The Michigan Daily - michigandaiiy.com 4 - Tuesday, March 12, 2012 4 - Tuesday, March 12, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com ASHLEY GRIESSHAMMER JOSEPH LICHTERMAN and ANDREW WEINER JOSH HEALY EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Imran Syed is the public editor. He can be reached at publiceditor@michigandaily.com, Push for public safety Snyder should call for more police statewide Republican Gov. Rick Snyder's new public safety plan, which is slated for the 2013 fiscal year, attempts to reduce crime in Flint, Detroit, Pontiac and Saginaw - cities with the high- est crime rates in Michigan. Public safety is an important issue for any state, and efforts to improve public safety shouldn't be limited to the most dangerous cities. Michigan lawmakers should increase funding to other municipalities and local governments that have been forced to cut important local public safety services. I'm pretty tough on myself. I make sure I've got it right. I feel good about what I do. -Spring commencement speaker Sanjay Gupta, a University alum told USA Today about his media and medical careers. omneys ri ghtward stretch 4 1 Snyder's proposal would add 180 state police troopers and 20 forensic scientists, expand drug and mental health courts in Michigan and re-open the city jail in Flint. The plan allocates $15 million for two trooper recruit schools, $5 million for forensics, $1.2 million for drug courts, $2.1 million for mental health courts and $4.5 million for additional jail space in Flint. While the plan is likely to help Flint, Detroit, Pontiac and Saginaw, other cities in Michigan also need assistance to reduce crime. Ann Arbor and the University have felt the nega- tive effects of fewer police officers. In June alone, 20 positions in fire and police depart- mentswere eliminated due to city budget cuts. Since then, crime alerts from both city and University police have caused concern in Ann Arbor. Recently, police issued a warning after an unusual upswing in home invasions. Many other cities across the country are also feelingthe sting of a reduced police pres- ence. NPR's This American Life reported that 103 police officers were laid off in Tren- ton, N.J. in September. From January 2011 to January 2012, gun assaults in-Trenton rose 76 percent, robberies with a firearm rose 55 percent, car thefts more than doubled and break-ins more than tripled. New Jersey Gov- ernor Chris Christie, a Republican, calls these cuts "the new reality," but when this reality threatens the residents of many cities across the country, it's not worth the savings in any budget. Cities in Michigan shouldn't have to suffer the same fate as Trenton. Lawmakers should take several impor- tant steps to help all municipalities and local governments in Michigan in their efforts to reduce crime. For starters, they should enact Attorney General Bill Schuette's plan, which calls for 1,000 additional police officers for the entire state. While state troopers are an improvement, local police officers are better acquainted with the areas they serve. Law- makers should also pass harm reduction mea- sures to preemptively reduce crime instead of overfilling our jails and imposing too many taxes on Michigan residents as a result of an inflated corrections budget. Additional police officers can make the streets in Michigan safer without the assis- tance of the National Guard or other unnec- essary forces. While crime reduction in Flint, Detroit, Pontiac, and Saginaw would be wel- comed, lawmakers must work to fix the prob- lem everywhere. This year's GOP presidential candidate nominating ses- sion has elicited a wide range of reactions from observers, but one complaint shared by most people is the length of the process - it's gone far too long. Americans have DAR-WEI already seen more than 20 CHEN debates between the candidates and are ready to see one candidate emerge as the nominee. On Super Tuesday - the nick- name for March 6th's 10 primaries - presumed frontrunner Mitt Rom- ney was the candidate with the best chance to take the lead. However, he wasn't able to deliver the prover- bial "knockout punch" to eliminate opponent Rick Santorum, and thus the lengthy show continues. The lon- ger the primary process goes on, the more pandering to the right Romney has to do in order to gain favor with the still-powerful Tea Party sect of the GOP. Since the time before Elec- tion Day is finite, every day he doesn't have the nomination sealed is one he can't spend coming back leftward to electable positions. Not only is the extended primary process allowing President Barack Obama to take notes on the usually- moderate Romney's extreme lurches to the right, it's also going to hurt Romney's electability in Novem- ber. Let's look at some of the issues where Romney has stretched so far to the right that returning to moder- ate positions might be difficult, even with his flip-flopping expertise. Women's health has been in the political spotlight for the past few weeks. In a Fox News interview last year, Romney told host Mike Hucka- bee that he would support a consti- tutional amendment defining the "beginning of life at conception." Of course, such an amendment would outlaw many common forms of birth control - avicious attackonwomen's reproductive rights. If Romney took this "personhood amendment" stance to the general election, voters would roundly repu- diate him across the country. But in the GOP primary season, he knows that this far-right position is crucial to winningthe nomination. Just how conservative is this position? Look no further than to what happened late last year in Mississippi, a state so conservative that in 2011, 46 percent of its residents wanted interracial