Sunday, January 26, 2020

Law of Protection Business Information Critique

Law of Protection Business Information Critique A critique of the extent of implementing the law of protection business information in Europe and the U.S. Introduction Stealing secretive business information and economic espionages as a result of globalization reveals an increase in the involvement of many commercial blocks to protect business ideas, through a litigation process. Regional economic blocks such as the jurisdiction of the European Union through its Commission as well as the U.S. have increased an extent of laws, from the roots of the international law provisions, so that it can protect the business firms in their jurisdictions from the vices. An important thing to note is that business information regarding the intellectual properties is critical in the center for this discussion through four key areas namely the copyright issues, trademark issues, trade secrets and patent issues. Many of the states in the case study regions have come up with various pieces of law as well as definitions of the trade secrets that they protect which is enforceable throughout the world. The process that enables application of such laws involves the provisions by international treats which might lead to contractual agreements or guide multilateral and bilateral relations between states. Global bodies whose conventions are legally binding such as the United Nations also come up with regulations which, particularly, for the case, protect the way of business information and also trade secrets through the assent by signature to that body. The process of globalization makes many nations to realize the many problems that all states share. However, the capabilities and foreign policy elements of various jurisdictions are not equal. Also, if some of the nations decide to address the problems alone, they may not be able to come up with ways of protecting their citizens or firms in an international platform without the help of the rules guiding the relations between various states. Therefore, it is important that there are not only global bodies present for international protection but also institutions such as the legal departments that come up with the legislations. They should also be able to enforce it through statutory provisions in the conventions signed by parties on a voluntary basis. Ideally, no particular enforcement agency or body is independent in enforcing the laws but only possible with the help of the treaties. Some of the departments are given the directive to undertake certain duties for the purpose of prot ection of the states and their citizens against particular threats. In this case, theft and economic espionage have been on the rise prompting many nations to come up with the laws to protect firms and businesses from this global threat. With the increase in technology, some of the thefts take place even through online systems, such as cyber attacks, which might retrieve the nature of trade secrets regarding the nature of individual strategies of business operations to a particular company and use it for unfair competitive practices. The United Nations conventions also have the specific legislature which addresses this issue and which guides the formulation of constitutional laws by individual countries, to protect the trade secrets at an international level. The paper focuses on the nature and security of the business information, and trade secrets concerning the United States and Europe regarding nature and extent of which the particular countries involve their legal obligations in protecting companies from economic espionage and theft in a global market. Also, the paper will establish whether the recent increase in the litigation process to protect companies from the vices is as a result of the increasing number of the violation of the trade secrets law. The supportive arguments for this study will arise through the survey on the pieces of legislation by the case study countries. The focus is on how they utilize international law and the development of local legislations to guide the nature of business practice, protection of information and enhance fair competition amongst companies that face the threat of stealing trade secrets for their befit. Also, through concentration on the elements of intellectual property, the study will also involve the laws as well as the legal consequences of the violations of the provisions in each of the individual jurisdiction to establish the extent and seriousness of this problem. The purpose is to prove that the blocks are addressing the protection of trade secrets not only to their jurisdiction but also on the internationalization of business. The structure of this paper will involve the discourse on the definitions of the firm secrets by various laws and critical analysis, and assessment of the historical evolution of this principle at the international level. Also, it will conceptualize the law of trade secrets and a discussion of the legal complexities that surround its implementation. Further, the paper will look into the extent of application of the trade secrets principle while discussing the philosophies of intellectual property law in the individual jurisdictions. Lastly, the discussion will give examples of pro-plaintiff and pro-defendant cases as a trend arising from the implementation of trade secrets principle in the United States and Europe jurisdictions. Definitions of trade secrets under international laws and their historical evolutions Firstly, the treaties between states and the international laws are binding on member states due to the ratification and implementation of the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties of 1969[1].The law guides the nature of international relations and in particular contributes largely to the sources of international law in which, its violation has consequences and can be in prosecution in the international court of justice. The treaties also observe the principles of the litigation at a global level such the equal rights and self-determination by the United Nations, which ensures that the sovereignty of all states is equal despite the economic or development differences. On this realization, most of the definitions of trade secrets in the international level arise from such treaties that are binding on all members states in equal measure, especially the rules guiding the nature of conducting trade between countries. In particular, the membership of countries to the WTO is the foundation on the conventions. As an international body, therefore, special rules have to guide the relations of conducting trade between states and also fair practices that will enhance the peaceful relationship within