How to Best Identify Potential Workplace Hazards

Job safety is of utmost importance to The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or more commonly known as OSHA. For this reason, employers can request a OSHA representative to assess their workplace for potential dangers. A job site hazard by definition is a source or potential source of human injury or death. Some employers like to check their job sites for potential hazards before the OSHA representative arrives.

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Tackling the jobs issue — not each other

Given the heated political environment and the tenuous state of the economy, Labor Day will take on added significance this year. The holiday is sandwiched between the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions, where the question foremost in most voters’ minds is, “Where are the jobs?”

On this we can all agree: America needs more jobs, and needs them to be better paying and more secure. That song is the same regardless of the choir. But the harmony ends when it comes to the particulars — how did we get to this place of persistent high unemployment and how do we get out? Instead of workable solutions and new ideas, we are treated to a constant refrain of grandstanding and finger-pointing. Politicians, as well as labor and management leaders, have perfected the art of war at the expense of job protection and creation and America’s success in a global economy.

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Finding Work-Life Balance

Any child of the 80’s or 90’s is currently in a really unique position in life – and no, I’m not talking about the fact that we can say we’re older than Google. We’re in the middle of a technology boom where anything and everything is possible – including our future
At Onboardly, we work with startups. So we know a lot about them. And trust us when we say, there are A LOT of them, appearing every day, almost overnight it seems. Opportunity is everywhere and for those looking to hustle, there has never been a better time.
This is a new way of life and I can’t think of a better time for someone looking to be somebody than right now – especially if you have a passion for technology.
Startups have a culture you don’t find every day – which probably attributes to why startup jobs are hugely appealing. This culture understands that it takes a lot of work to become something really great – or a lot of hustle, as we like to call it. But we also understand that with hustle, comes the need for a work-life balance.

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Lean Business Techniques My Father Taught Me

My father always tried to instill life lessons in me.  Some of these I understood right away, but others took a long time to .  In the past few months, a lot of his lessons have really hit home for me and I want to share them with you.

Unlike me, my father is a man of few words. You could call him the “accountant type”…but he’s actually an accountant, and a very modest one at that. He’s one of those guys who has achieved a great deal, but doesn’t want to be recognized for any of it. He’ll always say something like, “I had a great team of supporters”, “I’m just the ideas guy…I didn’t lift a finger”, or “If it wasn’t for…”.  He doesn’t like being in the spotlight, but his lessons are too good not to share.

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Portland couple use Change.org to petition against brutal actions of ESCO Corporation

Cancer victim and family use social media platforms to bring awareness to the public and fight back.
Portland, OR  (PRBuzz.com) December 11, 2012 — One family in Portland is looking for justice. Paul and Holly Hicks were shown no mercy or compassion when the company that Paul worked for, ESCO Corporation, promptly removed him from his position. The family now has no way of continuing treatment for Holly’s cancer. The couple is petitioning the company to provide Paul, and employees like him, with the unemployment benefits that they are denying.

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Many American Workplaces are Becoming More Segregated

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on an affirmative action case that once again raised
Job-seekers line up for at the Congressional Black Caucus for the People Jobs Initiative in Los Angeles. (Jonathan Alcorn – Reuters) the contentious question of how best to create equal opportunity for all Americans. Interestingly enough, many on both sides of the debate over the University of Texas’s use of race in college admissions seemed to accept that the United States has been steadily growing towards greater equality over the past generation.

But research we just completed for a new book, “Documenting Desegregation,” tells a different story. In many workplaces, the United States has fallen off the path to equal employment opportunity, with racial and gender segregation on the rise in many firms and industries.

The results of our research found in part that there has been a trend toward racial re-segregation among white men and black men since 2000 and increased segregation since 1970 between black women and white women in American workplaces — so much so that it has eliminated progress made in the late 1960s. This is not simply an academic question, but a fundamental problem with American society. While most of us morally embrace equal opportunity and race and gender equality, we find that America is still a long way from those commitments. Only by confronting our shortcomings as a society can we address them.