marriage to be illegal and another 14 percent were unsure about the issue. When a ballot initiative for the "life begins at conception" definition was brought to a vote, more than 55 per- cent of Mississippians rejected it. Romney is more conservative than Mississippi on this issue. Even when Obama orchestrated the killing of reviled terrorist Osama bin Laden last May, Romney couldn't quite give credit to the president dur- ing a time of American triumph. He once told Fox News' Chris Wallace of the order to take out bin Laden: "Any president would have done that, but this one did, and that's a good thing." Perhaps we should be glad that he's not conservative or doggedly anti- Obama enough to criticize Obama directly, but he had to throw a bone to right-wing zealots by conceding only a backhand compliment. Why couldn't Romney - or the rest of the GOP for that matter - justgive credit where it's due? So Romney is stretching himself pretty far to the right on those two issues. Yet Romney might actually be at his most conservative on the issue of the auto industry bailouts. After reports that General Motors posted record profits in 2011-just two years after being bailed out by the govern- ment - Romney still defended his 2008 New York Times opinion piece "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" during debates. He couldn't seem to care less about the fact that millions of jobs were saved and an entire eco- nomic sector was revitalized - the anti-government faction of his party beckoned. Remember, Michigan is Romney's home state, and Romney's father, George, was a very popular governor here. But Romney won the Michigan primary by only three points over Santorum. His right- ward stretch almost cost him what should've been agimme. Becoming a moderate again may be hard. 6 4 As long as the primaries drag on, Romney has to keep stretching to the right. And like a rubber band, if he keeps stretching in one direction, he's going to reach a breaking point where he can't return to a normal (read: electable) state. vice President Joe Biden has been campaigning on the slogan "bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive." The con- viction-deficient Romney probably wouldn't have had the courage to call the bin Laden raid, and he all but declared that he wanted GM dead. Attacking women's rights isn't a good demographics-based strategy either, to say nothing about policy. Looks like all this stretching isn't going to help his presidential run. - Dar-Wei Chen can be reached at chendw@umich.edu. EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Kaan Avdan, Ashley Griesshammer, Nirbhay Jain, Jesse Klein, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Harsha Panduranga, Timothy Rabb, Adrienne Roberts, Vanessa Rychlinski, Sarah Skaluba, Seth Soderborg, Caroline Syms, Andrew Weiner CONTRIBUTE TO THE COVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and viewpoints. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while viewpoints should be 550-850 words. Both must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Send submissions to tothedaily@michigandaily.com. PAIGE TALIAFERRO Support restaurant workers - h eMy Ann Arbor: Where to take mend your Saturday morning hangover? Eliana Fenyes counts down A2's best brunch spots. Go to michigandaily.com/blogs/The Podium ASHLEY GRIESSHAMMER| The recruiting game Each year, employers get away with treat- ing their workers like slaves. Yes, I am talk- ing about employers in the United States, not India. The metro Detroit restaurant indus- try gets away with paying salaries that only allows around 13 percent of their employees to make enough money to live. For a single parent to raise just one child, the estimated cost of living per year is $36,447 in Wayne County, yet on average restaurant workers earn $15,092 a year. With more than 80,000 food-serving establishments in the United States, the annual sales in this industry are more than $630 billion, with a profit margin of 4.4 per- cent. Michigan alone make about $12 billion in restaurant sales each year. To say that these employers do not have the money to pay better wages is inexcusable. One in ten Americans currently work in the restaurant industry. It has one of the highest employment rates of any private- sector industry. Almost 400,000 Michigan- ders work in this industry. These people are bound to be our parents, siblings, family members or close friends. We do not want to see the people we love work full-time only to still struggle to pay their mortgage. Improve- ment is necessary. The Wages Act and Healthy Families Act were recently introduced in Congress and are focused on improving this industry. The Wages Act will mandate an increase in tipped employees' minimum wage from a menial $2.13 per hour to nearly $5 per hour hour. Considering a normal full-time work week is about 40 hours, this extra few dollars an hour could increase an employees' yearly salary to almost $6,000 a year. That is signifi- cant step in the right direction. If enacted, the Healthy Families Act would require that restaurants with 15 or more employees grant themeach at least seven paid sick days per year. Almost every other job position in the private sector grants a certain number of paid sick days. In Michigan, only 13 percent of restaurants do this. This would not only help workers, but patrons to these establishments as well. Who knows what ill employee will touch your food because they were so desperate for money that they came to work anyway? It's a health risk to allow this kind of employee treatment. This is just the tip of the iceberg, but if both bills pass the industry would become signifi- cantly more humane. Both bills have yet to be voted on in the House