In an earlier post, I wrote about the announcement of Wall Street bonuses and got some thoughtful feedback from a couple of followers of this blog (see "Bonus" on this page). I don't think anyone (and I truly mean anyone) fully understands the compensation packages of many jobs, particularly where there is no contract (union or individual) to help make sense of it.
I do know that in a market economy like ours, it seems as if careers like public and private primary and secondary school teaching are undervalued from a compensation perspective. Why then do so many college graduates continue to choose to teach? If we reach back to the 1950s and 60s, it's easier to understand. Many other careers were practically closed off to smart, well-educated women. Nursing, teaching, social work and a very small number of other professions attracted most of the smartest female college graduates. The salaries were pathetically low by today's standards but without other meaningful opportunities, the market permitted school districts and religious institutions to get these young women (and quite a few men) to work for them for peanuts. But let's not forget that teaching has intrinsic rewards and has historically been one of the most stable, family-friendly jobs in the country. Defined benefit public employee pensions (often non-contributory) make retired teachers some of the best protected among our elderly. It's easy to say that they deserve that kind of protection because they chose to forgo opportunities to make more salary in another field but with reduced job security and increased risk of having a less generous retirement income.
The best and brightest women today can and do often choose to work in money management jobs, including investment banking, abandoning the notion of lifetime employment with one employer, lower pension guarantees, practically zero job security and punishing 80 hour work weeks. The annual bonus - whether delivered in cash or stock options - often accounts for 60-80% of their overall compensation. In the fat middle (the VP and AVP level where most of men and women in institutional finance work) much of the bonus gets socked away for retirement. I don't know what the average compensation is but in order for a 55 year old banker (who, by the way, likely has to pay 3-4 times the average for housing because they are forced to work in New York, Boston or Chicago) to buy an annuity that would provide them with a lifetime income equivalent to a teacher's pension, with continued health care coverage, would likely have to amass at least $1-2 million in cash. When one considers the 80 hour work weeks and the risk that bonuses paid in stock options might be worthless (ask a Bear Stearns employee who had all of his/her retirement accounts in now worthless company stock), it should surprise no one that these individuals can make a good case for getting a healthy end-year bonus if they have worked hard and followed the direction of the top company executives.
Men and women working in the auto industry, unlike public school teaching and investment banking, have increasingly gotten the worst of both worlds - decent but not spectacular hourly pay for current workers, a lower entry wage for new hires, but no guarantee of job security and a pension that might or might not include retiree health benefits, particularly if the auto manufacturer goes bankrupt. The old social contract with these workers died long ago. Even so, when the auto manufacturers asked for a bail out, many people reacted with disdain not just for the top executives but for the workers themselves. I suppose that we should have expected the workers to refuse to build gas guzzling SUVs because they should have known that crude oil prices would spike and the home mortgage industry would start an economic recession that would further reduce demand for the types of vehicles that had been so profitable for so long.
My point is this: we have collectively become the judge and jury of what an individual's work is worth, regardless of the product or service they deliver. That, my friends, is not how market capitalism works. I will agree that no one necessarily deserves a $20 million dollar bonus. I cannot agree that an exceptional employee in the ranks of middle management doesn't deserve a $1 million bonus even if the top company executives made mistakes in the overall direction of the company.
AIG made some egregiously poor institutional decisions - particularly in greedily selling "insurance" to banks that it could never have afforded to pay out if the economy went sour. But the middle managers who sold those products did nothing illegal and to the extent they did their part well, deserve the compensation promised to them. Teachers whose school boards and management give them a curriculum and blackboard still deserve their salary and pension benefits if they do their jobs acceptably, even if it doesn't translate into higher test scores. Auto workers who dutifully show up for work each day and drop 400hp engines into Hummers that get 9 mpg deserve their compensation even if the car can't be sold.
