Northern Ireland and the Ulster League Essay Example for Free

Northern Ireland and the Ulster League Essay This paper will deal with the well known battle in Ulster between Catholics and Protestants, specifically in the pre-independence document known as the Ulster league and Covenant, a document that sought to maintain allegiance to the English state and ultimately, after southern independence, to create the 6 county statelet in the North that would be dominated by Protestants and their vehicle, the Orange Order. During World War I, and up until the recognition of the independence of the 26 counties in 1921, Ireland was in turmoil. The older, 19th century parliamentary politics had broken down, and a more militant movement deriving from the secret Irish republican Brotherhood (Townshend, 2006, 3-7ff) had emerged under the charismatic leadership of Michael Collins and the â€Å"President† of the Provisional Republic, Eamonn de Valera. Given this growing militancy, the Ulster League, realizing that the 6 counties of the northeast were the only place in Ireland where Protestants can create a state where they can be the majority, drew up this famous document, a document that drew the battle lines between the two communities that rages to this day (Townshend, 2006, 36-37). â€Å". . . that home rule would be disastrous to the material well being of Ulster as well as the whole of Ireland. . â€Å" This pointed phrase speaks to the financial dominance of Protestants in the industrialized six counties, as well as â€Å"our civil and religious freedom. † The Ulster Orangemen believed that a Catholic Ireland would launch a new Inquisition to eliminate Protestants, and ally the strategic island with enemies of the British Empire. The basic view is that the Protestant ascendency did not hold Catholics to be as civilized or as educated (in the sense of â€Å"intelligent†) as the British, the Protestants (Townshend, 2006, 33ff). This is class Orangism: Protestantism means individual rights and liberties, as well as Catholic economics, Catholicism means oppression and national subservience to Rome and its allies (Townshend, 2006, 77-80). For the Orange Order, loyalty to the English Crown did several things: it protected their economic ascendency, Protestantism, their traditions as Englishmen, and their connection to a wealthy Empire and civilization that contrasted poorly to the poverty stricken agrarianism of the south. IN other words, a militant Irish Catholic movement, a nationalist movement, could disrupt the economy of the north, tightly connected to England and the Empire, and, given their numerical superiority and greater fertility, could overwhelm and outvote the Protestants, taking their wealth and privileges. This is the main issue of the Covenant. IN reference to the IRB and its militancy, eventually to become the IRA, the Ulster Protestants hold that they are â€Å". . . defending for ourselves and our children our cherished position of equal citizenship in the United Kingdom and in using all means which may be found necessary to defeat the present conspiracy to set up a Home Rule parliament in Ireland. . . † This statement says several things. First, that the British state needs to realize that Protestants are not going to become part of a Catholic, agrarian and united Ireland, and that they are willing to fight in order to opt out of such ain institution. Second, they recognize that the old Irish parliamentary nationalism is over, and now, a new militancy has emerged, forcing Protestants to use whatever means they deem necessary, a clumsy way of disguising the fact that they are arming against any kind of nationalist movement (Townshend, 2006, 33-4; 54-8). Given this early date, 1912, the idea of partition is not explicitly raised, what is being dealt with here is a â€Å"Home Rule† parliament for the whole of Ireland. But it is the stand of the Orangemen that will eventually lead to partition and civil war in 1921 as a compromise with Ulster Protestants. â€Å"And in the event of such a parliament being forced upon us we further solemnly and mutually pledge to refuse to recognize its authority. . . † The very fact of the proposed existence of such a parliament is, to the Orangemen, undemocratic. This is because first, it is granted solely by the force of arms of the IRB and its allies, and second, that the tiny minority of Protestants in the country could not hope to find representation in such a parliament. Hence, again, by holding that Protestants will refuse to recognize such an institution, the Orangemen and their allies are threatening civil war over the question of Home Rule. One needs to keep in mind several issues in dealing with this document. First, that it is primary and centrally about the nature of economics: the Protestants in Ulster were by far the most wealthy element in Irish society. Second, that this wealth, as well as political loyalties conditioned by religion, created a strong sense of corporate identity among Ulster Protestants, finding its institutional expression in the Orange Order and eventually, the 6 county statelet. Third, that the Protestants in Ulster were not living there alone, they lived cheek by jowl with a large and increasingly militant Catholic minority. The basic idea here is that in th event of a militant takeover, the Protestants would be dealing with urban warfare on a black by block basis with only a small population to draw on for defense. The union with the Empire, in other words, was a military and economic guarantee of the physical safety of the Ulster Protestants and Protests elsewhere in urban Ireland. It was not helping matters that the Irish movement developing into a military revolution was also moving towards a form of national-socialism. Such movements as that of James Connolly and papers such as the Irish Worker or Irish Freedom were backing a nationalism as well as a socialist rebellion (Towhshend, 2006, 157-160; 48). Hence, the Ulster Protestants were dealing with a hydra with three heads: Catholicism, nationalism and socialism, the three evils. In conclusion, this document was basically a defense of the privileges of the Ulster protestant community. While this community did have a Protestant working class, the grave threat to this privileged way of life can be summarized as â€Å"popery,† or the enslaving of the freedom loving Protestants to Romish ideology, socialism, or the destruction of Protestant financial supremacy, and nationalism, the destruction of Protestant political supremacy. Hence, it is not much of a stretch to hold that this document came into existence to defend a tiny oligarchy in urban Belfast against the overwhelming majority of Irish citizens of Catholic background, for many centuries second class citizens in their own country. Townshend, Charles. Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion. Ivan R. Dee, 2006.

