In November 2008, almost 70 percent of Milwaukee voters approved an ordinance granting paid sick days to every worker in the city. But the paid sick days ordinance has not yet been implemented in Milwaukee because of a legal challenge from the business lobby.

Two weeks ago, a judge’s ruling in the case caused the will of the voters to be further delayed. Judge Thomas Cooper ruled that a provision granting paid sick time to help protect the safety of survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking was not “rationally related to the overall objectives of the ordinance.”

His ruling shocked advocates for those who have lived the reality of domestic abuse.

Read the reaction of Milwaukee residents Jennifer and Peter Buffet, co-chairs of the NoVo Foundation of New York, in an op-ed printed in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week — “Sick Pay Law Should Cover Abuse Victims,” http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/48927532.html.

Judge Cooper DID uphold paid sick days as a basic labor standard. He rejected the arguments of the business lobby that the ordinance was unconstitutional. And he essentially validated the hard work and dedication of the Milwaukee Paid Sick Days Coalition, led by the members of the Milwaukee Chapter of 9to5, National Association of Working Women.

But for too long, victims of domestic violence have been blamed for their plight and the Buffet’s op-ed shows why this ruling should not be allowed to stand as precedent.

About the Author: Linda Meric is Executive Director of 9to5, National Association of Women, which helps strengthen women’s ability to achieve economic justice. 9to5 has staffed offices in Wisconsin, Colorado, California and Georgia and activists in cities across the country.

This article originally appeared in 9to5.org. Re-printed with permission from the author.

In this down economy, many employers are undergoing layoffs of workers. Certainly, it can be harder to prove that your termination was discriminatory or retaliatory when many others are suffering the same fate as you are. But ask yourself this: was the layoff legitimately based upon financial reasons, and if so, why were you chosen?

As the California Supreme Court has explained, “Invocation of a right to downsize does not resolve whether the employer had a discriminatory motive for cutting back its work force, or engaged in intentional discrimination when deciding which individual workers to retain and release.” Guz v. Bechtel National, Inc., 24 Cal.4th 317, 358, 100 Cal.Rptr.2d 352 (2000). See also, e.g., Miller v. Fairchild Industries, Inc., 885 F.2d 498, 506 (9th Cir. 1989) (jury could find retaliation in layoff which employer claimed was based on decline in workload, where employee provided contrary testimony and where other employees were not similarly laid off); Cones v. Shalala, 199 F.3d 512, 519-520 (D.C.Cir. 2000) (holding that a jury could have concluded that the agency’s explanation for not promoting the African-American plaintiff, downsizing, was inconsistent with its decision to promote three white co-workers, and hence a pretext for discrimination); Cichewicz v. UNOVA Indus. Automotive Systems, Inc., 92 Fed.Appx. 215, at **5 (6th Cir. 2004) (downsizing explanation insufficient to warrant summary judgment where there was evidence of pretext). If you were chosen for layoff over someone not of your protected classification who was less qualified, then you may still have a viable claim regarding your termination.

In a case in which I argued this last month against a summary judgment and summary adjudication motion, the employer - a relatively small company - laid off five workers, including my client, who was 50 at the time. My client was the only worker of his classification laid off, and a number were retained - including some who were similar in age to my client, and some who were ten or more years younger. I was able to distinguish my client from several workers of similar ages because they worked in different regions (geographically) than he did. Yet, the company was at first unable to present a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for retaining the younger workers instead of my client. When the company did present reasons other than age, they were only vague and non-specific ones (e.g., management felt that my client would be “less missed”), which (to the extent they meant anything at all) my client could readily refute.

Moreover, there were numerous instances in which a key decision-maker in the layoff had told my client that he felt the company needed to “get younger,” and that older workers cost the company more in benefits and wages, among other statements. This evidence suggests that the company’s weak reasons stated for choosing my client for layoff were just a pretext (or phony reason to cover up) for age discrimination. “With direct evidence of pretext, a triable issue as to the actual motivation of the employer is created even if the evidence is not substantial. The plaintiff is required to produce very little direct evidence of the employer’s discriminatory intent to move past summary judgment.” Morgan v. Regents of University of Cal. (2000) 88 Cal.App.4th 52, 68, 105 Cal.Rptr.2d 652 (citing Chuang v. University of California Davis, Bd. of Trustees (9th Cir. 2000) 225 F.3d 1115, 1127.