Bonuses didn't get us into this mess. Congress's utter failure to regulate the industry over the past decade is a big part of what got us here. I'll bet you that they wouldn't forgo their salary for failing to legislate away some of the legal but stupid things going on in the finance industry.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
High School Fashion Police on the Beat
If you have a moment, go to the link below and read the story about a young woman, a lesbian, who wanted to wear pants to her prom but was told that she had to wear a dress or be banned from the event.
http://www.lemondrop.com/2009/03/13/lesbian-fights-for-her-right-to-wear-pants-to-the-prom/
I wonder if any of my friends - or anyone who reads this post - can tell me how it hurts anyone for a young woman to wear an outfit that nearly every female member of Congress and most corporate types wear every day (and evening). More to the point, is the school doing so well delivering a high quality education that it has the extra time to indulge in this sort of distraction - one that has nothing whatsoever to do with educating kids (except perhaps teaching intolerance).
I can imagine some of the arguments in favor of the ban: 1) that it mocks the entire event and ruins it for all the young women who want to wear a formal gown; 2) that it is inappropriate to politicize what should otherwise be a fun evening for 17 and 18 year olds who don't have many opportunities to look mature and glamorous. I, for one, trust that 17 and 18 year olds understand personal expression and don't care very much if a female classmate wants to wear a pant suit. Whatever political statement is being made became political when the school decided to ban it, not when the young woman went to buy her outfit.
In my lifetime, most female teachers were not permitted to wear pant suits until the early 1970s. Those rules were clearly rooted in a desire to promote a particular view of how women should dress as role models for female students. The problem is that high schools are perhaps the least qualified institutions on the planet to determine how women should dress.
If they looked around them, they would see that many successful adult women almost always wear pant suits. If schools want their graduates to have the opportunity to fully participate in the adult world, they need to help them develop a broader view of the world. The country's largest corporations and some of the best paid professions are not only comfortable with diversity but demand that their employees respect each other despite cultural differences in all sorts of arenas, including fashion choices. If we teach intolerance now, we will limit young women's opportunities for success in the real world. In short, bigots will be ostracized and will miss out on some really good places to work.
I count myself among many people who believe that our schools are overburdened and are asked to do things that parents and other caregivers should be doing at home. In this case, if the young woman does nothing lewd, the decision on attire ought to be made by students and their parents.
http://www.lemondrop.com/2009/03/13/lesbian-fights-for-her-right-to-wear-pants-to-the-prom/
I wonder if any of my friends - or anyone who reads this post - can tell me how it hurts anyone for a young woman to wear an outfit that nearly every female member of Congress and most corporate types wear every day (and evening). More to the point, is the school doing so well delivering a high quality education that it has the extra time to indulge in this sort of distraction - one that has nothing whatsoever to do with educating kids (except perhaps teaching intolerance).
I can imagine some of the arguments in favor of the ban: 1) that it mocks the entire event and ruins it for all the young women who want to wear a formal gown; 2) that it is inappropriate to politicize what should otherwise be a fun evening for 17 and 18 year olds who don't have many opportunities to look mature and glamorous. I, for one, trust that 17 and 18 year olds understand personal expression and don't care very much if a female classmate wants to wear a pant suit. Whatever political statement is being made became political when the school decided to ban it, not when the young woman went to buy her outfit.
In my lifetime, most female teachers were not permitted to wear pant suits until the early 1970s. Those rules were clearly rooted in a desire to promote a particular view of how women should dress as role models for female students. The problem is that high schools are perhaps the least qualified institutions on the planet to determine how women should dress.
If they looked around them, they would see that many successful adult women almost always wear pant suits. If schools want their graduates to have the opportunity to fully participate in the adult world, they need to help them develop a broader view of the world. The country's largest corporations and some of the best paid professions are not only comfortable with diversity but demand that their employees respect each other despite cultural differences in all sorts of arenas, including fashion choices. If we teach intolerance now, we will limit young women's opportunities for success in the real world. In short, bigots will be ostracized and will miss out on some really good places to work.
I count myself among many people who believe that our schools are overburdened and are asked to do things that parents and other caregivers should be doing at home. In this case, if the young woman does nothing lewd, the decision on attire ought to be made by students and their parents.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Got Credit?
