In today’s difficult economy, we are all more acutely aware of the changing nature of work in this country. American employees are increasingly concerned about job security and losing crucial benefits–while the demands on them in a 24/7, global marketplace have intensified exponentially. Many employees are working more hours than ever before, while others–especially low-wage workers and those in the growing contingent workforce–have little or no control over how many hours they will work in any given week.
As our workplaces have become more demanding, the demographics of the American workforce have shifted dramatically. For most American families, the reality of today’s economy is that both members of a couple must work full time–and even that leaves many families stretching to cover the rising costs of gas, groceries, and health care.
As a result, many American employees struggle to meet the demands of work while also meeting family responsibilities as critical as caring for a sick child. Indeed, the need for workplace flexibility among American employees of all ages, professions, and income levels is urgent. A significant majority of workers report that they do not have the flexibility they need to succeed at work and still fulfill serious personal obligations–be it caregiving for a child, a spouse, or a parent, volunteering in the community, attending religious services, or obtaining advanced training.
Workplace flexibility: an approach that encompasses options from flexible work schedules and telecommuting to extended time off and phased retirement–is a solution at the crossroads of a myriad of pressures facing our workforce. Flexibility can help ease the intense strain felt by millions of American workers trying to balance work with the needs of their families. For example:
Phased retirement programs can provide older employees with opportunities to work flexibly–so that they can retain income and benefits and employers can retain their needed skills; and
Flexible work arrangements and various forms of time off can improve employee health and well-being–allowing workers to better care for their families while also improving job performance.
The benefits of these and other types of flexibility are already being seen in workplaces across the country–and workplace flexibility is now being used as a strategic management tool in a diverse range of industries. By reducing turnover rates, boosting recruitment, and enhancing efficiency and performance, a growing number of business leaders are recognizing that flexibility can actually increase their competitive advantage.
Workplace flexibility can support both employers and employees in meeting the demands of the 21st century economy. But in order to make workplace flexibility a new standard of the American workplace, we must not only encourage voluntary business practices–but also develop consensus-based, common-sense public policies that work for families and in the marketplace.
Over the last several decades, the policy debate around the intersection of work and family has been plagued by a political stalemate. But we believe that through meaningful dialogue with business leaders, labor representatives, family, aging and disability advocates–and policymakers from both sides of the aisle–we can develop comprehensive workplace flexibility solutions that bridge political divides in Washington and beyond.
As workplace flexibility becomes an integral part of the American workplace, we believe it will ultimately support more effective business, a stronger workforce, and healthier families. And those are standards we can all agree on.
About the Authors:Chai R. Feldblum is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., Director of Georgetown’s Federal Legislation Clinic, and Co-Director of Workplace Flexibility 2010.
Katie Corrigan is the Co-Director of Workplace Flexibility and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center.
Three years ago, I was interviewed by Court TV about the John Roberts nomination. In preparation, I painstakingly reviewed his record. In so doing, I reached the unpleasant conclusion that Roberts was philosophically opposed to civil rights and other legislation for the public good which Roberts deemed to an improper exercise of congressional power.
The Roberts’ point of view, it seemed to me, was that since Congress should not have authored this legislation to begin with, it must be as narrowly construed as possible. This was the only logic I could discern which connected a long record of what appeared to be outright hostility to plaintiffs in civil rights cases.
I was extremely worried about what might happen with Roberts at the helm of the Court. The Samuel Alito nomination, with a record equally as hostile to plaintiffs in civil rights cases as that of Roberts, made me feel even more concerned. The harsh reality of Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia combining with these forces was a truly frightening prospect.
But the fact remains that we never really know with any precision what one will do after ascension to the Supreme Court actually occurs. Nothing surprised me more than the Court’s decision this past year in the decision of Sprint v. Mendelsohn – and it was a very pleasant surprise indeed.
Civil rights cases are hard to prove. There is seldom direct evidence of discrimination. People don’t go around saying, “we’re not going to hire you because you’re black,” or “we’re firing you because you’re old.” More often than not, we have to prove our cases by circumstantial evidence. Part of that evidence is proving that the reason give by the employer’s decision to fire, or not hire, is not true or not believable.
Other circumstantial evidence routinely offered is that the same thing or something similar happened to co-employees. The admissibility of this kind of evidence, labeled by the defense bar as “me too” evidence has been a battleground since we started trying to prove these cases over a quarter century ago.
Lawyers who represent employees want to call other employees as witnesses to testify about the discrimination that happened to them at the same company. Simply put, these lawyers contend that co-employee testimony is circumstantial evidence that this company discriminated in this particular case because it did the same thing to other employees. In their view, the jury ought to be able to consider this evidence and give it whatever weight they choose in making the ultimate determination as to whether the plaintiff was discriminated against or not. Lawyers who represent companies don’t want those witnesses to take the stand. They say that what happened to others is not relevant, proves nothing, is confusing and prejudicial, and will result in a bunch of mini-trials about other people who are not parties to the case.