Based on the evidence I presented, Bryan Schwartz Law (http://www.bryanschwartzlaw.com/) and my co-counsel learned that the Court intends to deny the company’s effort to defeat the age discrimination claim arising from the layoff, allowing my client to proceed to trial to overturn his termination.

If you are notified of a layoff, think twice before assuming that you are out of options.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this posting is intended in any way to form an attorney-client relationship or any other contract. It is designed solely to provide general information about one area of the practice at Bryan Schwartz Law. Be mindful of any deadlines you have approaching that relate to your legal situation, and make sure that you meet them. Bryan Schwartz Law does not assume any responsibility for advice given regarding any aspect of your case until you have a signed legal services agreement engaging the firm’s representation.

About the Author: Bryan Schwartz is an Oakland, CA-based attorney specializing in civil rights, employment law. Call today - (510) 444-9300 - or send an email: Bryan@BryanSchwartzLaw.com

This article originally appeared in Bryan Schwartz Law on March 31, 2009. Re-printed with permission by the author.

Mike Zimmer (Loyola), co-author of the leading casebook on employment discrimination and friend of the blog has provided these thoughts on the Supreme Court’s Ricci decision from yesterday.

1. The Holding. The defendants’ decision to not use test results because their use would have meant that no African-American and only two Hispanics, who made up over half of the testtakers, would be promoted was intentional disparate treatment discrimination against the white testtakers who would have been promoted if the test results had been used. That the adverse impact of the test results amounted to a prima facie case of disparate impact discrimination was not a defense to a disparate treatment case unless the employer has a strong basis in evidence to believe that it will be liable for disparate impact discrimination.

2. A Procedurally Unusual Decision. The district court, affirmed by the court of appeals, had granted summary judgment for the defendants. Not only did the Supreme Court reject the summary judgment for the defendants but found that plaintiffs were entitled to summary judgment. That means that the Court found that no material facts existed that would justify a trial. The four slip opinions run a total of 89 pages; 31 pages – 38% of the total — deal with relatively straight forward recitation of facts, most of which are quite constested.  Many more deal with application of facts to law, again with most applications hotly contested. Reading this suggests that the Supreme Court has taken upon itself the role of a trial court.

3. Acting When the Race of Those Affected is Intentional Discrimination. The key factual finding of the Court is that: “All the evidence demonstrates that the City chose not to certify the examination results because of the statistical disparity based on race – i.e., how minority candidates had performed compared to white candidates. . . . Without some other justification, this express, race-based decisionmaking violates Title VII’s command that employers cannot take adverse employment actions because of an individual’s race. . . . [T]he city made its employment decision because of race. The City rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white.”

Justice Kennedy takes an enormous leap from the first conclusion – that the City acted because it knew the “statistical disparity based on race”—to his second – that it rejected the test “solely because the higher scoring candidates were white.”  In all the pages of factual recitation and application, there is simply no reference to any evidence that the sole cause of the decision was because using the test results would benefit whites. Is there no difference between intending not to disadvantage African-American and Hispanic candidates and intending to discriminate against the white candidates?

When the Civil Service Board made its decision, it only knew what the racial distribution and therefore the potential disparate impact if the test results were used. It did not know the identity of any of the testtakers. Therefore, it appears that an employer conscious knowledge of the race of those affected by its decisions suffices to make out intentional disparate treatment discrimination. This appears to be a tremendous change in the law.  For example, in Justice O’Connor’s concurrence in Price v. Waterhouse, she indicated that, “Race and gender always ‘play a role’ in an employment decision in the benign sense that these are human characteristics of which decisionmakers are aware and may comment on in a perfectly neutral and nondiscriminatory fashion.”

Justice Alito is convinced that, because an important participant in the political process was an African-American preacher, the decision of the CSB was “because of race” as a matter of law. Justice Ginsburg argues that the decision may have been made “because of politics” and not race since the white firefighters and their union were vociferous advocates for using the test. The decision may have been because of race or because of politics or because of some of each. Doesn’t this suggest a factual question that deserves a trial?

4. Should the African-American and Hispanic Testakers Claim Disparate Treatment Discrimination? Suppose that New Haven now uses the results of the tests and promotes some white firefighters. Because the City knew the race of those promoted, was that intentional discrimination against minority testakers who were not promoted? If not, why not? Is using the test results to promote people different from deciding not to use them?