The Importance of Setting in Please Stop Laughing at Me :: essays research papers

Please Stop Laughing at Me, an autobiography by Jodee Blanco, is one woman’s inspirational story about the fight against bullying. This real-life account is proof of the disturbing results of what happens at school. Jodee Blanco holds nothing back when she describes the horrifying events that occurred to her at several different schools. In the beginning of the book, as the reader, we find ourselves inside Jodee’s head as she is debating whether she should actually walk in and attend her high school reunion or not. Jodee dazzles us with all she has accomplished in life, and convinces us that she has nothing to fear. But, in all actuality, she is still nervous when it comes to facing her former classmates. This beginning scene plays a major role in the books central plot, and allows us to foreshadow some of the upcoming events. Next, we are placed in Jodee’s stable home as she is getting ready for her first day of high school. We see how truly desperate Jodee really is as she describes how her new shoes should make her popular. Throughout the story we see that Jodee is not poor, stupid, cubby, or socially awkward. She is simply prude, and is hated by the classmates of every school she attended in the attempt to become accepted. This explains how loving parents can be so wrong, schools cannot prevent disaster, and children in general can be just plain mean. Jodee goes back and forth through her entire school life explaining all her horrible experiences. We follow her through therapy, and watch as she is misunderstood by all adults. She explicitly depicts her suffering as she relives the torture. Shedding a shell, she lets us have full access of the shunning, teasing, and shocking physical abuse inflicted upon her by her classmates. This sets the atmosphere and attitude of the book, so we may accurately see what happens when no one is watching. This book is timeless, bullying is ongoing. The setting of the 1970s and 80s makes the experience for the reader really see how timeless this book is.

Rwt1 Research Paper

Business Research Report Compensation Strategies Presented to: Management Assessment Code: RWT1 Table of Contents Executive Summary3 Introduction4 Research Findings5 Performance Based Pay5 Salary6 Longevity Pay7 Recommendations8 Conclusion8 References9 Executive Summary This report examines 3 different compensation systems that our company can develop and enforce within our company for our employees.Compensation is the most important and rewarding factor for employees, so a thorough and thoughtful approach should be taken as we think about changing the way in which this company rewards it's employees for the work they do for us each and every day. Performance based pay is a widely popular approach to compensation where the employers pays the employee based on their job performance. This gives the employees control of how much they make and inspires them to do their best work on a daily basis to maximize their own income.With high productivity and quality performance employers are abl e to become more competitive and increase profit. Salary is an easy and constant way of paying the employees of this company. This is a set wage that employees will earn based on their job description. This wage will not change based on their merit or seniority. The stability of this compensation system appeals to employees as they always are aware of how income they will receive. But it also has very little room for growth and opportunity for the employees. The last form of compensation we can consider for our employees as a company is longevity pay.This is compensation based on the employee's seniority, length of service, or tenure. This can be in the form of annual bonuses on their employment anniversary date, or monthly amounts added to their checks. This provides the employees with motivation to continuing their career and employment with the company. My final recommendation for the company is to develop our own performance based pay system for our employees. This will create h ighly productive and motivated employees eager to perform their job duties to the best of their abilities to maximize their own personal income.This in turn will create more profitability for our company. Also, creating goals for our employees will create awareness of our company's goal as a whole organization and will create a more united workforce as we all work together for the same goal. A company with driven employees producing quality work can only be successful. Introduction I, Jamie Yocom, a Human Resource Assistant have been given the task of researching different compensation strategies for our company. In this eport I will be reporting to the Human Resource Director my research findings on 3 different compensation methods: Salary, Performance-Based Pay, and Longevity Pay. I will compare and contrast these methods in order for management to determine which method is most appropriate for us to adopt for our 120 employees. Since compensation is the biggest benefit we provide to our employees, this topic deserves thorough research and thought as we examine and promote a new way of rewarding our