Title: Assignment: BA 224 Competency Assessment Credit Unit 3 Essay Questions - OLD
Course: SkillsCom BA 224 15.1

To answer the following questions, you will need to create a word document that you will upload when finished. After you’ve answered the questions, save the document as "Lastname, Firstname Credit Unit 3 Essay Questions" and then submit the Word document.

Read each synopsis and write up answers to the following questions:

QUESTION #1

SYNOPSIS:

Randall Macfarlane says, among other things, that they use four methods to ensure safety and health: training, providing personal protective equipment; providing a special 8-hour training course for their staff; and holding biweekly safety meetings. He also says they train supervisors to recognize behaviors or other things that may be warning signs. Furthermore, an in-house review every year aims to make sure all information, videos, and so on, are current. He also focuses on ergonomics in order to prevent problems like carpal tunnel syndrome. The company has periodic reviews from California’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

• What do you think of the safety program? What else would you suggest, and why?

• What are some of the issues and caveats the employer and its supervisors should follow when dealing with a visit from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration?

• If you were asked to put together a list of items that supervisors should keep in mind with respect to supervising safety and health at work, what would you include on your list?

QUESTION #2

SYNOPSIS:

Based upon your knowledge of health and safety matters and your actual observations of operations make a list of the potential hazardous conditions employees and others face.

• What should they do to reduce the potential severity of the top 3 hazards: tripping, ergonomic, and electrical hazards?

QUESTION #3

SYNOPSIS:

Art Tipton is human resource director of Pierce University, a private university located in a large urban city. Ruth Zimmer, a supervisor in the maintenance and housekeeping services division of the university, has just come into Art’s office to discuss her situation. Zimmer’s division is responsible for maintaining and cleaning physical facilities of the university. Zimmer is one of the department supervisors who supervises employees who maintain and clean on-campus dormitories.

In the next several minutes, Zimmer proceeds to express her concerns about a union-organizing campaign that has begun among her employees. According to Zimmer, a representative of the Service Workers Union has met with several of her employees, urging them to sign union authorization cards. She has observed several of her employees “cornering” other employees to talk to them about joining the union and to urge them to sign union authorization or representation cards. Zimmer even observed this during working hours as employees were going about their normal duties in the dormitories. Zimmer reports that a number of her employees have come to her asking for her opinions about the union. They told her that several other supervisors in the department had told their employees not to sign any union authorization cards and not to talk about the union at any time while they were on campus. Zimmer also reports that one of her fellow supervisors told his employees that anyone who was caught talking about the union or signing a union authorization card would be disciplined and perhaps dismissed.

Zimmer says that her employees are very dissatisfied with their wages and with the conditions that they have endured from students, supervisors, and other staff people. She says that several employees told her that they had signed union cards because they believed that the only way university administration would pay attention to their concerns was if the employees had a union to represent them. Zimmer says that she made a list of employees who she felt had joined or were interested in the union, and she could share these with Tipton if he wanted to deal with them personally. Zimmer closed her presentation with the comment that she and other department supervisors need to know what they should do in order to stomp out the threat of unionization in

• Assume that you are a labor relations consultant the university retained to identify the problems and issues involved and to advise Art Tipton on the university’s rights and what to do next.

• What should he do next?

Pay close attention to the rubric below for criteria on which you will be graded.