Although it seems almost impossible, there is a finite amount of time and bandwith to transmit all of the important information necessary to be a fully informed citizen. That means that there are important stories and ideas that just don't make it because they are drowned out by more commercially gripping garbage. I propose that we encourage all news and entertainment outlets to place a 90 day moratorium on anything having to do with:
1. The woman who just had octuplets
2. Bristol Palin’s motherhood
3. Installing granite countertops to help sell your house
4. Britney Spears and any other person who is famous primarily for being famous
5. Self-satisfied, often misinformed television political pundits
(This is by no means an exhaustive list. I invite others to add to mine so we can be as clear and comprehensive as possible on what we don't need to know about.)
If we all contributed $1 a year, we could come up with $300 million to start a second public television channel that would be exclusively devoted to subjects that we really need to know about. If you have ever surfed your 1000 cable channels, there isn't one yet.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
A Valentine
My stepfather taught me to love music, play tennis poorly, spend lots of energy doing things for others and to honor creative people.
My father taught me to love clarity, precision and purpose and how to use rubbing compound to get the scratches off a car.
My mother still teaches me to love myself, my partner, books, art, the fine art of making a roast chicken and to take care of people who need help the most.
My sister teaches me that anything is possible, including driving a car with 37 electronic devices hooked into one power outlet and using them all simultaneously.
My partner accepts the whole messy package, even when I fail at eveything I have been taught.
I love each of those messages, never quite live up to the education but I try to live by them when I can, and I am forever grateful.
What more could anyone ask for?
Love to you all.
My father taught me to love clarity, precision and purpose and how to use rubbing compound to get the scratches off a car.
My mother still teaches me to love myself, my partner, books, art, the fine art of making a roast chicken and to take care of people who need help the most.
My sister teaches me that anything is possible, including driving a car with 37 electronic devices hooked into one power outlet and using them all simultaneously.
My partner accepts the whole messy package, even when I fail at eveything I have been taught.
I love each of those messages, never quite live up to the education but I try to live by them when I can, and I am forever grateful.
What more could anyone ask for?
Love to you all.
Labor and Management
I write this at some personal risk to my professional development since last year I left my management job to become a neutral labor arbitrator.
I think that there is a great deal of mythology about whether individual arbitrators are "pro labor" or "pro management". Reputations of individuals notwithstanding, I see something different among "real" arbitrators. The best ones are "pro contract". They see themselves as servants of both parties and really do try to enforce contracts, not just give away cases based on their political views.
I spent roughly half my career in various union jobs - as an organizer, administrator or as a law clerk - and the other half defending a large transportation company from grievances filed by its largest constituent unions.
New legislation is now proposed that would in some ways upend the old card-check/election construct in place since the mid 20th century. The finer details are important but the premise could not be clearer: to make it easier to organize and to give unions a leg up in getting contracts for their members.
The most controversial aspects of the legislation are 1) permitting authorization card checks to substitute for a secret ballot election unless the Union chose to have an election and 2) to accelerate and promote interest arbitration to fashion contracts where the parties can't agree on a contract within a relatively short period of time. Some call the legislation a full employment act for arbitrators, particularly those with experience in interest arbitration. I'm not so sure that's correct but I understand the fear of companies that an arbitrator with insufficient knowledge of an industry could impose a contract that could make it more difficult for a company to compete with, especially, non-union companies.
For junior arbitrators like me, it would be years, if not decades, before I ever was in the position to "write" a contract for two parties. I certainly don't feel qualified to do so at this point in my career even though I negotiated contracts on both sides for many years.
My hope is that cooler heads prevail here and that reasonable compromises can be made to make it easier for unorganized employees to freely choose union representation and to respect the very difficult economic circumstances under which American companies operate. The old gloom and doom predictions from both sides need to fade away and a new conversation needs to focus on the benefits of the orderly adjudication of disputes that don't devolve into courtroom battles. Anyone who knows anything about labor relations would rather have a good arbitrator resolve a dispute than a judge with far less experience attempt the same thing.
