SAN FRANCISCO, CA — Chevron Corporation’s multi-million dollar “Human Energy” advertising campaign touts how much Chevron values people.  Chevron’s website promotes the “Chevron Way” – the company’s commitment to complying with the law and placing “the highest priority on the health and safety of our workforce.”

The reality for John Suzuki, who worked at Chevron for over 35 years, was much different.  An award-winning patent liaison in Chevron’s Law Department in Richmond, CA, Suzuki was forced to take early retirement this month rather than risk his health by returning to work under a supervisor who harassed and threatened him, and called him a “stupid Jap.”

Suzuki wanted to continue working at Chevron, but the company refused his doctors’ directives that he must be moved to a different department or else he would be at high risk of having a heart attack.

“Stupid Jap” Slur

The doctors had diagnosed Suzuki as being at high risk of another heart attack after he had at least two episodes of severe chest pains following incidents in which his supervisor, Alan Klaassen harassed him by yelling at him, making false accusations and threatening him.

After one such incident in January 2008, Suzuki went to his doctor, who told him that he had to reduce his workload or else he might have a heart attack.  When Suzuki told Klaassen and a manager, Frank Turner, what his doctor said, Klaassen and Turner laughed at Suzuki.

Things came to a head in August 2009 when Klaassen again yelled at Suzuki, waved his fist in his face, threatened him and falsely blamed him for problems in the work.  Klaassen also called Suzuki a “stupid Jap.”

Use of racial slurs by supervisors on the job violates federal and state anti-discrimination laws and laws prohibiting hostile and abusive work environments.  As one federal appeals court noted in 1993, “Perhaps no single act can more quickly ‘alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment’ . . . than the use of an [unambiguous] racial epithet . . . by a supervisor….”

Following the August 2009 incident, Suzuki again suffered severe chest pains.  His doctors put him on medical leave and have been treating him since then.  They told Chevron that he could return to work only when he was taken out of his hostile work environment and  moved to a different department.

Chevron categorically refused to consider moving Suzuki to a different department.  If Suzuki did not return to his department and his supervisor Klaassen, he faced termination, Chevron told him.

Suzuki got an attorney, John Ota of Alameda, CA, who pointed out to Chevron that under California law, the company must separate Suzuki from Klaassen, at the very least until Chevron did a fair and thorough investigation of Suzuki’s charges that Klaassen had insulted him with a racial epithet and otherwise created a hostile work environment.

Investigation or Cover-up?

Demanding that Suzuki return to work under Klaassen before Chevron had even investigated the matter assumed that Klaassen would be cleared, Ota noted, an indication that  Chevron had no intention of conducting a fair and objective investigation as required by law.

Chevron refused to budge.  Faced with termination and the possible resulting loss of his retirement benefits, Suzuki reluctantly chose early retirement on February 1.

Meanwhile, Japanese American and Asian American organizations, disturbed about Suzuki’s situation, began contacting Chevron to express their concerns.

Richard Konda, Executive Director of Asian Law Alliance in San Jose wrote Chevron on January 12, stating that it was “highly inappropriate and insensitive” for Chevron to demand that Suzuki return to work under Klaassen before completing its investigation.

Patty Wada, Regional Director of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) Northern California-Western Nevada-Pacific District, said in a  January 22 letter that she was appalled to hear that Suzuki had been subjected to racial slurs by his supervisor.

Under pressure, Chevron hired an outside Japanese American attorney, Susan Kumagai, to investigate Suzuki’s charges.  On her website, Kumagai describes herself as a specialist in “representing management” against discrimination charges.

Suzuki asked Kumagai and Chevron how many such investigations Kumagai had done in the past and in how many of those investigations, if any, she had concluded that a hostile work environment existed.  Neither Kumagai nor Chevron responded to these questions.

Not surprisingly, Kumagai conducted a quick investigation and concluded that none of Suzuki’s charges could be substantiated.  Chevron informed Suzuki of these results on February 16, but refused to provide him with a copy of Kumagai’s report.

