Low Pay for Hazardous Work
Business magazines and newspapers regularly publish articles about the changing nature of work in the United States and about how many jobs are being changed. Because so much has been made of the shift toward service-sector and professional jobs, many people might assume that the number of unpleasant and undesirable jobs has declined.In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. While many Americans work in gleaming air-conditioned facilities, millions of others work in dirty, grimy, unsafe settings. For example, many jobs in the recycling industry require workers to sort through moving conveyors of trash, pulling out those items that can be recycled. The trash, though, may contain used syringes, old razor blades, and other sharp objects. Other relatively unattractive jobs include cleaning hospital restrooms, washing dishes in a restaurant, and handling toxic waste.Consider the jobs in a chicken-processing facility. Much like a manufacturing assembly line, a chicken-processing facility is organized around a moving conveyor system. Workers call it the chain. In reality, its a steel cable with large clips that carries dead chickens down what might be called a disassembly line. Standing along this line are dozens of workers who do, in fact, take the birds apart as they pass.Low Pay for Hazardous Work
Picsfive/ShutterStock.com
Even the titles of the jobs are unsavory. Among the first set of jobs along the chain is the skinner. Skinners use sharp instruments to cut and pull the skin off the dead chicken. Toward the middle of the line are the gut pullers. These workers reach inside the chicken carcasses and remove the intestines and other organs. At the end of the line are the gizzard cutters, who tackle the more difficult organs attached to the inside of the chickens carcass. These organs have to be individually cut and removed for disposal.The work is obviously distasteful, and the pace of the work is unrelenting. On a good day, the chain moves an average of 90 chickens a minute for 9 hours. And the workers are essentially held captive by the moving chain. For example, no one can vacate a post to use the bathroom or for other reasons without the permission of the supervisor. In some plants, taking an unauthorized bathroom break can result in suspension without pay. But the noise in a typical chicken-processing plant is so loud that the supervisor often cant hear someone calling for relief unless the person happens to be standing close by.Besides being unpleasant and dirty, many jobs in a chicken-processing plant are dangerous and unhealthy. Some workers, for example, have to fight the live birds when they are first hung on the chains. These workers are routinely scratched and pecked by the chickens. And the air inside a typical chicken-processing plant is difficult to breathe. Workers are usually supplied with paper masks, but most dont use them because they are hot and confining.The work space itself is so tight that the workers often cut themselvesand sometimes their coworkerswith the knives, scissors, and other instruments they use to perform their jobs. Poultry processing ranks third among industries in the United States for cumulative trauma injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome. The inevitable chicken feathers, feces, and blood also contribute to the hazardous and unpleasant work environment.Jobs such as these in the chicken-processing facility are actually becoming increasingly common. Fueled by Americans growing appetites for lean, easy-to-cook meat, the number of poultry workers has almost doubled since 1980, and today they constitute a workforce of around a quarter-million people. The chicken-processing industry has become a major component of the state economies of Georgia, North Carolina, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama.FootnoteCase Questions
How relevant are the concepts of competencies to the jobs in a chicken-processing plant?What information sources would be of most significance regarding jobs in a chicken-processing plant?Are dirty, dangerous, and unpleasant jobs an inevitable part of any economy?5-1
5-2
Discuss strategy as a source of information for making human resource decisions.
The organizations strategy is also a critical information source. Growth, stability, and reduction strategies, for example, each carry substantially different implications for HR managers.Executive succession
5-3
Discuss economic conditions as a source of information for making human resource decisions.
Another important source of information comes from various economic conditions. Unemployment rates, market wage rates, and human capital investments each provide useful information to HR executives.rate of unemployment
market wage rate
Human capital investments
5-4
Describe job analysis as a source of information for making human resource decisions.
Job analysis is one of the building blocks of the HR planning process and a fundamental source of information for that same planning process. Job analysis involves the gathering and organizing of detailed information about various jobs within the organization so that managers can better understand the processes through which jobs are most effectively performed. Job analysis provides input to the HR planning process by helping planners better understand exactly what kinds of work must be performed.Job analysis
Knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA)
5-5
Discuss the job-analysis process, and identify and summarize common job-analysis methods.
Job analysis itself generally follows a three-step process: determining information needs, determining methods for obtaining information, and determining who will collect information. The responsibility of analysis is jointly shared by line managers, the HR group or department, and job analysts. Commonly used methods of job analysis include the narrative approach, Fleishman job-analysis system, task-analysis inventory, functional job analysis, Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ), Management Position Questionnaire (MPDQ), and critical incidents approach. The Occupational Information Network (O*NET), while not technically a job-analysis procedure, provides advanced job-analysis information. Job analysis results in a job description and a job specification. The changing nature of work and of jobs must also be understood and appreciated by managers. Finally, there are also important legal implications related to job analysis.Job analysts
subject matter expert (SME)
Occupational Information Network (ONET)
Fleishman job-analysis system
task-analysis inventory
Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ)
Management Position Questionnaire (MPDQ)
critical incidents approach
job description
job specification
Key Legislation
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination based on disability and all aspects of the employment relationship such as job application procedures, hiring, firing, promotion, compensation, and training, as well as other employment activities such as advertising, recruiting, tenure, layoffs, leave, and fringe benefits.Key Points for Future ManagersPlanning is as important for human resource management (HRM) as for any other function in an organization.HRM should be an integral part of the organizations strategy.Job analysis is and should be the basic cornerstone for all other HRM functions.It is essential to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different job analysis approaches because one is not better than the others.Competency modeling is concerned with identifying broader sets of requirements that may cut across individual jobs within an organization.These are her requirements:
The closing case deals low pay for hazardous work. Students can utilize the book and other sources for more in-depth research to answer the case ending questions. The paper should be 2-3 pages not including the title and reference page. Please post papers before 11:55 pm on the due date.Please read and answer the questions in APA formatting. Do not write the questions and the provided the response under. Incorporate the questions and answers in the paper. The paper needs to reflect the junior/senior level of the class.
Use the order calculator below and get started! Contact our live support team for any assistance or inquiry.
[order_calculator]
