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Employment

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Business

   Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer
   and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as: "A
   person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or
   implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to
   control and direct the employee in the material details of how the work
   is to be performed." Black's Law Dictionary page 471 (5th ed. 1979).

   In a commercial setting, the employer conceives of a productive
   activity, generally with the intention of creating profits, and the
   employee contributes labour to the enterprise, usually in return for
   payment of wages.

   Employment also exists in the public, non-profit and household sectors.

   In the United States, the "standard" employment contract is considered
   to be at-will meaning that the employer and employee are both free to
   terminate the employment at any time and for any cause, or for no cause
   at all. However, if a termination of employment by the employer is
   deemed unjust by the employee, there can be legal recourse to challenge
   such a termination. In unionised work environments in particular,
   employees who are receiving discipline, up to and including termination
   of employment can ask for assistance by their shop steward to advocate
   on behalf of the employee. If an informal negotiation between the shop
   steward and the company does not resolve the issue, the shop steward
   may file a grievance, which can result in a resolution within the
   company, or mediation or arbitration, which are typically funded
   equally both by the union and the company. In non-union work
   environments, in the United States, unjust termination complaints can
   be brought to the United States Department of Labor. In the Canadian
   province of Ontario, formal complaints can be brought to the Ministry
   of Labour (Ontario). In the province of Quebec, grievances can be filed
   with the Commission des normes du travail.

   To the extent that employment or the economic equivalent is not
   universal, unemployment exists.

   Employment is almost universal in capitalist societies. Opponents of
   capitalism such as Marxists oppose the capitalist employment system,
   considering it to be unfair that the people who contribute the majority
   of work to an organization do not receive a proportionate share of the
   profit. However, the surrealist and the situationist movements were
   among the few groups to actually oppose work, and during the partially
   surrealist-influenced events of May 1968 the walls of the Sorbonne were
   covered with anti-work graffiti.

   Labourers often talk of "getting a job", or "having a job". This
   conceptual metaphor of a "job" as a possession has led to its use in
   slogans such as "money for jobs, not bombs". Similar conceptions are
   that of "land" as a possession ( real estate) or intellectual rights as
   a possession ( intellectual property). The Online Etymology Dictionary
   explains that the origin of "job" is from the obsolete phrase "jobbe of
   work" in the sense of "piece of work", and most dictionaries list the
   Middle English "gobbe" meaning "lump" (gob) as the origin of "jobbe".
   Attempts to link the word to the biblical character Job seem to be folk
   etymology.

Employer

   An employer is a person or institution that hires employees or workers.
   Employers offer wages or a salary to the workers in exchange for the
   worker's labor power, depending upon whether the employee is paid by
   the hour or a set rate per pay period. A salaried employee is typically
   not paid more for more hours worked than the minimum, whereas wages are
   paid for all hours worked, including overtime.

   Employers include everything from individuals hiring a babysitter to
   governments and businesses which may hire many thousands of employees.
   In most western societies governments are the largest single employers,
   but most of the work force is employed in small and medium businesses
   in the private sector.

   Note that although employees may contribute to the evolution of an
   enterprise, the employer maintains autonomous control over the
   productive base of land and capital, and is the entity named in
   contracts. The employer typically also maintains ownership of
   intellectual property created by an employee within the scope of
   employment and as a function thereof. These are known as " works for
   hire".

   Within large organisations, the management of employees is often
   handled by Human Resources departments at "arm's length". Hiring,
   discipline and terminations are typically rendered by the HR
   department, whereas supervisors and managers of individual departments
   provide instructions concerning daily activities, goals, etc. On the
   national scale, employers can be organised within employers'
   organisations. Employees can be organised in trade unions or in trade
   associations, such as the Construction Specifications Institute, which
   represents specification writers.

Employee

   An employee contributes labor and expertise to an endeavour. Employees
   perform the discrete activity of economic production. Of the three
   factors of production, employees usually provide the labor.

   Specifically, an employee is any person hired by an employer to do a
   specific " job".eg cleners In most modern economies the term employee
   refers to a specific defined relationship between an individual and a
   corporation, which differs from those of customer, or client. Most
   individuals attain the status of employee after a thorough process of
   interviews with several departments within a company. If the individual
   is determined to be a satisfactory fit for the position, he is given an
   official offer of employment within that company for a defined starting
   salary and position. This individual then has all the rights and
   privileges of an employee, which may include medical benefits and
   vacation days. The relationship between a corporation and its employees
   is usually handled through the human resources department, which
   handles the incorporation of new hires, and the disbursement of any
   benefits which the employee may be entitled, or any grievances that
   employee may have. An offer of employment, however, does not guarantee
   employment for any length of time and each party may terminate the
   relationship at any time. This is referred to as at will employment.
   While the terms accountant, lawyer and photographer might refer to
   professions, they are not employee titles, which may include
   Controller, Vice President of Legal Affairs, and Head of Media
   Development.

   There are differing classifications of workers within a company. Some
   are full-time and permanent and receive a guaranteed salary, while
   others are hired for short term contracts or work as temps or
   consultants. These latter differ from permanent employees in that the
   company where they work is not their employer, but they may work
   through a temp-agency or consulting firm. In this respect, it is
   important to distinguish independent contractors from employees, since
   the two are treated differently both in law and in most taxation
   systems.

   Some companies feel that a happier work force is a better one and thus
   offer extra benefits to improve team spirit and performance. However,
   other employers try to increase profits by giving low wages and few
   benefits. To resist this, employees can organize into labor unions
   (American English), or trade unions (British English), who represent
   most of the available work force and must therefore be listened to by
   the management. This can lead to considerable ill-will and sometimes
   even violence between the two sides, but it can also lead to a peaceful
   and prosperous society, especially in countries in which the government
   plays an active mediator role in collective bargaining. This has helped
   produce prosperous economies in many countries due to the employees'
   increased spending power. Collective bargaining has in addition proved
   to be a powerful conflict resolution tool that has also enabled social
   dialog.

   Associate is a term used by some companies instead of employee. Big box
   retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, for example, use this term for
   non- management employees. Other firms use terms such as teammate or
   team member instead of employee.

   Many companies further classify employees as exempt or non-exempt. This
   designation is used to separate employees that are eligible for
   overtime from those that are not. An exempt employee is one that is
   typically salaried and is not eligible to earn overtime. Non-exempt
   employees are typically paid hourly and are eligible for overtime pay.

Alternatives

   When an individual entirely owns the business for which he or she
   labours, this is known as self-employment. If a self-employed
   individual has only one client for whom he or she performs work, he or
   she may be considered an employee of that client for tax purposes.
   Self-employment often leads to incorporation. Incorporation offers
   certain protections of one's personal assets. Laws of incorporation
   vary from state to state with California having the most incorporated
   businesses of any state in the U.S.

   Workers who are not paid wages, such as volunteers, are generally not
   considered as being employed. One exception to this is an internship,
   an employment situation in which the worker receives training or
   experience (and possibly college credit) as the chief form of
   compensation.

   Someone who works under obligation for the purpose of fulfilling a debt
   without pay is known as a slave and slaveowners are also not considered
   employers. Some historians suggest that slavery is older than
   employment, but both arrangements have existed for all recorded
   history.

Employment Research and Education

     * Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations
     * Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School

Films

   Death on the Job, Filmmakers: William Guttentag and Vince DiPersio,1991

   Office Space, written and directed by Mike Judge.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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