2/03/2012 – News bits about the timesizing alternative to downsizing, reinvented thousands of times every day in every recession by mainly mid- and small-size companies, but still an afterthought when any economy that's still around in 50 years will have long made it first and foremost - ( [commentary] by Phil Hyde ecdesignr@yahoo.ca unless otherwise initialed ) -
- Budget uncertainty hangs over GUSD, Gustine Press-Standard via westsideconnect.com
GUSTINE, Calif. – Governor Brown’s initial budget proposal leaves a huge question mark hanging over public education, GUSD Superintendent Gail McWilliams related recently, and will require the district to prepare for the worst even as it hopes for the best as it crafts its budget for the 2012-13 fiscal year.
Among the known factors of the governor’s proposal – which is still subject to revision as it goes through the legislative process – are that it would strip the district of $160,000 in transportation funds and would do away with funding for the transitional kindergarten program that was to start next year.
The bigger concern and wild card in the budget outlook hinges on the November election.
The budget proposed by Gov. Brown would essentially keep school funding at the status quo if two tax measures planned for the November ballot are approved, McWilliams related, but public education faces deep mid-year cuts if the measures fail.
“We would lose about $340 per ADA (per-pupil funding, based on average daily attendance) for the year at that point,” McWilliams commented. “That equates to about $640,000 for our district.”
For Gustine Unified, McWilliams said, the outcome could mean the difference between at least maintaining the status quo (if not continuing to give back to employees and restoring prior cuts, as the district was able to begin doing this year when furlough days were reduced from five to three) and having to look at deeper cuts, perhaps in the form of added furlough days.
But the outcome won’t be known until November, long after the district must make its budget and staffing plans. The situation schools find themselves in, McWilliams said, is “horrendous.
“You have to prepare as though you are not going to have that money. It would be irresponsible not to do that,” she explained.
McWilliams said she has already approached employee bargaining groups to begin conversations about the coming year. She said the district will need to know in coming weeks whether employees are willing to continue concessions such as unpaid furlough days if need be.
If bargaining units and district have not reached agreement, the district will probably have to look at issuing tentative layoff notices in March, the deadline for notifying teachers of possible job loss. Teacher layoff notices can be rescinded, but cannot be issued after March 15.
“If we get to the point where we don’t have concessions, we have no choice but to go to programs and staffing,” the superintendent explained. “I’m really hoping we don’t have to go to that.”
McWilliams stressed, though, that her preference would be to structure agreements with contingencies that hinge on the fate of the ballot measures. Furlough days, she said by way of example, could be scheduled for after the election and eliminated or reduced in number if the ballot measures pass and mid-year cuts are avoided.
Five days of employee furloughs would save the district about $230,000, McWilliams noted.
[and save jobs and the local spending rate.]
She said the district will attempt to ask for employee concessions that would cover about 25 percent of the potential losses. That would allow the district to cover the remainder from its rainy day funds without depleting the reserves to precariously low levels, the superintendent explained.
Transitional kindergarten
The governor’s budget would eliminate funding for transitional kindergarten, the developmental program that was to start next year for students who aren’t old enough to meet the new age requirements to enter traditional kindergarten.
In the absence of funding, McWilliams said that program will not be offered but the district will be prepared to offer transitional kindergarten if the state restores the funding.
The program was designed for children who previously would have been eligible to enter kindergarten but do not meet the new age cut-off date. For years, children who turned 5 by Dec. 2 could enter kindergarten. This year, children must turn 5 by Nov. 1 to be eligible. That deadline advances to Oct. 1 in 2013 and Sept. 1 in 2014.
- DC's Budget Surplus: The Hand that Itches, Politic365.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Washington, D.C. is faced with a problem that is sure to make some other city governments jealous.
The District has a $240 million surplus due to some drastic financial moves Mayor Vincent Gray and the D.C. Council made in 2011. Among them were four emergency furlough days for District employees.
[Timesizing, not downsizing!]
There was also a tax increase from 8.50 to 8.95 percent on D.C. residents making over $300,000 annually. Officials sought the funds due to financial projections that would have left them short on funds.
According to The Washington Post about $130 million of it is already appropriated. The remaining $110 million can be used in a general fund of sorts.
Now that the city is sitting on some serious cash, the naysayers have come out to blast the leadership about overstating the financial needs last year. The mayor, Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi, and Eric Goulet, Gray’s budget director have felt the heat from the public.
Both sides of the argument over whether or not D.C.’s taxes should have been raised makes sense. At the same time, city leaders forgot about the economic realities of the past few years.
They have $240 million in excess revenue at a time when other major cities are busy just trying to make ends meet. If the District government’s job is to serve the people, it seems that one way to do so is by saving for a rainy day. The U.S. economic climate is still uncertain, even though signs of progress are showing.