countries. The ratification of the laws by the world trade organizations is as a result of the deliberations of member states regarding emerging problems such theft of trade secrets and economic espionage. Also, it involves coming up with a treaty containing pieces of law with the aid of legal experts that members debate on and agree to it for the purpose of its implementation. The first explanation of the principle by the WTO refers to the perspective through Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) which views the principle to be commercial and private data that are uniquely applicable to the particular company[2].The law is in consideration as the first one to protect trade secrets at the international level through protecting undisclosed business information regarding copyrights, trademarks of firms, the patents issues and the trade secrets that may result in unfair competitions of businesses. Another important agreement that will also help define the trade secrets and constitute to its historical evolution in the international scene is the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property by the World Intellectual Property Organizations[3]. Defining trade secrets is similar among many countries which agree that the protection of this principle should have a practical value. In this case, it should involve the stakeholders of the organization and not an individual. They should not be made known to the public. Section seven of TRIPS in one of the articles by WTO outlines not only the law of protecting undisclosed information by business but also its definition. One of the definitions under this treaty by states that are members of WTO addresses the secrecy of the information. The provisions describe the protected information must be secret though the vice is not obsolete. In particular, an owner of a business can reveal the secrets to the firm partners and employee, but the information should not be readily available to the public. Also, those with the secrets should keep them that way on avoiding giving the knowledge to the public. The second aspect is the commercial value of the trade secrets. According to the agreement of TRIPS, private business information is a set of ideas about a business that has a massive market segment, and the protection of the information is to prevent the commercial information from other competing companies that may try to derive the utility out of the trade secrets. Lastly, the definition could be as a result of maintaining secrets using efforts that are reasonable. In this case, the law defines trade secrets as those who fulfill the energy requirement by company owners in protecting their information. The protection of the secret is due to reasons beyond such efforts by an individual that have to be reasonable. Some of the reasonable efforts according to the law, therefore, refer to common law in various countries requiring contractual agreements between the company and employees on the secrecy as well as the confidentiality notices so that the law could be able to protect the information. In an international scene, this consists of the efforts by the companies especially the multinational ones as well as the states of being reasonable and resulting to security provision of the business ideas. In the above definitions by the treaty, it does not offer the civil defense, especially to the technical information protection since it tends to only focus on the commercial perspective of the information. Also, the law does not protect the use information that might be confidential to a company that gets out to the public through fair means in the regular course of competitions primarily technical information such industrial designs. According to the TRIPS, the members of WTO, besides the obligation of the institution to protect commercial and confidential information, individual countries should place national systems to safeguard the businesses under their jurisdictions. However the failure of the treaty to set the standards or extent of the protection, the protection rights have the substantial variation which may even hinder internationalization of business. Some of the examples of such hindrances are the breaches of contract and acquisitions by third parties as a result of mis appropriation that differ across economic blocks around the world[4]. Articles 1 and 10bis of the Paris conventions regarding the industrial property protection is also about the TRIPS agreements as part of the scope of protecting trade secrets. In the article of the Paris conventions, for example, it outlines the requirement of a union in the member states for offering safety to the ownerships of valuable data to be in application. According to the section, the trade secrets include the object patents, industrial designs, trade names, and trademarks, as well as the models of the utility whose sharing with other people apart from the original innovators, may result in unfair practices in the competitive environment. On the other hand, Article 10bis of the same convention also indicates forms of unfair practices and the protection of the trade secrets from this threat. In particular, this law requires that the individual countries of the union should protect their citizens from the threat by legislating against unfair practices, confusion, false allegat ions or indications of misleading the public. The process concerns the nature of activities of the industrial use of products across all economic sectors[5]. Therefore the article addresses the protection of information from the view that trade secrets involve only the intellectual property. The convention also compliments the arguments by the TRIPS regarding the fact that apart from the provisions of the agreements, there is a need for the individual states also to establish national laws. The legislations enhance the protection of property for the business especially the ones protecting the theft of information that could lead to unfair completion if in the hand of competitors. Lastly, in addition to the protection of commercial and confidential information, this convention also gives consideration to technical information which is more critical and the one that builds brands of companies such as the Walmart retail businesses and Apple technologies among other big companies with a unique innovation and presence in the world. Conceptualization of trade secrets law Different states have different opinions regarding the premises of the legislation on providing protection to business concepts at risk. For example, to Europe, an English law on trade secrets is on the assumption breach of confidence regarding the trade secrecy. In the U.S., the premise of the protection law company secrecy is