At least for now, conventional wisdom has consigned EFCA to a post-mortem phase, which from the union perspective means, what went wrong? For some interesting background on Majority Leader Harry Reid's interest in obtaining its passage and what actually kept the bill from being voted on in the Senate, see Jane Hamsher's insightful views at What Happened to the Employee Free Choice Act? posted at the progressive blog, FDL.
If you are not familiar with Jane Hamsher, she is a film producer who started Fire Dog Lake as an individual blog. According to the Wikipedia article about her, it is named for Hamsher's favorite activity at the time it was started, sitting by the fire with her dog while watching Lakers' games. That's such a great story, if it is not true (and I have no reason to believe it is not) it certainly should be!
MDV with a Twist: Union v. Union
A San Francisco jury has just returned a verdict in a lawsuit brought by the SEIU against a rival union, the National Union of Healthcare Workers. This is the next step in what has been a long battle between the SEIU and the faction that that broke away from it to form a new union. For some of the background, check out A Battle for Labor's Future by Dan Clawson which was published in Z Magazine in June, 2009.
BeyondChron writer Randy Shaw, in his own words, "rushed right from the courtroom to get out this story, and some of my numbers on the verdicts may be slightly off," on story that is headlined, BREAKING: SEIU Wins $1.5 Million Verdict in Trial Against NUHW.
I have not followed this internecine fight, but from the tone of Shaw's article it seems he is taking the NUHW side. Noting that the $1.5 million was far less than the $25 million SEIU sought, he also takes the view that the suit had four purposes and perhaps the strongest reason was merely personal. He thinks the suit failed in that goal. With respect to the other three goals he attributes to the SEIU for this litigation, he had this to say:
Update (4.12.10): Thanks to Rick Bales at Workplace Prof Blog for picking up that Randy Shaw has revised his story to indicate that the collectible verdict will be not quite 3/4 of an MDV as reflected in his revised story, which the above link should still reach. Of course, verdicts are just a jury's answer and the real number doesn't appear until the Court enters a judgment after consideration post-trial motions.
BeyondChron writer Randy Shaw, in his own words, "rushed right from the courtroom to get out this story, and some of my numbers on the verdicts may be slightly off," on story that is headlined, BREAKING: SEIU Wins $1.5 Million Verdict in Trial Against NUHW.
I have not followed this internecine fight, but from the tone of Shaw's article it seems he is taking the NUHW side. Noting that the $1.5 million was far less than the $25 million SEIU sought, he also takes the view that the suit had four purposes and perhaps the strongest reason was merely personal. He thinks the suit failed in that goal. With respect to the other three goals he attributes to the SEIU for this litigation, he had this to say:
His view of the real winner from the case is also interesting:The first three [goals] were to deplete NUHW resources by forcing its leaders to spend time and money defending themselves, send a message to hospital and home care workers facing elections that NUHW cannot not be trusted, and turn the Rosselli leadership team into a cautionary example for other SEIU locals that are considering publicly questioning President Stern’s agenda. None of these goals were achieved by the verdict.First, NUHW has far more organizing resources today than at any point since the trusteeship began. NUHW’s organizing was not impeded by the trial. Second, the verdicts say nothing about workers not being able to trust NUHW. To the contrary, the verdicts punished former SEIU-UHW leaders for providing too much loyalty to members. Had NUHW leaders gone along with the transfer of home health care workers out of the local without a vote, the trusteeship would not have been imposed and many would not have jury awards against them today.Significantly, Sal Rosselli, long described by SEIU as the leader who single-handedly pushed SEIU-UHW over the edge, did not get an award much larger against him than the others (the award against Rosselli was $70,600, Borsos, Lewis, Martin was $66,600, Goldstein $73,850, with Cornejo and others at $36,600. Paul Kumar won a defense verdict). Third, as for the lawsuit deterring internal SEIU criticism, since the lawsuit began two major SEIU locals -- 888 in Boston and 1021 in the San Francisco Bay Area -- have elected reform slates.