The Supreme Court has been edging toward establishing a color-blind standard for equal protection, see Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, 127 S.Ct. 2738 (2007) (plurality opinion), and Ricci appears to import that into Title VII. These decisions involve challenges by whites to the use of race in a way that gives advantages to minority group members or, as here, removes an absolute impediment to the advancement of African-Americans and Hispanics. If a color-blind standard can be used by white plaintiffs, why can’t these minority firefighters rely on it?

5. Is Proof of Intent to Discriminate Reduced to Proving the Defendant Knew the Race of the Affected Individuals? Is racial consciousness, when acted upon, the same as acting with an intent to discriminate? If so, Ricci revolutionizes discrimination law. Assume an African-American applies but is rejected for a job after an interview. Does she establish defendant’s liability by getting the defendant’s interviewer to admit that she was conscious of the fact that the plaintiff is black?

6. The Strong Basis in Evidence Justification. In United States v. Board of Educ. of the Township of Piscataway, 91 F.3d 1547 (3rd Cir. 1996) (en banc), cert. dismissed, 522 U.S. 1010 (1997), the court had imported equal protection analysis into Title VII’s treatment of affirmative action. Does the Court’s adoption of the strong basis in evidence test effectively implement that importation?  Only Justice Ginsburg in dissent puts this decision into context with the Title VII affirmative action decisions to criticize this decision. Are these affirmative action decisions in jeopardy now?

7. The “Q” Word Strikes Again. Is the fear that employers would have an incentive to use racial quotas what drives this decision?

8. Why Isn’t There Strong Support for Disparate Impact Liability? The Court concluded that, “The racial adverse impact here was signicant, and . . the City was faced with a prima facie case of disparate-impact liability.” The Court then minimizes what that means: “[A] prima facie case of disparate-impact liability – essentially a threshold showing of a significant statistical disparity and nothing more – is far from a strong basis in evidence that the City would have been liable under Title VII had it certified the results.”  Does this undermine the significance that this prima facie showing shifts both  the burden of proof and of persuasion to the defendant?  Is the Court attempting to reinstate Wards Cove?

9. Was the Test Job-Related and Consistent with Business Necessity as a Matter of Law?  The written examination part of the test asked questions based on the testtakers ability to memorize extensive documents. Under the approach of the EEOC Uniform Test Guidelines as well as professional test standards, what IOS did was to construct a test that was supposedly content validated, i.e., that it was a sample of the job. While IOS supposedly did a job analysis, neither taking written or oral exams were involved in the jobs of lieutenant or captain in the fire department.  Nor is there any indication that memorization and recall of documents played any role at all in the jobs for which the test was to be used. The use of “assessment centers” where testtakers play the role that replicates the actual job can be content validated as job samples. Isn’t there at least a question of fact whether the test that was used was not job-related and not consistent with business necessity?

10. Was Section 703(h) Test Provision Superseded by the 1991 Civil Rights Act? The Court does not address the jurisprudence associated with the test exception in original §703(h). Has the Court decided sub silentio that this provision and its underlying jurisprudence has been repealed when Congress codified disparate impact law in new § 703(k)?

11. Were There No Less Discriminatory Alternatives as a Matter of Law? The record showed alternatives that were less discriminatory – simply altering the ratio of written to oral scores appeared to have reduced discriminatory impact in Bridgeport, using “assessment centers” or altering the “rule of three” to a banding approach – all were alternatives that could have been adopted instead of the test that was used.  The Court appears to assume that, because it was too late to adopt any of these alternatives to resuscitate this test, they could not count as alternatives. But, in fact, the City could consider these precisely because it had decided not to use the results of this test.

12. Should the Minority Testtakers Claim Disparate Impact Discrimination? Assuming the City would now use the test results, should the African-American and Hispanic testtakers bring a disparate impact claim? With the Supreme Court deciding as a matter of law that the test was job-related and consistent with business necessity and that there were no less discriminatory alternatives available, is there anything left to contest?