employees for their hard work and dedication to the quality and performance we expect from each and every one of them.After reading this report, management will have a greater understanding of each of these 3 methods and will be able to begin the process of deciding which one will be implemented in the near future. I will introduce using the compensation strategy of salary, which is a set amount an employee receives annually for the work they do no matter the quality of their work, or the hours they put in. Performance Based Pay is another method we can use in which employees are paid based on the quality of their performance and production.Longevity Pay is the final method I will propose of our use, it involves wage adjustments for each employee based on the length of service each year. Compensation policies can be very unique and vary from organization to organ ization. An understanding of the different methods is necessary in order to be profitable and to inspire quality production. Research Findings From extensive research, using a variety of relevant and credible resources, there are three compensation systems that should be considered: Performance Based Pay Salary Longevity Pay Performance Based Pay A Performance-Based Pay system is an increasingly popular compensation method used by organizations to increase productivity. A goal for all companies is to try and remain competitive and control costs, this is a reason for performance-based pay systems becoming more popular. This type of system attempts to link compensation to performance. (Gena Richter, 2002) These systems are directly tied to organization or individual performance and are most effective when based on objective measures of quantity or quality of performance.If we wish to have a direct impact on work motivation, it must be linked directly to the performance of desired beha viors. In order for to put this type of system into place, performance evaluations must be conducted regularly , as well as training and development for those with performance that isn't quite up to par. These additional resources will be necessary for our organization if we implement a performance based pay system. (William B. Bernathy, Ph. D. , 2004) Pay for performance compensation plans are widely considered to be a â€Å"win-win† for employees as well as their employers.When pay for performance wages are properly put in place at a company, everyone shares a common goal of doing what is best for the organization. In a system where employees earn higher compensation if their team, department, or company reaches specified targets, it becomes a motivational tactic to get employees to work harder and benefit the company while at the same time providing an added benefit for them. Instilling a performance based pay system in a company will allow you to get the most out of all o f your employees and their performance and production. Martinovic, 2012) Reasonable, measurable goals and performance incentives should be the basis of compensation for all employees, at all levels, no matter what their job description or title is. Objections should be made clear and achievable based on their job description and quantifiable to provide each employee with incentives for good and productive performance. (Pinto, 2003) From a business perspective, in order to remain competitive in the current labor market, it would be smart to tie pay to performance so that employees' output is accelerated.As a result, this type of system will streamline operations in an effort to control cost and remain competitive. â€Å"A well-constructed performance-based pay system can be viewed as an interactive process that translates the overall strategic initiatives into daily actions, with quantitative and attainable rewards provided to employees who accomplish their goals. † (Paul R. D orf, 2001) Analysis: It is clear that there are many benefits to this type of compensation plan. The most evident is creating a more motivated and united workforce, as their one and only goal will be quality production.If our employees can equate their performance on the job with their paycheck, they will become a more focused, hardworking, and determined asset to our company. They will take ownership of their daily duties and tasks and hopefully become more efficient at what they do, which in turn, will be more and more profitable for the company. Different reasons to utilize this type of performance based system include: a way to retain and recognize top performers, align labor costs with productivity, and reinforce company objectives.Employees will also develop a more clear understanding of the overall business objectives. 