Some courts have let the evidence in. Some courts have barred it. The significance of this kind of ruling can not be overstated since one’s ability to put on co-employee testimony before a jury can make the difference as to whether the case will be won or lost. For example, where a story about why one thirty-year employee got terminated may seem plausible in isolation, it certainly seems less plausible when there are five or six other long term employees whose performance was suddenly not good enough for a company where each has worked without incident for twenty or thirty years.
Ellen Mendelsohn was terminated in a reduction of the workforce by Sprint, a company where she had worked for many years. She claimed age discrimination. Mendelsohn’s lawyer (Kansas City lawyer Dennis Egan, member of the Workplace Fairness board) attempted to introduce evidence from five other older workers who also claimed they were discriminated against because of their age when they were terminated. Three of the five were prepared to testify about denigrating remarks made about older workers. Another claimed that he was banned from working at Sprint because of his age. One was going to testify that he was required to get permission before hiring anyone over the age of forty. None were in the same department as Mendelsohn. The judge ruled the evidence inadmissible because there was no shared decision maker and no temporal proximity. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and held that the evidence was admissible.
The Supreme Court accepted the case. In a decision which has a profound effect on the future of employment discrimination cases, the Court held that the trial court judge was wrong. The unanimous decision, shockingly authored by Justice Thomas, stated that a blanket rule of law excluding evidence of discrimination from co-workers in a discrimination case was wrong as a matter of law. The Court relied in its opinion on the Federal Rules of Evidence with respect to relevance, admissibility, and prejudice which vests the trial court with broad discretion on these matters. The trial court should determine whether the evidence has probative value and whether sufficient prejudice or confusion may outweigh it. It is a fundamental and liberal standard of evidence which leans toward the admission of evidence given the proper context and foundation.
So while the decision did not endorse the 10th Circuit’s view in concluding that the evidence was admissible, the opinion is earth shattering in the world of employment law for what it didn’t say – that is, that the evidence was not per se inadmissible. In other words, the Court ruled, “me too” evidence should be treated just like any other evidence in any other case.
It may seem odd that it took a pronouncement of the Supreme Court to let judges and lawyers know that the same rules that apply to evidence in all civil cases also apply in discrimination cases. But in the tortured history of discrimination litigation, the same rules unfortunately have not been applied (i.e., the granting of summary judgment where material facts are in dispute, the improper weighing of evidence by the court instead of the jury).
An opinion by the Supreme Court which held the evidence inadmissible would have been a huge blow to employees faced with the already formidable task of proving that discrimination has occurred. Fortunately, the Supreme Court in an exceedingly pleasant surprise made an important inroad–just by reciting and reinforcing the rules of evidence and thereby neutralizing the playing field.
About the Author:Ellen Simon is recognized as one of the foremost employment and civil rights lawyers in the United States. She has been listed in the National Law Journal as one of the nation’s leading litigators. Ms. Simon has been quoted often in local and national news media and is a regular guest on television and radio, including appearances on Court TV. Ellen has been listed as one of The Best Lawyers in America for her landmark work representing individuals in precedent-setting cases. She also received regional and national attention for winning a record $30.7 million verdict in an age-discrimination case – the largest of its kind in U.S. history. Ellen has served as an adjunct professor of employment law and is an experienced and popular orator. Ellen is Past-Chair of the Employment Rights Section of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and is honored to be a fellow of the International Society of Barristers and American Board of Trial Advocates. In additional to work as a legal analyst, she currently acts as co-counsel on individual employment cases, is available as an expert witness on employment matters and offers consulting services on sound employment practices, discrimination awareness and prevention, complaint investigation and resolution, and litigation management. Ms. Simon is the owner of the Simon Law Firm, L.P.A., and Of Counsel to McCarthy, Lebit, Crystal & Liffman, a Cleveland, Ohio based law firm. Ellen has two children and lives with her husband in Sedona, Arizona.
Labor Day gives us a chance to review necessary changes in our labor/employment laws.
1. Employees need greater protection from economic layoffs by:
requiring all employers give more advance notice,
mandating reasonable severance pay,
availability of career counseling and job training,
extending employer paid health insurance for a reasonable period.
2. Employees need more protection from arbitrary, unfair, unjust terminations for alleged performance and misconduct issues. The cruel employment-at-will doctrine needs to be eliminated by the judiciary and legislation.
permit awards of punitive damages against employers who commit unfair labor practices,
prevent employers from depriving unions of their ability to organize and bargain collectively.
6. Employees should have protection of their right of privacy concerning strictly personal email and off-duty conduct.
Hopefully the candidates in the upcoming Presidential election campaign will focus on these and other issues affecting employees rights.
About the Author:Paul H. Tobias is senior partner in the firm of Tobias, Kraus & Torchia in Cincinnati, Ohio where he now specializes exclusively in the rights of individual employees. He has specialized in labor and employment law for 50 years. He is the author of 15 published articles and three book chapters in the field of labor and employment law; has taught a labor law seminar at the University of Cincinnati (1975-1977); and has made over 150 presentations to Bar Associations and other groups concerning employee rights.
