Union workers at West Hartford’s Colt Firearms plant are scared for their jobs after the company announced they will open a new manufacturing plant in Central Florida. The move can’t help but remind one of this year’s NLRB complaint against Boeing for moving a plant of theirs to South Carolina from Washington as retaliation against their union workers.

After 175 years in Hartford, Colt’s move to Kissimmee, FL marks the first time that Colt has considered any U.S. operations outside of Connecticut. According to The Hartford Courant, United Auto Workers (UAW) members met on Sunday in Newington where they learned that part of the company’s plan is to freeze jobs at the West Hartford plant and begin cutting them in the New Year. The UAW represents 350 workers at the plant.

In June of 2010, 128 union workers were layed off. Since then, though, all but 26 have been hired back. But the news that the company will begin operations in “Right-to-Work” Florida has bleakened the outlook of the Local 350 members:

“They told us to expect more layoffs after the holidays,” said Mike Holmes, the shop chairman at Colt’s for UAW Local 376.

“The members are strongly opposed to this and we consider it a direct threat to jobs in Hartford, especially at a time when we’re losing jobs,” Holmes said Monday.

Let’s review the situation. Three months before their contract with union workers is set to expire, Colt Firearms and its sister company Colt Defense announce they will build a new manufacturing plant in “Right-to-Work” Florida and start ditching jobs in union-friendly Connecticut. It is now the job of UAW rep. Mike Holmes to convince the company that it is better for them to stay with union workers in Connecticut.

“We have had a strong contract and we’ve had a good working relationship here,” Holmes said. “And that’s why … we find it disturbing that jobs are being created elsewhere,” Holmes said.

The intentional and committed weakening of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) by Tea Party-backed Republicans has left the agency on the brink of dissolution and emboldened companies like Colt’s zeal with respect to anti-union practices. The union feels the company is taking advantage of the situation by moving into a state where they can pay their workers less and sweep exploitative practices under the rug.

Colt Firearms has adopted the anti-worker strategy of hostage-based negotiation. They have a contract to renegotiate in March and they know that, even if they stay in Connecticut, they will get more concessions from workers if they begin making threats in advance.

“We were really caught off guard by this big unveiling of Colt down in Florida,” Holmes said. “We would like the opportunity to create the jobs here. … We believe in our workforce and the skills of our workforce and we pride ourselves that we make the best firearms in the world.”

NOTE: Florida Governor Rick Scott has committed $1.6 million to the new facility in order to lure it away from Connecticut.

This blog originally appeared in Union Review on December 13, 2011. Reprinted with permission.

About the Author: Steve Cooper is the editor of We Party Patriots. He educates union members on the benefits of social media, offering instruction on engaging on Facebook and Twitter. When not ruining his posture and finger muscles through endless computer use, Cooper is an avid chef and musician.

One phrase comes to mind as I started calling my friends to tell them that I had been fired, “a little bit pregnant.” I’m a guy, so please remember, this is a metaphor.

I’ll explain. The American Dream isn’t just big cars and summer houses. No, at it’s heart is the belief that everyone has a chance to be successful. Put another way, there is an essential fairness or rationality that is the foundation of how the world of work works. As an equation it might go something like this, hard work = success.

I don’t think I’m alone when I admit that when I’ve seen people around me fired or laid off I’ve leapt to the opposite conclusion. That on some level, they deserved it. Okay, now that I’ve gone down this path, please tolerate one more equation, failure = failure.

That’s where being a little bit pregnant comes in.

I think most people assume that when you are fired you might not be 100% at fault, but you are at least a little bit guilty of something. Hence, anyone fired is at least a little big pregnant.

This not only helps to explain what happened to anyone who is fired, it also helps to justify why you still have your job. Because you clearly aren’t a failure.

I’ll save you the gory details of my firing, but I believe it wasn’t because I wasn’t doing my job. No, there were plenty of people at my old company who fit in that category. In fact, I’ve never worked anyplace where more people would say in normal conversation, “What exactly does he do for us?” Really, I heard people say that about at least 20% of the employees.