through protection of the business information. Some scholars do argue that no unified theory explains the trade secrets law but however recognizes that it is a collection of norms as well as approaches that offer protection to business information. Therefore, the normative and conceptual ideas indicate that the definition of property extends beyond the actual ownerships to include products as a result of innovation and forms of labor. Also, the rise in the global concern over the issue reveals that the need for protection of this kind of information is critical in enhancing the relations between states. Though other people may view trade secrets as not being property, the future developments of law that protect their rights facilitate the concept that the characteristics of the business information meet the ownership status. The concept goes even further through law provisions in some of the jurisdictions to indicate the fact that the supply of such rights constitutes a duty. For example in the US, the protection of this nature of business property through rights implies that the information has the potential of compensation under the federal constitution. On the other hand, European nations do not consider information as property but instead provide procedures and solutions to facilitate the claims of intellectual properties. Examples of such laws in the European states include the economics and trade secrets law. Therefore, there is the existence of the concept of trade secrecy among many nations. The was increasing efforts through conventions, as well as national legislation in individual states, shows the global concern of the consistent trait of the abuse of property rights under the law of various jurisdictions. The underlying reason, such as the increasing economic espionage cases and the efforts by the governments concern to respond to adverse effects of theft of business information that is confidential, shows that the concept exists. Besides, the consistent nature towards the traits through the consequences of globalization identifies the duty of the international bodies to come up with legally binding agreements. They protect companies from the character of this threat clearly shows the emergence of the concepts as well as the trend of the risk that changes with both levels of technology and internationalization of businesses which also require continued efforts of revising the law t o protect the ideation of the businesses from theft. Underlying philosophies of law on intangibles The discussions around trade secrets in most cases tend to involve the concept of copyright protection. Therefore, it is essential to understand the nature of the concept as well as the underlying principle to enhance the later discussion concerning the extent to which both the United States of America and Europe apply the law of trade secrets in their respective jurisdictions. Also, the basis of the case laws that show the pro-plaintiff and the pro-defendant is this concept especially after the implementation of particular laws in the region as a global trend today. Intellectual property refers to the inventions, creative works, and use of symbols, names or images that identify with a particular company for commercial purposes. On this basis, the intellectual property could be divided into industry ownership and copyright issues. Some of the problems associated with industrial properties include trademarks designs and geographical indications. On the other hand, copyright involves writings and artistic works, and architectural drawings. In some cases, performing artists such as singers have specific rights which relate to copyrighting. The same applies to recordings by both radio broadcasts and television programs among other examples that copyright their material to prevent other people from using the information without their permission which in most cases involve attaching a commercial value for the usage of the products. The intellectual property rights include the allowance of individuals as well as companies with unique information to benefit from their work or ideas regarding the commercial use of their products. Some universal treaties, such as the universal declaration of human rights in Article 27 outline some of these rights[6]. Also, apart from the Paris Convention for the protection of industrial property in the earlier discourse, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works of 1886 by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) also provides some of the rights[7]. Such incidences of protection of the kind of properties indicate that there are significant reasons why the world organizations should legislate to protect trade secrets. One of the reasons is that legal protection, especially to new creations in culture and technology, encourages many companies to come up with supportive measures such as additional resources for new products that will improve hum anity. Also, through this protection, the countries could experience faster economic growth, higher quality of life as well as opening up of the employment opportunities. Therefore, the protection creates a level of the interest of people with the idea and also the citizen concerns that many states serve. The occurrence of common problems through the globe also require the efforts of agreements such as through the convention to help protect the common international interests of member states since the occurrence of some of the problems such theft of information has no boundaries. Patents offer exclusive rights to inventions or technical solutions towards particular problems in most cases up to twenty years. They are necessary to provide incentives to the investors as recognition of their creativity and innovation. Patents offer protection that prevents the information from commercial production, distribution or use without consent from the owner. In this scenario, the courts enforce the protection of these rights. A patent holder could, therefore, have the exclusive right to give the information to anyone of their choice with particular confidential requirements of not sharing. Once the period expires, then the information can be free for use by the public. A trademark refers to a unique sign that is in the identification of a particular type of product.