13. Empathy for Whom? With the statement by President Obama that he seeks to appoint Justices who have empathy, what does Ricci suggest about empathy? Justice Kennedy concluded that, “Examinations like those administered by the City create legitimate expectations on the part of those who took the tests. As is the case with any promotion exam, some of the firefighters here invested substantial time, money, and personal commitment in preparing for the tests. . . . [O]nce [the test process] has been established and employers have made clear their selection criteris, they may not then invalidate the test results, thus upsetting an employee’s legitimate expectation not to be judged on the basis of race.” Nothing in any of the opinions suggest that the employer had committed itself in advance to use the test results no matter what they might be. Is the Court suggesting that the testtakers had some sort of contractual based right to have the test results used? The last part – about expectations concerning race – would appear to undermine such a contractual claim. However, what about the expectations that employers would not use employment practices that cause a disparate impact? Justice Ginsburg puts the context of this case into the larger frame of the longstanding discrimination minority firefighters have faced and the use of the disparate impact theory to attack their exclusion. Doesn’t this decision defeat their expectations in order to satisfy the expectations of the white testtakers?

14. Is This 1989 Redux? It has been twenty years, but has a new conservative majority in the Roberts Court been able to undermine Title VII just as the Rehnquist Court majority did then? Will Justice Ginsburg’s prediction that this decision will not last prove true?  Will this new majority take the step argued by Justice Scalia to embed Ricci in the Constitution by striking down disparate impact analysis as unconstitutional?

About the Author: Mike Zimmer is a law professor at Loyola University Chicago.  One of his main areas of concentration, which includes co-authoring an Aspen casebook, is employment discrimination. He graduated from Marquette Law School, clerked for Judge Fairchild on the 7th Circuit, worked at Foley & Lardner and have taught at a good number of law schools. Zimmer joined the Loyola faculty after 30 years at Seton Hall Law School.

This article originally appeared in Workplace Prof Blog on June 30, 2009. Re-printed with permission by the author.

It’s a knife that cuts both ways:

Republicans’ primary objection is the Democrats’ push for a public health insurance plan that would serve as an alternative to private coverage. Republicans say such a plan would cause the private insurance market to unravel.

There is also the potential 10-year price tag of $1 trillion or more for the overhaul, coupled with the prospect of new taxes or fees to offset the cost. And Republicans see elements of the Democratic plans as government intrusion into personal health care decision making.

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, said he was unaware of any House Republican inclined to support the Democrats’ proposed legislation.

Democrats don’t need Republicans to pass a health care bill:

In the budget adopted earlier this year, Democrats granted themselves the power to force health care legislation through the Senate on a simple majority vote. But many lawmakers are reluctant to do so both because of the appearance of partisanship as well as the difficulty of enacting such complex legislation under fast-track rules.

Republicans have studied how to navigate the political terrain of health care given strong public support for improvements. In a memorandum to Republican strategists, Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, urged party leaders to focus on cost concerns.

But they also warned party strategists to take note of the American public’s frustration with the soaring cost of health care. “Concern about rising health care costs outstrips every other economic concern today,” Mr. Gillespie and Mr. Ayres wrote.

Here’s the irony — the bill they are likely to pass, the one with the biggest price tag, is a bailout for the insurance industries. Also the one the Republicans are most likely to get on board with. The one that controls cost the best — single payer — they dismiss as “socialism.”

You’re never going to get a decent healthcare bill by pandering to Republicans, and with 76% of Americans in favor of a public option, you’re not going to please them and please the public at the same time. Most likely, pleasing Republicans will just get used as an excuse to do what Kay Hagan wants, which is give the insurance industry everything it wants.

We need a public plan that is:

• available nationwide
• on day one
• and accountable to Congress and the voters

So, let’s stop trying to please the GOP, and start trying to serve the best interests of the public. If the GOP isn’t on board with something that so broadly popular, let’s just admit we can do this with Democrats, and get it done.

About the Author: Jane Founder’s work has appeared on the Huffington Post, Alternet and The American Prospect. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC and PBS and is the author of the best selling book Killer Instinct. She has produced such films Natural Born Killers and Permanent Midnight and currently lives in Washington, D.C.

Note: The views expressed in this post are the views of the author and not necessarily those of Today’s Workplace or Workplace Fairness.

This article originally appread in Campaign Silo on June 27, 2009. Re-printed with permission from the author.

The organization Health Care for American Now (HCAN) invited thousands of health care supporters from around the country to DC to lobby their Members of Congress for real health reform on Thursday, June 25.  According to Jason Rosenbaum from HCAN’s blog, “10,000 people from just about every state in the Union came to DC. People came from all walks of life - pastors, bricklayers, restaurant workers, small business owners, actors and actresses, doctors, nurses - and they gave their legislators a clear message - we want health reform, we want health reform that’s real (including a strong public health insurance option), we want health reform that will lower costs, and we want it now, in 2009, because we can’t wait.”