No, I was fired because I actually tried to do my job.

I was initially hired as a spokesmodel for the company, however, if you knew what I looked like that reference would be even funnier.

My role was to talk about the product with customers, the media, etc. However, what I quickly discovered was the marketing and sales function wasn’t broken, it was non-existent. So I filled the vacuum by creating a new name for the company, a marketing plan, sales collateral, I suggested product modifications based on client input and I started making sales calls. In addition to this I spent my first two months playing company therapist, going office to office to get people pointed in the same direction. On occasion, I even got in harms way between two warring staffers.

The responses to our sales calls varied from “like” to something bordering on adulation. But five months in I realized that we were 0 for 30. Yep, we’d made thirty sales calls and had not sold our product to one client.

I know what you’re thinking, I should have been fired for sheer sales ineptitude. Ironically, this would have been much easier to handle than the reason that I was actually fired for. Much easier.

I spent a long weekend thinking about how we could end this horrific losing streak and I realized that there were a number of contributing factors. First, with no clients, every company we talked to had to decide if they wanted to become our guinea pig. We also didn’t have examples of real companies using our product. So we needed to connect the dots for our customers. Finally, I came up with a visible and credible organization that would agree to serve as our launch client and could connect the dots for potential customers.

Guinea pig, no longer an issue. Connect the dots, check.

I put this in a report for my boss. Needless to say I learned that you should never present a report to your boss entitled “0 for 30.” However, not in the way that you’re probably thinking.

My boss didn’t seem to be bothered at all by our lack of sales. His first response was to say, “No one has said ‘No’ to us so far.” He felt that it all was just a matter of time before we’d land a series of major sales.

The stunner was when he said, “You can’t ever use the phrase 0 for 30 again. Not within earshot of me or in any emails.” Here is the clincher, “Because it will hurt the feelings of all of the staff members who’ve worked so hard on the product.” He concluded, “And I don’t ever want a potential investor to see the phrase ‘0 for 30.’”

Feelings? And that the only way that an investor would learn that we didn’t have any customers was because they read an email by me?

Two weeks after presenting the 0 for 30 report I was fired for not getting along with staff. Two staffers were mentioned by name.

My a-ha: Mine was probably more of a mercy killing than a firing

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. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

In June the ESPN Zone restaurant in Baltimore’s trendy Inner Harbor shopping and entertainment district closed after workers were given just a week’s notice and state regulators were given only one day notice.

In a class-action lawsuit filed Monday naming ESPN Zone’s owner Disney, five workers allege this was a violation of the WARN Act, which requires at least 60 days notice—or 60 days severance pay—in the case of mass layoffs at companies with 100 or more employees. About 150 workers lost their jobs when the restaurant closed. About 50 workers and supporters protested Monday outside ESPN Zone, then marched to Baltimore District Court where the lawsuit was filed. (See photos by Bill Hughes here).

After the ESPN Zone closed June 16, workers were given a month’s pay on administrative leave and an additional severance based on length of service, which the company has said constitutes WARN Act compliance. But the workers’ attorneys and a grassroots labor group called United Workers says the total pay and severance is still less than what they would be due under the  WARN Act. Severance was due under an agreement with Disney that should be separate from WARN Act compliance, they say.

The case has become a centerpiece of United Workers’ Economic Human Rights Zone campaign in the Inner Harbor, a novel strategy uniting workers at various restaurants and stores to demand that as the area has received substantial taxpayer subsidies, developers of the two major malls should be responsible for making sure workers are paid a state living wage and basic workers rights are respected. Monday’s march came on the second anniversary of the declaration of the Human Rights Zone, and eight years after United Workers’ founding out of a struggle on behalf of homeless vendors at the city stadium.