ÂÂ   The clients using the product have a relation with that particular sign. Other companies may try to copy the trademark as the way to create confusion within the customers and therefore, have an opportunity to make some of the clients to buy their products that result in unfair competition practices. Trademark protection, therefore, ensures that the owners have the rights of using the mark exclusively as a brand of their products. The courts determination also enforces the legal complexities surrounding the issues. They promote the recognition and financial gains by individuals or enterprises. They can consist of drawings, symbols, or numerical having distinguishing features. The registration of the trademarks is widespread in many countries, but however, in most cases, the impact of the brands might be restricted to the individual countries. A geographical indication is a particular location in which the product originates due to its reputation due to the place. For example, Arabian coffee or electrical appliances manufactured by the United Kingdom among others indicate that the location of that production is significant for the usage of the product. Some people might locally produce or make the products that constitute limitations for financial gain and unfair competition practices aimed at only making the profit using another companys geographical indicator. Some of the valuable reputations are vulnerable to misuse and are interpretation hence the need to protect them. In most cases, the protection is through national laws under other provisions of the law on rights. Also, WIPO through international agreements such as the Lisbon agreement and other meetings that allow member states to enhance international protection. The last one involves the copyrights where the owner of such rights can be able to prohibit or permit the use of their information that is of their originality. The examples of these applications may include a reproduction of content, public performance, broadcasting, language translation or adoption to other forms with the consent of the owner. The law applies to right from the production, distribution and to the end user of the products. The economic rights regarding the copyrights also allow companies to purchase some of the rights or give compensation for the use of the content by an individual or business such as through partnerships. In most cases, the nature of this relationship is through the directive of contractual agreements for enforcement by law[8]. The protection of the copyright rights enhances creativity and innovation. However, with the increasing technological advancement, some of the materials may be readily available through online platforms. Organizations such as the WIPO through the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCI) also provide the rights[9]. Also, the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT) provide the rights of using creative workers over the internet to as to protect the copyright of the owner regarding usability and economic compensations[10]. Critique of the extent of business information law in Europe Recently, protecting business ideas in Europe has made progress of legislative developments as a result of the involvement of the European Commission and ratification by the European Parliament. One of the major, legal arsenals of the industrial players in Europe is the use of patent law to protect their technology. Reports reveal concerns that the laws are not sufficient to address the problem of industrial espionage in the technological fields. In particular, the issue discusses the threat of leaking such information through former workers in companies, contractors or the other third parties. The legal complexities that both the industrial players and the European Union involve in are due to two primary reasons. The first reason is that recognition of the need to protect the trade secrets will help increase the levels of innovation in Europe and allow it to compete in an efficient manner with other jurisdictions having more protection such as the United States. The second reason is to provide a response to the increasing cases of stealing of technology within European businesses. One of the litigation to enhance the national laws is to strengthen the proposed directive which aims at breaching the gap through harmonization of existing laws. There is need to review the company laws will also help in increasing the research and development activities by balancing the leveling of the trade secret protection throughout the Europe countries to reach the same levels[11]. The formulation process is careful to ensure fair competition between various companies and the issue regarding the freedom of workers and their mobility in implementing it. Also, the legislation has to put into consideration the avoidance of restricting the independent contractors. The reasons include the fact that the scope of protection that goes beyond patent rights only and that trade secret do not only involve technological products but information with commercial value too. The need for the new legislation is the increase in the theft through digital platforms involving activities such as cyber-attacks that might potentially disclose the confidential information to the particular regarding a particular company. As a result, a report by European Commission study on secrecy off information of companies shows the use of the protection of the company secrets across all the European countries. Lastly, the definition of trade secrets as the know-how through the European Commission Technology Transfer Block Exemption Regulation (TTBER) also requires review to widen the definition scope[12]. According to Article 1.1(i) of TTBER, trade secrets are not known or accessible, have strong use in production and contractual activities and not easily identified. Therefore, through the implementation of the litigation content, the nature of business practice will involve fairness, and positive development through better protection of the trade secrets. Critique of the extent of trade secrets in the US The United States is one of the most advanced countries regarding the protection of trade secrets through the international law application, the federal law and lastly the state law. In the US, the trade secret refers to confidential information that is also commercial which gives a substantial competitive advantage[13]. Some of the trade secrets include customer lists, marketing strategies, and pricing information. One of such secrets is the Coca-Cola formula for its products. Today, the trade secrets are increasingly becoming among the most significant valuable assets that are not tangible. The theft of these trade secrets leads to massive losses especially by the American firms to leaks by employees, foreign governments and lastly through corporate competitions. Most of the theft occurs through cyber-attacks, advanced technology, and communication devices which increase anonymity of the individuals or organizations behind the vice. In the United States, protecting information on companies lies in the jurisdiction regarding the law of states. However, the other elements