(i) Consumer Rights : Consumer rights are generally a reference to a body of law that pertains to things the producers of goods must do to protect customers from harm. These laws have come into existence through a series of legal disputes, and have been shaped by the results of those cases. In a few instances, some states have actually codified regulations that they refer to as “consumer rights” laws, but this is not yet the majority practice, and even these codifications may not cover all of the principles that are generally considered “consumer rights.”
Generally accepted basic consumer rights are
- Right to safety : protection from hazardous goods.
- Right to be informed : availability of information required for weighing alternatives, and protection from false and misleading claims in advertising and labelling practices.
- Right to choose : availability of competing goods and services that offer alternatives in terms of price, quality, service.
- Right to be heard : assurance that government will take full cognizance of the concerns of consumers, and will act with sympathy and dispatch through statutes and simple and expeditious administrative procedures.
(ii) Direct and Indirect Labour Cost : Direct labor cost is wages that are incurred in order to produce specific goods or provide specific services to customers. The total amount of direct labor cost is much more than wages paid. It also includes the payroll taxes associated with those wages, plus the cost of company-paid medical insurance, life insurance, workers' compensation insurance, any company-matched pension contributions, and other company benefits.
Direct labor costs are most commonly associated with products in a job costing environment, where the production staff is expected to record the time they spend working on various jobs. This can be a substantial chore if employees work on a multitude of different products.
In the services industries, such as auditing, tax preparation, and consulting, employees are expected to track their hours by job, so their employer can bill customers based on direct labor hours worked. These are also considered to be direct labor costs.
Indirect labor is the cost of any labor that supports the production process, but which is not directly involved in the active conversion of materials into finished products. Examples of indirect labor positions are:
- Production supervisor
- Purchasing staff
- Materials handling staff
- Materials management staff
- Quality control staff
The cost of these types of indirect labor are charged to factory overhead, and from there to the units of production manufactured during the reporting **. This means that the cost of indirect labor related to the production process ends up in either ending inventory or the cost of goods sold.