of Representatives. Be an advocate and speak out to your representa- tives in Congress. Or even write a letter. In the meantime, stick it to the industry and show them you will not ignore their injus- tice. Support restaurants that are loyal to their workers.A few places in Detroit, Michigan that have been recognized for paying over required minimum wage and granting paid sick days are: Avalon Bakery, Colors, Five Guys Burgers and Fries, Le Petit Zinc, Russell Street Deli, Slow's BBQ, and Wolfgang Puck's Grille. Paige Taliaferro is an LSA freshman. By this time every year, many students have secured an internship for the summer. After applications and interviews, they've hopefully found what they think is their dream job. Still, others are continuing the gruel- ing search, worried they'll be stuck as a camp coun- selor for yet another summer. Thankfully, I've figured out my summer plan. But it hasn't come without stress, worry and hard work. As a Business student, the recruiting season wasn't for- eign to me. My older brother graduated from the Ross School of Business last year, and I had seen him go through two years of internship recruiting and a year of full-time job recruiting. Even with that in mind, I wasn't prepared for the experience. And I realized something very quickly: The entire thing was a game. Yes, a game. A game with rules and regulations. Right off the bat, many people disagree with the way candidates for a job or internship are initially screened: through a resume. Judging someone based on one piece of paper isn't always fair. Someone may be extremely qualified for a job, but if their resume doesn't reflect that, they're passed over. Unfortunately, it's something we must all learn to live with. Once I had been offered several interviews, the prep work began - another necessary evil. To me, it seemed logical that everyone would know a little bit about the company before heading into a job interview. I real- ized this isn't always the case. In one case (I won't be using company names throughout for privacy purpos- es), I was asked for a basic run-down of their website. Obviously, I had taken the time to review it, butI was a little taken aback that I had actually been asked for the summary. Again, this serves as one more way to weed people out. Many of the companies that recruit in the Business School fly students to their company headquarters for "superdays," which consist of four to eight interviews throughout a day. I was invited to two superdays. When I received my flight confirmation e-mails, I noticed that the price of the ticket was always at the bottom. These prices were astounding. In one instance, my ticket to a nearby state and back - a one-day trip - cost more than $900. At the time, I didn't give it much thought. A month later, I made travel arrangements to visit another com- pany, this time for only one half-hour interview. It was strange that they would fly me out for a half-hour. When I saw the ticket price, I was amazed. $1,100 for one plane ticket, for one day of travel. The amount of money these companies spend on recruiting is abso- lutely ridiculous. But if these executives don't have time to make campus visits, it's another part of the game that must be played. If you're lucky enough, these interviews will hope- fully turn into internship offers. So, now you've received an offer and are thrilled that you won't be working at McDonald's this summer. And while you like the compa- ny you've been invited to join, you're still waiting to hear back from your dream employer... so what do you do? In my experience, employers will typically give you a two-week window to accept or decline anoffer. But what do you do if at the end of thattwo weeks you're still wait- ing to hear from another company? This is where things get tricky and where playing the game rears its ugly head. I was in this situation just a few short weeks ago, and I didn't know what do. I could ask for an extension, but that could also make me look like I wasn't that inter- ested in the position. Or, I could accept my current offer and then go back on it later if I was accepted into my top choice company. Neither of these alternatives were favorable. Unfortunately, many students find themselves in this position. In a professional setting, you don't want to burn any bridges. When a friend of mine was being recruited for a full-time position in finance, he strung a company along for three weeks only to accept an offer elsewhere. The director at the company he turned down actually proceeded to call him on the phone and yell at him -while using profane language - for 30 minutes. This is an extreme case, but it can happen. Thankfully, my situation resolved itself. But I spent many nights on the phone with my parents and older brother stressing about what I should I should do and what decisions I should make. Recruiting is stressed heavily in the Business School, but it's applicable to all areas of study. As young students, sometimes we don't know how to deal with tricky situations and play these types of games. But the internship experience is often stressed as a huge factor in determining your full-time job out of college, and it can consume the first few months of the year for many. As you're searching for internships and jobs, remember the one thing that I learned this year: Everything will work itself out. It sounds clich, but it's almost always true. Ashley Griesshammer is the Daily's co-editorial page editor and a Business sophomore. WANT THE DAILY ON THE GO? Now you can access your favorite Daily opinion content on your phone. Keep up with columnists, read Daily editorials and join in the debate. Check out the Daily's mobile website at m.michigandaily.com.