Expressing my views might end a career that has barely begun. I wouldn't care if we could rationalize labor relations in an environment that is freer of fear and is more about real problem solving. I'll find something else to do for a living.
Despite all of the pundit chatter, the UAW worked very closely with American automakers long before the economic crisis that was not of its own making. UAW workers are not living in the lap of luxury and the story some Congresspersons want to sell about incompetent auto manufacturing managers are too shrill and include too much hyperbole to give the average citizen a meaningful way to evaluate the range of choices available to return the industry to being an important economic engine that lifted millions into the middle class.
If contracts need to be renegotiated, let that be the solution. Bankruptcies and court-ordered modifications of contracts are not. More organized employees will not spell the end of the world for employers. If done right, it might actually help.
I think that there is a great deal of mythology about whether individual arbitrators are "pro labor" or "pro management". Reputations of individuals notwithstanding, I see something different among "real" arbitrators. The best ones are "pro contract". They see themselves as servants of both parties and really do try to enforce contracts, not just give away cases based on their political views.
I spent roughly half my career in various union jobs - as an organizer, administrator or as a law clerk - and the other half defending a large transportation company from grievances filed by its largest constituent unions.
New legislation is now proposed that would in some ways upend the old card-check/election construct in place since the mid 20th century. The finer details are important but the premise could not be clearer: to make it easier to organize and to give unions a leg up in getting contracts for their members.
The most controversial aspects of the legislation are 1) permitting authorization card checks to substitute for a secret ballot election unless the Union chose to have an election and 2) to accelerate and promote interest arbitration to fashion contracts where the parties can't agree on a contract within a relatively short period of time. Some call the legislation a full employment act for arbitrators, particularly those with experience in interest arbitration. I'm not so sure that's correct but I understand the fear of companies that an arbitrator with insufficient knowledge of an industry could impose a contract that could make it more difficult for a company to compete with, especially, non-union companies.
For junior arbitrators like me, it would be years, if not decades, before I ever was in the position to "write" a contract for two parties. I certainly don't feel qualified to do so at this point in my career even though I negotiated contracts on both sides for many years.
My hope is that cooler heads prevail here and that reasonable compromises can be made to make it easier for unorganized employees to freely choose union representation and to respect the very difficult economic circumstances under which American companies operate. The old gloom and doom predictions from both sides need to fade away and a new conversation needs to focus on the benefits of the orderly adjudication of disputes that don't devolve into courtroom battles. Anyone who knows anything about labor relations would rather have a good arbitrator resolve a dispute than a judge with far less experience attempt the same thing.
Expressing my views might end a career that has barely begun. I wouldn't care if we could rationalize labor relations in an environment that is freer of fear and is more about real problem solving. I'll find something else to do for a living.
Despite all of the pundit chatter, the UAW worked very closely with American automakers long before the economic crisis that was not of its own making. UAW workers are not living in the lap of luxury and the story some Congresspersons want to sell about incompetent auto manufacturing managers are too shrill and include too much hyperbole to give the average citizen a meaningful way to evaluate the range of choices available to return the industry to being an important economic engine that lifted millions into the middle class.
If contracts need to be renegotiated, let that be the solution. Bankruptcies and court-ordered modifications of contracts are not. More organized employees will not spell the end of the world for employers. If done right, it might actually help.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Lightness or Weight
In Milan Kundera’s classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being, he posed not just any question. He posed The Question: do we choose lightness or do we choose weight in our lives?
Not to extend the metaphor too much, but that strikes me as a pretty heavy question.
The truth is that few of us are lucky enough to have an opportunity to answer the question, much less lay around a dorm room at an expensive college trying to understand Kundera, Foucault or other literary/philosopher luminaries. Most of us are too busy dealing with the choices that have already been made for us. To consider what postmodern academic feminism teaches about the value of storytelling in understanding real lives is similarly frustrating for those whose access to time and education prevent them from telling their stories. (I can’ t wait to write about that topic.) Essentially, the luxury of engaging in that sort of education might interfere with finding the can of coffee that matches the dollar-off coupon you misplaced in your wallet as your toddler screams that he wants the $7 box of T-Rex Super Sugar cereal that is guaranteed to land him in a diabetic coma by the time he’s 16.