such as patent information, trademarks and copyrights are a responsibility of the federal law. According to the state law, the owners of a trade secret could file lawsuits against the known individuals that misappropriate such information. In the federal law, statutes such as the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) 1996 many also protect through prosecution, in particular, a situation where the confidential information many benefit another foreign state, instruments or agent[14]. In a case where the information is for use in interstates, the law also applies in ensuring that the owner of that kind of information gets protected from the usage of that information without their consent. According to this law, the attorney general has a legal duty to bring to a civil action or obtain an injunction that is against any violation. However, it is difficult for the federal government to adequately protect the trade secrets whose owners are the US citizens. The reason is that the US department of justice, as well as the federal bureau of investigation, has less power regarding the enforcement of the law on violations of trade secrets. In particular, their investigative and prosecution duty is not in facilitation with the provisions of the law. However, through urging the Congress to adopt a more elaborate law including the federal trade secret law that is uniform across the states, it will allow dealing more effectively the problem of stealing trade secrets. The process could help most of the companies in the US to seek injunctions relief as well as the monetary benefit especially in cases in violating theft of the business information as well as assets. One of the legislations in the 114th Congress that will give the power of private action to the federal government includes the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) (H.R. 3326 and S. 1890)[15].ÂÂ   The process is through a substitute amendment to the statute through the house senate judiciary committee in early 2016. The Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA) of 1979 is the first effort by law through the National Conference of Commissioners on uniform state law before the effort by the federal government of the espionage act[16]. Regarding the state laws, the law of the common torts applies for cases involving misappropriation. The UTSA helps through consolidating the universal laws that Forty-seven states have adopted. The Senate Judiciary Committee continues to increase in the application of procedural and substantive standards towards protection of trade secrets. Enforceable laws under the federal government that will protect secrecy of the ideas of business the Trade Secrets Act and the Economic Espionage Act[17]. The first one involves a warning to government officials not to disclose information that is confidential as well as trade secrets enacted in 1948. The consequences could lead to removal from office. On the other hand, the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 is to address increasing threats to the US businesses hence the scheme to protect trade secrets. The act involves two offenses which include stealing business data to make gains to another states organization or individual and also the trade secret theft for a financial benefit of another party. Lastly, through the international law, the United States offers a more elaborate legal protection of the trade secrets. The US complies with the provisions of TRIPS as well as the provisions of the WTO[18]. Also, through provisions of other bilateral or multilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are significant in the protection of the intellectual property through the delivery of TRIPS agreement[19]. Pro-Plaintiff or Pro-Defendant Trends Arising From the Implementati

Saturday, January 18, 2020

To His Coy Mistress Compared to Other Love Poetry

To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell is a love poem from the period of the renaissance. The poem appears in rhyming couplets which is different than the typical love poems, seen in sonnet form that we are used to from that time. The rhyming couplets are our first clue that this poem is not your typical love poem. Through his approach of theme, tone, and his use of language, Marvell criticizes the love poetry tradition as it existed in his time in order to argue that we must seize the moment and see the reality of time and love.Marvell contradicts the traditional love poetry theme; love is eternal and stable, by using a theme of carpe diem. Carpe diem means to seize the moment and live for the day. Marvell does not believe in waiting for love to blossom or believing that love will last forever as we see in Shakespeare’s sonnet 18, â€Å"Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade/ When in eternal lines to time though growest: /So long as men can breathe or eyes ca n see,/ so long lives this and this gives life to thee. Meaning, nor will death claim you for his own because in my poem you will last forever, and if there be people on this earth, then my poem will live on, making you immortal. The reader’s see the opposite of this in Marvell’s poem as he believes that when you die â€Å"Thy beauty shall no more be found† By this he means that once his mistress dies her beauty will no longer be recognized so she must use her beauty to her advantage now.Unlike Shakespeare, Marvell does not view love as passionate, beautiful or emotional. Rather, his carpe diem theme suggests that love does not last forever, and beauty will fade. He continues to try to convince the reader that you must live for the day; â€Å"Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound/ My echoing song; then worms shall try/ That long preserv'd virginity,/ And your quaint honour turn to dust,/ And into ashes all my lust. The grave's a fine and private place, /But non e I think do there embrace† Through the use of this quote Marvell claims that saving yourself for everlasting love is a waste of time because when you die you will not be loved eternally, rather you will be eaten by worms and your youth will be wasted. Marvell’s tone of urgency, morbidity, and negative attitude towards love contrasts the typical love poetry tone of delicacy, intimacy, and patience. Marvell feels that there is no such thing as eternal love. Perhaps you may think he does not believe in love at all.We first see his sarcasm towards love when he claims to give a hundred years to praise his mistress eyes, two hundred to adore each breast, and thirty thousand to the rest of her body in which we believe to be the waist down. However, we greatly see Marvell’s sense of urgency when he says â€Å"But at my back I always hear/ Time’s winged chariot hurrying near; /And yonder all before us lie/ Deserts of vast eternity. † By this he means that b ehind him time is catching up fast, but in front of him are deserts of vast eternity, and emptiness.He sees a tragedy in living for the afterlife and believes it’s a waste of youth. He continues the metaphor of the desert in the third stanza by talking about birds of prey who devour and hunt time. Normally, in traditional love poems, a poet believes that love can be eternal as we see in Spenser’s sonnet 75 â€Å"Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise /To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: /My verse your virtues rare shall eternize, /And in the heavens write your glorious name. Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue, /Our love shall live, and later life renew. † In this sonnet, addressed to his wife, Spenser claims to give her immortality in his verse, similar to Shakespeare’s sonnet 18. Marvell’s use of language, including figurative and non-figurative, and his choice of words, fail to evoke the passion and sweetness found in the lo ve poetry of his time. Most love poems consist of soft and beautiful words to create a loving and emotional theme and tone.However, Marvell use’s words such as vegetable, worms, birds of prey, devour, ashes, and dust, create images that do not evoke pleasant feelings. For example, when Marvell says â€Å"My vegetable love should grow/ Vaster than empires, and more slow† by using this hyperbole metaphor, he identifies the scale of his love for women; for a vegetable to grow as vast as an empire would take longer than humans have to live.Also, the use of the word â€Å"but† in the opening of the second stanza suggests they don’t have enough time to wait for love to blossom. The image you see when he says â€Å"the worms shall try/ That long preserv’d virginiti† creates irony because his mistress has spent her life trying to preserve herself, meanwhile he claims that worms will take over her body. In Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 he useâ€℠¢s words that are passionate, beautiful, emotional, and most of all, create feelings and images of love. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou are more lovely and more temperate: /Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, /And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: /Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d; /And every fair from fair sometime declines, /By chance or nature’s changing course untrimme’d; /But thy eternal summer shall not fade We see through the words used in this quote, such as summer’s day, buds of May, and the eye of heaven, Shakespeare succeeds to enhance the theme of love and beauty while Marvell’s use of words is not typical of the traditional love poem and create more of a morbid feeling.In conclusion, Marvell’s use of theme, tone, and language, highly criticized the traditional love poetry of his time. In the opening of the poem Marvell’s use of his carpe diem theme creates an immediate break in the normal love poetry by starting the poem with a problem; time and space limitation. As the poem continues we sense a feeling and tone of urgency which entwines with the theme of carpe diem. The register of the poem, through hyperbole and metaphor, shows how â€Å"To His Coy Mistress† is predominantly about time rather than lust, love, or seduction.

Friday, January 10, 2020

Boeing corporation crisis Essay

Attached is a report of the biggest crisis that the Boeing Corporation has ever faced in its existence. First it will describe the events leading up to the problem before it became a public issue. Then we will discuss in extensive detail exactly what the problem is that Boeing is facing and how they can overcome it. The team of xxx completed the research and the written report of the crisis. Boeing is an international supplier of commercial airline planes, military defense aircraft, and surveillance. Partially due to the September 11th attacks on the United States, the Boeing Corporation will be laying off 30,000 employees from their nationwide facilities. The layoffs will affect cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and will affect employees from entry level to executive offices. The announcements of these issues have caused Boeing’s stock to fall to a surprising low and production levels to drop dramatically. XXX would like to thank XXX for giving us the opportunity to complete this research assignment. The research helped us learn how to more efficiently utilize the different databases available to us and put it into a format so it can be presented to a public organization or the media. The skills learned in the duration of completing this report will be able to be utilized when presenting to upper management a detailed issue and solutions to a specific problem. Boeing Corporation Crisis Cal State Fullerton Jean Fuller May 28, 2002 Executive Summary Today the Boeing Corporation is facing one of the largest crises in the history of the company. They are in the process of laying off a total of 30,000 employees from their facilities nationwide. The layoffs will take place in cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. Most of the layoffs affect the commercial airline division, but the military defense and aerospace divisions will also be affected. The plan for the reduction in employee size began in July 2001, but the attacks on the United States on September 11th left the company having to lay off more employees. At the present time, Boeing is mainly focusing on reducing the amount of mandatory layoffs. This is going to be hard to accomplish because of the reduced demand for the company’s goods and services. In the future, Boeing’s focus will be on returning to a high level of production and profitability. They will be focusing on competing with the competition by increasing product innovation and reducing expenses that the company incurs during production in an effort to keep prices low. Due to economic slowdown and reduced spending by consumers, the Boeing Corporation was beginning to experience loss in revenues and a decline in production. Not more than three months later, the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York impacted the demand for commercial aircraft because of fear to travel by airplane. Also, heavy competition with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, Boeing is not being awarded as many contracts with the United States military, which is causing a decline in revenues for the aerospace and military defense divisions. There are not many ways to overcome the entire problem, but there are some alternatives that the company can consider in order to reduce them. The alternatives are to distribute hours equally among the