The federal government, for instance, is constantly in debt and their struggles should be a reminder for D.C. officials of what not to do. Now is not the time to forget what it actually means for a major U.S. city to have cash in the bank.
Obviously, city leaders saw some form of a financial emergency on the horizon and proactively put steps in place to avert a crisis. This is known as “doing your job,” which includes planning ahead and thinking about the near future. Unfortunately, their plan involved furloughs and tax hikes. However, the District could not continue operating as it did in the past and avoid financial trouble.
D.C. Councilman Jack Evans had an idea to remove the tax increase on upper income District residents. That is feasible now that the city has extra operating funds. Overtaxing people does not make a lot of sense. Budgeting in the real world requires adjustments and takes into account the unknown and human error. It’s ok to go back and say, “We overestimated, so we need to make the following changes…”
However, the argument that city leaders cried wolf in order to get more money out of residents is disingenuous. In these tough economic times, it makes more sense to err on the side of fiscal responsibility rather than living on the edge. The mayor and financial officials saw what they perceived to be a financial storm on the horizon and they appropriately planned. Most leaders would be lauded for that type of forethought, no matter what their party affiliation is.
The harsh response from members of the D.C. Council and others says a lot about the financial state of the country. Some have failed to learn from the painful lessons of the Great Recession and how to save as much as possible from your overflow. The same strategies people use to operate their personal finances shows up when they take public office. Governments must learn how to save more money. That’s heading in the right direction.
D.C. officials should take a step back and realize their financial situation is a rather good problem to have.
2/2/2012 – News bits about the timesizing alternative to downsizing, reinvented thousands of times every day in every recession by mainly mid- and small-size companies, but still an afterthought when any economy that's still around in 50 years will have long made it first and foremost - ( [commentary] by Phil Hyde ecdesignr@yahoo.ca unless otherwise initialed ) -
- Push for shorter work hours gets lukewarm response - Many workers prefer fatter paychecks to more leisure time [and thereby guarantee a future of labor surplus and thinner paychecks], by Lee Sun-young (milaya@heraldm.com), The Korea Herald via koreaherald.com
SEOUL, S.Korea - The government’s latest drive to reduce working hours is facing reluctance from workers who fear an impact on their paychecks.
Yet, experts see it as inevitable that the country tackles the ingrained culture of long hours to boost productivity, improve workers’ quality of life and create new jobs.
“Long working hours have prevailed in Korea under consent of three parties -- management, labor and government, with the management bent on reducing costs, unions on fattening paychecks and the government on achieving growth targets,” said Park Tae-joo, a professor at the Employment and Labor Training Institute. “Now, the government wants to break it.”
The motive behind the government’s about-face appears to be employment, as the local economy creates fewer and fewer new jobs.
“We must think of ways to reduce working hours at large conglomerates and distribute quality jobs to more people,” President Lee Myung-bak said last week.
Shortened hours have many positive effects such as improving lifestyles, creating new jobs and boosting private consumption, he said.
His remarks sparked a flurry of steps by the Ministry of Labor and other related agencies.
They include a plan to regulate weekend and holiday work and the country’s first-ever rollback of exemptions to the labor hour rule currently in effect for 26 industries to just 10.
“Korean workers put in longer hours, but their productivity lags. This is because of our culture that evaluates an employee’s work based on hours put in rather than their performance,” Labor Minister Lee Chae-pil said.
In 2004, Korea introduced a 40-hour workweek rule and limited overtime to 12 hours per week. Still, many put in hours beyond the legal maximum of 52 hours a week, because of broad exemptions to the rule and a lack of guidelines on weekend and holiday work.
The country has the longest average working hours among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Korean workers’ annual hours came in at 2,111 in 2010 against the organization’s average of 1,692.
Some workers see the move as only worker-friendly at surface level, as they lack effective measures to boost workers’ income to reflect the rising costs of living.
“It could threaten the livelihoods of many low income earners who are paid by the hour,” said Moon Yong-moon, labor union chief of Hyundai Motors, the country’s top automaker.
According to the government’s estimation, about 2.34 million workers receive the legal minimum wage which is set at 4,580 won ($4.3) an hour this year. Another 2 million workers are thought to be earning even less than that.
If a worker paid the minimum wage works 40 hours a week, he or she will earn 957,220 won a month.
Better-off workers like Moon and other autoworkers could also face a significant cut in their salaries, as compensations for extra work, including daily overtime, weekend and holiday duties, account for nearly 40 percent of their monthly income.
Park Jie-soon, professor of law at Korea University in Seoul who sits on the Korea Tripartite Commission, acknowledges the problems.
“In some sectors such as food and beverages, accommodations and retail, the recommended reduction in working hours could lead to problems such as depressed wages,” he said.
