES

 

Gaps appear in Denmark’s safety net

Stung by the financial crisis, the Scandinavian nation pares back its generous welfare system

LIZ ALDERMAN

As extended unemployment swells almost everywhere across the advanced industrial world, that question is turning into a lightning rod for governments.

For years, Denmark was held out as a model to countries with high unemployment and as a progressive touchstone to liberals in the United States. The Danes, despite their lavish social welfare state, managed to keep joblessness remarkably low.

But now Denmark, which allows employers to hire and fire at will while relying on an elaborate system of training, subsidies for those between jobs and aggressive measures to press the unemployed into available openings, is facing its own strains. As a result, it is beginning to tighten up.

Struggling to keep its budget under control after the financial crisis, the government in June cut into its benefits system, the world’s most generous, by limiting unemployment payments to two years instead of four. Having found that recipients either get work right away or take any job as their checks run out, officials are also redoubling long-standing efforts to move Danes more quickly out of the safety net.

“The cold fact is that the longer you are out of a job, the more difficult it is to get a job,” said Danish Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen. “Four years of unemployment is a luxury we can no longer allow ourselves.”

In the United States, where the Senate passed an unemployment insurance extension last month only after a long battle, the debate over how to treat persistent joblessness has mounted as well.

It pits those who argue that decent benefits are necessary to support workers and their families when companies are doing little hiring against those who contend that longer benefits periods discourage job-seeking. Another fight is brewing over putting more federal dollars toward retraining.

Similar concerns loom in debt-ridden countries like Spain and Portugal, where the costs of high long-term unemployment have governments straining for a solution.

Such European countries could profit, many economists say, from adopting the more dynamic parts of Denmark’s “flexicurity” system. But now that the global recession has exposed chinks in its armour, Denmark’s efforts to find a new balance between job market flexibility and security for workers are setting off alarm bells in the country.

“We have a famous flexicurity model, but now it’s all flex and no security,” complained Mr Kim Simonsen, chairman of HK, one of Denmark’s largest trade unions.

To be sure, Denmark is not abandoning the welfare state.

Government spending accounts for about half of gross domestic product, and few Danes complain about a top income tax rate of 50 per cent that generously finances unemployment, pensions, health care and other accoutrements that, studies claim, make Danes the happiest people on earth.

Hardly anyone in Denmark, a small, tranquil country of 5.5 million people, falls through the cracks. The Constitution even guarantees Danes the right to work and to receive public assistance if they stumble. But sustaining a benevolent nanny state is proving to be challenging even for the notably generous Danes.

“It’s no surprise the government is saying that programmes that are highly expensive and give a Rolls-Royce treatment to citizens have to be trimmed,” said Professor Iain Begg of the London School of Economics.How long is too long to be paid to go without a job?

Danes, like Mrs Inger Skouby, are guaranteed about 80 per cent of their wages in benefits when laid off. In turn, they must participate in retraining and job placement programmes tailored to get them back to work. TH E NEW YORK TIMES

>> Contin ued on page 20

 

Give all workers their due

Letter from Sanjay Perera

I REFER to the letter by human resources manager Grace Seow, “Looking for locals” (Aug 18).

There are two root issues that need to be looked at if any reasonable solution is to be found to the perpetual problem of low wages and hiring foreign workers instead of locals for such jobs like those of a cleaner.

The first is the mindset change needed in moving away from the pyramid structure [MLM] of many businesses, especially of large corporations.

As long as what may be perceived as low-level work is placed at the bottom of the rung in a business, wages will follow suit.

But as Ms Seow points out, what will happen indeed when we run out of people to clean up after us?

Instead of a pyramid [MLM], a web of interconnection should be envisioned for businesses in which everyone — management or non-managerial staff — has a role to play.

A cooperative approach can be taken, moving away from that of accumulating profits above all else.

Have a fair wage where all in a firm share in the profits made, with ratios of sharing in earnings established depending on the contribution an employee makes to the firm.

This beats relying on “market forces”, which are a means for companies to offer staff as little as possible while squeezing the maximum from them.

The other issue is ensuring that all in a firm are treated equally, with due respect.

There is excessive focus on the salaries of CEOs, instead of what are economically sustainable and ethical workplace scenarios.

Talk to the people who sweep our roads and those who clear our garbage daily and you’ll realise they are human beings with dreams of their own.

Giving proper societal and economic recognition to all may help realign our viewpoint on what workplace dignity is about.