Not that I am a great student of Kundera, nor was I an English or Philosophy major, but to me Kundera turned the whole question on its head in a way that fails to honor not only the people who sometimes try to think about big questions, particularly in a postmodern capitalist culture, but those who don’t have the time to do very much of it at all.
To get the full picture, try to get through Kundera’s tome and then read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickled and Dimed. As Ms. Ehrenreich – hardly an anti-intellectual in her own right– demonstrates so powerfully, the minimum-wage working people who appear to have made no choice between lightness and weight live every day with the weight – practical and philosophical – of working 16 hour days or actually trying to find 16 hours a day of work. I would venture to say that for these people, a week’s vacation on a nice beach with a fruity cocktail would not be considered unbearable lightness at all even if there were an existential component to consider.
Real students of Kundera who read this piece will certainly have a good argument that I have completely mangled the whole message and that it’s taken completely out of context. After all, Kundera’s world, in the aftermath of the Prague Spring of 1968, is arguably very different from post-modern America 30 years later. That’s an entirely valid criticism. But is it so different?
When we talk about the insignificance and, in Kundera’s mind, worthlessness of small decisions (i.e., “lightness”), we presume that those decisions are actually made by individuals, not by the institutions we have created. I’m not so sure that’s true, especially for classes of Americans who take ordinary jobs or lack the economic, social or academic resources that haven’t yet trickled down through our system of making public policy.
The reason I delve into this at all is because I think there is a huge divide in this country among three groups (maybe more but let’s keep it as simple as possible) that have redefined our class system in this country. It’s not just about money and address anymore. It’s about education, expectations, ambition, social insecurity and a range of other issues that our grandparents didn’t seem to worry so much about.
I think that the current state of the class system can be generally described as follows:
Group One consists of the intellectuals: not necessarily wealthy and sometimes poor who spend most of their time finding ways to get enough leisure time to read important books, comment on important books, write important books or do a host of other cool things like make art or find ways to give away their own money. (Think Salman Rushdie, Brooke Astor, Lucien Freud)
Group Two consists of the Big Middle: This group is not necessarily as well-educated as Group One; their real education tends to halt when the last mortarboard gets tossed in the air. They generally continue to read but usually off the Best Seller Lists and especially in book clubs. Many get really good jobs that pay very well, particularly if they went to elite schools or were smart business folks. Many more make a decent salary but have no retirement savings. It’s possible that they might live on the same street despite wide differences in salaries. A large portion of Group Two wants to hang out with Group One members and become patrons of the poorer Group One people. They will often need to tell you whom they know from Group One and will lament the plight of Group Three people while doing little or nothing to help them. A person can start out life in Group Three and, by dint of ambition and education, make it into the top of Group Two. (Think Tom Golisano, the New York billionaire owner of Paychex, which ironically cuts the checks for most of Group Three.) They are often the most afraid of returning to Group Three because they know it’s not an easy gig. This subset will likely, but not necessarily, vote Republican. Another subset of Group Two, who had never experienced life in Group Three, seems to be the least afraid of Group Three members and donate lots of money and time to help them. They w ill tend to vote Democratic but expect excellent public services in their own neighborhoods. They will, like their Republican counterparts, enter into intense debates about why there is a Group Three at all and how to fix it. (Think investment bankers, lawyers, teachers, physicians, middle managers.)
Group Three consists of the People with the Fewest Choices: These folks probably started life with parents in Group Three and most of their teachers pegged them at 5 years old as lifelong members of Group Three, and therefore generally ignored them and deprived them of the kind of education that might have helped them avoid unemployment or a dead-end job. They do all the jobs that Groups One and Two don’t want. (Exception: College students and people like David Sedaris, who grew up in Group Two and who took dead-end jobs so he could create time to write his way into Group One.)
Back to “lightness vs. weight”. Group One would certainly generally agree that they have chosen “weight” – the “weight” of the creative process, of thinking about big ideas. Lots of people in Group Two dearly wish to be viewed as having chosen “weight” through their associations with Group One members even as they worry about the crabgrass popping up in their manicured lawn.