“It is essential that (the authorities) monitor those sectors continuously and study various measures to support them.”
Employers, for their part, fear a rise in labor costs at a time when they face a formidable challenge from their peers in cheap-labor countries such as China.
To adjust production volumes to fluctuating demands without extension of working hours, companies should be able to hire more during a boom time and then slim down in a downturn, but layoffs are almost impossible in the country’s rigid labor market, they say.
“Such a drastic reduction of working hours, with no regard to the reality, will cause serious unwanted impact on industries,” the Korea Federation of Employers said in a press statement.
- Why Work-Life Balance Isn't Balanced - It's necessary, but not sufficient - Here's why focusing on wellbeing makes more sense, by Yamini Tandon, Gallup Management Journal via Gallup.com
[No it doesn't. "Well-being" means different things to different people. Shorter-hour jobs mean more jobs, potentially enough for everyone and to spare, and plentiful job openings mean that employees can discipline difficult employers in the most effective way = QUIT and easily find another job.]
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Sheela was doing well in her job. She had an eight-hour workday, great friends, a supportive family, good health, and she was paid well. Everyone around her thought she was happy and lived an ideal life.
Sheela was well-compensated and appeared to have time to balance her career and personal life. But she was struggling.
But Sheela's life was actually a mess. Her overly aggressive boss thought nothing of shouting at her in front of her colleagues. Though Sheela was a good performer, she was constantly anxious about the next time her supervisor would berate her. Though she was expected to work eight-hour days, her boss would call her at any time of the day or night.
Sheela began to dread hearing her cellphone ring and was so worried all the time that she couldn't even sleep. She fretted that her colleagues and friends would lose respect for her, and she lost so much confidence that she couldn't handle even the simplest of social interactions. Sheela began to spend less time with her friends and family, where she would have to put up a brave face, and instead devoted more hours to work, where she could worry freely, obsessing over every detail of her job to the point of compulsiveness.
By most traditional measures of work-life balance, Sheela was doing quite well. She was handsomely compensated for an eight-hour workday, and she appeared to have enough free time to balance her career and personal life. But in reality, Sheela was struggling. What's more, her frustrations would not be picked up by conventional measures of wellbeing, because those measures don't take into account the quality of people's experiences, nor do they incorporate people's own evaluations of their lives. Instead, those measures rely on factors like income and number of hours worked, under the assumption that these factors determine the quality of people's lives.
Beyond work-life balance
When the idea of work-life balance was first introduced, it was a revolutionary concept. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution and its resulting shift to manufacturing work made it possible for employers to require workers to labor longer hours than ever before in human history. In some industries, people toiled 14 to 16 hours a day, six to seven days a week.
As researchers began to study the impact that these long hours had on stress levels, health, and family life, the idea of work-life balance gained currency, and many countries began to legislate limits to the workweek. Most developed nations now mandate 40-46 working hours per week, with a minimum of two weeks per year of holiday/vacation.
The concept of work-life balance has been instrumental in influencing these changes and bringing about an improvement in the quality of life that is assumed to accompany shorter working hours. But the concept is useful only up to a point. Globalization has undermined the relevance of reducing worker hours to achieve work-life balance and has revealed limitations; the most significant is that at some point, limiting hours further is just not sustainable.
France has mandated a 35-hour workweek, for example. But what can the country do next?
[Solve more of its unemployment by cutting the workweek further, of course. Honestly, is that such a tough question for you, Yamini? AND the country can replace its kludgy training provision with a smooth and well-designed overtime-to-training&hiring conversion system. Despite Yamini Tandon's lack of imagination and general cluelessness, France is on the right track, but not until they get rid of Sarkozy and his attempt to undermine France's leadership in terms of the shortest nationwide workweek in the world.]
The workweek can't be reduced indefinitely, as this has implications for a country's economic viability and competitiveness. In a globalized world, if workers in one country are unwilling to work for economically viable hours, then businesses will migrate to a country where they are willing to do so. In countries such as India and Pakistan, workers are motivated to work 10- to 12-hour workdays -- and this is unlikely to change soon due to the large number of workers willing to do so to move up the economic ladder.
Another problem with the concept of work-life balance is that it takes the number of working hours into account but not the quality of the working experience. A person may spend 35 hours a week at work, but if that worker, like Sheela, has an abrasive manager or is in a highly stressful job or one that is not suited to her natural talents, then those manageable work hours are unlikely to enhance her quality of life.
[Yes, they are, because those manageable work hours provide more leisure hours to look for a better job AND they provide more alternative good jobs out there to choose from because shorter hours spread around the technology-encroached-upon, market-demanded employment to more people via more shorter-hour job openings. Honestly, Yamini Tandon, if you can't "think two moves ahead in chess," then quit writing nonsense that is against your own best interests.]