In the weeks leading up the event, HCAN encouraged organizations interested in health care reform to call and email Members of Congress to support the choice of a public health insurance option, promoted the rally with customized videos with Edie Falco, and encouraged supporters to create Twitter accounts and Twitter to the hash tags of their Members of the Congress during the rally.

The rally started off in the morning in Upper Senate Park.  Industry leaders, supporters, and Members of Congress, including Dr. Howard Dean, Anna Berger, Senators Schumer and Brown, Congresswoman Allison Schwartz, and actress Edie Falco discussed health care issues and shared their stores before one of the largest crowds the Capitol Police had ever seen.  Following the rally, town hall meetings and one-on-one lobbying visits were scheduled with dozens of Members of Congress so that they could hear directly from the people on the issue of health care reform.

HCAN’s grassroots health care rally was an impressive event and a huge success – people from all over the country came out to voice their opinions and demanded government accountability and health care reform.  For more information and photos from the event, please visit HCAN’s blog:

http://blog.healthcareforamericanow.org/2009/06/26/health-care-09-what-did-we-accomplish

About the Author: Tina Yang is a Summer Intern for Workplace Fairness, where she helps draft legal content relating to health and safety, health care, and employment benefits.  She is currently a 2L at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

Two top business experts have taken to the pages of Business Week to make the case for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Paul Adler, a professor at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, and Donald Palmer, an associate dean and professor at the University of California-Davis, say corporate hostility to the Employee Free Choice Act and to workers’ freedom to form unions is short-sighted because communities with well-paid workers have economic advantages for business.

Adler and Palmer cite training, job satisfaction and the healthy communities that come from economically secure workers as reasons why businesses benefit when their employees can form unions and bargain.

They write in the op-ed:

When unions raise the wages of the lowest-paid workers, this increases savings and reduces income inequality, which has beneficial effects on a nation’s economic growth and investment, not to mention its health and social cohesion.

Adler and Palmer say the inability of workers to form unions has real consequences, not only for individual workers but also for communities and the entire economy. The failure to allow workers the freedom to bargain has put us in a “low-performing state,” they say:

Once unions are radically weakened, as they have been in the U.S. over the past few decades—and in no small measure as a result of the business community’s hostility—a race to the bottom starts. The whole economy slides to a lower-level equilibrium where workers earn less and have less influence in the workplace, where firms pay less for labor but get less qualified and less committed workers, and, where, as a result, society gets less output from its available resources.

Adler and Palmer say passing the Employee Free Choice Act will “secure a better future”—not only for today’s workforce, but also for tomorrow’s businesses and workers. They authors are among dozens of business and management scholars who share this view.

Read the op-ed here.

About the Author: Seth Michaels is the coordinator of the AFL-CIO’s presidential candidate website, Working Families Vote 2008. Prior to arriving at the AFL-CIO, he worked on online mobilization for Moveon.org, Blue State Digital and the National Jewish Democratic Council. Seth spent two years touring the country as a member of the Late Night Players, a sketch comedy troupe—but the battles of U.S. politics are even more entertaining.

This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO Now on June 26, 2009. Re-printed with permission by the author.

Members of Congress met in town hall sessions Thursday with constituents who were on Capitol Hill to rally and demand health care reform. Read dispatches from some of the meetings.

—————–

Ohio Weighs In

After the rally, more than 250 activists from Ohio met at the Columbus Club at Union Station to plan for an afternoon of lobbying and hear from members of Congress about health care reform.

“Nothing is more important to me than ensuring that President Obama passes health care reform.”

The session was introduced by Tim Burga of the Ohio AFL-CIO, who decried the “free market run amok” in the current health care system and affirmed that we must have a serious public health insurance option.

He introduced Hattie Wilkins, who made one of the most moving speeches of the event.

Her situation illustrates the deep problems working families have with the way the current system operates. Hattie is a member of the United Steelworkers (USW) union who worked for 35 years for Brentwood Originals, a pillow factory in Youngstown, Ohio. The USW struck Brentwood Originals in 2008, and more than three-quarters of the workforce has been laid off. She was fired because of her strong support for the union, Hattie said. She has been collecting $887 a month in unemployment since then. She has COBRA coverage, and now pays $275 per month—31 percent of earnings from unemployment—for her health insurance. She pays another $450 per month for her mortgage payment, leaving her only $162 each month for food, utilities, transportation and all her other expenses. Now her unemployment payments are ending and she doesn’t know what she is going to do.