employees, reallocate employees into different divisions, offer severance pay, and to continue to layoff employees. Boeing has to be careful in the way that this particular situation is handled. If employees feel as though they are being treated unfair, they will not have job satisfaction and production may decrease. The best possible solution for the Boeing’s problem is to equally distribute the hours among the employees. By doing this employees will maintain their jobs. This will result in higher job satisfaction than other alternatives, and Boeing will not have to go through an extensive process to rehire when they return back to a stage of profitability. Boeing Problem Statement As Boeing faces one of the greatest financial crises in the history of the airline industry, Boeing plans to cut production workers, engineers and support staff by mid-2002 (Nyhan, September 2001). Because of a declining economy as well as terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11th, Boeing is laying off a total of 30,000 employees in all divisions of the corporation: aerospace, commercial aviation, and military defense. The layoffs will happen in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Seattle, Oklahoma, and the Puget Sound area, and will affect everyone from salaried executives to the hourly paid maintenance employees. Layoffs are a sign of company turmoil and should be avoided to maintain the company stockholders. Short and Long-Term Goals Boeing’s primary short-term objective is to maintain a reasonable level of profitability given the recent occurrences. It will attempt to accomplish this by reducing the amount of dollars that are paid to the current employees by either reducing their hours, or completely terminating their employment with the company. Because of current supply and demand of the company, profits will be reduced if the current level of employees is maintained. Boeing’s long-term objective is to be the number one supplier of commercial, aerospace, and military aircraft and technology. They aim to accomplish this by maintaining a level of profitability that satisfies the stockholders and corporate executives. They also want to maintain a high level of competition with the current competition: Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. If Boeing loses government aerospace and military defense contracts to the competition, there is a high probability that the company will become insolvent and declare bankruptcy. Details of the Problem Prior to September 11th, Boeing was going through trying times. Their satellite manufacturing operations were in a recession. This was due to the bursting of the internet and telecom bubbles (Laing, 2002). The Commercial Airline Industry was also facing a slowdown. This was a result of high fuel prices, labor cost increases, a softening of the national economy and low passenger traffic (Smith, 2001). Also, improvements in production efficiency for Boeing led to a plan to decrease up to 15% of its employees in the commercial-aircraft business. This efficiency in production was due to the industry’s first ever-moving assembly line for the final phase of the production process, which cuts unneeded steps (Holmes, 2001). Likewise, by the end of 2001, Boeing lost out on the largest military contract ever when the Pentagon picked rival Lockheed Martin to build the Joint Strike Fighter for shared use by the Air Force, Navy and Marines. This next generation manned fighter is expected to flow more than $200 billion in revenues over the next 20 years (Laing, 2002). But most traumatic for Boeing were the terrorist attacks on September 11th. They transformed what had been shaping up as a mild downturn in commercial jet orders into a veritable collapse in demand (Laing, 2002). After the attacks, the need to fly drastically declined due to fear and security issues that made flying a nuisance. This left the US Airline Industry in a serious crisis. Companies such as Continental, US Airways, American, and Delta cut up to 20% of their capacity (Smith, 2001). Source: www.bloomber.com The terrorist attacks resulted in Boeing’s stock to plummet. Prior to September 11th, Boeing’s stock was falling because of the downturn in the economy. From the graph above, we can see that the attacks made the stock price to fall from $50 a share to $30. This was a sign that investors knew the impact the terrorist attacks had on Boeing’s industry. After September 11th, Boeing planned to respond to these problems by cutting production rates by 50 percent (Nyhan, November 2001). On September 18th, one week after the attacks, Boeing announced at a press conference that it would layoff up to 30,000 employees by the middle of 2002 (Smith, 2001). On that day, Boeing reduced the level of employees by 12,000: 3,000 through retirement and attrition, and 9,000 through layoffs (Farley, 2001). Boeing also stated that their jetliner orders would decrease drastically. In the next three years 80% of their 2001 orders would be delivered (Smith, 2002). They also planned to cut their monthly production of aircraft by half, from 48 to 24. The director of people at Boeing’s commercial airplane unit said, â€Å"In order to match our reduced production rate, we will need to accomplish the majority of the 20,000 to 30,000 reductions in 2002 employment by midyear†. Members of the Associated Press and Kiro 7 Eyewitness News stated, â€Å"Last week Boeing officials announced plans to layoff as many as 30,000 employees, mostly in the Puget Sound area, by the end of next year because of plummeting demand for new planes and postponed deliveries since the terrorist attacks.† Boeing’s commercial airplane division is not the only division that the layoffs will effect. Surprisingly 5,000 of the 30,000 layoffs are predicted to come from the military division. The military division cutbacks are also due to the September 11th attacks, but they are mainly due to global economic slowdown (Klein, 2001). This comes as a surprise because the military division is expected to grow in a time of war or terrorist attacks. Stockholders may assume that the government will request an increased level of production of fighter jets and military bombers so that the United States can dominate in the war against terrorism. In addition, the layoffs will not only affect the Boeing employees, but also people outside the company. As many as 20,000 of the Boeing layoffs may occur in the Seattle area alone, resulting in an additional 34,000 jobs lost by Boeing suppliers, subcontractors, and others (Klein, 2001). Alternatives Before Boeing implements any solutions they must maintain a good level of communication with their employees. The employees must know the reasons for a particular action taken by Boeing in