Conversely, a person may choose to work long hours because it allows her to progress in her career or to build a social system at work.
[Fine. Then let her make disposable earnings on the money motive (inflationary) up to the nationwide workweek max (based, for example, on indexing the workweek against the unemployment rate) but beyond that, let her demonstrate her choice of non-monetary incentives (deflationary) by reinvesting overtime earnings in overtime-targeted job creation = "No overtime alone!"]
Thus, the assumption that reduced hours at work lead to an improvement in personal life is too narrow, and probably faulty.
[Not at all, on either count. This Yamini Tandon's thinking is too narrow and definitely faulty.]
Other factors, such as social support, health, safety, and job fit, contribute greatly to the quality of a person's life.
[And more alternative good jobs thanks to shorter-hours workspreading contribute greatly to everyone's accessing all these other, quality-of-life factors. If government got any more directive than that, it would be stifling.]
Since the concept of work-life balance doesn't take into account these significant factors [nonsense, it certainly does take these significant, but non-standardizable factors into account],
it does not provide direction as to how people can actually improve the quality of their lives, except for reducing the hours spent at work.
[It is not government's role to provide this kind of detailed, unstandardizable direction. Yamini Tandon is evidently a very young person still looking for (s)mothering.]
As such, it is not actionable.
[On the contrary, the kind of nosy, picky direction Tandon craves is unactionable. Only general, standardizable, non-interferingly detailed measures are actionable by government, unless you want idiosyncratic and diversity-stifling dictatorship like Stalinism at the heaviest or Singaporism at the lightest (lashes for spitting in public?).]
The assumption that reduced hours at work lead to an improvement in personal life is too narrow, and probably faulty.
[No it isn't. Tandon's concept of government's role is way too broad and definitely faulty.]
How we think about and experience our lives
A more comprehensive concept -- one that's more appropriate for the 21st-century economy -- is that of wellbeing, which includes factors that contribute to our experiences and our perception of our lives.
[Oh yeah, and all kinds of fundamentalist sects have detailed ideas of what constitutes "wellbeing" for every human being, regardless of the amazing and potentially-vital-for-humanity's-future diversity they already have on their own. Tandon better go join one of these sects so they can tell her exactly what to do at each and every moment of her waking life.]
Until recently, wellbeing has been seen as an esoteric concept that is difficult to define and quantify.
[It's not esoteric at all but it is so currently and potentially diverse, that it can only be defined by what we don't want it to be because we have found certain activities and mental states harmful.]
It is most commonly understood as relating to wealth or health, perhaps because of the ease with which these things can be measured.
One reason that wellbeing has been difficult to define is that it means different things to different people depending on what they consider important.
[At last, a glimpse of the obvious.]
To one person, it may mean prosperity or wealth; to another, it may mean values or community involvement or the realization of one's potential. This is why wellbeing should be measured at the individual level, though it may be aggregated for organizations, communities, and nations. And any measure of wellbeing must be broad enough to incorporate an individual's own choices and purpose in life while being specific enough to be compared and aggregated to facilitate action that can improve it.
[The only actionable measure of wellbeing that currently and actionably satisfies these criteria on a national level is full employment. And the only core-economic design that can deliver full employment on a national level is unemployment-indexed workweek with automatic overtime-to-hiring conversion - with on-the-job training wherever needed. We call it timesizing. You got a better actionable measure, "actionable" meaning it implies a way to improve it? Let's see if Tandon has...]
Gallup has developed a wellbeing metric that includes the five key elements of wellbeing: Career, Social, Financial, Physical, and Community.
[No actionability. Where's the strategy?]
These five distinct factors emerged from research that Gallup conducted across countries, languages, and vastly different life situations. Because these elements of wellbeing are universal, they can be measured and reported on for individuals, organizations, cities, countries, and regions around the world.
[Yet more diagnosis with no cure. These five general, dare we say vague, factors are not actionable except in terms of ... full employment on a national, and later, international level via ... timesizing.]
Because Gallup's wellbeing assessment measures these elements individually in addition to yielding an overall score, it is actionable [oh yeah?]: The assessment gives individuals, organizations, cities, and countries the ability to manage wellbeing by undertaking actions to improve it.
[Such as?]
If an individual has relatively low Social Wellbeing, for example, she would do well to focus her efforts on improving interpersonal relationships with friends and family.
[Pablum. She can do that already. And she probably already knows about the problem already without Gallup putting a number on it. The question is, when is she going to get the time and money to concentrate on this when she's stuck, with no options, in an unlimited-hours or emotionally exhausting job, because there is no effective cap on her workweek and/or no attractive options in terms of jobs to switch to, with any necessary training included?]
This can be managed over time.
[Incrementing or decrementing figures is not managing, and managing is not solving.]
