Outsourcing California Government Jobs: What Responsibility does the Government have towards its Citizens?
If you called the California food-stamps office, your call was directed to India, where a person living in that country, whose salary was paid with money out of the treasury of the state of California, would have assisted you with any questions you had regarding your food stamps (also funded for by American and California taxpayers). If you had a question regarding California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids benefits (CALWORKs, California’s welfare), and could only speak Spanish, then your call would redirected to an operator in Tijuana. Sound unusual? Some legislators and residents of California thought so too.
Outsourcing, the practice of transferring certain job functions to companies whose employees perform them for less money overseas, is not something that only happens in the corporate world. Following in the footsteps of corporate outsourcing, some state governments, including the state of California, are also beginning to outsource state-funded projects, departments, and services.
This paper shows how California is facing an aggressive policy battle to determine how best to address outsourcing and state government contracts/jobs. The legislators of the state question whether outsourcing is the best choice to sustain and improve California’s economy, while considering the core values of their respective political parties the influences from partisan politics and special interests. Partisan politics have led to a deadly misstep for legislators because of the need to appease the agenda of their respective parties (which could possibly override the considerations that need to be made in re...
... middle of paper ...
...tember 2004.
Schoenberger, Karl. “State Governments Offshore information technology jobs, study finds.” The San Jose Mercury News. 15 July 2004, Online. Lexis Nexis Academic. 23 September 2004.
Savas, E.S. Privatization and Public-Private Partnerships. New York: Chatham House. 2000.
“Senate Hold Joint Hearing on Outsourcing of Jobs”: This Week in Sacramento. Online Newsletter. 5 December 2004.
http://www.caiia.com/Norwood_3-12-04.htm
“Stolen Jobs? Offshoring. (Does offshoring steal jobs?).” The Economist 369 (2003): 2 pages.
Weintraub, Daniel. “Outsourcing is Good for America…and California”. The Sacramento Bee. 13 July 2004. Google Search. 5 December 2004
“US Chamber of Commerce Chief Endorses Offshoring”. InformationWeek Online Magazine. 5 December 2004.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=22103240
A perfect government would restrict offshoring in a socially optimal way. However, the fact that the government’s clear-cut motive is to act in the best interest of its citizens is a questionable assumption. It is reasonable to think that their offshoring policy decisions could be slightly swayed by a motivation to remain in power. They may, for example, change their policies to be more restrictive of offshoring to alleviate pressure from workers who publicly announce their discontentment with the fact that their job was lost due to offshoring. To base policy decision solely on the basis of complaints and without properly founded economic reasoning is inherently flawed, and deviates from what is socially optimal.
Guilt is a prevalent theme throughout The Book Thief. Liesel endures guilt multiple times, when she steals laundry money from Rosa, gets Max sick, verbally attacks Ilsa Hermann, and experiences the guilt of surviving. All of these acts caused Liesel to experience some sort of guilt which later causes her to perform questionable tasks.
Freedom, the most blatant theme in the novel, takes on a different perspective for Huck, escaping a civilized lifestyle, and Jim, escaping being sold by Mrs. Watson. Huck is forced to adapt to Widow Douglass’ civilized lifestyle, but he perceives it as “rough living… when [he] couldn’t stand it no longer, [he] lit out… and was free and satisfied” (1). The struggle within the confines of both the Widow and his father are the reason he flees to the island. While the Widow sent him to school and taught him religion, Pap was a major threat to Huck’s security and he knew how to cleverly escape it. By playing a trick on his drunk, sleeping father in the shed, “Pretty soon [he] made it out” (41). He took a canoe downstream and once he arose, “there was Jackson Island” (42). This marks his first point of freedom now that Huck is successfully on his own. Jim, on the other hand, runs away before Mrs. Watson is able to sell him, separating him from his family. Similarly to Huck, when Jim hears the rumors he runs away to Jackson Island. When the island becomes unsafe, they set out on a raft down the Mississippi River. “ ‘You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft’ ” (128), said Huck. Huck and Jim now have no restrictions, they are able to be free and they no longer need to hide from anyone. On the river, Jim is labeled a runaway slave and fears that he will be caught. At ...
The power of words can influence many people which results in many characters to be negatively impacted like Liesel.
From the literature researched, the writer thinks that environmental modifications along with multifactorial interventions can make a difference for falls that an elderly can receive. Still, he thinks that there should be more research done on environmental assessment tools, flooring, and effective behavioral interventions. On his last thoughts, he believes that strategies should be patient focused and environmental modifications should be developed for that individual.
Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO). (2005). Prevention of falls and fall injuries in the older adult. Retrieved from http://rnao.ca/sites/rnao-ca/files/Prevention_of_Falls_and_Fall_Injuries_in_the_Older_Adult.pdf
Outsourcing is a technique for companies to reassign specific responsibilities to external entities. There are several motivations for outsourcing including organizational, improvement, cost, and revenue advantages (Ghodeswar & Vaidyanathan, 2008).
When taking steps to analyze and apply intervention strategies for falls, we must examine the factors that cause these occurrences. There are numerous reasons that falls occur, such as intrinsic and or extrinsic risk factors. Intrinsic risk factors for falls may be due to changes that are part of the normal aging process and acute or chronic conditions. According to Zheng, Pan and Hua et al. (2013), about 35-45 percent of individuals who are usually older than 65 years and other 50 percent of the elderly individuals report cases of fall every year. Extrinsic factors are those related to physical environment such as lack of grab bars, poor condition of floor surfaces, inadequate or improper use of assistive devices (Currie). Patient falls is not an easy thing to eliminate. With many clinical challenges, there’s no easy answer to the challenges posed by patient falls; howe...
To start off, Mariam plays a powerful role by enduring the countless strikes and lashes of her husband, Ras...
Liesel’s continuation of stealing from the library helps to develop Ilsa’s character, which seems very vital to the novel. The reader only sees such a broken, quiet woman as Liesel’s time with Ilsa continues, but Liesel’s actions
Whether people are noticing a fight or hearing about a person who risks their life for someone else, people always witness good and bad human behaviour. However, these actions can have negative results: a person in a fight can become seriously injured, and a person risking their life can easily end up dead. In The Book Thief, Markus Zusak proves that kind or cruel human behaviour often causes consequences through the actions of several characters.
The Pre-Civil War novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, is about a young boy named Huck. His mother is dead and his father is an alcoholic. Huck is now being raised by the Widow Douglass, a woman who is attempting to raise Huck to be a successful, educated member of society, despite his many protests. Because of the violence and forced conformity, Huck runs away and unites with a runaway slave named Jim. Instead of turning Jim in, Huck decides to help him break free from slavery. By doing this, he is going against the societal norm and refusing to follow certain rules just because that’s what everyone else is doing. As they run away together, Huck begins to notice and understand the common stereotypes within society. He rebels and goes against society in his attitudes and philosophies. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain explores why humans follow ridiculous ideas just because they are the societal norms by pointing out the hypocrisy within society’s ideals, incorporating satirical examples about religion, education, and slavery into his novel.
In the beginning of the book, Liesel is seen as an innocent uneducated young girl, but then starts to go through numerous tragedies. Such as the death of her brother, abandonment of her mother and the absence of her real father. Liesel then starts to steal and read books as an escapism because of the loss of her brother. She then joins a stealing gang, in which she continues to steal fruits, vegetables and other important foods from farms. “Twenty-four hours later, Liesel and Rudy braved the wire fence again and filled their sack. The problem showed up as they made their getaway. Christ! shouted Arthur. The farmer! It was his next word, however, that frightened. He called it out as if he’d already been attacked with it. His mouth ripped open. The word flew out, and the word was ax.” (Zusak 164). Liesel is now taking the food she steals for granted, in which she does not care if she gets in trouble. She is simply acting out. This leads her to doing wrongful things to gain more power, like stealing more books from the mayor's library to gain more knowledge. “The injury of words. Yes, the brutality of words. She summoned them from someplace she only now recognized and hurled them at Ilsa Hermann. “It’s about time,” she informed her, “that you do your stinking washing anyway. It’s about time you faced the fact that your son is dead. He got killed! He got strangled and
In the geriatric population, falls remain one of the most common cause of nonfatal injuries. In the article “Fall Prevention for Older Adults” three kinds of falls are described: anticipated physiological falls, unanticipated physiological falls, and accidental falls. Anticipated physiological falls “occur among people who are at a high risk for falling.” (Lyons, 2004). For the resident BK, this is the type of fall she experiences. BK is at a high risk for falling. In the last six months, she has fallen three times. In her most recent fall on Sept. 25, 2015, she was in her room being assisted with dressing before breakfast. While she was holding her walker, she lost her balance and fell backward. This fall didn’t result in her losing consciousness, and at the time, didn’t cause her any
Falls are not a part of getting old. Falls can cause severe injury and two -thirds death; five percent require hospitalization (Center for Disease Control, n.d.). Falls are the leading cause of injury among older adults, falls are treated every thirteen seconds in the emergency department, and every twenty minutes someone dies from a fall. One out three older adults fall annually, and only half tell their doctor. (Healthy people 2020, n.d.). The Center for Disease Control (CDC) states falls are a threat to health and decrease the ability to remain independent (Center for Disease Control, n.d.). Falls create a burden for the caregiver, incur costs of emergency room, acute, rehabilitation and long-term care. The CDC states that 2015 total