The not-so-dirty little secret in the aftermath of the economic recession is that there are plenty of people with great credit scores that entitle them to - among other things - refinance their home mortgages at historically low rates, get more favorable rates on auto loans and on credit cards.
Sounds great, doesn't it?
It might not be so great if there is another tsunami of layoffs among those who currently have platinum credit scores and take advantage of all of the offers that are circulating. I have received no fewer than 5 solicitations each week to get all sorts of credit cards, cheap home equity loans, etc. I have shredded all of them, not because they aren't great deals, but because few folks realize that 1) each time you apply for new credit, there is a risk that your credit score will go down and 2) the temptation to use that credit when you get into trouble because of a layoff or a lower or non-existent bonus that you might have counted on.
You will undoubtedly get advice from far more sophisticated people than me and I make no claim to holding a degree in home economics, but I would take $20 to your local office supply store and buy a shredder so you can keep your available credit lines within your means to pay it and avoid identity theft in the process.
My very unscientific survey of friends I know at all points on the economic scale and observations of the traffic at local NYC retailers have convinced me that we're in the middle of this crisis, not the end, and that cash is king. I prefer to leave big borrowing to the companies that actually hire people. My purchase of a pendant light at Restoration Hardware won't save a job. You might argue that a million people doing the same thing will save jobs but I'm not so sure, particularly in an environment where companies with otherwise great fundamentals have weak stock prices because of a general panic about their future.
I know, as you do, that consumer spending is vital to keeping the U.S. economy stable. Perhaps the middle ground is to borrow modestly in order to add value (or retain value) to what you already have, provided you can pay it off in a couple of months, not years. (I'll hazard a guess that reupholsterers, house painters, furniture refinishers, electricians, landscapers, auto detailers and a few other skilled trades will agree with me that small improvements that are relatively inexpensive are much less likely to get borrowers into trouble.)
If you are lucky enough to earn enough money to meet your basic obligations without new injections of credit, maybe we could all wait until we actually need something to apply for it. That need might well turn out to be borrowing for education to get the skills to take jobs that will likely be created by the stimulus package. If you use it for living room furniture, it might not be there for tuition. If you try to sell your house, no one will care that you bought nicer furniture, anyway.
I'll give you a real life example: My sister is getting married in June of this year and the rehearsal dinner will happen under a huge tent in the back yard. My mother's house is 60 years old, in decent shape, but it hadn't had a full interior paint job in 7 years and she wanted to make her extra bedrooms more hospitable for out-of-town guests by making them into little suites, including painting the bathrooms. She bought old-fashioned, small tube (but new) televisions for $75 a piece (basic cable connections for a one-time installation fee of $40), some paintable consignment furniture and tons of wall paint and fabric. She enlisted me, my aunt and uncle to help make things look crisp and welcoming. For very little money (all payable with cash), you would never know that the house is as old as it is and I am convinced that if she ever wanted to sell the place, she won't regret making it more competitive with new construction.
The other choice would have been a complete overhaul that would have cost at least $20,000. No one would have noticed that the four of us did it ourselves in one marathon week for a very small fraction of the price (and, my aunt falling off a ladder - but she's okay). The bonus for me is that the project bound my family together even more closely that I would have predicted. We tried to use local retailers as much as we could. From an environmental perspective, we re-purposed almost everything in the house. A little imagination and a lot of determination go a long way.
It would be great to think that we could just take a break from the spending orgy for a few months and then go back to normal. I think we'll be better served by redefining what it means to do ambitious things and to redefine what really matters in the long run.
I would love to hear how my friends are doing on this front. It's never easy to shift gears so quickly but I think it's really possible for most middle class people to have a great life and great surroundings without killing themselves over how to pay for it all.
I'm available for painting parties. I only ask that you order thin crust pizza with peppers and onions and, if you can tolerate it, anchovies.
Sounds great, doesn't it?