As her Social Wellbeing increases, she may choose to concentrate on Career Wellbeing, for instance, or choose to address both elements by spending time socializing with colleagues and making friends at work. In this way, wellbeing can be measured and managed comprehensively at the individual, as well as government, state, city, or corporate levels, by taking its various components and their interactions into account.
[Notice how we're focused on the individual level - this is like a sect, as if detailed ideas of individual salvation are The Solution. Well, we saw how well that worked in the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Witch Hunts, Jonestown... Just pay Gallup to get your five wellbeing measures and ... zowee!]
Conventional metrics such as employment status, income, educational level, hours worked, and women's participation in the workforce are necessary to understand an economy, but they are insufficient when it comes to understanding and evaluating overall life satisfaction.
[And understanding and evaluating life satisfaction is like art = chacun à son gout, and, de gustibus non disputandum est, nor are tastes standardizable or evaluatable except by arrogant elites who have little clue about the extent and value of harmonious diversity. Like so many well-intentioned people, the Gallup people have set their goals too stiflingly comprehensively, and "the way to hell is paved by good intentions."]
Unless we begin to use a metric of a life well-lived -- as measured by one's own [and not Gallup's?] experiences and evaluation -- people like Sheela will continue to be under the radar, aware that something is amiss, but without an idea why or what to do about it.
[And which would you prefer? Gallup leading her around by the nose with five vague measures potentially masking a lot of detailed but unmentioned qualitative assumptions about a "well-lived life" (but presumably with the same "over-aggressive" manager because Gallup has not relinquished one finger of its grip on her lack of job options), or Timesizing just opening up a lot of good job opportunities for her so she can discipline her manager in the most effective way - she can walk.]
The Five Essential Elements of Wellbeing
For more than 50 years, Gallup scientists [ooh, "scientists"!] have been exploring the demands [jawohl, National Socialism alzo hett a lot of demants on tsitizens!] of a life well-lived. More recently, in partnership with leading economists, psychologists, and other acclaimed scientists, Gallup has uncovered the common elements of wellbeing that transcend countries and cultures.
[Heil, Gallup!]
This research revealed the universal elements of wellbeing that differentiate a thriving life from one spent suffering.
[How about just, a good job?]
They represent five broad categories that are essential to most people:
[and what about the curious minority to whom they are not essential?]
Career Wellbeing: how you occupy your time -- or simply liking what you do every day
Social Wellbeing: having strong [def'n?] relationships and love [def'n?] in your life
Financial Wellbeing: effectively [def'n] managing your economic life
Physical Wellbeing: having good health and enough energy to get things [def'n] done on a daily basis
Community Wellbeing: the sense of engagement [def'n? and can we decline such engagement?] you have with the area [def'n?] where you live
[Again, well-being means different things to different people, but an employer-perceived labor shortage, borne on a diminishing workweek indexed inversely to unemployment, creates respect for employees that is vanishing under today's deepening labor surplus. Anyway, this discussion is beside the point. There are certain system requirements for an advanced economy and the most basic one is maximum consumer spending. And maximum consumer spending requires full employment and maximum wages (maximum wages being a natural byproduct of full employment dba employer-perceived labor shortage, regardless of how short the workweek or how much The Onepercent whines - they complain the loudest and suffer the least. What about inflation? Controlled organically and naturally without clobbering growth by the expansion of deflationary incentive as people gravitate toward jobs they love and away from jobs they're just doing for the money and consequently, can never get money enough = inflation. Meanwhile, Gallup has evidently been taken over by control freaks who want to rationalize more surveillance. "Vote Gallup for Big Brother!" Gallup's pollsters are evidently getting bored and want to go beyond - guys, a change is as good as an overreach. Get a new career and leave Gallup's disinterested and unmanipulative polling - and welcome in that form - alone. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The landscape is littered with companies that overreached - tasty Boston Chicken when it stretched to bland Boston Market...]
[Review:
The proper realm of government is per-person variables (such as minimum reinvestment/person) at the most despecified level (such as of any earnings over an unemployment-indexed workweek threshold). The proper role of the free market is per-job variables (such as time per job, long jobs covered by multiple persons), at all more specific or detailed levels.
There are two kinds of economically significant incentive: inflationary (money motive; adjective: quantifiable) and deflationary (all other, eg., job satisfaction, whatever that may be; adjectives: non-quantifiable and qualifiable only with loss of diversity and adaptibility-survivability dba competitiveness). The inflationary realm involves the per-person realm of government. The deflationary realm does not; that is, the deflationary realm is the rightful province of the free market. Keep Gallup's and everyone else's big nose out and reins off this realm and enjoy the natural wild(er)ness.]