At 58 years of age, Hattie is searching for another job at places like McDonald’s but has to compete with applicants much younger than she is. She gave us her cell phone number, though she wasn’t sure how much longer she would have it. Hattie came to Washington, D.C., to participate in the rally and make sure her elected representatives heard her voice on this critical issue.

Sen. Arlen Specter says health care is a right.

The Latest on Pennsylvania Town Hall

Sen. Specter has arrived, and compliments the crowd on its tenacity and commitment. Specter says he agrees that health care is a right and believes health care legislation will pass and will include a public option component. Of course, in a room full of union members, the Employee Free Choice Act came up. Specter says he is working hard to find an answer for early union certification and gaining first contracts.

Pennsylvania Update

The folks at Capitol City Brewing Co. are waiting for Sen. Arlen Specter to arrive. We hear reports he’s been at the White House.

From the North Carolina Meeting

Sen. Kay Hagan just arrived. She says the fight for health care reform is the “most important thing going on in our country.” Everyone in America must have health care coverage, she says, and patients with pre-existing conditions should be able to get health insurance.

About a public health insurance option plan, Hagan says some critics are getting caught up in nuance about language used in the debate. “I don’t care what you call it as long as it provides affordability accessibility and covers pre-existing conditions,” she says. We’d heard earlier reports that her staff told union leaders Hagan believes if health care reform passes, it will include a public option. The senator herself did not specifically say she supports the public option.

I think the key is if you have health insurance, you keep it. We don’t want to dismantle what exists.

More Pennsylvania Town Hall

Rep. Sestak arrived and talked about his daughter’s brain tumor and his health care plan to help keep her alive. Everybody deserves health care for themselves and their families, as well, he said. Sestak says his support for health care reform is “payback” to the country that provided health care for him and his family when he was in the Navy.

Everybody must be covered under health care reform, according to Sestak, and a public health insurance plan must be an option.

Nothing is more important to me than ensuring that President Obama passes health care reform.

Pennsylvania Town Hall

Hundreds of union members from Pennsylvania have packed a hall just a block from the U.S. Capitol to hear from their elected officials on the status of real health care reform. As they wait for Sen. Arlen Specter (D) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D) to appear, the chanting is in full force:

Congress, This is our demand. The option of a public plan.

What do we want? HEALTH CARE!

When do we want it? NOW!

Congress, This is our demand, the option of a public plan!

We are waiting for Specter and Sestak so we can spring that on them.

Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D) did not attend. A staff member is delivering her talking points.

Health care reform that guarantees quality, affordable health care reform must be passed.

We must ensure that patients’ choices are protected.

Maryland Town Hall

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, Rep. John Sarbanes and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer speak to hundreds of Maryland workers and all support public option.

Rep. Blumenauer at Town Hall on Small Business

At a town hall focused on small business issues this morning at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) advocated a public insurance option plan, guaranteed coverage and a “pay or play” system that would require businesses to provide health care coverage for their employees or pay into a fund. These reforms would level the playing field and reduce cost burdens on small businesses, he said.

This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO Now. Re-printed with permission by the author.

The global union movement is issuing an urgent call for the leaders of the Group of Eight nations to tackle the deepening jobs crisis at their summit meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, next month.

The leaders must develop a coordinated and jobs-orientated international recovery and sustainable growth plan that focuses on creating good jobs and re-regulating the global financial system, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told a gathering of G8 union leaders today in Rome.

 The global economy continues to deteriorate at an unprecedented rate.  Workers around the world—who are the innocent victims of this crisis—are losing their jobs and incomes.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) predicts that unemployment is likely to increase by up to 59 million worldwide by the end of 2009. Unemployment in the G8 countries—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and United States—is likely to almost double over the next 18 months, according to the ILO. At the same time, more than 200 million workers could be pushed into extreme poverty, lifting the number of working poor to 1.4 billion.

Earlier this week, President John Sweeney and the union leaders of the world’s top economies outlined a plan to stimulate the global economy. Click here to read more about that plan.

When the global economic crisis is over, said Sweeney, the G8 leaders must ensure there is no return to “business as usual.”