Tobias is the founder of the National Employment Lawyers Association (NELA: Advocates for Employee Rights) and served as its first Executive Director, Chairman and Editor of the newsletter “The Employee Advocate.” He is the Co-Founder and former Chair and Executive Director of the National Employee Rights Institute (NERI, now Workplace Fairness). He is the author of a three volume work: ”Litigating Wrongful Discharge Claims” (Callaghan/West 1987) and co-author of “Job Rights and Survival Strategies – A Handbook for Terminated Employees” (NERI 1997). He has recently been the leader of groups of lawyers studying employment and labor law procedures and issues on five trips abroad to other countries. Tobias is on the Board of Governors of the National College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and is founder of the Ohio Chapter of the College. He is a founder of the Senior Lawyers Division of the Cincinnati Bar Association. Tobias is a graduate of Harvard College (AB 1951) and Harvard Law School (LLB 1958).
The first “labor day” celebration was a march—10,000 workers took an unpaid day off to demonstrate in New York’s Union Square in 1882 to promote the union cause. Now, the federal holiday is supposed to be a day of paying tribute to the American worker and recognizing the contributions that unions have made to American prosperity. It should remind us that we didn’t always have an eight-hour day, a minimum wage, unemployment compensation, pensions, or other reforms that are fundamental to the quality of life we enjoy as Americans.
Most of us probably spent Labor Day at a barbecue or an end-of-summer sale rather than a march, but we can’t forget that there’s still a lot to do to ensure fairness in the workplace. Today, too many workers can’t take a sick day without losing their pay or jeopardizing their jobs. A benefit considered standard by most professionals—paid sick time—is unavailable to millions of lower-paid workers, including 22 million women.
At Women Employed, we listen to the stories of women who have to choose between going to work sick and paying the bills. They have to send sick children to school to avoid losing a day’s pay—or losing their jobs. Some work for companies with sick time policies, but they’re told by supervisors that if they take a sick day they’re entitled to, they shouldn’t come back. They face impossible choices. They’re among the 48 percent of private-sector workers who don’t have a single paid sick day to use for themselves or to care for an ill family member.
And it’s not just these workers who are paying a price. When workers come to work sick, they infect other people. So do the kids they have to send to school sick. It’s a public health issue when people preparing food, working in hospitals, or coming to your office to fix the copier feel the pressure to go to work when they’re ill. Experts estimate that “presenteeism”—coming to work sick—is costly for employers in terms of lost productivity. And research shows that paid sick leave policies reduce the rate of contagious infections by ensuring that sick workers stay home.
Bills have been introduced in state legislatures and the U.S. Congress to establish basic sick leave requirements. The bills require employers who do not already provide paid sick leave to allow employees to accrue up to seven sick days per year that could be used when a worker is ill or needs to care for an ill family member, as well as for medical appointments. Leave under these laws would be earned over the year so employers would only pay if and when workers accrued time off and needed it. These measures are modest and reasonable ways to improve the quality of our worklives and ensure better health for our families and communities. It’s time to add this simple guarantee to the list of workplace reforms that we enjoy today. Urge your elected representatives to honor workers by passing a guarantee of paid sick leave. Next Labor Day, we’d really have something to celebrate.
About the Author:Anne Ladky is Executive Director of Women Employed, a 35-year-old organization whose mission is to improve women’s economic status. Women Employed is widely recognized for its groundbreaking work to ensure enforcement of affirmative action requirements, outlaw sexual harassment, and promote family-friendly policies. Today, Women Employed focuses on women in low-paying jobs; its priorities are to improve workplaces by fighting for paid sick time, fair schedules, and better pay; and expand access to and improve the quality of post-secondary education and training. Ladky was a founding member of Women Employed, joined the staff in 1977, and was named Executive Director in 1985. She is a nationally recognized expert on women’s employment issues, equal opportunity, and workforce development. For more information on Women Employed, visit www.womenemployed.org.
Okay, it’s not as bad as it was in the ‘80’s when even non-business magazines had smiling CEOs on the cover, but I still think most of us want our CEO to have a certain amount of star quality. Call it the Trumpification of the corporate world.
Who would you rather have leading your company? Casper the friendly ghost or a Genie who can make all of the company’s wishes come true (even if he does have a comb over)? Let’s face it, shy and retiring just doesn’t cut it when you’re responsible for the livelihood of lots of people. When it comes to effective CEOs, bigger always seems better. Or does it?
Arizona State University’s Crocker Liu and New York University’s David Yermack have a really interesting take on rock star CEOs and how much they can cost a company. Even better is the creative way that the two professors came up with to study this issue—they compared the size of the CEO’s home with corporate performance. Call it entitlement, focusing on the wrong things, an inferiority complex, short man’s syndrome or a bunch of guys spending other people’s money—this study found that we all pay when the CEO literally lives in a castle.
Let’s start with the numbers. In 2004, the median home price for CEOs was $2.7 million.