In her hasty effort, Kumagai failed to even talk to some witnesses Suzuki said could confirm that he told them about Klaassen’s racial slur soon after it happened.  Because in this, as in many other harassment cases, there were no witnesses to the actual harassment, such corroborating witnesses are often crucial to verifying the victim’s account of what happened.

The failure to interview corroborating witnesses, hiring as the investigator an attorney who defends management for a living, and Chevron’s refusal to provide Suzuki with a copy of the investigation report – these are all “signs pointing to a cover-up,” not a fair and objective investigation, says Ota.

Letter Writing Efforts

Suzuki is continuing to ask organizations to write Chevron on his behalf.  What is important to him, he says, is “the principle of the matter – racial remarks like this cannot be tolerated.”

The points he wants organizations to make in their letters to Chevron are first, that Chevron conduct a fair and thorough investigation of his charges, an investigation by someone who has a history of doing evenhanded investigations, not by a management defense attorney.

Second, Suzuki wants Chevron to provide him with Kumagai’s investigation report, and also to provide the report when a fair and thorough investigation is completed.

Last, Suzuki asks that Chevron fire Klaassen if it finds that Klaassen did call Suzuki a “stupid Jap” and that Suzuki be allowed to return to work at Chevron in a different department.

Leaders of Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress (NCRR) in Los Angeles wrote to Chevron on February 10.  Paul Osaki, Executive Director of the Japanese Community and Cultural Center of Northern California sent Chevron a letter on February 19.

Other organizations in Los Angeles, San Jose and San Francisco have also agreed to write to Chevron.
Those interested in contacting Chevron should write to: John S. Watson, Chief Executive Officer, Chevron Corp., 6001 Bollinger Canyon Road, San Ramon, CA 94583.

About the Author John Ota is a solo employment attorney in Alameda, CA.  He has been representing employees for over 11 years in discrimination, retaliation, harassment, wrongful termination, and overtime pay cases.  He is a member of the National Employment Lawyers Assoc. and the California Employment Lawyers Assoc.

I was reading the newspaper yesterday and I came across two words that just didn’t go together. They weren’t exactly an oxymoron, just moronic. At least that’s how they struck me. “Playboy radio.”

According to the article that I read, one of the satellite services is taking the bunny to radio. This challenged everything that I thought I knew about guys. That we’re visual creatures and that we’re not the best abstract thinkers. Playboy radio?

Okay, I get it that there is a thriving business in 900 phone numbers. So there is some precedence for talking dirty on the radio. But this business summed up to me everything that a real guy would have no interest in. Which got me thinking about other things that I would have never put together—like Poker TV, men’s mousse and “Adult Outlet” (I saw that on a billboard in Las Vegas a few years ago).

Unlikely pairings. And the more I thought about it they’re one of the real keys to innovation; the ability to put things together in a new and innovative way.

Meeting the needs of your existing customers is a challenge. You’ve got to watch and listen. And be prepared to shake things up when they aren’t being served. But the really tough part is serving the needs of your customers that they don’t even know they have. Their unrealized needs.

How do you find someone’s needs that they don’t even know they have? It’s not easy. You’ve got to understand their business so well that you can anticipate totally new solutions for today’s and tomorrow’s problems. For example, how many of you out there ever imagined the Internet or email before you had your first computer. Be honest.

Most of us can’t imagine something that is a few steps beyond anything we’re currently using. Take hybrid cars or the iPod. Both are relatively small leaps from things that already existed. But I’m guessing that they were a totally surprise to most of you. Heck, I’ll admit, I never saw either of them coming. And now I find both essential.

Sure there are some innovations that just come out of thin air. But most of them come in a more pedestrian way, they come from combining two unlikely things to create something totally new.

So the next time you see an unlikely pairing, and trust me you will, appreciate the leap of faith that someone took to create it. Sure it might be a bridge to nowhere, but at least they asked the questions and explored a new direction to take things.