United Workers began targeting individual employers in the Inner Harbor, but decided it was a more pragmatic and meaningful campaign to target the development as a whole, and demand the two major companies—GGP and Cordish—that lease and sell space commit to making sure their tenants treat workers right.

In a playful post on the United Workers website, they describe the pervasive problems uncovered during an investigation by a pro-labor “Sherlock Holmes.”

Holmes discovered that the trail of worker human rights abuses did not stop with the ESPN Zone, but extends throughout the harbor. Hearing from workers from the Cheesecake Factory, Phillips, and Hooters, he uncovered what lies beneath the surface: poverty wages, stolen tips, sexual harrassment, lack of healthcare, and barriers to education. ‘Different vendors, but the same story? The Inner Harbor is a Poverty-zone! But who is in control?,’ thought Sherlock.

ESPN Zone workers discovered by word of mouth that, they say, managers didn’t intend to give them any notice of the closing at all, until word leaked out over social media websites. That, in fact, is how numerous workers first heard the news. “We would just come to work one day and all the doors would be shut and locked,” said Lenard Gray, 28, who’d worked there more than six years.

The closing was especially problematic since it came during the busiest summer months, when workers count on racking up long hours that – even at pay rates just barely above minimum wage – allow them to save money for leaner seasons. Workers reported becoming homeless, having to withdraw kids from programs and being evicted since the closing.

“We were stunned. It was like walking through a dream. We were just devastated,” said former cook Winston Gupton. He had worked there for more than seven years, and lost his housing after the closure.

The WARN Act – which received national attention during the Republic Windows and Doors occupation in Chicago two years ago – was meant to provide workers time to look for other jobs and state agencies time to offer retraining and social services. The acronym means Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification.  Even when WARN Act notice is given, an outpouring of state services or retraining opportunities is a rarity. And the Act is regularly violated with few repercussions.

Enforcing it takes lawsuits like the one filed by ESPN Zone workers, which are costly and time-consuming for low-income workers who hardly have time to wait around for a judgment.

But as in the Republic Windows and Doors struggle, the ESPN Zone workers’ lawsuit serves not only to try to hold an employer accountable but also to raise the public profile of WARN Act violations in general and of the Economic Human Rights Zone campaign. Organizers say they will continue to investigate possible labor law violations and working conditions at various Inner Harbor outlets including the Cheesecake Factory, Phillips Seafood and Hooters. When United Workers initially surveyed restaurants trying to find the “worst of the worst,” Phillips’ name came up, they said.

Former ESPN Zone cook Debra Harris said in a statement:

We are sending a message to Disney, ESPN Zone and Inner Harbor developers that private gain should not take precedence over human life. Corporate executives think they can break the law and just get away with it, because harbor developers do not enforce any human rights standards, but we are human beings and we have the right to dignity and respect.

This post was originally published on Working In These Times.

About the Author: Kari Lydersen, an In These Times contributing editor, is a Chicago-based journalist writing for publications including The Washington Post, the Chicago Reader and The Progressive. Her most recent book is Revolt on Goose Island.

The WARN Act, passed in 1988, was supposed to require employers to give workers and the surrounding community a 60-day advance notice of mass layoffs, providing workers a head start in preparing to find another job and communities a chance to brace for the economic impact.

But loopholes, exceptions and weak enforcement have undermined the act, say a group of lawmakers who have introduced new legislation (S. 1734 and H.R. 3042) to strengthen the WARN Act—the Federal Oversight, Reform and Enforcement of the WARN Act (FOREWARN).

Says Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), the chief sponsor of the bill, along with Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.):

Mass layoffs send shock waves through individual households and entire communities. This bill is about protecting workers and helping communities respond to mass layoffs. The WARN Act was supposed to give employees time to find a new job. Unfortunately, fair notice has become the exception not the rule.

 
A recent report from the Government Accountability Office found the current WARN Act covers just 24 percent of all layoffs and employers provided advance notice in just one-third of those. The WARN Act covers layoffs of 50 or more workers in firms of 100 or more employees.

