Most everyone is familiar with the saga of the workers at Republic Windows and Doors, who at holiday time in late 2008 were laid off with little notice. However, they refused to leave the premises and staged a sit-down until owner Richard Gillman, backed by a loan from Bank of America, paid them all monies owed from vacation and WARN Act 60 days' pay (WARN basically requires a company to give 60 days' advanced warning of mass layoffs or plant closings).
Even with their victory, the workers faced a bleak economy, with scant prospects of getting hired to do what they knew how to do. In stepped a White Knight, however.
This past month California-based Serious Materials bought the Chicago factory and is in the process of reopening it. The new owners have reached an agreement with UE Local 1110 to rehire all former Republic workers at their former rate of pay and allow the union to continue representing them.
Serious will be manufacturing super-insulated windows that are approved under the federal Energy Star program for their efficiency.
Now, this is one happy tale is this world of bad economic news. Christmas came late for these workers. It must feel nice.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Recession, European-Style: More Time Off
I'm beginning to think this recession, depression, or whatever it is, is going to make Eurosocialists out of all of us, even me who was bred on free market capitalism (and often victimized by it too).
There's a great discussion forum on the New York Times online blog that highlights the differences in approaches across the pond. The Germans seem to really have it made, social safety net-wise, while the French just seem to enjoy the joie of being lazy.
Problem is, we could adopt the Eurosocialist approach of paying people not to work, or to work less, and gut our (and the world's only) global police force, and we could all be realxing at home right now with the government's covering our lost wages.
But then how could we as bosses and employers get rid of the riff-raff and n'er-do-wells when recessions provide us the golden opportunity? Such a quandary: Would I rather say permanent goodbye to a jerk or two (or more) or spend some more time with my wife and dogs?
There is a genius to the harsh, cruel world of American capitalism, I must confess.
(If you visit the NYT page, tell me--doesn't that guy at the top look like your typical ugly American, though the photo is credited to Agence France Presse?)
There's a great discussion forum on the New York Times online blog that highlights the differences in approaches across the pond. The Germans seem to really have it made, social safety net-wise, while the French just seem to enjoy the joie of being lazy.
Problem is, we could adopt the Eurosocialist approach of paying people not to work, or to work less, and gut our (and the world's only) global police force, and we could all be realxing at home right now with the government's covering our lost wages.
But then how could we as bosses and employers get rid of the riff-raff and n'er-do-wells when recessions provide us the golden opportunity? Such a quandary: Would I rather say permanent goodbye to a jerk or two (or more) or spend some more time with my wife and dogs?
There is a genius to the harsh, cruel world of American capitalism, I must confess.
(If you visit the NYT page, tell me--doesn't that guy at the top look like your typical ugly American, though the photo is credited to Agence France Presse?)
Monday, March 30, 2009
None Dare Call These 'The Friendly Skies'
Spirit Airlines will fly you for as little as $9 each way, provided you don't mind paying extra for choosing your own seat ($9-$20), checking in a piece of baggage ($100 for the third one), or drinking water while in the air (priceless).
And if you work for Spirit at its Miramar, Fla., low-rent headquarters, you'll be expected to clean your own space, empty your own trash, and vacuum around you. Even CEO Ben Baldanza
keeps his own Oreck at work to clean his office floor (at least he has an office, eh?). He brought the Oreck from home and replaced it with a Dyson.
Spirit has attitude too. Consider this now-infamous TV commercial: A younger man is lying in bed with an older woman (pictured) talking to his friend on the phone.
He: "Dude, there's no way your mom is cheating on your dad."
She: "That wasn't Jay, was it?"
He: "Yeah, that was your son. Don’t worry, he’s not going to find out."
Voiceover: "You think that’s low? Spirit Airlines fares are even lower."
Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly (after viewing the ad): "Maybe we are living in Sodom and Gomorrah, and I just haven’t seen the sign change."
More infamous perhaps even than this TV spot was an e-mail that Baldanza wrote about a customer's complaint that leaked to the blogosphere:
"We owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned," Baldanza wrote in his response about a customer's complaining about a flight cancellation. "Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny."
So if you want to travel cheap and let the airline assign your seat, and you can forego baggage, food and water--and endure verbal abuse for your complaints--Spirit is all for you.
And if you work for Spirit at its Miramar, Fla., low-rent headquarters, you'll be expected to clean your own space, empty your own trash, and vacuum around you. Even CEO Ben Baldanza
keeps his own Oreck at work to clean his office floor (at least he has an office, eh?). He brought the Oreck from home and replaced it with a Dyson.Spirit has attitude too. Consider this now-infamous TV commercial: A younger man is lying in bed with an older woman (pictured) talking to his friend on the phone.