And hopefully the unlikely pairing will motivate you to explore your own unlikely combination. Something that will push you in a new direction. I’d like to continue with this conversation about innovation, but I’ve got an important radio program that I need to listen to.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Also check out his newly revised best-seller “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

The school superintendent who last week fired all teachers at Central Falls (R.I.) High School has agreed to resume bargaining and include the union in all discussions on a comprehensive education plan that will help students and teachers succeed. The move followed a nationwide public outcry, with thousands signing an online petition to tell school officials the students deserve better and they should work with teachers to build on improvements at the high school. (Keep the pressure on the Central Falls school administration. Sign a petition here.)

AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a statement that she was pleased the superintendent has agreed to resume talks:

The dedicated teachers and staff [of Central Falls High] want nothing more than to continue and improve upon the progress they have made. Real, sustainable change will only happen when all stakeholders work together.

The AFT is committed to supporting Central Falls Teachers Union President Jane Sessums, the students of Central Falls High School and our members, the educators of Central Falls, throughout the negotiations and process of transforming the school.

On Feb. 23, the Central Falls school trustees fired the entire teaching staff of the high school, which is located in Rhode Island’s smallest and poorest city.

In all, 93 got pink slips—74 classroom teachers, plus reading specialists, guidance counselors, physical education teachers, the school psychologist, the principal and three assistant principals. Negotiations over strategies to improve the school between teachers and the school superintendent broke down when the superintendent walked away from the table and fired the teachers.

*This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on February 24, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: James Parks had his first encounter with unions at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when his colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. He saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. He is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. His proudest career moment, though, was when he served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections. Author photo by Joe Kekeris

A recent survey by The Conference Board, a not-for-profit organization that disseminates information about business management and economic trends, showed that job satisfaction in America hit a record low in 2009.  Part of the problem is managers who run roughshod over morale.  Part of the solution is employee surveys that provide an underpinning for managers’ performance appraisals.

Formal grievance procedures against miscreant managers are a drastic option, and often bring adversity to the whistleblower.  But so-called “upward assessments” empower subordinates by giving them input into management performance appraisals.  Measuring management behavior, not some nebulous notion that “the company cares about its people,” will rein in abusive managers simply because once something is measured, it generally improves.

I don’t need to refer to the human resource trend du jour — I already know this because my previous manager was Darth Vader reincarnate.  Recognizing the threat to his evil little empire, he usurped the survey process, twisting it to the dark side.

Published norms, articles about workplace bullying, quarterly process meetings and retreats were all his decoys, but his ultimate subterfuge was the employee survey.   He cunningly constructed this devious document to shirk responsibility and shroud his malice.  His dastardly plot recognized that direct surveys represented a powerful check upon his unfettered malevolence.

When I started this job I was bemused that our 25-person department had its own set of norms:  ten principles that basically boiled down to the golden rule.  Everyone else in our large organization was content to operate under organization-wide principles.

On the surface, our department was a group of top-notch professionals working in accord.   It seemed we had struck the optimal balance between efficiency, effectiveness and employee moral, but why did we have a special set of norms, I wondered?   Why were they plastered everywhere:  on the conference room walls, on our manager’s door, in meeting rooms?  One could not walk more than a few yards without encountering them.

I was new, but no one on our team seemed capable of belittling, intimidating, disrespecting or otherwise mistreating a co-worker.  Was this because of the norms?  Or was something more sinister at play that the norms were hiding?

A few months after I started it was time for my first quarterly “process” meeting.  As far as I could tell, this was rare, if not unique to our department.   Part of the unusual agenda called for a discussion of our norms and a potential employee survey.  An extra copy of our norms was posted on the meeting room door, almost as if there had been a recent breach of etiquette.  There had been, many breaches, the perpetrator ambushing her victims then squirming to our manager Darth for refuge.

As I ventured more frequently into various domains within our organization I noticed people wincing when I told them where I worked.  But I was new, an innocent wookie oblivious to the dark side of the force.  I went about my merry way even as my day or reckoning drew closer.

Our next departmental oddity was our yearly retreat.  Wait a minute; retreats are for dysfunctional teams, aren’t they?   I remembered from business school they might be an appropriate venue for an organization that manufactured widgets even while marketing was promoting screws and operations was into nails.  Clearly, they needed a retreat, but not our small, laser-focused workgroup; unless, of course, this was part of the elaborate charade.