It is not always about the money.

pharoah88      ( Date: 18-Aug-2010 19:44) Posted: despite offering very attractive salary packages and rewarding career paths ATTRACTIVE  SALARY: 1) What is the  HOURLY  RATE ?      Is it enOugh tO pay fOr Breakfast of 4-member Family ? 2) What is the  DAILY  RATE ?      Is it enOugh tO pay fOr Daily  TranspOrt cOst  and three sqUare meals  fOr 4-member  Family ? 3) What is the MONTHLY  SALARY ?     Is it enOugh tO pay fOr  MONTHLY  EXPENDITURES fOr 4-member Family ? 3.1  MONTHLY  RENT  Or  MONTHLY  hOuse   iNstalment 3.2  MONTHLY [3 DAILY MEALS] FOOD and GROERIES EXPENDITURES fOr ALL 4 Family Members 3.3  MONTHLY TRANSPORT EXPENDITIRE fOr  ALL 4 Family Members 3.4 MONTHLY  MAINTENANCE FEE & CONSERVANCY CHARGES 3.5 MONTHLY  UTILITIES EXPENDITURES 3.6 MONTHLY  HOME and MOBILE PHONE BILLS 3.7 MONTHLY  EDUCATION EXPENDITIRES  fOr  2 Children 3.8 MONTHLY  POCKET  MONEY  fOr  ALL 4 Family Members 3.9 MONTHLY  MEDICAL EXPENDITURE fOr ALL 4 Family Members 3.10 MONTHLY  HOSPITALISATION & SURGERY INSURANCE PREMIUM fOr  ALL 4 Family Members 3.11 MONTHLY  ACCIDENT INSURANCE PREMIUM fOr ALL 4 Family Members 3.12 MONTHLY  SAVINGS Of  10% Of Take Home SALARY 4) Is there a Guaranteed 13th Annual Wage Supplement (AWS) ? 5) Is there a 14th Month ANNUAL BONUS ? In summation, does the Annual Compensation Package enough to cOver  ALL annual Living Expenditures Of 4 Member Family ? This is the  UNcOndIOnal  CONDITION  fOr  an EMPLOYEE  tO iNVEST  ALL HEART & SOUL intO  an  EMPLOYMENT. That is, whether the  EMPLOYER  iNVESTS  ALL  HEART & SOUL  intO  an  EMPLOYEE.

 

The Wildman
Nobody does this hairstyle more justice than Jack Nicholson. He has specialised in the dishevelled madman look for years, and his barnet seems to get ever more unruly as he gets older. Granted, it's not a bona-fide style, but perhaps the dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards coiffure should be awarded a combined best and worst accolade anyway.

http://lifestyle.xin.msn.com/en/beauty-fashion/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4280861&page=10

 

The Skunk-look
You'll be lucky if you make a sighting of this absurd hairstyle. It hasn't been seen properly since cricketer Kevin Pietersen decided to make it his cut of choice during the 2005 Ashes series.
A mêlée of hair colouring and styling that looks like it's been done by sticking his fingers into a power socket, this is a madcap look for extroverts only. Get ready to be turned away from every pub in town too.

pharoah88      ( Date: 19-Aug-2010 10:32) Posted: The Hair piece You used to be able to spot a syrup from a mile off but wigs, or the hair piece as it's probably called in the trade, have come a long way. These days a bought-in barnet will turn anyone from thinning loser into a macho masterpiece. Celebrity wig-wearers are rife, although few will admit to it. Others spend all their time trying to convince people that those locks are their own. Yeah, right. http://lifestyle.xin.msn.com/en/beauty-fashion/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4280861&page=8

 

The Hair piece
You used to be able to spot a syrup from a mile off but wigs, or the hair piece as it's probably called in the trade, have come a long way. These days a bought-in barnet will turn anyone from thinning loser into a macho masterpiece. Celebrity wig-wearers are rife, although few will admit to it. Others spend all their time trying to convince people that those locks are their own. Yeah, right.

http://lifestyle.xin.msn.com/en/beauty-fashion/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4280861&page=8

 

Hair art
You know the sort of thing; random shaving of parts of the scalp that makes you look like you fell under the wheels of a miniature lawnmower. The overall effect is borderline artistic although done badly this can make for car-crash styling as witnessed on Ronaldo's bonce a few years back. A few celebs have given it a go too, but hair art now seems to be the sole preserve of footballers.

 

The Distraction
You know there's trouble ahead when a guy has more hair underneath his lips than on the top of his head. If you're a member of rock band ZZ Top then beards are where it's at. Just don't take a look under the lid or you'll find precious little up top. A beardy-weirdy distraction technique that never fails to put people off the scent of baldness - especially if you're never photographed without your trusty hat.

 

The Mohawk   [bIrd mAn]
Lots of celebs have had a stab at the mohawk, often, it has to be said, with mixed results. David Beckham pulled it off to reasonable effect but he still ended up looking like a distressed loo brush. This is definitely not a hairstyle to attempt if you're slipping perilously past your 20s but remain desperate to stay down with the kids.

http://lifestyle.xin.msn.com/en/beauty-fashion/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4280861&page=5

 

Dreadlocks
Fancy the lived-in crusty-traveller look? A great way to achieve this is by going down the dreadlock route. Grow it long, let it get matted and your thatch will look like you've just left Glastonbury. Downsides are that it'll itch like never before and you'll get it caught up in everything from car doors to cardigans. Hard to beat when it comes to looking genuinely scuzzy though.