2/01/2012 – News bits about the timesizing alternative to downsizing, reinvented thousands of times every day in every recession by mainly mid- and small-size companies, but still an afterthought when any economy that's still around in 50 years will have long made it first and foremost - ( [commentary] by Phil Hyde ecdesignr@yahoo.ca unless otherwise initialed ) -
- Right-to-Work[-without-joining-a-union] Laws Are A Waste of Time for Politicians and Unions: View, by the Editors, Bloomberg.com
[The term "right to work" without the implicit and necessary-to-make-any-sense-of-it extension ("without joining a union") as used in this editorial is counter-intuitive, misleading, and deceptive to the point of fraudulent, but has unfortunately become common after a Republican-style hijack of the traditional term "right to work." This is right down there with Coalitions to Save the Forests manned by clearcutters. We will add the extension ("without joining a union") throughout.]
NEW YORK, N.Y. - For the first time, supporters of right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] laws can claim victory in the industrialized Midwest. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels yesterday signed legislation making it illegal to require nonunion workers to pay union dues.
Right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] laws have taken on oversized symbolic importance, outweighing the actual cost to unions or the real benefits to employers. Worse, the combat discourages the two sides from working together to manage cyclical ups and downs or to improve productivity, which increases profits, lifts wages and ultimately results in economic expansion.
Unions loathe right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] laws because they can make organizing more difficult and, they [=unions = ambiguous reference! - editors!] insist, lead to lower wages and less generous benefits. Some governors, on the other hand, think a right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] law is the best proxy [=gauge =dyslex! - editors!] for how business-friendly their state is.
Twenty-three states, mostly in the South and Southwest, now have such laws.
Lawmakers in Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, and other states may try to follow, largely out of fear of being left behind in the race to attract companies.
Republican U.S. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina is pushing for a national right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] law.
Sparse Data
A close examination shows that right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] laws are not as damaging to unions or as beneficial to state economies as the warring sides contend. Each wields powerful talking points, yet the supporting data is sparse.
On the union side, the big myth is that the laws bar unions from organizing. Not so. Instead, by enabling workers to opt out of union dues, they reduce the financial payoff to organizers. Over time, that may weaken a union’s ability to attract new members, put together political campaigns or pay union administrative expenses. Still, it wouldn’t prevent a union from forming in the first place.
On the right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] side, the big myth is that economic growth in states with the law is higher. Studies sponsored by the Mackinac Center, a think tank in Midland, Michigan, that favors right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union], conclude as much. But it’s not necessarily so. The Mackinac studies don’t disentangle the effect of right- to-work[-without-joining-a-union] laws from other factors, such as a housing bust, rapid population growth (a feature of many Sunbelt states) or a robust energy sector.
Take Oklahoma, which became a right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] state in 2001. It has outperformed much of the country in recent years; its unemployment level, at 6.1 percent, bests the national rate of 8.5 percent. But joblessness in Colorado, Missouri and New Mexico -- Oklahoma’s non-right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] neighbors -- are also well below the national average.
Moral Arguments
Interestingly, some of the strongest arguments for and against right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] are moral -- and they exist on both sides. The personal beliefs of anti-union workers are stepped on when monthly dues are deducted from their paychecks, even though they don’t belong to the union. In right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] states, the same workers wouldn’t have to pay dues but would benefit from the higher wages a union might negotiate on their behalf. The unions have a word for that: free-loading.
[Isn't this whole controversy obviated by the open- or closed-shop fork in the decision-making flowchart?]
The answer isn’t right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] but better labor-management cooperation. Both sides might learn a lesson from Germany, where union members often sit on corporate boards and vote on management pay (helping to keep in check excessive, U.S.-style compensation). Germany’s unions also play prominent roles when the economic cycle turns down. One example is the “Kurzarbeit” plan, or short-work system, in which companies temporarily move employees into shorter workweeks during downturns. Companies pay only for actual hours worked, and the government provides as much as two-thirds of the remainder.
Work-Time Accounts
Many German companies also use work-time accounts, in which employees agree to shorter workweeks when demand is slow, then add hours in boom times -- without adjusting wages.
Under the Kurzarbeit plan and work-time accounting, unions have gone along, knowing what’s good for the company is often good for them. At 6.7 percent, Germany’s jobless rate, a two- decade low, tells us that cooperation over conflict is worth considering.
In the 1950s, about one-third of American workers carried a union card. Today, barely 12 percent do. Union membership in the private sector is a mere 6.9 percent. The decades-long slide isn’t the result of right-to-work[-without-joining-a-union] laws, but the loss of manufacturing jobs. In Indiana, union members made up 10.9 percent of the workforce in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, down from 15.4 percent in 2000.
It may not be culturally or politically possible for U.S. unions and executives to emulate the German model, but with manufacturing making a comeback, it’s a good time for both sides to find a better way to resolve their conflicts.