Compare that to the median price for all homes in U.S., $195,200. The average size of the CEOs home, 5,600 square feet. Heck, if you are a titan of industry, wouldn’t you want 4.5 bathrooms? Actually I’m shocked the number isn’t at least 7, if you are so darn important, how could you possibly use the same bathroom more than once a week? Come on, these are really important people. (Okay, I’ll attempt to reduce the sarcasm for the remainder of this blog.)
But the study gets really interesting when it examined 12 percent of the S&P 500 CEOs with homes that were larger than 10,000 square feet or were on at least 10 acres of land. The companies that were run by this group of landed gentry lagged the S&P 500 by 25 percent over the three years following the home purchase.
That bears repeating. The biggest CEO houses significantly increased the odds of poor corporate performance.
I’m guessing that those of you reading this article are in one of two camps right now. The first group is ready to storm the Bastille and scream about CEOs living large off the sweat and tears of the rest of us.
But I’m sure there are also readers who still believe that a big ego is a necessary part of the mix. That these two professors, and me, are making a mansion out of a molehill. I may be, but you may feel differently after you read this.
Approximately a third of CEOs exercised stock options and sold shares in the year before they bought a home. Consistently the shares peaked right before the purchase. Given the brouhaha over backdating stock options, I find it fascinating that the stock prices tended to peak so consistently just before a mansion was purchased. Maybe that big house isn’t something that was earned but rather something that was scammed.
Ironic isn’t it. Putting a CEO in a mansion, more often than not, puts you in the poor house.
About our Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. His web site, workplace911.com, contains a comprehensive archive of strategies for surviving today’s workplace. He is a fan of Workplace Fairness and can be reached via bob@workplace911.com.
The Labor Day holiday implies adults in the workforce, but this day involves younger generations, too. Witness the millions of parents, and their kids, getting used to quickly changing schedules as the latter group goes back to school.
It’s fitting, then, that this post start off as a generational footnote to a post I wrote recently on a BlessingWhite survey of thousands of workers, and some of their managers, in the context of working women in Generation Y. Among other “pitiful” results, their survey found that employees in this generation are the least engaged among the three generations it measured.
In looking for the root cause of this disengagement, I went back to the long-held notion that people don’t quit companies, they quit people. Turns out that three other new studies prop up this perception further. What’s more, the root cause seems to be your boss, and even your boss’s boss.
organisations that have commitment from senior executives to monitoring employee engagement will reap rewards in improving staff morale, and therefore improving customer satisfaction.
So if a company’s leadership is on board with actively and frequently engaging employees, two important metrics – one inside and one outside – are positively affected.
A corollary to improving morale turned up in another study of over 2,000 organizations by human capital management consulting firm HR Solutions. According to this press release, they found that whether employees are engaged or disengaged by their supervisors makes a huge difference when it comes to whether and how they pitch suggestions to fix problems in an organization, as well as how much value they’re perceived to be adding in a group or team building setting.
“These scores underscore the importance of the immediate supervisor in engaging the workforce,” Murat Philippe, a principal consultant at HR Solutions, says in the release. “A supervisor’s chances of having productive … employees can hinge on whether the employees feel valued and empowered.”
So now we know (if we didn’t before) that buy-in and long-term commitment of both senior and middle management is needed to ensure productivity is at its highest. But what lessons can small businesses take from this?
One answer emerged from yet another survey. As BusinessWeek recently announced – they got the exclusive on this – a joint study of 1,000 public and private companies by IBM and the Human Capital Institute found that small companies, with one to 1,000 employees,
were 4% better than the total sample [which included firms with up to 50,000 employees] at collaboration and sharing knowledge, 6% better at promoting virtual working, and 4% better at identifying relevant skills.
I read these results as integral to (respectively) task completion speed and accuracy; increasing average employee tenure; and recruiting ability, including effectively promoting from within.
So if you’re the leader of a small firm and you want to improve any or all of the following…
attracting and retaining top talent,
productivity,
driven-down decision making, or
customer satisfaction
…then you really need to look closely at how both you and your managers are engaging the rest of your workforce.
Bonus: To help in this regard, this pdf provides a number of low-cost, high-impact employee engagement methods focused on learning. We created this list based on our experience helping small businesses and nonprofits improve their work environments. Enjoy!
About the Author:Mark Harbeke’s role is to ensure that content on Winning Workplaces’ website is up-to-date, accurate and engaging. He also writes and edits their monthly e-newsletter, Ideas, and provides graphic design and marketing support. His experience includes serving as editorial assistant for Meredith Corporation’s Midwest Living magazine title, publications editor for Visionation, Ltd., and proofreader for the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy. Mark holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Drake University. Winning Workplaces is a not-for-profit providing consulting, training and information to help small and midsize organizations create great workplaces. Too often, the information and resources needed to create a high-performance workplace are out of reach for all but the largest organizations. Winning Workplaces is changing that by offering employers affordable consulting, training and information.