Group Three members would laugh themselves silly (maybe with a tinge of resentment) and probably tell us that there is very little lightness in not having the time to read a newspaper or in going without health insurance. To them, “weight” is quite literal and without sounding too glib, usually involves lifting heavy items with the threat of lumbar strain on every midnight shift.
Public policy debates are heavily freighted with the tensions among these groups and subgroups. Barack Obama – a brilliant guy who has spent some time in each Group – has perhaps the best chance in a generation to find a way to get Group Three and a chunk of Group Two to care about funding for the Arts. Group One needs to get on board with the value of funding practical and theoretical education through high schools and community colleges. Group Two members who don’t already do it might consider having their teenagers spend some time working in jobs that Group Three members usually take because the y have no choice. Even better, some Group Two members might take a risk and hire a Group Three member and train them to make the kind of money that would lift the family out of poverty.
Whatever your Group (or, as I suspect, a combination of Groups either all at once or at various points in our lives), I have my own question. How can we bridge these divides on a very personal level to make public policy make sense for everyone? To me, the project ought to be about getting more people into the position where they can cross between Groups – not a flat, socialist society that robs most people of their creativity or ability to create real wealth, but one where people like me take more time thinking about the impact of our decisions on Group Three folks first, not because it’s the nice thing to do but because it’s the smart thing to do. If it’s true that we are only as strong a society as our weakest members, we have a tremendous amount of work to do. Who knows? There might be a poor young kid from a tough neighborhood that, with a little mentoring, better Pell grants and access to a top-notch education, could find a cure for cancer or create something else so game-changing that we would all pat ourselves on the back at our prescience.
Not to extend the metaphor too much, but that strikes me as a pretty heavy question.
The truth is that few of us are lucky enough to have an opportunity to answer the question, much less lay around a dorm room at an expensive college trying to understand Kundera, Foucault or other literary/philosopher luminaries. Most of us are too busy dealing with the choices that have already been made for us. To consider what postmodern academic feminism teaches about the value of storytelling in understanding real lives is similarly frustrating for those whose access to time and education prevent them from telling their stories. (I can’ t wait to write about that topic.) Essentially, the luxury of engaging in that sort of education might interfere with finding the can of coffee that matches the dollar-off coupon you misplaced in your wallet as your toddler screams that he wants the $7 box of T-Rex Super Sugar cereal that is guaranteed to land him in a diabetic coma by the time he’s 16.
Not that I am a great student of Kundera, nor was I an English or Philosophy major, but to me Kundera turned the whole question on its head in a way that fails to honor not only the people who sometimes try to think about big questions, particularly in a postmodern capitalist culture, but those who don’t have the time to do very much of it at all.
To get the full picture, try to get through Kundera’s tome and then read Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickled and Dimed. As Ms. Ehrenreich – hardly an anti-intellectual in her own right– demonstrates so powerfully, the minimum-wage working people who appear to have made no choice between lightness and weight live every day with the weight – practical and philosophical – of working 16 hour days or actually trying to find 16 hours a day of work. I would venture to say that for these people, a week’s vacation on a nice beach with a fruity cocktail would not be considered unbearable lightness at all even if there were an existential component to consider.
Real students of Kundera who read this piece will certainly have a good argument that I have completely mangled the whole message and that it’s taken completely out of context. After all, Kundera’s world, in the aftermath of the Prague Spring of 1968, is arguably very different from post-modern America 30 years later. That’s an entirely valid criticism. But is it so different?
When we talk about the insignificance and, in Kundera’s mind, worthlessness of small decisions (i.e., “lightness”), we presume that those decisions are actually made by individuals, not by the institutions we have created. I’m not so sure that’s true, especially for classes of Americans who take ordinary jobs or lack the economic, social or academic resources that haven’t yet trickled down through our system of making public policy.
The reason I delve into this at all is because I think there is a huge divide in this country among three groups (maybe more but let’s keep it as simple as possible) that have redefined our class system in this country. It’s not just about money and address anymore. It’s about education, expectations, ambition, social insecurity and a range of other issues that our grandparents didn’t seem to worry so much about.