To contact the Bloomberg View editorial board: view@bloomberg.net.
- Jobs saved at Heron after working hours change, by Adam Hooker, PrintWeek.com
[We're going to take a flyer here and guess that part of the change involves a reduction...]
HEYBRIDGE, Essex, U.K. - Unite has said that a number of jobs have been saved at Wyndeham Heron after negotiations with the company.
Wyndeham Group entered into consultation with 86 of the 300 employees at its Heron plant in response to a cut in capacity at the site.
However, according to Unite, pressroom staff have agreed a change in shift pattern, which could reduce redundancies from 86 to 79.
Unite national officer Steve Sibbald told PrintWeek: "We have negotiated a deal there for a more flexible shift pattern. It is designed to take into account specific contracts and has saved a number of jobs.
"Unlike some employers, we achieved this through negotiation, discussion and agreement."
The consultation continues and Sibbald added that the union would continue to discuss possible changes that could save further jobs.
Wyndeham Group said that it did not comment on ongoing consultations.
- Monti takes on lobbies in fight to modernize Italy, Scientific American via AP via CBSnews.com
[The trick is to modernize Italy along the upward lines of German worksharing (Kurzarbeit) and beyond to timesizing, incomesizing, etc. to ensure fast and plentiful enough monetary circulation to provide profitable investments, and not along the downward lines of the USA's employment and monetary coagulating "race to the bottom" against China.]
ROME, Italy — Fresh bread on Sundays.
It may not sound like a call to revolution, but it has come to symbolize Mario Monti's campaign to reshape Italy as a modern economy, as the reformist premier takes on powerful lobbies that have stifled economic growth by keeping swaths of the economy in the hands of insiders.
These groups have long behaved like Medieval guilds — regulating standards, working hours and prices — and Monti now has a lengthening list of enemies that include bakeries, taxi drivers, pharmacists, lawyers, notaries, railroad workers and newsstand dealers.
[The fact that vital working-hour regulation is still on the problem list here and not yet singled out as the Kurzarbeit kin of timesizing and the other balancing programs that guarantee higher quality-of-life, weights the odds here in favor of the race to the bottom.]
In one bold stroke last month, Monti issued a decree that overturns decades of arcane rules that have coddled many of the small businesses that represent an outsized portion of the Italian economy. Bakeries will be able to open on Sundays and holidays, opening the way for fresh competition to established shops. The notoriously closed taxi industry will be liberalized. Rules preventing pharmacies from setting up close to one another are being lifted.
"We want to create more space for competition and merit," Monti declared.
Monti's mission is stirring waves of anger that indicate a tough battle ahead: Past Italian leaders have tried and failed to bust lobbies in the past — finding the old way of doing things simply too entrenched.
Since Monti issued his decree on Jan. 20, taxi drivers have staged strikes to protest plans to issue more licenses; angry truck drivers have erected blockades against increased taxes on fuel; even normally mild-mannered pharmacists, objecting to an expansion of drug stores and working hours, plan walkouts.
Monti and his new team of economic experts, named to succeed the discredited Silvio Berlusconi when Italy's debt crisis began to spin out of control in November, first enacted stiff austerity measures to tackle the emergency.
A second sheaf of measures announced this year was aimed at reviving growth. That put him straight into the path of entrenched interests — unions, public employees and professional organizations — that have for decades cast a long shadow over politics and the economy.
In many ways, these lobbies go to the heart of what makes Italy tick.
Italian professions have long been protected by systems of patronage, personal favors and backroom dealing. Defenders of the Italian way say that keeping business closed to outsiders guarantees quality and tradition — think fine wines and tailor-made suits. Critics counter that it stifles innovation, entrenches corruption and leads to stagnation.
Monti, an economics professor and former EU competition commissioner is being likened to Margaret Thatcher, who earned her the nickname Iron Lady by taking on labor unions as part of free market reforms that many say modernized Britain but also left it deeply divided and scarred by strife.
Italy's small business lobbies have had a stifling effect on Italy's economy by blocking competition, keeping work hours short and perpetuating deep inefficiencies in business practices.
For example, most pharmacies are closed Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. Newspapers are only sold at newsstands. Gas station owners in Italy have been barred, with the exception of some highway stops, from selling anything but petrol products, which many argue keeps gas prices in Italy among the highest in Europe.
Monti said the aim is to reduce protectionism and the way industry in Italy "tries to create advantages for those who are inside the fortress to the detriment of those who are outside."
Like in the Middle Ages, professions are handed down from generation to generation within the family, reflecting both tradition and the lack of social mobility that Monti wants to address. And Italy has remained stubbornly provincial, with regional quotas on notaries, taxis and pharmacies.