It was, and my days of blissful ignorance were ripped asunder back at H.Q. when I fell into the crosshairs of Darth’s personal assistant.  Apparently, my tendency to ponder nuances annoyed her.  For daring to suggest that inventory items need to be entered into a database for proper tracking I was publicly excoriated.  Such was her venom that several witnesses were quite shaken, a 12-year veteran of salty Navy language, I was even taken aback but maintained enough composure to suggest she read our norms.

I was beginning to connect the dots.  Our department’s public image was but a cover up, all a happy face on a veil that concealed the twisted anger of an ogre who was mollycoddled by lord Vader himself.

I was but the latest victim of a long line of rapacious rampages where employee pride and self-confidence were laid waste.  No wonder everyone was so compliant and cooperative, they had succumbed.  After each devastating raid, our resident ogre sought respite in Darth’s chamber.  Job done, she then retreated to her cube to suddenly transform into the public image of serenity beneath her conspicuous copy of our incongruous norms.

Now I knew why everyone winced, everyone except unaware upper-level management.  Job satisfaction is good for productivity so they must be informed.   Not through formal grievance procedures,  but by eliciting employee input into our manager’s performance appraisals, Darth could be redeemed, and the ogre laid bare and slain.

By attempting to hijack it, our manager had shown his repressive regime’s soft underbelly: the employee survey.   His rendition was an utterly corrupt and deceitful document that deliberately avoided questions about management, misdirecting potential blame to feeble droids.  The sham demonstrated that a targeted survey could be powerful straightjacket on managers disposed to running amok.

An employee survey designed to elicit upward feedback would shine light into the dank crypt where he and trusted assistant conspired to wreak havoc.  Executives could then expose the tyranny lest another promising career be dashed.  Powerful energies aimed at self-preservation could be unleashed toward productive ends, and that represents a big disturbance in the force for good.

About the Author: Noel S. Williams currently enjoys work as an Information Technology Specialist.  While he also holds a master’s degree in Human Resource Management, it is his training as Jedi Knight that gives him the fortitude to delve into the dark side of workplace unfairness.

*This article originally appeared in CEPR on March 1, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

The housing bubble and subsequent crash were the result of extreme incompetence on the part of the country’s top economic policymakers. Somehow these people could not see, or did not care about, the dangers of an $8 trillion housing bubble.

Unfortunately, economic policymaking is not like most jobs where workers get fired when they make serious mistakes. In economics, they just keep getting promoted. Therefore, the people who sank the economy are for the most part the same group of people still designing policy today. Now this group of incompetent economists is telling the rest of us that we are going to have to endure five more years of high unemployment.

However, the rest of the country should not be forced to suffer even more just because those determining economic policy cannot do their jobs. We know how to get the unemployment rate down. Keynes taught us more than 70 years ago that we just have to spend money to eliminate mass unemployment. People work for money, if the government spends, people will work. It’s pretty straightforward.

But, the deficit hawks seems to have largely closed this route. Members of Congress somehow think that they are helping our children by putting their parents out of work.

Fortunately, we can even find a way to create jobs that can keep the deficit hawks happy. It’s called “work-sharing.” The basic point is so simple that even an economist can understand it.

Instead of paying workers to be unemployed – in the form of unemployment benefits – we pay workers to stay employed, but work fewer hours. In effect, to avoid one worker from being laid off, several workers put in somewhat less time on the job and take a small cut in pay. Germany and the Netherlands have used this path to keep their unemployment rates from rising even though they have experienced steeper downturns than the United States.

The way the system works in Germany, a firm will cut back the hours of its workers by 20 percent. The government then replaces 60 percent of the lost pay (12 percent of total pay). The firm is expected to kick in 20 percent of the lost pay (4 percent of total pay) and the worker ends up taking home 4 percent less pay.

In this scenario the worker ends up working 20 percent fewer hours for 4 percent less pay. This can mean, for example, that the worker ends up working a four-day week instead of a five-day week. Given the savings on work-related expenses, like transportation and childcare, most workers would almost certainly end up better off under a work-sharing arrangement than they are now.