He: "Dude, there's no way your mom is cheating on your dad."
She: "That wasn't Jay, was it?"
He: "Yeah, that was your son. Don’t worry, he’s not going to find out."
Voiceover: "You think that’s low? Spirit Airlines fares are even lower."
Fox commentator Bill O'Reilly (after viewing the ad): "Maybe we are living in Sodom and Gomorrah, and I just haven’t seen the sign change."
More infamous perhaps even than this TV spot was an e-mail that Baldanza wrote about a customer's complaint that leaked to the blogosphere:
"We owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned," Baldanza wrote in his response about a customer's complaining about a flight cancellation. "Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny."
So if you want to travel cheap and let the airline assign your seat, and you can forego baggage, food and water--and endure verbal abuse for your complaints--Spirit is all for you.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Why Not Smart Cards Instead of EHRs?
As the gathering storm of health care reform threatens individual privacy in the form of electronic health records (EHRs) that can be accessed nationwide--and no doubt cleverly hacked into just as everything else is hacked into--a simple solution is to leave the data-keeping to individual patients.
Some countries, notably Taiwan in this comparative study, issue each person a smart card, onto which physicians and other health care providers encode the patient's medical history, medicines being taken, and other pertinent information. Patients carry the cards with them and can present them at any doctor's or specialist's office, and the smart card functions not only as a data center but also as a credit card to bill the government.
Cost for a family of four is just $650 annually and co-pays are low, just $7 for doctors, $1.80 for dentists, and a maximum of $6.50 for prescriptions.
Problem is, like our Medicare, the system is going broke.
Just proves the old adage that you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Some countries, notably Taiwan in this comparative study, issue each person a smart card, onto which physicians and other health care providers encode the patient's medical history, medicines being taken, and other pertinent information. Patients carry the cards with them and can present them at any doctor's or specialist's office, and the smart card functions not only as a data center but also as a credit card to bill the government.
Cost for a family of four is just $650 annually and co-pays are low, just $7 for doctors, $1.80 for dentists, and a maximum of $6.50 for prescriptions.
Problem is, like our Medicare, the system is going broke.
Just proves the old adage that you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Sacre Bleu! Managers Held Hostage in France?
Let's hope American labor leaders don't read international news reports.
Turns out that a new habit is taking hold in France in labor relations. To wit: When employees hear bad news, they hold their manager hostage until s/he changes the bad news. Police refuse to intervene for fear of violence.
A manager of a French sbusidiary of 3M is, as I write, being held hostage after he announced a layoff of 110 workers. Employees say they won't let him out until he makes amends. Just what amends aren't clear--whether they want no or fewer layoffs, better severance packages or what--but Luc Rousselet is barricaded in his office until he pulls out his magic wand and makes things right.
Rousselet told reporters (presumably by phone, but that's not clear in the story either) that he "knew there was this risk when I came here."
There's some recent precedent for the union and workers at the 3M factory in Pithiviers, near Orleans in the South of France. Earlier this month, employees at Sony, also in the south of France, held both the chief executive and human resources director overnight until they agreed to better pay packages for workers being let go.
Who needs the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) when a good ol' lynch mob will do?
Turns out that a new habit is taking hold in France in labor relations. To wit: When employees hear bad news, they hold their manager hostage until s/he changes the bad news. Police refuse to intervene for fear of violence.
A manager of a French sbusidiary of 3M is, as I write, being held hostage after he announced a layoff of 110 workers. Employees say they won't let him out until he makes amends. Just what amends aren't clear--whether they want no or fewer layoffs, better severance packages or what--but Luc Rousselet is barricaded in his office until he pulls out his magic wand and makes things right.
Rousselet told reporters (presumably by phone, but that's not clear in the story either) that he "knew there was this risk when I came here."
There's some recent precedent for the union and workers at the 3M factory in Pithiviers, near Orleans in the South of France. Earlier this month, employees at Sony, also in the south of France, held both the chief executive and human resources director overnight until they agreed to better pay packages for workers being let go.
Who needs the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) when a good ol' lynch mob will do?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Personnel Concepts Attuned to Obama Changes
There's some glee over at Personnel Concepts, even among those who may have voted otherwise, at the thought of the changes being sought and made by the Obama administration on the labor law front.
Change is like the ka-ching of a cash register to firms that help businesses comply with workplace regulations and laws, and not just labor law poster and information firms like Personnel Concepts.
Labor and employment lawyers' eyes also grow wide these days as they ponder the opportunities under the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Human resources firms are busy scheduling seminars and offering training courses on CDs and in books for the changes to Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Americans With Disabilities Amendments Act (ADAAA).