It might not be so great if there is another tsunami of layoffs among those who currently have platinum credit scores and take advantage of all of the offers that are circulating. I have received no fewer than 5 solicitations each week to get all sorts of credit cards, cheap home equity loans, etc. I have shredded all of them, not because they aren't great deals, but because few folks realize that 1) each time you apply for new credit, there is a risk that your credit score will go down and 2) the temptation to use that credit when you get into trouble because of a layoff or a lower or non-existent bonus that you might have counted on.
You will undoubtedly get advice from far more sophisticated people than me and I make no claim to holding a degree in home economics, but I would take $20 to your local office supply store and buy a shredder so you can keep your available credit lines within your means to pay it and avoid identity theft in the process.
My very unscientific survey of friends I know at all points on the economic scale and observations of the traffic at local NYC retailers have convinced me that we're in the middle of this crisis, not the end, and that cash is king. I prefer to leave big borrowing to the companies that actually hire people. My purchase of a pendant light at Restoration Hardware won't save a job. You might argue that a million people doing the same thing will save jobs but I'm not so sure, particularly in an environment where companies with otherwise great fundamentals have weak stock prices because of a general panic about their future.
I know, as you do, that consumer spending is vital to keeping the U.S. economy stable. Perhaps the middle ground is to borrow modestly in order to add value (or retain value) to what you already have, provided you can pay it off in a couple of months, not years. (I'll hazard a guess that reupholsterers, house painters, furniture refinishers, electricians, landscapers, auto detailers and a few other skilled trades will agree with me that small improvements that are relatively inexpensive are much less likely to get borrowers into trouble.)
If you are lucky enough to earn enough money to meet your basic obligations without new injections of credit, maybe we could all wait until we actually need something to apply for it. That need might well turn out to be borrowing for education to get the skills to take jobs that will likely be created by the stimulus package. If you use it for living room furniture, it might not be there for tuition. If you try to sell your house, no one will care that you bought nicer furniture, anyway.
I'll give you a real life example: My sister is getting married in June of this year and the rehearsal dinner will happen under a huge tent in the back yard. My mother's house is 60 years old, in decent shape, but it hadn't had a full interior paint job in 7 years and she wanted to make her extra bedrooms more hospitable for out-of-town guests by making them into little suites, including painting the bathrooms. She bought old-fashioned, small tube (but new) televisions for $75 a piece (basic cable connections for a one-time installation fee of $40), some paintable consignment furniture and tons of wall paint and fabric. She enlisted me, my aunt and uncle to help make things look crisp and welcoming. For very little money (all payable with cash), you would never know that the house is as old as it is and I am convinced that if she ever wanted to sell the place, she won't regret making it more competitive with new construction.
The other choice would have been a complete overhaul that would have cost at least $20,000. No one would have noticed that the four of us did it ourselves in one marathon week for a very small fraction of the price (and, my aunt falling off a ladder - but she's okay). The bonus for me is that the project bound my family together even more closely that I would have predicted. We tried to use local retailers as much as we could. From an environmental perspective, we re-purposed almost everything in the house. A little imagination and a lot of determination go a long way.
It would be great to think that we could just take a break from the spending orgy for a few months and then go back to normal. I think we'll be better served by redefining what it means to do ambitious things and to redefine what really matters in the long run.
I would love to hear how my friends are doing on this front. It's never easy to shift gears so quickly but I think it's really possible for most middle class people to have a great life and great surroundings without killing themselves over how to pay for it all.
I'm available for painting parties. I only ask that you order thin crust pizza with peppers and onions and, if you can tolerate it, anchovies.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Limbaugh v. U.S.
Someone please tell me how Rush Limbaugh has become the putative leader of the Republican Party. Is it really possible that he hopes that the country slips into a long economic depression to satisfy his desire to tip the balance of power in D.C.?
It must be pretty easy for Mr. Limbaugh to bloviate about economic policy, notwithstanding his lack of any known undergraduate or graduate education on the subject. After all, he earns millions each year pandering to an audience that froths at the mouth at the mere suggestion of a Democrat on a local school board, let alone one in the White House.
