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Up Coming
Events
Seminars
on ISO. See below.
In This Issue
Overtime Liability:
Can it Blowup in Your Face?
Why Couldn’t You
Sell Outside the USA?
U.S. Immigration
Changes Not Friendly to our Northern Neighbors
What Was The Best
Investment Of The Past Decade?
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From
the Desk of the Executive Director
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Bruce
Brogan
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Dear Members and Visitors:
We are excited and
gratified to unveil the premiere issue of Trade Winds,
Michigan International Trade Association’s new monthly
newsletter.
We chose the name
"Trade Winds" because it conjures up thoughts
of early European explorers opening new ocean routes to
distant continents. Embarking on lengthy and risky trade
missions to find opportunities in foreign lands, the
sailors could not reliably predict the outcome of the
journey, but the best path had been determined-
"Follow the Trade Winds."
Here, at MITA, we have been busy charting our
expedition, gathering provisions, preparing to launch
our ship and set sail – to begin our "Trade
Mission". Our mission is to identify and track the
coming "Trade Winds" of international
business. We will provide information and guidance to
our members, so that they may better navigate the
prevailing currents of 21st century trade.
And, just as the early
sailors looked to the sky for signs of changes in
weather conditions affecting their travels, we hope our
readers will look to our pages for information useful to
their planned business ventures. This will be an
adventure for us all. We hope you will come along and
explore the "New World" with us.
Bruce
Brogan
Up Coming MITA
Events
ISO 9000:2000
Our next scheduled
events will be programs addressing the new ISO
9000:2000 requirements for automotive service
suppliers and those companies that want to do business
globally. The competitive advantage that your company
can gain by being registered to the new standards
can equate to money in the bank.
Scheduled
dates:
September 17 & 18, 2002
Watch
your email for details or call MITA at
248-549-4900.
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Overtime
Liability: Can it Blowup in Your Face?
By:
Michael A. Holzschu © 2002
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Unpaid overtime to
workers who have been misclassified as exempt
employees is a ticking financial bomb just
waiting to explode. A worker earning $65,000
a year, who worked 50 hours a week for three
years - just 10 hours of overtime a week - will
be due $146,250 if the unpaid overtime is
doubled as a penalty for "willful
violation" of the law. (The two-year
statute of limitations is also extended to three
years for "willful violation.)
This
explosion could cost a company "millions
and millions of dollars". It only takes one
disgruntled employee to file a complaint with
the Wage and Hour Division of the US Department
of Labor or the State Department of Labor to
open an investigation into your classification
system.
In the past five
years, more than 450 class-action wage-and-hour
lawsuits have been.........To
read the full article click here.
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Why
Couldn’t You Sell Outside the USA?
By: Roger
Keranen © 2002
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Ever thought about it?
What kept you from setting it up? Strategic
planning is the only way to be called
"lucky" by envious competitors. Your
planning for offshore sales takes careful
thought and investigation into the possible
pitfalls.
Let’s
think like you are an international buyer in a
European based global company for a minute.
Under what circumstances would you buy from a
new supplier? Let us look at a couple of
possibilities
First Possibility:
Your current suppliers
are ineffective or incapable of meeting your
purchasing needs. Solution: Find new sources.
Do you
want to make your life easy and require all
suppliers to meet the same set of standards? The
obvious answer is yes because it makes sense to
have one set of standards to work with.
With
the focus on the requirements for the European
Union standards, companies have no choice but to
obtain a CE marking, To
read the full article click here. |
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U.S.
Immigration Changes Not Friendly
to our Northern Neighbors
By: Scott F. Cooper & Michael M. Benchetrit Ó
2002
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Canadian citizens and
residents are having to bear what would seem an
unfair burden as a result of U.S. immigration
policy changes resulting from the September 11
terrorist attacks on the U.S. Border controls,
visa requirements, and entry documentation
requirements are being tightened with our
neighbors to the North losing privileges and
being subject to additional paperwork and delays
in entering. Following are several of the
changes and plans which affect our good friends
from Canada.
Department of State Planning
Change in Policy Towards Permanent Residents of
Canada
Permanent
residents of Canada who have a "common
nationality with nationals of Canada" are
exempt from the requirement to obtain a visa to
enter the U.S. For example, a citizen of
Australia who is a permanent resident of Canada
can take a worker petition approval notice
directly to a U.S. port of entry without having
to first apply for a visa at a U.S. consul. Such
individuals are also passport exempt.
Those deemed to have
a "common nationality with nationals of
Canada" are citizens of ....To
read the full article click here.
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What
Was The Best Investment Of The Past Decade?
Submitted by: Kenneth W. Peterson Ó
2002 |
If you were an
investor in the 1990s would you have done better with
stock or real estate?
No doubt a lot of
money has been made with stocks. At the same time, the
last few years have been a blow-out on Wall Street.
Between dot-coms, cable firms and Enron, predictions
that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would one day hit
36,000 now seem far removed. Indeed, the Dow has fallen
nearly 15 percent in the past two years, from 11497.12
at the end of 1999 to 10021.50 at the end of 2001.
But what about real
estate? Has it done any better?
Speaking before the
National Press Club, Fannie Mae Chairman and CEO
Franklin D. Raines offered this analysis: To
read the full article click here.
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