While the economy is past its period of rapid job loss, a huge number of workers still lose their jobs each month through the economy’s normal job churning. Each month, companies lay off or fire close to 2 million workers. These job losses are largely offset by hiring by other firms, so that the net change in jobs has been a small negative in recent months. However, if we could just reduce the rate of job loss by 10 percent, then it would be equivalent to creating an additional 200,000 jobs a month or 2.4 million jobs a year. This would get us back to full employment in two years, rather than five or six, as is currently projected.

There are other potential benefits from work sharing. The reduction in work time could give companies an opportunity to adopt more family friendly work practices. For example, they could adopt a policy of paid family leave or paid sick days on a trial basis during the downturn.

There also would be environmental benefits to reducing work hours. Suppose everyone worked a four-day week so that we reduced the number of commutes by 20 percent. This would substantially reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions associated with getting to and from work. The fact that Europeans tend to work many fewer hours than we do is undoubtedly one of the main reasons that their per person carbon emissions are about half of the U.S. level.

There are already 17 states that have work-sharing programs in place. There are bills in both the House and Senate that would strengthen these programs and give support to other states to set up their own programs. If Congress is serious about addressing unemployment, it will act on these bills.

About the Author: Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy. He also has a blog on the American Prospect, “Beat the Press,” where he discusses the media’s coverage of economic issues.

Microsoft and Yahoo recently received permission to move forward with their joint venture on search from both US and European regulators.

Competition makes strange bedfellows. And nary a day goes by today that Microsoft isn’t announcing a new partnership, or a partnership discussion, with a company that it formerly tried to crush. Real Networks, Palm, AOL, Apple, the list just keeps growing and growing.

Believe it or not, Microsoft’s new make-nice approach impacts each and every one of us who works today. Because it signals the end of the “enemy,” at least as we’ve known it in business for the last hundred years. Let me explain…

The “enemy” has been a great rallying cry in business. To paraphrase General Patton, your goal is to kill the other guy before he has a chance to kill you. And that is how business tended to operate.

We learned from our earliest days in the corporate corridors to identify our enemies and create a healthy disdain for them. And it was so simple to do. G.M. hated Ford. M.G.M. hated Universal. It was easy to identify your competitors and once you did then you let the hatin’ begin.

That is until today. Now, auto companies collaborate on technology to improve fuel mileage with competitors and movie studios collaborate on producing films. And the former 99-pound weakling turned monopolist, Microsoft, can’t seem to find anyone outside of Google that it doesn’t want to take a turn around the dance floor with. What a difference a few years can make.

What is becoming clear is that today’s enemy at work could very well be your company’s next strategic marketing partner, merger partner or the company that purchases your firm. So the enemy is dead, long live today’s competitor who might be tomorrow’s collaborator. Why? Because you can’t afford to alienate your next business partner. Or worse, your next boss.

How do we survive this new competitive landscape? We need to resist the temptation to bad mouth a competitor. We need to always fight fair. We need to reach out to competitors at industry conferences and trade shows. We need to resist short term thinking and learn to adopt a longer view. In short, we need to always anticipate the future where we just might be on the same side with our current competitors.

I’m looking forward to the day when I can wax nostalgically about the enemies that I did battle with at work to my child. Because it increasingly appears that the enemy’s days are numbered. And being a guy who can nurse a grudge as well as the next guy, I think this could usher in a great new environment in which to do business.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Also check out his newly revised best-seller “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

While state and local governments and school districts across the country struggle with budget deficits, AFSCME members are standing up to tell their elected representatives that raising revenues is the best solution to a budget crisis instead of cutting critical public services just when they are needed the most.

State and local governments and school districts have a $178 billion budget shortfall this year alone.

In Illinois, more than 3,000 activists, including hundreds of members of AFSCME Council 31, rallied at the state Capitol rotunda in Springfield this month to demand that lawmakers pass legislation to increase the individual income tax rate and expand the state’s sales tax base.

AFSCME members in Washington State lobbied lawmakers to preserve state services.

Meanwhile, some 1,500 AFSCME members from throughout New York State demonstrated and met with legislators in Albany earlier this month to find a fair way to protect essential public services.