Every year nearly 6,000 American workers are killed on the job and many more are bilked out of an estimated $19 billion in wages by their employers. Unfortunately, workers do not have the protections they need and deserve because President Bush’s Department of Labor has failed to effectively police low-road employers, and unions—which give workers a voice on the job and help to ensure laws are followed—have been under attack and therefore shrinking in size.
Laws exist to protect workers from unsafe working conditions and employer wage theft. Unions lobbied hard and won comprehensive wage-protection laws passed during the FDR administration and occupational safety laws enacted during the early 1970s. Minimum wage and overtime rules, anti-discrimination laws, and workplace safety standards create a guaranteed floor for all American jobs. They also require the Department of Labor to police American workplaces and penalize scofflaw employers.
However, negligent firms often ignore these rules, and Bush’s Department of Labor has shirked its role as top labor cop. Irresponsible employers know that they will be rarely penalized for workplace abuses, and when they are, penalties will likely be so low they will not hurt the firm’s bottom line. In recent years, wage theft investigators assessed fines on only 6 percent of known lawbreakers. Moreover, in 2006 the average workplace safety penalty for serious violations that “pose a substantial probability of death or serious physical harm” was only $881.
The risk of employer abuse is especially high for workers in traditionally low-wage and potentially dangerous industries. According to recent reports, at least 50 percent of garment, nursing home, and poultry employers are in violation of the basic minimum wage and overtime protections. At least one in ten meatpacking workers are injured on the job every year, but safety inspectors are only able to inspect about 75 of the more than 5,000 meatpacking plants each year.
And it’s not only workers who get cheated. Employers who play by the rules and treat their workers with respect can’t compete with irresponsible firms who cut corners with employee safety and wages.
Although Bush’s Labor Department is leaving workers to fend for themselves, unions can give workers an important voice in standing up to employers who flout the law. Labor unions empower workers to speak out against employer abuses and can defend whistleblowers from employer retaliation. Moreover, as on-the-ground experts, unions can provide important targeting information to worker-protection agencies. Indeed, the workers that are the most abused by their employers are frequently low-wage, non-union labor. These disempowered workers are also the least likely to report workplace abuse.
Unfortunately, these days it is rare for any American worker to be unionized—only 8 percent of the American workforce belongs to a labor union compared to one-third of private-sector workers in the decades after World War II. The reason: Existing laws make joining a union a Herculean task that few are able to undertake. Employers legally can force workers to attend anti-union meetings, including “one-on-one conversations” with supervisors, and often pressure workers to reveal their private preferences for the union. When employers who oppose unionization break the law, penalties are weak and insufficient. Workers are illegally fired in about one-quarter of union organizing campaigns, but they can at best hope to recover their lost wages and get reinstated in their jobs, often after years of legal battles. And if workers prevail against these odds, employers often refuse to negotiate with the union.
An important step toward improving workplace safety and wage standards is to give workers a stronger voice through increased unionization. Congress can reduce the barriers to joining a union by passing the Employee Free Choice Act. The bill would allow an employee to choose to join a union by signing a membership card—a system that works well at the small number of workplaces that choose to permit it—and also promotes good-faith bargaining so that employees can negotiate a first contract. The act does not deny workers their right to vote in a union election, as some conservatives maintain, but rather allows workers to choose between signing a membership card and having an election.
The House of Representatives has already passed this important legislation, and although a majority of senators support it, opposition from a few conservatives has prevented the bill’s passage. The next president must prioritize the protection of workers’ rights both through better enforcement of existing wage theft and worker safety law, and through inducing the Senate to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
About the Authors:Dr. David Madland is the Director of the American Worker Project at American Progress. He has written academic articles and books as well as op-eds and commentaries on a range of economic issues, including retirement, economic insecurity, health care, campaign finance, taxes, and public opinion. He has a Ph.D. in Government from Georgetown University and received his B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley. Madland’s dissertation was about the political reaction to the decline of the defined benefit retirement system.
Karla Walter is a Policy Analyst with the American Worker Project at American Progress. Karla focuses primarily on the improving the economic security of American workers by increasing workers’ wages and benefits, promoting workplace protections, and advancing workers’ rights at work. Prior to joining American Progress, Karla was a Research Analyst at Good Jobs First, providing support to officials, policy research organizations, and grassroots advocacy groups striving to make state and local economic development subsidies more accountable and effective. Karla earned a master’s degree in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Today was the conclusion of the first week of Take Back Labor Day, a Today’s Workplace blog project which invited many of the best and brightest in the workplace community to write about the continuing significance of Labor Day in these troubled times for workers. And what a week it was! By the end of the week, we registered 13 posts from a wide variety of contributors, including some of our top labor and workplace reporters, several authors of best-selling books, and an assorted bunch of law professors, policy experts, and bloggers, all of whom contributed very thoughtful posts reflecting their diverse perspectives.
On Labor Day itself (September 1), we launched the series with four posts from Steven Greenhouse, Phil Dine, Diane Stafford, and Lew Maltby. Steven, Phil and Diane are all part of a dying breed: they are labor and workplace reporter for mainstream American newspapers. Lew is part of a group that was very small to begin with: national organizations addressing workplace issues. (I know: Workplace Fairness is part of that small community as well.)
