Part I: The Threat
From July 18th to August 12th millions of tourists from all over the world will converge on London to tour the city’s sites and take in the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. In addition to athletes, prominent foreign leaders, and members of the media, the games are also expected to attract hundreds of thousands of spectators. In all, it is projected that 8 million Olympic tickets will be sold to visitors wanting to glimpse one of the 39 athletic disciplines on show.
Unfortunately, large sporting events such as this tend to attract violence, terrorism, and crime. The London Olympics may prove an especially tempting target to terrorists due to Britain’s participation in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is believed that there are many radical Muslims sympathetic to Al Qaeda living in England. After all, it was homegrown terrorists who perpetrated the July 2005 terrorist attacks that killed 52 London commuters. Continue reading
In our last article, we discussed travel safety for those attending the European Football Championship (Euro 2012) in Poland. However, only about half of the Championship will take place there. The rest of the matches will be played in the Ukrainian cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Kiev. This article will address the challenges facing visitors to the Ukraine, which is a considerably more daunting country than Poland. Continue reading
On June 8th of this year, soccer¹ fans from all over the world will gather around television sets, neighborhood pubs, and sports stadiums to watch the UEFA European Football Championship, popularly known as Euro 2012. This year the Championship will be hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine. The competition has traditionally been one of the world’s most popular sporting events. Teams representing 16 European nations will be playing a total of 31 games over four weeks in order to decide which country has the best football team in Europe. Approximately half of these games will be played in stadiums across Poland in cities such as Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw and Poznan, while the rest will be hosted in Ukraine. Continue reading
When people think of workplace violence, they tend to imagine scenarios such as those depicted in the 1993 movie Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas. They envision an emotionally unstable individual suffering from multiple personal and relational problems. When this person suddenly looses his job, he snaps, goes berserk, and sets out on a shooting rampage. Indeed, the phrase going postal came into being in response to several incidents of workplace violence involving disgruntled employees from the US Postal Service.
Although incidents like these do occur occasionally, most instances of workplace violence bear little resemblance to these heinous acts. However, violence occurs in the workplace much more often than many people might suspect. In fact, 1.7 million American workers are victims of it every year. This includes the 700 employees who die at work or on duty in the United States annually. Continue reading
In today’s world, most employers accept that they must provide a safe, healthy, and secure environment for their employees in the permanent workplace. Unfortunately, many firms do not apply this same standard to employees when they travel on business. Perhaps they are ignorant of potential threats. Perhaps they feel that they cannot control the environment outside the workplace, and therefore are not liable for anything that happens there. Maybe they think that its “just not an issue.” Whatever the reason, many firms simply do not do embrace their duty of care role for traveling employees to the extent they do for employees working at home base. Yet, duty of care is as important for employees traveling on assignment as it is for employees operating within the firm’s offices. Continue reading
Since the attacks of September 11th, there has been a common perception that terrorism and Islamic militancy are one and the same. This is understandable to an extent. After all, there here have been a number of prominent terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah, claiming to be fighting for Islamic ends. Moreover, the War of Terror has put a spotlight on jihadi groups while largely ignoring non-Islamic terrorist organizations. However, terrorism was hardly invented by fundamentalist Muslims. Indeed, the word “terrorism” itself probably originates from the French Revolution, an event far removed from the Islamic world. Terrorism has never been, nor will it ever be, an exclusively Muslim phenomenon. It has been perpetrated by groups of all ideological stripes, in all places, over many generations. Two separate, yet telling, events bear this fact out. Continue reading
In another post addressed the importance of applying the principles of duty of care to traveling employees as well as employees in the permanent workplace. We discussed how duty of care for traveling employees makes not just good moral sense, but good business sense as well. In this post, we will be taking an in-depth look at the legal ramifications that can arise if companies fail to fully embrace their duty of care obligations. Continue reading
On April 24, hundreds of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators converged on San Francisco to protest the annual Wells Fargo shareholder meeting. The protestors gathered to oppose, what they felt to be, Wells Fargo’s excessive executive pay and high rate of home foreclosures. About 30 activists were able to gain access to the meeting and disrupt its proceedings. The next day, a similar protest was held in Detroit outside of General Electric’s shareholder meeting. Regrettably, these two demonstrations do not look like isolated incidents. The Occupy movement is planning a series of similar events across the country in more than 115 cities.
Demonstrations and political protests have the capacity to harm companies on a number of fronts. Not only do they disrupt corporate operations, they also often result in reputational harm. In extreme cases, they have the potential to cause significant property damage and may even threaten the safety of personnel. However, there are a number of things firms can do in order to mitigate the risk caused by protestors. Continue reading