In May 2008, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard L. Trumka told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee the WARN Act “has failed to live up to its promise.”

The shortcomings of WARN boil down to this: The act requires too few employers to give too little notice to too few workers, and it allows too many employers to flout the law with impunity.

The new bill would:

• Require employers to give a 90-day notice;
• Apply to employers of 75 or more workers; and
• Cover layoffs of 25 or more employees.

It also would give the U.S. Department of Labor the authority to enforce the WARN Act and increase penalties for violation to double back pay. Says Miller:

Workers deserve more than just a pink slip when they lose their job because of our nation’s economic difficulties….Current protections for workers being laid off are both confusing and rarely enforced. While an early warning may not save their job, a meaningful early notice will help them prepare to find a new job or upgrade their skills for new employment.

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. He came to the AFL-CIO in 1989 and has written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. He 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. He’s also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold blood plasma, and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen him at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. He was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still has the shirts, lost the hair.

This article originally appeared in the AFL-CIO Now Blog on June 30, 2009. Re-printed with permission by 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.

Okay, I have a confession to make. I’m still a big Soprano’s fan. So this week’s blog is going to combine the number one question that everyone in business needs to ask themselves with a short homage to my favorite Jersey family. Capiche?

“Whaddya Gonna Do?”

This question is the closest thing to a mantra on the Sopranos. Business turns south, someone goes after an important customer or suddenly the feds are wreaking havoc. Inevitably one of the characters shrugs, grabs a drink and blurts out, whaddya gonna do?

Unlike a certain organized crime family on TV, most of us do have plenty that we can do. But we are so mired in the fog of our jobs that we fail to see it.

Take a lousy boss. Whaddya gonna do? Well you can go boss shopping. Start looking inside and outside your company for a boss that you can trust. Yep, trust. Get creative with using conference rooms for taking calls to potential employers, using fake doctor’s visits to go for interviews and using letters from clients for references. Serve on committees that will increase your visibility, find excuses to meet with potential new bosses (example, by serving on a United Way committee) or just hang out in the executive bathroom until your top executive prospect hears nature’s call.

Take a crummy paycheck. Whaddya gonna do? Ask to meet with your boss to discuss a raise. After they give you a ton of reasons why it won’t happen, smile and ask for specific performance targets you’d need to hit to get a raise. Specific is the key. Find out what it will take, document the conversation then put all of your creativity to work to hit the target. But don’t just play inside your company. Start shopping your resume outside of it. That is the quickest way to getting a bump in pay, because your company will never pay you what you’re worth until you have a firm outside offer from another company. Never.

Take not having enough hours in a day. Whaddya gonna do? For most of us, the key to getting more done isn’t about squeezing more stuff into your already full eight or nine hour day. The key is to ensure that you’re focusing your best efforts into the areas of greatest opportunity for both you and your company. I’m a big believe in the 80-20 rule. I try to always put 80% of my best effort into my most important projects. It’s tough to do because the urgent always has a way of trumping the important, but you’ve got to resist that temptation and keep your eyes on the prize.

Take being scared of being laid off. Whaddya gonna do? People write to me all the time describing a lay off that came out of nowhere. And yes, that can happen. But more often than not there were subtle clues about what was going to happen. The company suddenly started cutting the budget, sending important projects to other departments and transferring the starts to other departments at your company. We all have to be careful about getting too comfortable and keep our eyes on what is next for our industry, our company but most of all ourselves.

Whaddya gonna do? Plenty. Because you don’t have to be stuck with the mob, you can chart your own course of action.

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 .

To everyone who has been laid off I have three things to say. It’s not fair. It’s not your fault. And, you’re not alone.

Recently I took a big financial hit when I was let go from a job I’d had for twelve years. I’d like to talk about it this week in a very personal way. Hopefully my journey will help you to cope when the shrapnel hits you at work, and unfortunately, the odds are that it could.