To understand current conditions, we need to look at how we got here. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 made it illegal to discriminate in employment, there was near-total segregation in private-sector employment. Black men, black women, and white women almost never held the same job in the same workplace as white men. When they did share workplaces, women and people of color were almost always in low-skill jobs with no authority. In sum, good jobs were reserved for white men.

That changed with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Employers immediately began hiring more black workers and promoting them to jobs once reserved for whites. In the 1960s, black men made strong gains in skilled blue-collar jobs and black women in clerical work. This trend continued through the 1970s, with black men, black women and white women gaining unprecedented access to white-collar managerial and professional jobs. Between 1964 and 1980, employment segregation between black men and white men dropped by 15 percent.

But in 1980, progress for black Americans in the workplace came to an abrupt stop.

By 1980, the civil rights movement had lost most of its political steam. The Republican Party had made racial divisiveness and attacks on affirmative action central to its political project, and the Democrats became timid out of concern they could lose the Southern white vote.

Following Ronald Reagan’s election, the government cut funding for federal agencies charged with promoting equal opportunity. Affirmative action was largely recast as reverse discrimination and committed employers had to struggle against the federal government to defend the equal-opportunity principle.

As a result, our research found, racial employment segregation has hardly budged since 1980. Drawing on the most comprehensive data available, our recent study contained information from more than five million private-sector workplaces, collected annually by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) since 1966. In our research, segregation means the extent to which two groups work together in the same occupation in the same workplace.

Distressingly, 19 of the 58 industries we surveyed — nearly one-third of all industries — showed a trend toward racial re-segregation between white men and black men over the last dozen years. Transportation services, motion pictures, construction, securities and commodities brokerages are some of the sectors that reflect this trend. In addition, re-segregation since 1970 between black and white women in workplaces has eliminated progress made in the late 1960s.

Transportation services, railroads, publishing and many low-wage manufacturing industries show increased segregation between black and white women. Unfortunately, increased access to private sector managerial jobs for black men and black women came to a grinding halt more than 30 years ago as well. Meanwhile, black women’s employment segregation from white women has actually grown somewhat, as white women made continued gains into traditionally white male jobs.

Ironically, the Civil Rights Act instructed the newly formed EEOC to monitor progress toward ending race and gender discrimination and equal opportunity in employment. The EEOC has never had the funding or resources to fulfill this mission. Our book does just that, documenting the progress and regress of private sector firms toward equal opportunity in employment.

That’s not to say that there hasn’t been any progress since 1980. Overall, white men are more likely to work in the same job in the same workplace with black women, black men and white women than they were in 1966. And women and minorities have made significant gains in management jobs in social services.

But it’s notable that the progress we have made has not been fueled by federal intervention. In fact, our research shows, federal contractors have shown a pattern of re-segregation and an increased preference for white men since 1980. Many industries and firms show patterns of increased racial segregation and lower access of black men and women to good jobs.

Where has there been progress? In general, African Americans tend to do better in workplaces that use formal credentials to make hiring decisions. Minorities and white women have made the most progress in professional jobs. These occupations require specific educational credentials to be considered for employment. African Americans also progress in those relatively rare large, private-sector firms that monitor their managers diversity track record.

In other words, merit-based selection actually leads to affirmative action in employment. A focus on merit coupled with managerial accountability helps control racial biases in decision-making. Without clear hiring criteria and accountability, bias tends to flourish.

To level the playing field for these merit-based practices and promote diversity in jobs that require college degrees, affirmative action in college admissions is crucial. Diversity in college enrollments and completion leads to diversity in employment even in non-managerial jobs. Many responsible employers recognize this dynamic and have petitioned the Supreme Court in Fisher v. University of Texas to leave affirmative action in college admissions untouched.

As our findings make clear, we’ve got to do more to get back on the path to equal opportunity in America’s workplaces. Government regulators have a role to play in these efforts, especially in the absence of mass movements pushing for change. The government could use the data we deployed in our research to make clear which cities, industries and even firms have the most troubling employment records.