While this crisis was caused by global economic imbalances and financial speculation, it was underpinned by the lack of effective economic regulation over preceding decades. Rather than planning “exit strategies” that are a more brutal version of failed past policies, there is a need to establish a new model of economic development that is stronger and more efficient, socially just and environmentally sustainable.

And this time, workers’ views should be represented in the plan, Sweeney said.

Trade unions and the workers we represent have no confidence that this time governments and bankers alone will get it right.  We are asking for a seat at the table.

About the Author: James Parks’ first encounter with unions was 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. Parks is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He also has 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.

This article originally appeared in AFL-CIO Now on June 26, 2009. Re-printed with permission by the author.

According to the U.S. Government, productivity is the measure of economic efficiency where economic “inputs” are turned into economic “outputs.” That’s not insight gleaned from my MBA program, I’ve long since forgotten every last bit of economics that I was taught. Or to describe my personal situation more precisely, despite considerable economic input, my personal economic output has trailed off to bubcus.
 
That productivity formula came from your very own U.S. Department of Labor, specifically the Department of Labor Statistics. I encourage you to visit their web site, where even the statistics even have statistics. It’s like Disneyland for the slide rule and plastic pen case set.
 
But I’m starting to think that I may be the only one who lacks interest on this topic. Just visit Google and you’ll learn that productivity is popular. No, make that POPULAR. It’s got over 133,000,000 links. Just to put that in perspective, Britney Spears is at 82,700,000 and Death is at 387,000,000. So productivity clearly a topic that we just can’t get enough of.
 
According to our government, productivity is both important to our national well-being and on the rise. It’s important because productivity is like the coins you find when you clean your sofa, it’s wealth that doesn’t take labor or capital to create. Think of it as “found” wealth.
 
And by almost all measures, we’re finding a lot of productivity increases of late. There are many possible reasons—technological efficiencies, the longer hours that we’re all working to cover for our dearly departed former coworkers or the proverbial cliché, we are finally working smarter. Whatever the reason, we appear to be a virtual productivity machine.
 
What is behind my sudden fascination with productivity? Gallup did a survey where they asked how much time do you waste at work and how much time do the people you work with waste at work?
 
I thought this study provided a much more realistic take on our productivity—in other words, that we aren’t that productive after all. According to Gallup each of us personally admits to wasting just under an hour a day. But when asked about our coworkers, the number rises to an hour and a half.
 
I can sense that you’re getting annoyed being called a slacker, because you never waste time at work. Get used to being in the minority if you feel this way. Because only a quarter of those surveyed report that they never waste time at work and slightly less than 20% of us feel that way about our coworkers.

Which leads me to my favorite part of the study. This is so good, that I’m going to quote Gallup directly. “There are no significant differences between men and women, younger and older workers, higher income and lower income workers, employees in private companies and government workers, those who work less than 40 hours per week and those who work more hours, and employees who are ‘completely’ satisfied with their jobs and those who are less satisfied or dissatisfied.”

In other words, productivity is on the rise and we all seem to fritter it away at a consistent pace. I hope you felt that this blog was a productive use of your time.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, award-winning journalist and popular speaker. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com .

“Our clients receive happy, appreciative employees that will thank you for allowing them the opportunity to work for you,” boasted Kansas City staffing company Giant Labor Solutions. Contract for workforce needs with their company and “your recruiting, hiring, and payroll expenses will dramatically drop.”

What a pity trifles like alleged racketeering, forced labor trafficking, wire fraud and money laundering can come between employers and a cheap, compliant workforce.

As Thomas Frank describes the federal charges against Giant Labor in a recent Wall Street Journal column:

“The Kansas City ring recruited hundreds of workers from Jamaica, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic with promises of visas through the federal H-2B seasonal worker program. To get the process started, however, the indictment says that workers had to pay the accused racketeers hefty fees.

“Once in America, the workers found themselves at the mercy of the traffickers, who allegedly kept “them as modern-day slaves under threat of deportation,” in the words of James Gibbons of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The recruiters apparently took care to keep the workers in debt, charging them fees for uniforms, for transportation, and for rent in overcrowded apartments. Paychecks would frequently show “negative earnings,” in the words of the indictment. And if the workers refused to go along with the scheme, the traffickers held the ultimate trump card, the indictment claims: They “threatened to cancel the immigration status” of the workers, rendering them instantly illegal.”

The situation vividly illustrates the perils of guest worker programs. But it’s not only the trafficked immigrants who lost out at Giant Labor.