Showing posts with label unions. Show all posts

Why Good #HR Leaders Aren't Worried About the NLRB "Joint Employer" Decision

by Matthew Stollak on Monday, August 31, 2015



Last week, the NLRB ruled in a 3-2 decision that "two or more entities are joint employers of a single workforce if (1) they are both employers within the meaning of the common law;  and (2) they share or codetermine those matters governing the essential terms and conditions of employment."  

As a result of this decision, there was much gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands among my HR colleagues.   This, they say, will make it easier for unions to bargain for better pay and working conditions.

Here's the thing - unions don't exist in a vacuum.  They arise out of dissatisfaction with compensation and mistreatment by the organization.  If you're practicing quality HR, worrying about "ambush elections" or joint employer status shouldn't and doesn't matter. 


Think about the following questions:
  • When the firm is successful, are employees rewarded for their hard work and contributions to those organizational goals that are reached?
  • Are you hiring co-workers/peers with whom other employees want as part of their team?
  • Are you investing in the professional and career development of employees?
  • Is the job designed so that employees are able to use a variety of skills and abilities?
  • Is an employee able to complete a job from beginning to end?
  • Does the job an employee performs have an impact on others?
  • Does the employee have the necessary tools and resources to complete his or her job?
  • Are performance goals for an employee based on factors within the employee's control?
  • Does an employee have autonomy over when and how the work that is performed?
  • Are organizational decisions made transparently?
  • Are employees given quality feedback regarding the work they perform?
  • Are efforts made to put employees in a position to succeed?
  • Are efforts made to identify and remove bad bosses from positions of influence?

Individuals want to partner with an organization and succeed on the job with relatively little hassle.

 Individuals don't wake up one morning and want to suddenly unionize.  They are unfortunately often given significant reason to do so, despite the many structural barriers in place.

 Successful HR managers are the ones answering many of the questions above affirmatively.  As a result, they are not sweating the most recent NLRB decision.

On Arming Teachers

by Matthew Stollak on Sunday, December 16, 2012



I come from a family of educators.  One uncle was a math teacher for 35+ years with Milwaukee Public Schools.  My cousin teaches AP Chemistry in Green Bay.  My wife is a school psychologist.  My mom taught choir at the K-12 and college level.  My dad was a Psychology professor for 40+ years at Michigan State.  I've been teaching for 18 years.

The curriculum in which I was trained was focused on Labor Economics and Human Resource Management theory and practice.  It did not prepare me for the event when a pregnant student's water breaking in the middle of class discussion.  It did not prepare me for attending the funeral of a student who died in an automobile accident.  Even with my dad's background, it did not prepare him for when a mentally ill student attacked him in his office for some supposed transgression by throwing eggs at him.  And, it certainly didn't prepare any teacher, even with drills, for the horror that occurred in Connecticut last Friday.

Sadly, my reaction was not of anger or sadness, but numbness, with the only surprise that it doesn't happen more often.  Columbine, Paducah, Bart, and Jonesboro.  It was not "a" school shooting.  It was "another" school shooting.  ANOTHER.  Yet, the news seems to treat such an event like a hurricane or earthquake, as if nothing can be done.  It's all too depressingly normal

There has been a lot of discussion about what to do...more extensive background checks, banning certain types of firearms, increasing waiting periods, increased public health funding, particular in mental health.

However, the most ludicrous proposal I've seen is the suggestion that we need more arms, more guns....that teachers should be armed.  Why?

1.  I'm sure the belief is that an armed gunman or gunmen will enter a classroom guns ablazing, and the heroic teacher will have a gun at her ready and fire accurately to take him/them down, saving ALL the children.  U.S. House of Representatives member Louie Gohmert stated this very point on Sunday talking to Chris Wallace on Fox:  "Chris, I wish to God she had had an M-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids. [...]"