AFSCME President Gerald McEntee told the New York State workers:

Elected leaders are on the verge of destroying vital public services and putting more people out of work. They’re jeopardizing the health and safety of the people and our communities.

In Maryland, a delegation of AFSCME members carried boxes of “Budget Fight Back” cards to their lawmakers in January. Signed by more than 3,000 state employees, the cards propose a plan to generate more than $2 billion in revenue to close a budget gap, including drawing on the state’s rainy day fund, expanding the sales tax to more services and increasing gas and alcohol taxes.

You can read more about efforts by AFSCME members in other states to save public services on AFSCME’s website here.

*This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on February 24, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: James Parks had his first encounter with unions at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when his colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. He saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. He is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. His proudest career moment, though, was when he served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections. Author photo by Joe Kekeris

Yesterday, Republican leaders finally confirmed that they weren’t going to bring a health care bill to the President’s summit tomorrow. Why? Because they don’t actually want to reform health care (emphasis added):

The Senate GOP leadership is brushing off Dan Pfeiffer’s demand this morning that Republicans clarify whether they’ll produce a bill in advance of the summit, and won’t put forth a “comprehensive proposal,” aides say.

This morning on the White House blog, Pfeiffer challenged GOP leaders to say whether they’d be bringing a bill to the summit. “The Senate Republicans have yet to post any kind of plan,” Pfeiffer wrote, adding that “we continue to await word from them.”

Asked for comment, a senior Senate GOP aide emailed:

We fundamentally disagree with a comprehensive proposal to reform health care. We think a step by step approach on areas where we agree is the best path forward. We will not be posting a comprehensive alternative to commence a staring contest.

Of course, health care advocates have known this all along. Republicans have no solutions to the crisis in our health care system because they don’t view it as a system in crisis.

However, the position that health care in this country doesn’t need fundamental reform is a dangerous position to take. Never mind that every day we go without reform, 6,821 more people lose their health insurance [pdf], 2,548 more people file for bankruptcy because they got sick, and 60 more people die [pdf] because they don’t have the coverage they need. Declaring that as a party Republicans “fundamentally disagree with a comprehensive proposal to reform health care” is radically out of step with the American people.

The latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll is only the latest in a series showing the elements of health reform are popular:

Other parts of reform are really popular too, like the public option.

And majorities want comprehensive health reform passed:

And even more will be disappointed or angry if reform doesn’t pass:

If Republicans think going with nothing is going to win them broad support, they haven’t been reading their polling.

Democrats need to work to make sure the reform that passes works for everyone in America and has the popular elements in it – they must pass health care that works for us and pass it now. Today, we’re helping to put in 1 million messages to Congress to send them that message, and Melanie’s March is arriving in DC to a huge rally with Senators attending the summit, so we’ll get to tell that message to these Senators in person.

Getting health reform done right is more than good policy for the country, it’s popular, too. And it will show America that Democrats won’t accept the party of NO’s strategy.

*This post originally appeared in Health Care For America Now on February 24, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He currently works for Health Care for America Now and he is also the webmaster for The Seminal.

President Obama this morning released his version of health care reform legislation that combines elements of the Senate and House bills passed late last year. The new plan was unveiled in preparation for Thursday’s televised bipartisan White House health care summit.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said working families “look foward” to moving the ball forward this week toward the goal of quality, affordable health care for all Americans. Republicans in Congress have an opportunity to stand with working families or continue to protect the profits of the insurance industry. We are prepared to work with the White House and leadership in Congress to advance a comprehensive health care bill that will be passed into law.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this morning the revised proposal “contains positive elements” from both bills. She is scheduled to meet with the other House Democrats today to review the bill further. In a statement, Pelosi said:

Our nation is closer than ever to guaranteeing affordable health care to America’s middle class and small businesses, lowering costs and strengthening Medicare for seniors, holding insurance companies accountable, and reducing our deficit. The cost of inaction is too great for our nation and for every family facing the heartbreaking reality of skyrocketing health care costs and denied care or coverage.