While commentators have hailed Monti's program as revolutionary, many working men and women have rejected his ideas, reflecting the difficulty of change in this highly conservative country.
"Monti sounds good, he wants to spur employment by giving out more taxi licenses," said 62-year-old Mario Parisi as he drove his cab across the Tiber River in Rome. "But more work for others means less work for me and I am only making ?,000 a month."
The voice of business, the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, is praising Monti's efforts, pointing out that "in less than 20 words" — the length of his edict on bakeries — the government has changed the history of business in Italy by allowing breadmakers to work seven days a week.
So far, at least, the reform package appears to be proving popular with the public. A survey published this week in the leading Corriere della Sera shows Monti with a 57 percent approval rating. The margin error on the telephone poll was 3 1/2 percent.
Monti has remained remarkably impervious to public and political pressure. The technocrat has made clear that since he was not elected, he does not have to pander to voters or parties seeking favors, while keeping an open door to the sectors he is seeking to reform.
After meeting with taxi drivers, the government did compromise on some measures. For example, if more licenses are issued, drivers who already have one will receive "tangible" compensation.
A new government authority will decide city by city whether the number of taxi licenses should be raised or reduced, instead of issuing one rule for all. That already gives wiggle room for the powerful taxi lobby to fight for the status quo.
Still, Monti has stood firm on the idea that removing privilege and opening sectors to greater competition can spur the economy.
Growth — which in Italy has been stuck at zero for a decade — is viewed by economists as the best way to bring down Italy's dangerously high public debt of ?.9 trillion, or 120 percent of GDP.
Italy is expected to enter a recession this quarter. The International Monetary Fund forecasts the Italian economy will contract in 2012 by 2.2 percent, while the Confindustria industrial lobby puts the shrinkage at 1.6 percent.
One of the most corrosive effects of the pervasive clubbiness of Italian industry has been the way it keeps young people out of work. Italy is increasingly known as a gerontocracy that entrenches older generations in plum jobs. The nation has suffered an alarming brain drain as talented young people move abroad in search of work. One Italian in four under 30 is not studying, working or in training.
"More competition also means more opening, more space for the young, less space for privilege and more recognition for merit," Monti told a press conference announcing the reforms. "It is not just a big economic operation, but also a big social action."
But most Italians, for the moment, are worried about losing what they have — not about the possible longer-term gains of painful reforms.
A new study produced by the Bank of Italy indicates that Italian families are poorer than just two years ago, and also carry more debt.
Monti refuses to place all the blame on the politicians who preceded him.
"Are we citizens doing our duty to help Italy grow?" he recently asked.
Click here for spontaneous cases of primitive timesizing in -
January/2012
December/2011
November/2011
October/2011
September/2011
August 2-31/2011
July/2011 + 8/01
June/2011
May/2011
April/2011
March 2-31/2011
February 2-28/2011 +3/01
January 2-31 +2/01/2011
December/2010 + 1/1/11
10/31+ November/2010
October 1-30/2010
September/2010
August/2010
July 2-31/2010
June 2-30/2010 +Jul.1
May 2-31/2010 +Jun.1
April 2-30/2010 +May 1
March 3-31/2010 +Apr.1
February 2-28/2010 +Mar.1-2
January/2010 +Feb.1
December/2009
November/2009
October/2009
September/2009
August/2009
July/2009
June/2009
May/2009
April/2009
March/2009
Jan-Feb/2009
2005-2008
Nov.27-30 (& Dec.)/2004
Nov.23-26/2004
Nov.16-22/2004
Nov.9-15/2004
Nov.2-8/2004
Oct.27-31/2004 + Nov.1
Oct.22-27/2004
Oct.16-21/2004
Oct.12-15/2004
Oct.6-11/2004
Oct.1-5/2004
Sept.25-30/2004
Sept.21-24/2004
Sept.11-20/2004
Sept.7-10/2004
Sept.4-6/2004
Sept.1-3/2004
Aug.27-31/2004
Aug.21-26/2004
Aug.11-20/2004
(July 31+) Aug.1-10/2004
July 20-30/2004
July 17-19/2004
July 13-16/2004
July 1-12/2004
June 16-30/2004
June 1-15/2004
May 15-31/2004
May 1-14/2004
Apr.16-30/2004
Apr.1-15/2004
Mar.23-31/2004
Mar.11-22/2004
Mar.2-10/2004
Feb.21-29/2004 + Mar.1
Feb.11-20/2004
Jan.31 + Feb.1-10/2004
Jan.21-30/2004
Jan.10-20/2004
Jan.1-9/2004
2003
2002
2001
Y2000
1999
1998 and previous years.
For more details, see our laypersons' guide Amazon.com.
Questions, comments, feedback? Phone 617-623-8080 (Boston) or email us.
(click here for HOMEPAGE)