There's more change to come, so look for companies that deal with labor law and workplace regulations to develop new products and programs, and new products and programs mean additional opportunities for sales. Ka-ching.
Recessions never do hit everyone equally, do they?
Change is like the ka-ching of a cash register to firms that help businesses comply with workplace regulations and laws, and not just labor law poster and information firms like Personnel Concepts.
Labor and employment lawyers' eyes also grow wide these days as they ponder the opportunities under the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Human resources firms are busy scheduling seminars and offering training courses on CDs and in books for the changes to Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Americans With Disabilities Amendments Act (ADAAA).
There's more change to come, so look for companies that deal with labor law and workplace regulations to develop new products and programs, and new products and programs mean additional opportunities for sales. Ka-ching.
Recessions never do hit everyone equally, do they?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Deja Vu All Over Again With Health Care Reform
Two admittedly left-leaning columnists, a married couple (he a pollster, she a lawyer), have produced a comparison of polling results then and now. "Then" refers to the Hillarycare hubbub in 1993-1994, and "now" refers to the Obamacare hubbub in 2009-?.
Results are a bit different than you would expect if you listen to or read what our left-leaning media have to say about health care reform.
Surprise, surprise, there was more public support then than now!
You can read through the nitty-gritty polling numbers in "A New Day or Groundhog Day," but let me focus on just one of the results to show you why Obama and the Democrats are going to stuff health care reform down our throats whether we like it or not.
A poll in 1993 when Hillarycare filled the air found 66 percent agreeing with the statement, "I would be willing to pay higher taxes so that everyone can have health insurance." Just 30 percent were opposed. A poll released March 1 of this year found just 49 percent agreeing and 45 percent disagreeing.
But wait--here's where it gets interesting. When those who agreed with the statement in 1993 were asked how much they'd be willing to spend a month so that everyone could have health insurance, just 25 percent said $50, 40 percent said $30, and 61 percent said just $10.
The same breakdown isn't available for 2009, but I bet you'd find few people willing to pay $50 more a month in this economy. I'm not even sure you could get a majority to commit to $10 (unless they thought that they would then get health care for free, an extraordinarily popular delusion in this day and age).
That in a nutshell is why the Dems are rushing to pass "reform" before anyone can sort through the details (which in any case won't be fully available until the thing is published as law). They know the nation can't afford it and taxes will be flying at everyone (and not just the rich) right and left to try to fund so-called reform (to say nothing of the long lines to see doctors, waiting lists to get hospital treatment, and medicines and procedures banned to save money).
Medicare is already on the fast track to go bankrupt in 10 years or less, and somehow our sleight-of-hand artists in D.C. are trying to get us to believe that spending more money actually saves money (in the long run, they add as a disingenuous qualification).
Welcome to life in our Brave New World, where deficits result in savings and less health care is better health care.
Results are a bit different than you would expect if you listen to or read what our left-leaning media have to say about health care reform.
Surprise, surprise, there was more public support then than now!
You can read through the nitty-gritty polling numbers in "A New Day or Groundhog Day," but let me focus on just one of the results to show you why Obama and the Democrats are going to stuff health care reform down our throats whether we like it or not.
A poll in 1993 when Hillarycare filled the air found 66 percent agreeing with the statement, "I would be willing to pay higher taxes so that everyone can have health insurance." Just 30 percent were opposed. A poll released March 1 of this year found just 49 percent agreeing and 45 percent disagreeing.
But wait--here's where it gets interesting. When those who agreed with the statement in 1993 were asked how much they'd be willing to spend a month so that everyone could have health insurance, just 25 percent said $50, 40 percent said $30, and 61 percent said just $10.
The same breakdown isn't available for 2009, but I bet you'd find few people willing to pay $50 more a month in this economy. I'm not even sure you could get a majority to commit to $10 (unless they thought that they would then get health care for free, an extraordinarily popular delusion in this day and age).
That in a nutshell is why the Dems are rushing to pass "reform" before anyone can sort through the details (which in any case won't be fully available until the thing is published as law). They know the nation can't afford it and taxes will be flying at everyone (and not just the rich) right and left to try to fund so-called reform (to say nothing of the long lines to see doctors, waiting lists to get hospital treatment, and medicines and procedures banned to save money).
Medicare is already on the fast track to go bankrupt in 10 years or less, and somehow our sleight-of-hand artists in D.C. are trying to get us to believe that spending more money actually saves money (in the long run, they add as a disingenuous qualification).
Welcome to life in our Brave New World, where deficits result in savings and less health care is better health care.
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