This Labor Day, workers are caught in “The Big Squeeze,” which is the title of Steven Greenhouse’s new book. (He’s also the labor and workplace reporter for the New York Times.) Workers get far too little respect: “Far too often the accomplishments of the nation’s workers—whether it’s producing the food we eat or protecting us from hurricanes—are ignored, instead of honored.” Unfortunately, “To put it crudely, many companies seem to treat their workers like chumps—to be squeezed on wages, pushed to the limit and discarded when no longer needed.”
Lewis Maltby, executive director of the National Workrights Institute, talks about a number of benefits that unions provide, one being that “A fundamental rule of employment is that compensation is a zero sum game. Workers and management can cooperate to increase productivity and increase profits. But when it comes to dividing up the pie, a dollar that goes to management bonuses or shareholders is a dollar that will not go to workers.”
Diane Stafford, workplace reporter at the Kansas City Star and author of the Workspace blog, says that workers are jittery this Labor Day, with a new study that shows “more than 8 in 10 workers are worried about the state of the job market,” and another which shows that the “top 1 percent of earners enjoyed income growth of 204 percent from 1979 to 2006, while the lower 90 percent of earners gained 15 percent.”
While you might think it’s time to give up on unions, “in light of labor’s weak vital signs,” Philip Dine, labor reporter and author of State of the Unions, reminds us that Labor is as Relevant as Ever. Here’s why: “One key if often-overlooked reason the United States has long enjoyed economic and political stability has been a robust industrial relations system where management, labor and government voice their concerns….The current unbalanced system, however, generates the skewed policies and practices that have left so many Americans disillusioned.”
Tuesday (September 2) gave those returning to work after the holiday plenty to think about, with three posts from David Kusnet, Paul Secunda, and Art Levine, an author, a professor, and a blogger, respectively.
David Kusnet, who wrote the new book Love the Work, Hate the Job, tells us about four different groups of Seattle workers who despite their vast differences, all understood the importance of working collectively. Kusnet says, “[T]hese workers – and many others across the country – care deeply about the future of their companies and professions….They’re joining together with their co-workers and taking issue with their employers for the same reasons that they entered their professions. Unions, companies, and public policymakers should take notice of–-and tap into–this concern for quality.” (See Working Americans Want “More” and Better.)
Professor Paul Secunda, law professor at Marquette and co-editor of the Workplace Prof Blog, correctly notes that with the upcoming election, we have a choice to make regarding whether we want fair pay in the workplace, after the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision made it difficult if not impossible to bring an equal pay claim: “Let’s hope that regardless of who is elected president that women are no longer afforded merely second-class status in the workplace and the Ledbetter decision’s days are numbered.” (See The Importance of Fair Pay this Labor Day.)
Art Levine, blogger and contributing editor of the Washington Monthly, takes us inside the minds of unionbusters (it’s a scary place!), reminding us “[I]t’s time not only to remember workers in unions but those who want the opportunity to join them for the economic and benefits protection they offer, but can’t do so by the legalized unionbusting enabled by today’s feeble laws.”
On Wednesday, September 3, the quantity decreased to two, but the quality did not, as Nathan Newman and Cynthia Estlund joined us. Again, we provided the matchup of a policy expert, regular blogger (Nathan is both of these) and a law professor (Cynthia).
Nathan Newman, Policy Director for the Progressive States Network and a regular contributor to TPM Cafe, takes us back to earlier this century, relating the harrowing story of Southern slavery which persisted well into the 20th century. Newman tells us, “This southern gulag involved millions of black workers enslaved through a combination of capitalist employers, farm owners and a legal system that promised a brutal fate for anyone defying their de facto masters. And it is a key story for understanding the ultimate weakness of the overall U.S. labor movement, since having a deunionized Southern region was an essential tool in disciplining Northern workers who feared loss of jobs to a region without labor rights.” (See Southern Gulag: How 20th Century Slave Labor Undermined the Labor Movement.)
Cynthia Estlund, law professor at NYU, points out the importance of the choice we make on Election Day, if we care about the rights of workers. “Indeed, divisions are especially sharp over two major pillars of New Deal labor policy – the labor law’s regime for enabling workers to unionize and bargain collectively, and the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage and overtime protections – both of which were intended to secure for ordinary workers a fair share of the rewards of economic prosperity.” (See Labor Day Reflections on Election Day Decisions.) (As a nonprofit organization, Workplace Fairness does not endorse candidates, but we can give you publicly-available information about the candidates’ positions on workplace issues, and Cynthia does a great job of that in this post.)
On Thursday, September 4, the hit parade continued with best-selling workplace author Tom Jackson and Internet strategist and web producer Michael Whitney. Tom and Michael are from different generations, but they both understand the importance of treating workers with dignity.