That is delusion of the highest order.  It is fantasy that even J.R.R. Tolkien would reject.
  • It assumes the teacher will have firepower sufficient to take that individual or group of individuals down
  • It assumes that the gun is quickly and readily available at the teacher's side instead of being locked away in a desk or closet that might take some time to access when the assailant enters
  • It assumes the teacher will be able to accurately identify whether the person entering is a threat or simply another student or colleague.
  • It assumes that even if the teacher was able to access the weapon quickly enough, and make the correct identification, she will be able to act both quickly and accurately enough to get off shots that will not only disarm/diable/kill the assailants, but conveniently does not hit one child.

 Instead, as I have noted on the blog before, performance under stress is very difficult.  "In the typical fight-or-flight scenario, scary high-pressure moment X assaults the senses and is routed to the amygdala, aka the unconscious fear center.  For well-trained athletes, that's not a problem: A field goal kick, golf swing or free throw is for them an ingrained action stored in the striatum, the brain's autopilot.  The prefrontal cortex, our analytical thinker, doesn't even need to show up.  But, under the gun, that super-smart part of the brain think's its so great and tries to butt in."  Basically, no amount of drills will prepare a teacher for a scenario where he or she is trying to protect a class full of children, and taking out an assailant, while attempting to be accurate.  It will not happen in most occasions.

 Further, peer reviewed research indicates that having that weapon will increase the risk to the students and the teacher.  Its better to NOT have the gun, than to try to be John McClane.

 Finally, the scene is more likely to resemble the bank robbery shootout from "Heat" than a peaceful face-off.  As a parent, do you want to have your child in a classroom such as this?

2.  Its not been a good couple of years to be in the education business.  In Wisconsin and Illinois this fall, and Michigan this past week, teachers have been portrayed as union thugs who are parasites on the taxpayers and are indoctrinating students in communism or atheism.  They cannot be trusted to fairly evaluate themselves, students, or their colleagues. They cannot be trusted to have collective bargaining rights, and they unfairly force its members to pay dues into the union.

But, you trust them to pack heat in the classroom?

3.  We've just seen right to work legislation passed in Michigan that no longer "forces" bargaining unit members to pay dues that were negotiated for and accepted by a majority of the union members.  Yet, who will pay for the firearms (the gun that Gohmert describes costs at least $800) that teachers are supposed to carry?  The schools?  With Wisconsin cutting nearly $800 million from the education budget, where will the funding for this come from?  Are teachers going to be forced to pay for guns they will be expected to carry as a condition of employment?

4.  What is the insurance liability going to be for the school and/or teacher?  What's going to be the reaction when a teacher mistakenly identifies a child as an intruder?  Will the NRA come running to protect that teacher?

5.  Will arms training now be part of a college or technical school curriculum?  There are many things a teacher recognizes will be part of his or her job...teaching, wiping a student's nose, cleaning up after a young student if he or she soils him/herself or vomits, discipline, hours spent outside of school prepping and grading for classes, even, as we saw, serving as human shields for them....all for very little pay (Substitute teacher Lauren Rousseau, one of the victims, earned $75 a day, or less than $10/hr).  

 Gohmert assumes many of the teachers will go on willy-nilly with his scenario.  However, I think a requirement to carry a weapon would cross a line for many teachers, both current and prospective.
As Dave Brockington writes, I have the right to concentrate on excellence in pedagogy and not in SWAT tactics.  I have the right as a university professor to assume that when the door to my lecture hall opens, as it does five times per hour, it's another late student, and not my long awaited chance to unholster the Glock I'm packing in order to pop off a couple untrained rounds in playing hero." 

 Teaching is my passion, but I would quit my job before being expected to carry a gun as part of my job. I imagine many of my colleagues would as well.  Similarly, I would expect that the attractiveness of become an education major would decline as well.  As noted above, you vilify us, cut our salary and budgets significantly, and now you want us to take on this added, significantly dangerous, requirement?  I don't think so.   

 The result?  A potential nationwide shortage of teachers.  And, as the law of supply and demand indicates, the cost to hire teachers rises.  Prepare to pay.

 6.  Then again, it may be mitigated by the decreased number of students.  How many parents will be willing to send a child to a classroom where the potential for gun violence has skyrocketed with the presence of potentially accessible weapons?  