order to avoid any mistrust and confusion (Hoffman, 2001). For example, an employee will wonder why layoffs are taking place when Phil Condit, Boeing’s CEO, is making an annual bonus of $1.13 million (Webber, 2002). Boeing must carefully explain their plans and what they are hoping to accomplish through their actions. Boeing can reduce the amount of layoffs by implementing any of the following solutions: Distribute Hours Among Employees The first solution for Boeing is to spread the hours among the employees for each department. Every department is given so many hours it can use for each week at the beginning of the quarter, depending on the amount of business Boeing has. If those hours taken and spread among the employees for each department, not as many layoffs will occur. The hours will be spread out by reducing the workweek from five days to four. By cutting one day out of an employee’s schedule Boeing is able to give those hours to another employee, which under the circumstances would be laid off. Once four employees each receive a deduction in their workweek one employee will be able to maintain their job and not be laid off. The advantage to this solution is that fewer employees will have to be laid-off. Employees will have their hours cut according to seniority. Some employees that have been with the company for a number of years will not be affected by the action. By holding onto the employees and not laying them off Boeing will be prepared to handle new contracts as they arise. Boeing is predicting that the recent decline in contracts is only short-term and business will soon return to their previous levels. The disadvantage to the solution is that some employees will not be able to afford a reduction in hours. In this scenario employees will not be satisfied and hold each other responsible for less hours. If employees are not satisfied then their production will decrease due to their dissatisfaction. Re-Allocate Employees The second solution for Boeing is to train employees in other departments within the company. This will allow Boeing to reallocate employees in different departments rather than laying them off. With the commercial airline department being hit the hardest by the recent terrorist events, employees in that department could transfer to other departments if they possessed the knowledge. The advantage in training employees outside their departments is the value it will add to the employee. If an employee has the knowledge and know how to be productive and efficient in other departments, not just his own, they become an instant asset to the company. Due to their flexibility Boeing can move the employee around in accordance with demand. A disadvantage to this solution is that Boeing will incur high costs for training employees to do other jobs. A slowdown in production will also result due to the time spent on training. The transition for an employee to move from one department to another is difficult because the employee will not be as efficient. Severance Pay Early retirement packages will be available to qualified employees. The retirement packages to be offered will vary depending on the number of years an employee has with the company. For each full year of service an employees has with the company, up to twenty-six years, they will receive one week of pay (Hoffman, 2001). The employee can take the severance pay in either a lump sum or as an income continuation. The single lump sum plan pays the severance pay to the person in one check within one month of leaving the company. The income continuation plan will pay the severance pay on the regular paydays every two weeks (Boeing, 2000). The advantage to this solution is each individual makes their own decision and they have total control of what they want to do. Also high salaries will be eliminated as management personnel take the package. Once management leaves, the ones that find early retirement appealing, Boeing will be able to promote employees into those positions without having to pay the large salaries. The disadvantage to this solution is that not many jobs will be saved because not many employees will go for the early retirement package. Boeing will also lose experienced managers if they decide to take the early retirement package. If this solution is implemented Boeing will continue to layoff employees because not enough jobs will be cut. Continue Layoffs The last solution is to continue to layoff employees as necessary. This will allow Boeing to keep revenues high because the layoffs will occur according to the market. If Boeing does not get as many contracts as they expected for a particular quarter, the layoffs will help the company’s finances. The disadvantage to this alternative is the potential of business picking backup. The market for commercial jetliners is expected to boom in two years and Boeing needs to be able to handle the new contracts. If Boeing has to constantly train new employees as business increases, in an effort compensate for the ones that were laid-off, they will not be operating at full efficiency. Solution Boeing realizes that layoffs can’t be completely eliminated, however they want to reduce layoffs to the lowest possible amount. Boeing will accomplish that by distributing the hours in each department among the employees. This solution will allow Boeing to save jobs by reducing the employee’s workweek from forty hours to thirty-two hours. The management of each department will determine the hours to be cut and the number of employees that are affected. This will be implemented on June 1, 2002 throughout all departments. Most employees will be affected by the reduction in hours, and management must be prepared to cope with the initial negative reaction. In order to measure the results of the solution, Boeing must evaluate the impact on its bottom line along with the toll it’s taking on their employees. An evaluation will occur every six months and will be lead by top executives and the department managers. Once evaluated, a decision will be made by the board of directors on whether or not to continue with the reduction of hours or to incorporate a different action. The thirty-two hour workweek is expected to be temporary as analysts are predicting a turn around in demand for planes (Holmes, 2001). As production returns to capacity, hours will be returned back to employees according to seniority.    Reference List Airlines slash workforces. (n.d.) retrieved April 10, 2002, from www.proquest.com . Airwise News. (2001, September 22). Majority of Boeing layoffs in aircraft sector. Retrieved April 10, 2002, from www.dowjonesinteractive.com Associated Press Newswires. (2002, March). More Boeing layoff notices. 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