Tom Jackson’s exquisitely written piece, The Dignity of Work, is a wake-up call to everyone who works:
The erosion of human values at all levels, in mainstream work is so pervasive and heartless, that even to have a chance at rewarding work, you will need to reconsider everything you know about companies, jobs, work, skills, careers and personal mobility. And included in that is redefining your own self-definition: union member, hourly worker, factory worker, supervisor, manager or “I’ll do anything.”
Michael Whitney tells us about an exciting new ad campaign from American Rights at Work to educate the TV-watching public about the Employee Free Choice Act. I could tell you more about it, but why don’t you just watch it?
Friday, September 5 wraps up the first week with posts from Bruce Goldstein and Morra Aarons-Mele. Bruce is a lawyer and expert on farmworker issues, while Morra Aarons-Mele specializes in work redesign and management training for the flexible workplace after a career as an online strategist and blogger.
Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice, is readying us for an attack on the rights of farmworkers which could happen at any moment: “Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff…will announce extensive changes to the H-2A guestworker program, slashing wages and reducing worker protections for hundreds of thousands of our nation’s farmworkers.” Read “A Labor Day Attack on Farmworkers to find out what you can do, and how to keep informed about the progress of these changes.
Morra Aarons-Mele, who blogs about organizational change at Women and Work, reminds us that increased workplace flexibility is not just the job of employers and policy makers, but of ourselves as well. She says, “This Labor Day season, let’s think about how we can hold our leaders accountable to their promises to support more life-friendly work policies. But let’s also think about our role in managing work and life…the important work of cultivating a leisure ethic.”
Many of us will have seen the neat educational drawing from the 1950’s: “eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for leisure” for a balanced life. It feels so quaint, and speaks to a phantom work-family life that is reality for few Americans.
Over 50 years ago most women did not work outside the home, and the prevailing philosophy of effective work was Taylor’s scientific management, which prescribed minimal worker control over time and task. On the plus side, workweeks were shorter and more regular. On the minus side, people had little control over their time at work.
Management theory in the following decades has led to an emphasis on worker control. As O’Toole and Lawler note in their 2006 study The New American Workplace, employees have much more choice than they did forty years ago: more choice in benefits and family care options, choice in work scheduling, team design, and project design. And yes, many Americans are working differently, making up schedules that fit their lives, often through trial and error.
Trial and error isn’t enough. For dual-earner couples with children, combined work hours are now 91 hours per week, up from 81 hours per week in 1977. For the first time, the 2007 census recorded more American households headed by singles rather than married people. According to the Labor Project for Working Families, 40% of people caring for elders also have childcare responsibilities.
Many business policies, programs, benefits, and practices in place today were designed for the needs of the “traditional family,” those people who make up only 20% of the actual workforce. National data shows that over 80% of workers polled would prefer more flexible work options and would use them if there were no negative consequences at work. And there’s the rub: if there were no negative consequences.
Work is still changing too slowly to fit our new culture, and so we make it fit around us, often with negative consequences. It’s a cliché, but how many times has your mind been fixated on the BlackBerry during family dinner?
The good news is that many employers are more flexible about implementing flexibility, but the majority of smaller firms, where most Americans now work, don’t offer such benefits to all employees. Terms are negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Without public policy mandates, many companies are confused about how to implement change. In the 2008 National Study of Employers, those most likely to have implemented flexibility include employers with a large percentage of female senior management, companies in the nonprofit, finance, real estate and insurance industries, and those companies without union representation.
And what if employers are only part of the problem? The by-product of too many workers trying to do it all is stress on workers and their families. Ellen Galinsky, President of the Families and Work Institute says, “In my book Ask the Children, a nationally representative group of children ages eight to 18 were asked for their number one wish to improve their lives. The largest proportion wished that their parents were less tired and stressed, and one in three young people feels very stressed themselves.”
Politics has given workers a window: In perhaps the most significant signal that flexibility is on the agenda, in 2008, both the Democratic and Republican Party platforms state flexibility as a critical solution for helping families balance work and life.
Leaders and policy makers can help by looking to states and (gasp) other countries for models. They can help by raising awareness around these issues, and removing gender and class biases. Mandated time off for family needs enforces the message that leaving work is not for wimps and for lower wage workers, that it’s not a firing offense. For example, according to MomsRising.org, “Twelve states require employers to allow time for employees to participate in their childrens’ educational activities….California…gives parents 40 hours per year to participate in school activities.” (See MomsRising.org piece on Open Flexible Work.)
Motivated voters need to keep these issues on the agenda, and Democrats have an ideal ambassador in Michelle Obama, who has made better work-family policy her personal platform.
And what can we, the workers, do to make flexibility feasible? If we manage people, we can model change. We can be conscious about our choices and if we so choose, be willing to accept trade offs between life and work. Galinsky suggests,
Ask yourself: What decision will I wish I had made in five years? What will I remember in the future? And make your decision accordingly.
We have to create our own boundaries, our own times when we turn it off. And it isn’t just turning off the electronics, it is turning off our minds going over our to-do lists for work. Kids know when we aren’t focused. Many kids said they had techniques for seeing if their parents were really listening to them (throwing in a nonsense word in a middle of what they are saying to see if their parent noticed) or even putting their hands on our faces and saying: Earth to Mom or Earth to Dad.