1 Salary The general definition in federal law for salary is a regularly paid amount of money, constituting all or part of an employee's wages, paid on a weekl y or less frequent basis that is not subject to reduction due to the quality or quantity of work performed. (â€Å"Department of Workforce,†) Employers are responsible for paying their employees for the work that they perform; this can include using salary as a method to pay your employees.Employees that are salaried will be paid differently than those that are paid hourly. Hourly employees are paid based on the amount of hours worked and salaried employees are paid a set wage. (Natalie Grace, 2012) Salary is a fixed amount of compensation or money that is paid to an employee by their employer in return for work performed. Unlike performance based, that set wage will be the same no matter what. Salary is usually paid in bi-weekly paychecks to each professional employee. Most frequently an employee's salary is paid in 26 even paychecks over the course of a calendar year.A salaried employee has no need to track hours worked because they are not paid overtime. An employee who is paid salary is expected to complete a whole job in return for their compensation. This is what makes salary different from hourly compensation or performance based pay. Their pay will be the same no matter the hours worked or the quality of their performance. (Heathfield, 2009) Analysis: Salary is the most stable and constant compensation system introduced in this report. It involves no changes or updates throughout the year.Employees will always be able to know what their pay will be. They will not be expected to meet quotas or goals in order to make their money. Employees who are salaried have a sense of stability when they think about their compensation from their employer, as stated above; their production and performance will not change their pay. This will frequently be the least complex form of compensation but it will not motivate or inspire the workforce to be more productive or efficient in their daily job responsibilities.Since their pay will always be the same, they wil l develop a mindset that they do not have to strive to do better or be better, since their pay does not depend on job performance. 2 Longevity Pay This type of compensation system is a contractual agreement where the employee will receive compensation based on their seniority. The manner in which this type of compensation is paid out can very widely. Each organization will have a policy that will describe the details of the longevity pay plan. These policies include the amount to be paid, the percentage of increase, and on what schedule payments will be made.This type of payment appears to the employees as a way of giving due compensation to workers who have made a significant contribution to the organization. (â€Å"wisegeek. com†) Longevity-pay is a wage adjustment that the employers base on the length of service, seniority or employee's tenure with the company. The amount of annual longevity-pay is frequently a percentage of the employee's annual rate of pay on the employe e's anniversary date. (â€Å"uslegal. com. † 2002) This type of payment is typically given to employees to recognize and reward the length of their tenures.These payments can also be given when employees reach significant employment anniversaries. These longevity payments differ from merit based pay in that a longevity-payment is based only on length of service, while a merit based payment is designed to recognize superior job performance and production. These are implemented by companies to help retain and attract top talent. Human Resource Mangers think of this as a way to reward loyalty and to inspire potential employees to understand that the company places value on employee experience and loyalty. (Willsey, 2002) Analysis:From an employee's point of view, longevity pay means that the company you work for values your time and effort you put into your job. The point of having these longevity-payments and rewards is to retain our top and loyal performers. Rewarding our empl oyees for their time served would be a substantial reason for employees to continue their career with this company. Recommendations Based on the above research and information on 3 different types of compensation, this is my recommendation for our company. Recommendation One: Develop and enforce a performance based bay system to otivate and inspire our employees to produce to the best of their abilities. Conclusion In conclusion, after thorough research and examination of compensation systems I recommend a performance based pay system for our company. This type of pay system will instill a clear understanding in the employees of our company's purpose. By connecting their compensation with their performance on the job will inspire them to be more thorough, efficient. And they will learn to be more productive employees, which in turn will be more profitable for our company.With employees that are driven by quality production this company should only expect growth and success. We can i ncrease productivity and remain competitive with other companies in our market by developing this type of compensation system. 