Company Exam Programs

[Jack Straw]

http://www.casact.org/pubs/actrev/nov04/examchanges.htm

Anyone companies already adjust their study time / exam raises / etc for this?

[Plant Food]

Other exams will be affected as well. With Exam 1 eventually becoming a computer exam being offered multiple times throughout the year, employers may need to change their study programs to accommodate this.
Will there be raises for completing online courses or intensive seminars? With some of these processes being offered throughout the year, rather than just in May and November, will employers be able to give "exam" raises off-cycle?
Will these costs be paid in the same way as regular exam costs or any other educational support currently offered to employees?



I don't think these are appropriate issues for the CAS to comment on. It looks like an invitation for employers to collude and fix exam raises and standardize study programs.

[Colymbosathon ecplecticos]

I don't think that the CAS commented upon them. But, since they invite comment, why don't you put your paranoid rant into a letter to the editor?

[Plant Food]

It's hardly a paranoid rant (although I'll concede I've made them in the past) and it's in a CAS publication so it's not that far fetched to conclude the CAS is commenting on it.

[PAC]

I think the context is one of observation.

The article presents the quoted text as "Some of the issues that were discussed at a recent Candidate Liaison Committee teleconference".

Inquiring actuarial student minds want to know what these changes portend...true?

If this is "commenting" it looks to me as commenting on the obvious.

[Happy Salvador]

It looks like an invitation for employers to collude and fix exam raises and standardize study programs.

:roll:

[Westley]

It looks like an invitation for employers to collude and fix exam raises and standardize study programs.

And so what?

Then the CAS is probably in violation of anti-trust law, or, at a minimum, illegally operating as a union (without a membership vote for unionization).

[tommie frazier]

are study programs THAT different now? glaringly different? I don;t think they are. So what would be new then?

[mathseal]

are study programs THAT different now? glaringly different? I don't think they are. So what would be new then?

Study programs aren't very different because employers seek to maintain parity. Just as wages aren't very different, health plans etc.

Just because the local Burger King and McDonalds will both pay their workers about the same (out of pure self-interest), they cannot explicitly or implicitly collude to do so. ("I agree not to raise McWages as long as you don't").

If the CAS or AAA took a tangible position on what competiting employers can or should provide their workers they could be seen as facilatating collusion.

And I think Westley was quite sharp in noticing that the CAS would be blamed not for working on the employer's behalf, but rather on its non-union workers. (In some sense urging us to collectively demand pay for VEE, etc)

As far as I know, the CAS was completely silent on how to handle 1990's partitioning and silent on the 2000 transition.

[tommie frazier]

while true that companies can not make or set benefits in concert, perhaps the statements about possible ripple effects of the redesign is the CAS attempting to look out (and you may think this is the first time) for the candidates who are writing the exams.

CAS hears all the gripes about exams, and on top of that, I am sure they hear about the screwing someone had to take every redesign because the boss(es) failed to consider what the changes would be until well after the fact.

Laying out a non-exhaustive list of concerns is not the same as saying "Don't give raises for VEE stuff; but DO give raises and study time for blah blah blah."

[BassFreq]

while true that companies can not make or set benefits in concert, ...

Where is this written?I don't know where that's written, but that would be "in violation of anti-trust law, or, at a minimum, illegally operating as a union (without a membership vote for unionization)" as Westley put it above.

[Utanapishtim]

Right, since the exams in question are required prior membership in the CAS, then any benefits associated with them go to non-members. Doesn't sound like something a union would pull for, to me.