I like to think Barack Obama modeled change when he took a family vacation right before the Convention. Hillary Clinton never took one day off during Primary season. That’s not a realistic or healthy example to set.
This Labor Day season, let’s think about how we can hold our leaders accountable to their promises to support more life-friendly work policies. But let’s also think about our role in managing work and life, what Joshua Halberstam, in his book Work: Making a Living and Making a Life, calls the important work of cultivating a leisure ethic.
About the Author:Morra Aarons-Mele specializes in work redesign and management training for the flexible workplace. Before focusing on organizational change, Morra worked for ten years on online campaigns for politics, advocacy groups, and corporations. Through her work as an Internet strategy consultant, she became committed to helping employers and employees create and manage programs that increase flexibility and self-directed work. Morra returned to graduate school and internships to learn this new field.
Morra writes weekly columns for BlogHer.com, the Huffington Post, and guardian.co.uk. She is also a frequent media commentator for CNN. Morra has a degree in Political Science from Brown University and a Master’s from the Harvard Kennedy School. Morra is active in local politics, and represented Washington, DC’s ANC for Ward 2B. She is married to Nicco Mele and lives near Boston.
Note: Workplace Fairness is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed by our guest bloggers are their own.
Amid all the hype of political conventions, analysis of the Republican VP pick and Labor Day celebrations for the rest of the country, the Bush Administration will launch an attack on the nation’s farmworkers.
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, at any moment, will announce extensive changes to the H-2A guestworker program, slashing wages and reducing worker protections for hundreds of thousands of our nation’s farmworkers. These policy changes deserve our attention.
The H-2A program is a temporary agricultural guestworker program that permits employers to apply for permission to hire foreign labor for jobs lasting ten months or less. To bring in H-2A guestworkers, employers must show that they cannot find U.S. workers who want the jobs. These will be the most far-reaching changes in the laws regulating guestworker programs since 1942. If the changes are finalized, as we expect them to be next week, and take effect, this Administration will have returned us to an era of agricultural labor exploitation that many thought ended over 65 years ago.
What a Labor Day gift to farmworkers!
The Administration will finalize plans that were published several months ago. They called for cutting wage rates and wage protections for both domestic and foreign workers, minimizing recruitment obligations inside the U.S., ending the requirement to provide workers with free housing that meets federal and state safety requirements, curtailing or eliminating transportation reimbursement payments, and removing much of the government oversight that is supposed to deter and remedy illegal employer conduct. There is much more and it’s almost all terrible.
U.S. farmworkers will be denied jobs and forced to quit due to the onerous conditions. The aim of the Administration is to create an endless supply of guestworkers who our government will allow to be exploited at low wage wages and suffer grueling productivity standards that U.S. workers cannot afford to accept. By enticing employers to use vulnerable guestworkers at less than the cost of U.S. workers, the Administration theorizes that it will wean employers from hiring undocumented workers.
This low-wage, low-road strategy is not just morally reprehensible, it is economically destructive. Most farmworkers are undocumented. The Administration’s proposal does absolutely nothing to address that reality. They are already here doing this back-breaking work. Most of them are law-abiding people seeking to support their families, embodying those All-American values such as “self-sacrifice” and “hard-work”. Employers need them. The Bush Administration cannot make them go away.
For decades government commissions have told agriculture that it must stabilize its workforce and improve productivity by increasing wages and modernizing its labor practices, rather than relying on new waves of exploitable foreign labor to overcome high employee turnover.
We call on Congress, including Senator McCain and Senator Obama, to do whatever it takes to stop the Administration from issuing its planned changes to the H-2A guestworker program. There are reasonable alternatives that have won bipartisan support. Both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama support those alternatives.
During this Labor Day season, amid the election year hype, we must think about the people toiling to put food on our tables. If the Administration issues the final regulations, as we expect they will any day, we plan to ask you to tell Congress to prevent those regulations from every taking effect.
About the Author:Bruce Goldstein joined Farmworker Justice as a staff attorney in 1988, then served as Co-Executive Director starting in September 1995, and was named Executive Director in July 2005. At Farmworker Justice, Bruce has focused on litigation and advocacy on immigration issues and labor law, with a special emphasis on the H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program. Bruce’s activities on “guestworker” issues have included litigation against private employers and the government, advocacy in administrative agencies and Congress, training of lawyers and paralegals, building nation-wide coalitions, advising grassroots organizations, and testifying before Congress. Bruce has also sought to address the problem of “farm labor contractors” and other labor intermediaries used by farming operations, often in an attempt to avoid responsibility for complying with labor laws. Bruce received his bachelor’s degree in 1977 from the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University, and his law degree from Washington University in St. Louis (1980). He has worked at the National Labor Relations Board, at a legal services office in East St. Louis, Illinois, and in private law practice concentrating in labor law, personal injury and civil rights.