I think that the current state of the class system can be generally described as follows:
Group One consists of the intellectuals: not necessarily wealthy and sometimes poor who spend most of their time finding ways to get enough leisure time to read important books, comment on important books, write important books or do a host of other cool things like make art or find ways to give away their own money. (Think Salman Rushdie, Brooke Astor, Lucien Freud)
Group Two consists of the Big Middle: This group is not necessarily as well-educated as Group One; their real education tends to halt when the last mortarboard gets tossed in the air. They generally continue to read but usually off the Best Seller Lists and especially in book clubs. Many get really good jobs that pay very well, particularly if they went to elite schools or were smart business folks. Many more make a decent salary but have no retirement savings. It’s possible that they might live on the same street despite wide differences in salaries. A large portion of Group Two wants to hang out with Group One members and become patrons of the poorer Group One people. They will often need to tell you whom they know from Group One and will lament the plight of Group Three people while doing little or nothing to help them. A person can start out life in Group Three and, by dint of ambition and education, make it into the top of Group Two. (Think Tom Golisano, the New York billionaire owner of Paychex, which ironically cuts the checks for most of Group Three.) They are often the most afraid of returning to Group Three because they know it’s not an easy gig. This subset will likely, but not necessarily, vote Republican. Another subset of Group Two, who had never experienced life in Group Three, seems to be the least afraid of Group Three members and donate lots of money and time to help them. They w ill tend to vote Democratic but expect excellent public services in their own neighborhoods. They will, like their Republican counterparts, enter into intense debates about why there is a Group Three at all and how to fix it. (Think investment bankers, lawyers, teachers, physicians, middle managers.)
Group Three consists of the People with the Fewest Choices: These folks probably started life with parents in Group Three and most of their teachers pegged them at 5 years old as lifelong members of Group Three, and therefore generally ignored them and deprived them of the kind of education that might have helped them avoid unemployment or a dead-end job. They do all the jobs that Groups One and Two don’t want. (Exception: College students and people like David Sedaris, who grew up in Group Two and who took dead-end jobs so he could create time to write his way into Group One.)
Back to “lightness vs. weight”. Group One would certainly generally agree that they have chosen “weight” – the “weight” of the creative process, of thinking about big ideas. Lots of people in Group Two dearly wish to be viewed as having chosen “weight” through their associations with Group One members even as they worry about the crabgrass popping up in their manicured lawn.
Group Three members would laugh themselves silly (maybe with a tinge of resentment) and probably tell us that there is very little lightness in not having the time to read a newspaper or in going without health insurance. To them, “weight” is quite literal and without sounding too glib, usually involves lifting heavy items with the threat of lumbar strain on every midnight shift.
Public policy debates are heavily freighted with the tensions among these groups and subgroups. Barack Obama – a brilliant guy who has spent some time in each Group – has perhaps the best chance in a generation to find a way to get Group Three and a chunk of Group Two to care about funding for the Arts. Group One needs to get on board with the value of funding practical and theoretical education through high schools and community colleges. Group Two members who don’t already do it might consider having their teenagers spend some time working in jobs that Group Three members usually take because the y have no choice. Even better, some Group Two members might take a risk and hire a Group Three member and train them to make the kind of money that would lift the family out of poverty.
Whatever your Group (or, as I suspect, a combination of Groups either all at once or at various points in our lives), I have my own question. How can we bridge these divides on a very personal level to make public policy make sense for everyone? To me, the project ought to be about getting more people into the position where they can cross between Groups – not a flat, socialist society that robs most people of their creativity or ability to create real wealth, but one where people like me take more time thinking about the impact of our decisions on Group Three folks first, not because it’s the nice thing to do but because it’s the smart thing to do. If it’s true that we are only as strong a society as our weakest members, we have a tremendous amount of work to do. Who knows? There might be a poor young kid from a tough neighborhood that, with a little mentoring, better Pell grants and access to a top-notch education, could find a cure for cancer or create something else so game-changing that we would all pat ourselves on the back at our prescience.
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