Limbaugh, no matter what happens with the economy, won't lose his house in this mess and won't have to decide whether to forgo food in order to pay for prescription drugs. (I'll refrain from making too much of the drug addiction issue because it's not terribly fair, but I would think that someone who battled addiction would have at least some sympathy for people who tried to make wise choices about their lives but were unlucky or uninformed). Among his millions of listeners, a percentage will have all of their belongings moved onto the street over the next year. Some will resort to skipping life-saving medications in order to make a house payment on a house that they will likely lose to foreclosure anyway.
Mr. Limbaugh is entitled to his opinions. The Constitution has recently done a much better job of protecting the opinions of wealthy pundits than it has in protecting its average citizens from wiretapping or the right to establish families that just happen to be headed by two men or two women.
The sad part of all of this - at least to me - is that Rush Limbaugh gets more time on the air than hundreds of smarter, more thoughtful voices that may dislike Barack Obama's policy initiatives. His brand of vitriol is exactly what I am talking about when I started this blog.
I don't begrudge his economic success, nor do I think he has nothing to offer on policy debates.
I simply think that he crossed the line when he used his incredibly powerful position in the media to argue that it is better to suffer through a devastating, worldwide economic depression than it is to permit a Democrat to use all the tools available to him to blunt its impact or stop it altogether.
I think we should call on Mr. Limbaugh to lay out a comprehensive economic plan that includes estimates on home foreclosures, bank failures, access to health care, education and a host of other important issues. Let's hold him to the standard of a Presidential campaign. The country just made a decision in November on a general direction for the country. If he had a better argument, he should have run himself. I sincerely doubt he would have received 1% of the vote. That's what gives me a great deal of hope for the country. I might be wrong but I think that Mr. Limbaugh's appeal is much more about entertainment than it is about substance.
Do we really - as a nation - care about the party affiliation of the person who fixes the mess we're in right now? I doubt it.
It must be pretty easy for Mr. Limbaugh to bloviate about economic policy, notwithstanding his lack of any known undergraduate or graduate education on the subject. After all, he earns millions each year pandering to an audience that froths at the mouth at the mere suggestion of a Democrat on a local school board, let alone one in the White House.
Limbaugh, no matter what happens with the economy, won't lose his house in this mess and won't have to decide whether to forgo food in order to pay for prescription drugs. (I'll refrain from making too much of the drug addiction issue because it's not terribly fair, but I would think that someone who battled addiction would have at least some sympathy for people who tried to make wise choices about their lives but were unlucky or uninformed). Among his millions of listeners, a percentage will have all of their belongings moved onto the street over the next year. Some will resort to skipping life-saving medications in order to make a house payment on a house that they will likely lose to foreclosure anyway.
Mr. Limbaugh is entitled to his opinions. The Constitution has recently done a much better job of protecting the opinions of wealthy pundits than it has in protecting its average citizens from wiretapping or the right to establish families that just happen to be headed by two men or two women.
The sad part of all of this - at least to me - is that Rush Limbaugh gets more time on the air than hundreds of smarter, more thoughtful voices that may dislike Barack Obama's policy initiatives. His brand of vitriol is exactly what I am talking about when I started this blog.
I don't begrudge his economic success, nor do I think he has nothing to offer on policy debates.
I simply think that he crossed the line when he used his incredibly powerful position in the media to argue that it is better to suffer through a devastating, worldwide economic depression than it is to permit a Democrat to use all the tools available to him to blunt its impact or stop it altogether.
I think we should call on Mr. Limbaugh to lay out a comprehensive economic plan that includes estimates on home foreclosures, bank failures, access to health care, education and a host of other important issues. Let's hold him to the standard of a Presidential campaign. The country just made a decision in November on a general direction for the country. If he had a better argument, he should have run himself. I sincerely doubt he would have received 1% of the vote. That's what gives me a great deal of hope for the country. I might be wrong but I think that Mr. Limbaugh's appeal is much more about entertainment than it is about substance.
Do we really - as a nation - care about the party affiliation of the person who fixes the mess we're in right now? I doubt it.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Making Space for Real Issues
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.
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.
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.
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