 

The Mullet
This beauty isn't just limited to the American mid-west or the Australian outback. You can often see prime examples of the mullet at rock festivals and real ale outings. Wild and unruly, this is the sort of hairstyle that causes even greater offence when combined with a corkscrew perm as perfected by the likes of Kevin Keegan in his heyday.

http://lifestyle.xin.msn.com/en/beauty-fashion/article.aspx?cp-documentid=4280861&page=3

 

The Comb-over
The comb-over is a regular on any high street in the UK, but take your search global and you'll soon find that the multi-millionaire Donald Trump has the best comb-over in the business. Heavily-tinted strands are carefully pulled across the thinning thatch that was once a thick and lustrous coiffure. Truly, erm, unique.

 

HaIrstyles all men should avoId

 

 

WHY  thEn  ? ? ? ?

HiGHEST  ORDER  CERTIFIED  INTEGRITY  ?

MOST  TESTED  &  CERTIFIED  FAIRNESS  ?

iN  thE

WORST  ENSURED  HELL  ? ? ? ?

[HEARD: WHERE  even  ALL  GODS  FEAR]

called

CASINO    ? ? ? ? 

 

POST SAGE ENLIGHTENMENT

iPunter      ( Date: 19-Aug-2010 08:32) Posted: Recognising reality is the only way to be enlightened...     But unfortunately, there are enough naive gullible people in the world         who are emotionally very willing to believe many things, but not recognise reality ...   (I 'tapet' (pay respect to) boyikao3 for being an enlightened one). pharoah88      ( Date: 19-Aug-2010 08:24) Posted: SAGE ENLIGHTENMENT

 

In LayMan's Terms,

REALITY ?

EXCELLENCE ?

TRUTH ?

NOTHING  bUt the  trUth ?

SWEAR ?

PROMISE ?

RESPONSIBILITY ?

PASSION ?

FROM  THE  PEOPLE ?

BY   THE   PEOPLE  ?

FOR  THE  PEOPLE ?

are  ALL

UNREAL

FAKE

FALSE

DECEPTION

ILLUSTION

MAGIC

? ? ? ?

iPunter      ( Date: 19-Aug-2010 08:32) Posted: Recognising reality is the only way to be enlightened...     But unfortunately, there are enough naive gullible people in the world         who are emotionally very willing to believe many things, but not recognise reality ...   (I 'tapet' (pay respect to) boyikao3 for being an enlightened one). pharoah88      ( Date: 19-Aug-2010 08:24) Posted: SAGE ENLIGHTENMENT

 

In LayMan's terms,

INSTITUTIONAL SUCCESS  ? 

CHAMPION'S WINNING  ?

ECONOMIC GROWTH  ?

ENTREPRENUERSHIP ?

LEADERSHIP ?

PRODUCTIVITY ?

PERFORMANCE ?

ACHIEVEMENT ?

EDUCATION ?

SERVICE  ?

MERITOCRACY  ?

EFFICACY ?

EFFICIENCY ?

ECONOMY OF SCALE ?

INTEGRITY  ?

GOVERNANCE  ?

OPENNESS  ?

FAIRENESS  ?

JUSTICE  ?

TRANSPARENCY  ?

EQUAL  OPPORTUNITY  ? ?

are  ALL  abOUt  ?

lyIng  & cheatIng  ? ? ? ?

boyikao3      ( Date: 18-Aug-2010 23:56) Posted: Clarity can cost the economy. Ignorance will save the economy. Integrit and fairness will only hinder progress in making lots of money in the shortest amount of time. Closing one eye and feigning ignorance will save status quo and keep everyone believing that the system is ok and is functioning - so that Marketing departments of all levels can continue to cheat the poor and pay the rich. Only then can the stock market continue to go up and down. If there Integrity and Fairness were to take over, the stock market will go in a horizontal flat line....becos the thieves must continue to steal and the liars must continue to lie, for this economy to go on and on..... pharoah88      ( Date: 18-Aug-2010 23:48) Posted: sOmehOw  sOmebOdy  DON'T  WANT Testing and Certification tO ensure  a high level of integrity and fairness in the bankIng industry

 

Recognising reality is the only way to be enlightened...

    But unfortunately, there are enough naive gullible people in the world

        who are emotionally very willing to believe many things, but not recognise reality ...  

(I 'tapet' (pay respect to) boyikao3 for being an enlightened one).

pharoah88      ( Date: 19-Aug-2010 08:24) Posted: SAGE ENLIGHTENMENT boyikao3      ( Date: 18-Aug-2010 23:56) Posted: Clarity can cost the economy. Ignorance will save the economy. Integrit and fairness will only hinder progress in making lots of money in the shortest amount of time. Closing one eye and feigning ignorance will save status quo and keep everyone believing that the system is ok and is functioning - so that Marketing departments of all levels can continue to cheat the poor and pay the rich. Only then can the stock market continue to go up and down. If there Integrity and Fairness were to take over, the stock market will go in a horizontal flat line....becos the thieves must continue to steal and the liars must continue to lie, for this economy to go on and on....