If the worst offenders must face aggressive legal or regulatory action and the threat of bad press, companies will likely renew their commitment to equal opportunity both to avoid negative publicity and to successfully recruit productive and diverse labor forces.

Currently, corporations are largely protected from public scrutiny when it comes to equal employment opportunity. But if campaign contributions, pollution discharges, stock market activity and even balance sheets of publicly traded companies are all public record, shouldn’t employment practices be as well?

Cancer Treatment Centers of America ® in Arizona Purchases BSD-2000 Hyperthermia System from BSD Medical

SALT LAKE CITY–(BUSINESS WIRE)– BSD Medical Corporation (NAS: BSDM) (Company or BSD) (www.BSDMedical.com), a leading provider of medical systems that utilize targeted heat therapy to treat cancer, announced today that the Cancer Treatment Centers of America^® (CTCA) at Western Regional Medical Center (WRMC), located in Goodyear, Arizona, has purchased a BSD-2000 Hyperthermia System (BSD-2000). WRMC serves the Western United States, including the major metropolitan areas of Phoenix, Denver, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle, Portland and Albuquerque. This will be the eighth BSD Hyperthermia system purchased by CTCA^®.

WRMC is a state-of-the-art, all-digital cancer hospital that provides advanced cancer treatments, world-class technologies and integrative therapies under one roof. The 213,000-square-foot facility is located on a 25-acre site, which is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Like the other CTCA cancer hospitals, WRMC provides the most advanced therapeutic resources in cancer treatment (http://www.cancercenter.com/western-hospital/about-western/history.cfm).

CTCA is a network of hospitals and one of the premier providers of cancer care in the world. CTCA physicians specialize in treating many types of cancer, including complex and advanced stage cases. CTCA is committed to revolutionizing cancer care by providing the most advanced and effective cancer treatments and integrative therapies available in order to treat the cancer and improve the patient’s treatment experience and quality of life. The CTCA hospitals were recently recognized by the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons as “offering the very best in cancer care.”
About the BSD-2000 Hyperthermia System
The BSD-2000 – developed and patented exclusively by BSD – delivers localized therapeutic heating (hyperthermia) by applying radiofrequency (RF) energy. The BSD-2000 creates a central focusing of energy that can be electronically focused to target the shape, size, and location of the tumor, thus providing dynamic control of the heating delivered to the tumor region. The BSD-2000 has Humanitarian Device Exemption (HDE) marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in conjunction with radiation therapy for the treatment of cervical cancer patients who are ineligible for chemotherapy. The BSD-2000 also has CE (Conformité Européenne) Marking approval for the commercial sale in Europe. CE Marking approval is also recognized in many countries outside of the EU.
About BSD Medical Corporation
BSD Medical Corporation develops, manufactures, markets and services systems to treat cancer and benign diseases using heat therapy delivered using focused radiofrequency (RF) and microwave energy. BSD’s product lines include both hyperthermia and ablation treatment systems. BSD’s hyperthermia cancer treatment systems, which have been in use for several years in the United States, Europe and Asia, are used to treat certain tumors with heat (hyperthermia) while increasing the effectiveness of other therapies such as radiation therapy. BSD’s microwave ablation system has been developed as a stand-alone therapy to employ precision-guided microwave energy to ablate (destroy) soft tissue. The Company has developed extensive intellectual property, multiple products in the market and established distribution in the United States, Europe and Asia. Certain of the Company’s products have received regulatory approvals and clearances in the United States, Europe and China. For further information visit BSD Medical’s website at www.BSDMedical.com.
About Cancer Treatment Centers of America®
Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Inc. (CTCA) is a national network of hospitals focusing on complex and advanced stage cancer. CTCA offers a comprehensive, fully integrated approach to cancer treatment and serves patients from all 50 states at facilities located in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Tulsa. Known for delivering the Mother Standard® of care and Patient Empowerment Medicine®, CTCA provides patients with information about cancer and their treatment options so they can control their treatment decisions. For more information about CTCA, go towww.cancercenter.com.
Statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which such statements are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect events or circumstances arising after such date.