An excise tax on health benefits that remain in the plan has been modified even further than an earlier agreement reached by the White House and union leaders. Under the latest proposal, the tax wouldn’t kick in until the annual premium cost for all families reached $27,500 and would not take effect until 2018.

The bill also includes: higher subsidies for low- and middle-income families to help pay for health insurance: closing the Medicare prescription drug ”donut hole”; new authority to control health insurance premium increases; applying the full Medicare tax (both employer and employee share, or 2.9 percent) to unearned income for families earning more than $250,000; an increase in the penalty for employers that do not provide health benefits from $750 per worker to $2,000; increased Medicaid funding for all states; raising from $23 billion to $33 billion the assessment of drug companies; a ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. Click here for a full summary.

House and Senate Republicans who have unanimously opposed the reform bills and blocked action were invited to post an alternative health care plan on the White House website so voters could compare ideas. But Republican leaders refused the offer. However, they do say they will attend the Thursday summit.

*This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on February 22, 2010. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. I came to the AFL- CIO in 1989 and have written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. When my collar was still blue, I carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. I’ve also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold my blood plasma and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen me at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. I was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still have the shirts, lost the hair.

I get a lot of wonderful fan mail. But the nasty emails are the ones that you can really learn something from. Take this one (please!), that I received recently:

“You are an idiot; the main thing wrong at my workplace is management. Same as the last job. It would be nice to be treated as an equal in all areas, not just when I come in late once every two years and get dinged for it. Most punks half my age don’t know what work is, just a bunch of whiney spoiled brats with greasy spiky hair. I deal with hundreds of slackers too lazy to click three times to find an answer or listen to a front end message to call the write extension for help, including most of all “management”. What a bunch of losers. 50% of my coworkers have at least two years on the job and are clueless.”

I guess you could call this a target-rich environment, because there is so much to comment on…

Let me start with his opening—“You are an idiot.” What a great way to motivate your reader to want to keep reading what you’ve written. The problem is that most of us forget that old rule that you’ll always get more with honey than with a smack on the butt—at least that’s what my mom told me when I was just a little sprout.

If the game that you’re playing is to be self-righteous and burn every bridge, then of course lead with a vicious attack targeting your reader. Heck, throw in a choice vulgarity while you are at it. However, if you’d like to see something positive come from an interaction, stick to the facts and you just might get your reader to listen to what you have to say. Just a thought.

I do like that he blames management for the problems at this job and his last one. After personally responding to over 50,000 emails from bosses and employees, you don’t have to convince me that there are a lot of bad bosses out there. But there is a point when you have the same problem following you around from job to job—where you have to ask what is the “common denominator” here? And more importantly, there is the “it takes two to tango” rule—how do you contribute to the problem? I always try to ask these questions before I attack someone else.

Then there is his diatribe on the “losers” he is forced to work with. Again it’s all, “they do this,” “they do that.” Okay, you are thinking that I’m beating up on this poor guy. But to me this is the greatest example of why the workplace is getting so nasty and difficult to maneuver through; because this guy isn’t alone. There are so many people out there screaming “they, they, they” when, ironically, they could probably be happier and learn more if they spent more time exploring “me, me, me.” But we can only make this leap when we are thinking rationally and able to muster some real introspection, something few of us have any time or inclination to do any more.

I know that work is tough; even demoralizing some times. But I do think it’s interesting that in just one paragraph this guy attacked me, management and the losers he has to work with. Wow, isn’t this great energy that you’d like to spend 40 hours a week with? Again, it’s too easy to blame just him. The important question is to look in the mirror to ask, “What baggage do I bring to work each day?” And, “How hard is it to put up with me on a daily basis?”

Then there is the key reference that explains the entire diatribe, “Not just when I come in late once every two years and get dinged for it.” The guy clearly got busted for something he did wrong. Rather than acknowledging his mistake, he goes on a rampage to expose every “wrong” and “loser” in today’s workplace.

And that’s why this is the perfect email to sum up everything that is wrong with work. Because rather than taking a slice of humble pie about a mistake, he goes on the attack. So throw stones until your heart’s content—just remember by doing so you blow the opportunity to begin the journey toward a better workplace.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Also check out his newly revised best-seller “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.