 And there is your challenge, HR.  How are you going to handle the demand for greater work/life flexibility as many parents request more time off to homeschool their children?


Turn

by Matthew Stollak on Thursday, March 3, 2011

Tensions remain high here in Wisconsin as the standoff between Gov. Walker and the public employee unions continues unabated.  Some have directed their anger at the so-called "Wisconsin 14;"the 14 Democratic State Senators who engaged in a "foot filibuster" by leaving the state to prevent a quorum on the budget repair bill stripping Wisconsin public sector unions of their collective bargaining rights.  Some have argued that these Senators should be back in Wisconsin doing their jobs and letting the budget bill come up for a vote accordingly.

I would be much more sympathetic to this view, if I didn't just live through repeated use (or abuse) of cloture votes, filibusters, and appointee holds by the minority party in 2008-2010.  In a decade where winning 51 percent of the vote was considered an electoral "mandate," the 2009-2010 US Senate was limited in their ability to pass any legislation, despite Democrats having a 57 to 41 majority.  Cloture votes preventing even a debate on a bill, let alone an up or down vote, occurred in record numbers.  Similarly, Obama appointees are repeatedly denied an up to down vote due to Senate holds (see one example here), with far more appointees being held up than the previous administration.

While I would appreciate more transparency by both parties, here's one solution to the cloture problem: treat cloture votes like the NFL Instant Replay rules.  In the NFL, Coaches get two challenges during the course of game to challenge a referee's call.  Strategy certainly comes into play as they have to decide when to make such a call; use them up too early, and you don't have any remaining to challenge a bad call made late in the game.

So, give each Senator two opportunities to invoke cloture in the course of the year.  Prior to 2007, the highest number of cloture votes in the past 88 years was 82.  Limiting opportunities to invoke cloture to two per year would bring such political tactics more in line with historical norms.

Working Overtime

by Matthew Stollak on Thursday, February 17, 2011

I am the son of teachers. My dad was a professor of psychology for 35+ years at Michigan State University. My mom was a Grammy-award winning choir director who taught at all levels of education. Growing up, I never was deprived of much. As public sector employees, they earned a reasonable salary and received reasonable benefits. They were home when I went to school, and they were home when I returned. Plus, they had summers off (though dad often taught summer courses).

So, I am quite intrigued and dismayed by the recent action of the Wisconsin governor toward public sector employees, and, in particular, school teachers.

Some may think that public sector teachers are getting rich off taxpayers. But, let's look at what compensation public sector school teachers do and do not receive.

Unlike most private sector employees, there is no promotional ladder to climb that promises higher compensation and benefits. A human resources professional can go from a specialist to a generalist to a VP of HR. An AP History teacher in 1995 will still be an AP History teacher in 2005, 2015, and 2025 (if they are still teaching). There is no corner office one can strive to achieve. He or she cannot aspire to the Senior Executive VP of AP History.  At best, there will be negotiated salary increases from year to year.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers receive no double digit percentage raises for excellent performance. Kids score higher on the statewide test or on the ACT, the teacher is not going to be showered with incentives.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers receive no profit sharing when the school district does well.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers do not receive stock options that could blossom down the road. There is no IPO money available for the local high school.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers are not offered a 4-5 digit signing bonus to teach 4th grade science.

Unlike some private sector employees, school teachers do not receive significant perquisites at their workplace. My grandma's neighbor use to work at Stouffer's and her refrigerator was stocked with the latest food stuffs. Another friend worked for Chrysler and would get significant discounts on the latest automobile. School teachers don't get a discount on pens or erasers. There are no free Post-It Notes. Postal workers do not get stamps at a 40% discount.

Certainly, those who choose the teaching profession because they are passionate about what they do. They are not expecting an extravagant compensation package. However, a social contract developed over several decades that basically said please take care of our children, and we will provide you with quality health care and a strong defined benefit plan (which was a common benefit offering in the private sector as little as 30 years ago).

That social contract is in danger of being broken.

What is a school teacher really worth? Who will choose to teach your children as those rights earned over decades of negotiation are challenged and eroded?