1 References Abernathy, William B. , Ph. D. (2004). debwagner. info. Retrieved from http://debwagner. info/hpttoolkit/pfp_hpt. htm Department of workforce development. (n. d. ). Retrieved from http://dwd. wisconsin. gov/er/labor_standards_bureau/publication_erd_13109_p. htm Dorf, Paul R. (2011).Would performance-based compensation improve your workforce?. Retrieved from http://www. compensationresources. com/press-room/would-performance-based-compensation-improve-your-workforce-. php Grace, Natalie. (2012). Ehow. com. Retrieved from http://www. ehow. com/about_5367027_rules-paying-salary. html Heathfield , S. H. (2009, March 26). About. com. Retrieved from http://humanresources. about. com/od/glossarys/g/salary. htm Martinovic, S. (2012, Feb 20). Pay for performance compensation plans. Retrieved from http://www. gaebler. om/Pay-for-Performance-Compensation-P lans. htm Pinto, J. (2003). Performance-based compensation. Retrieved from http://www. jimpinto. com/writings/compensation. html Richter, Gena. (2002). Retrieved from http://user. txcyber. com/~gena/HRPage/articles/062099. shtml uslegal. com. (2002). Retrieved from http://definitions. uslegal. com/l/longevity-pay/ Willsey, Marie. â€Å"What is a longevity raise? † 14 July 2010. HowStuffWorks. com. 24 February 2012. wisegeek. com. (n. d. ). Retrieved from http://www. wisegeek. com/what-is-longevity-pay. htm

Minerals That Live on the Earths Surface

Geologists know about thousands of different minerals locked in rocks, but when rocks are exposed at the Earths surface and fall victim to weathering, just a handful of minerals remain. They are the ingredients of sediment, which over geologic time returns to sedimentary rock. Where the Minerals Go When the mountains crumble to the sea, all of their rocks, whether igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic, break down. Physical or mechanical weathering reduces the rocks to small particles. These break down further by chemical weathering in water and oxygen. Only a few minerals can resist weathering indefinitely: zircon is one and native gold is another. Quartz resists for a very long time, which is why sand, being nearly pure quartz, is so persistent. Given enough time even quartz dissolves into silicic acid, H4SiO4. But most of the silicate minerals that compose rocks turn into solid residues after chemical weathering. These silicate residues are what make up the minerals of the Earths land surface. The olivine, pyroxenes, and amphiboles of igneous or metamorphic rocks react with water and leave behind rusty iron oxides, mostly the minerals goethite and hematite. These are important ingredients in soils, but theyre less common as solid minerals. They also add brown and red colors to sedimentary rocks. Feldspar, the most common silicate mineral group and the main home of aluminum in minerals, reacts with water too. Water pulls out silicon and other cations (CAT-eye-ons), or ions of positive charge, except for aluminum. The feldspar minerals thus turn into hydrated aluminosilicates that are clays. Amazing Clays Clay minerals are not much to look at, but life on Earth depends on them. At the microscopic level, clays are tiny flakes, like mica but infinitely smaller. At the molecular level, clay is a sandwich made of sheets of silica tetrahedra (SiO4) and sheets of magnesium or aluminum hydroxide (Mg(OH)2 and Al(OH)3). Some clays are a proper three-layer sandwich, a Mg/Al layer between two silica layers, while others are open-face sandwiches of two layers. What makes clays so valuable for life is that with their tiny particle size and open-faced construction, they have very large surface areas and can readily accept many substitute cations for their Si, Al and Mg atoms. Oxygen and hydrogen are available in abundance. From the viewpoint of living cells, clay minerals are like machine shops full of tools and power hookups. Indeed, even the building blocks of life—amino acids and other organic molecules—are enlivened by the energetic, catalytic environment of clays. The Makings of Clastic Rocks But back to sediments. With the overwhelming majority of surface minerals consisting of quartz, iron oxides and clay minerals, we have the ingredients of mud. Mud is the geological name of a sediment that is a mixture of particle sizes ranging from sand size (visible) to clay size (invisible), and the worlds rivers steadily deliver mud to the sea and to large lakes and inland basins. That is where the clastic sedimentary rocks are born, sandstone and mudstone and shale in all their variety. The Chemical Precipitates When the mountains are crumbling, much of their mineral content dissolves. This material reenters the rock cycle in other ways than clay, precipitating out of solution to form other surface minerals. Calcium is an important cation in igneous rock minerals, but it plays little part in the clay cycle. Instead, calcium remains in the water, where it affiliates with carbonate ion (CO3). When it becomes concentrated enough in seawater, calcium carbonate comes out of solution as calcite. Living organisms can extract it to build their calcite shells, which also become sediment. Where sulfur is abundant, calcium combines with it as the mineral gypsum. In other settings, sulfur captures dissolved iron and precipitates as pyrite. There is also sodium left over from the breakdown of the silicate minerals. That lingers in the sea until circumstances dry up the brine to a high concentration, when sodium joins chloride to yield solid salt or halite. And what of the dissolved silicic acid? That too is extracted by living organisms to form their microscopic silica skeletons. These rain down upon the seafloor and gradually become chert. Thus every part of the mountains finds a new place in the Earth.