I wrote a column and a blog for over twelve years at the ABCnews.com web site. Twelve years working for a dot.com makes it sound like I was right there when Al Gore invented the Internet. Not quite, but I do remember the strange looks from colleagues when I first put my email address on my business card, especially one guy who called it “unprofessional.”

I had a sense that storm clouds were on my horizon when my editor at ABC wrote me a terse note saying that he had “problems” with my column. Despite multiple calls and emails to my editor, the “problems” were never identified to me.

Like reading in the newspaper about a big layoff at your company, getting let go is often the antithesis of The Donald’s “Your Fired.” No, it’s much closer to an enhanced interrogation technique, where it almost seems like they bring in consultants to maximize your pain and disorientation.

Shortly after getting that email, I got a call from another editor who I never had heard of, or talked to, before. I nicknamed her the “assassin.” She announced to me that after repeated attempts to “improve” my column, ABC was going to have to drop it. I asked about those attempts, but again was told that I’d been fully informed of what they were.

Does my little dance in a parallel universe sound familiar? Problems that are never explained, discussions about the problems that never happened. Being let go would be painful enough if they treated you with dignity and respect, but clearly that is out of the skill set of most in management today.

I have no problem with anyone making the decision to drop my work. It’s just that after twelve years, I just thought I’d earned the opportunity to receive feedback so I could get a shot to renew our vows before I was shown the door. Okay, maybe I’d been to Disneyland one too many times, but I thought I was part of something after all those years I’d put in.

So what did I learn from this experience? A corporation is a corporation and not your mother. Or friend. Or distant relative. In short, they don’t care. So it’s silly for you to care. There were many times where I’d been approached by other media outlets and turned them down because I had a “home.” Now I know the true meaning of the phrase “giving you the business.”

My second big lesson was that the anger that you feel when you are dumped is a powerful force. It can eat you up inside or it can drive you to find new opportunities. Luckily for me, it led me to a much better place, Workplace Fairness.

Accept that you’re angry. Accept that you were treated unfairly. Then use that as fuel to rise above where you were before the body blow took the wind out of your sails. Recovering will probably take longer than you want it to, but living well is always the best revenge.

It was embarrassing to tell this story. But I thought that if it even helped just one person, it was worth it. I rose from the ashes, and you can too.

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About the author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. He has been called “Dilbert with a solution.” Check out the free resources available at workplace911.com. You can contact Bob via bob@workplace911.com.

CEO PATRIOT PLEDGE: As an executive my primary motivation is to act for the good of my company, not just my own financial gain. No one at our company will earn a guaranteed base salary more than 40 times of our lowest paid worker and we will offer the same health care and 401(K) matches to employees as we do for executives. We support pay for performance, so when our company’s performance serves investors and employees, we’ll share in the gains. When our company’s performance does not adequately serve our investors and employees, we’ll share in the sacrifice.

These are M.A.D. economic times. That’s M.A.D. as in Mutually Assured Destruction, the old Cold War strategy where no one would be left standing after that first nuke was launched. Economic experts, who agree on little else, agree on this: if our current vicious cycle of “layoffs-driving-down-purchasing-which-increases-layoffs” continues, no one will be left standing.

There is an exit strategy here that no one is talking about; billions of dollars that could be used to address the layoff cycle immediately. This is not a plea for legislation or government funds. In fact, not a penny would come from taxpayers. It’s simple, voluntary, and dare I say, patriotic. The “Chief Executive Officer Patriot Pledge,” see above, is a 95-word call to action for all corporate leaders, not just those in financial services, to rein in their own wretched excesses and voluntarily re-invest part of their lofty salaries and perks to keep employees on the payroll.

Entitlement and greed are the only words I can find to describe $18 billion in bonuses given during the last two months of 2008. At the same time that one million people were being laid off, including at these very firms that were giving bonuses to a select few. Who paid the bill that allowed these corporations to party like it was 1999? U.S. taxpayers, courtesy of former Treasury Secretary Paulson’s inability to ask for any accountability from the corporations receiving $350 billion in TARP funds. Who knew the “free market” could be so expensive? Heckuva job, Paulie!

I’m sure some will scream “socialism,” but socialism isn’t voluntary. No, the CEO Patriot Pledge is pure capitalism, rewarding people when they do well and refusing to grossly enrich failure any longer. I’m not disparaging wealth or begrudging anybody for achieving success, just asking for bonuses that are tied to real achievement.

The Corporate Library examined the paychecks of just the CEOs of the Russell 3000 (the 3,000 largest U.S. companies based on market capitalization) and calculated these executives were overpaid by $14.7 billion annually. This does not include the huge paychecks of COOs, CFOs, etc. It also doesn’t include tens of thousands of executives at smaller firms. My estimate is that up to $40 billion could be found to reduce layoffs just from excess executive pay.

Of course, some executives consider themselves worthy of any compensation, no matter how disproportionate or unwarranted. Just ask John Thain, former CEO of Merrill Lynch, who in a recent interview told CNBC that it was important, even in troubled times, to give top talent over-the-top paychecks.

Well, if these top executives at Merrill Lynch and thousands of other firms are so talented, then how did we end up with 626,000 new unemployment claims filed just last week…with half of our 401(K)’s gone…and with, my personal favorite, a $35,000 executive commode funded from the public trough. Do these corporate “leaders” have no sense of decency?

Fortunately, there are some executives who get it. For example, Thomas A. James, CEO of Raymond James. Sound familiar? They are the sponsors of the stadium of the most recent Super Bowl. Raymond James had almost $3 billion in revenue last year. Yet, Tom James’ guaranteed base salary was only $325,000, less than 20 times the amount of the lowest paid worker at his company. As compared with the average CEO salary, which is 262 times that of the lowest paid worker. [Please note: for every “average” salaried CEO who cuts back his or her base salary to a ratio of even 40 times the salary of the lowest paid worker, almost 200 workers would keep their jobs.]

While the S&P sank 22%, Raymond James had a positive return for its investors. With the bonus he earned, Tom James’ total compensation was slightly over $3 million. But the key word here is “earned.” It is no accident that Raymond James has a conservative compensation philosophy and the company also did well despite the carnage in the rest of the market.

Compare Tom James to Robert Iger, CEO of Disney. According to Graef Crystal, compensation guru, Iger received $51 million during a year when his company suffered losses and layoffs. Or to put it in Disney language, Iger received a king’s ransom for a pauper’s performance.

What is the CEO Patriot Pledge? It’s a plea to encourage American businesses to do what they have always done: lead the way with vision and creativity. Only this time the goal is not to just create a profit, but to keep people employed so there will be a market for our products and services.

In short, our turbulent times require a reversal of a famous quote: today “what is good for the country is good for G.M.”

You can call this initiative naïve, but remember that a similar pledge, the Sullivan Principles, played a key role in ending apartheid in South Africa.

Greed isn’t good, it’s a symptom of poor impulse control and leads us down the path to more Lehman Brothers-style implosions. David beat Goliath and we can put an end to this fat-cat behavior. My single voice can be easily dismissed, but all of our voices can’t. Put the pledge on the bulletin boards of your company, send it to the companies that you own stock in and ask your friends and colleagues to do the same. Also pass on link to the CEO Patriot Pledge video on YouTube. We need to all share in the sacrifice, but isn’t it time that our leaders actually led during tough times?

There is a saying, “To save one life is as if you have saved the world.” Executives, you hold the world in your hands. We can keep people employed and get our economy working again, but only if we work together to stop the madness.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, award-winning journalist and contributor to On The Money. He has been called “Dilbert with a solution.” Check out the free resources available at workplace911.com. You can contact Bob via bob@workplace911.com.