Rarely do parties say nice things about each other during the heat of litigation and it does seem quite likely that testimony taken from this trial is apt to appear in future union campaigns.The chief beneficiary of this trial is likely to be hospital owners USC University Hospital in East Los Angeles, who will use the jury verdict as part of their ongoing strategy to convince workers to vote for “no union.” Management will not only make the case that an independent jury has confirmed that workers cannot trust NUHW’s leadership to protect members, but will also argue that workers should avoid being caught in the middle of inter-union disputes so rancorous that they end up in federal court.
Update (4.12.10): Thanks to Rick Bales at Workplace Prof Blog for picking up that Randy Shaw has revised his story to indicate that the collectible verdict will be not quite 3/4 of an MDV as reflected in his revised story, which the above link should still reach. Of course, verdicts are just a jury's answer and the real number doesn't appear until the Court enters a judgment after consideration post-trial motions.
Velib Bike Hire
Etape Preparation - 4 months to go
March was not a great month for my training. I covered about 600 miles in around 40 hours on the bike. My racing since the end of the Imperial Winter Series has been abysmal; I gave the Winter Series at Upavon Circuit a go and The Spring Chicken Road Race but was dropped both times. The Oxonian 3up Team Time Trial was an interesting experience not least because the course around Brill is very hilly. Of the three teams that showed up in the pouring rain we came third, not aided by my having to stop twice for a detached saddle bag and a dropped chain - still, good enough to get our time in Cycling Weekly! My high point of the month was the Solihull CC Reliability Ride run in bright conditions but in a powerful north wind.
We all go through poor patches but I now definitely have some catching up to do.
We all go through poor patches but I now definitely have some catching up to do.
3 up time trialist killed
I was very saddened to learn that just two days before my last post about the necessity of giving cyclists room, Graham Shinton was killed competing in the Birmingham CC 3up Team Time Trial on 28th March. My heartfelt sympathies to his family and friends. The previous weekend I took part in the Oxonian 3up TTT. A challenging experience. I was rightly advised by my team captain that I should be riding much closer to the wheel ahead. It is a difficult skill and even professionals crash not infrequently on Team Time Trials as followers of the Tour de France will recall. I found that many motorists gave us a wide berth but some did not. I know nothing of course of the circumstances of Mr Shinton's fatal collision save that an overtaking car was involved. This tragedy has received less publicity than that of Captain Jonathan Allen. Cyclists really ought to be able to ride on the roads confident that even if they were to fall off they would not be struck by an overtaking vehicle; this is why the law in much of Europe requires 1.5 metres. It is not enough that a motorist leaves sufficeint space that there is no collision if both the motor vehicle and the cyclists continue on a dead straight course. This may be ok, if a bit scary in 99.99% of manouvures but will still leave a lot of casualties given the very large numbers of occasions on which motor vehicles overtake cyclists. What is required is a very large margin for error given the seriousness of the consequences if something goes wrong.
iPad and the Global Workplace
Two topics that I don't write about a lot, globalism and workplace safety, are merged in a Technomix Fast Company post written by Kit Eaton, Is Pressure at iPad Maker Foxconn Behind Four Recent Suicide Tries?
Because China based Foxconn is the maker of some of the principal parts of the newly released Apple iPad, the quick and easy conclusion is that there must be a link between the build up related to its highly anticipated release and the four attempted suicides.
But as is frequently the case quick conclusions are not always founded on good information. Eaton didn't go there automatically and the information about the personal nature of some of the problems and the fact that suicide is more common in China than in other countries provides a more rounded view.
On a more general note, one statement in particular caught my attention:
Because China based Foxconn is the maker of some of the principal parts of the newly released Apple iPad, the quick and easy conclusion is that there must be a link between the build up related to its highly anticipated release and the four attempted suicides.
But as is frequently the case quick conclusions are not always founded on good information. Eaton didn't go there automatically and the information about the personal nature of some of the problems and the fact that suicide is more common in China than in other countries provides a more rounded view.
On a more general note, one statement in particular caught my attention:
Statistical random clustering is also a surprising phenomenon that occurs more frequently than "common sense" thinking would suggest.There's no attribution for the comment but it does pique one's curiosity and is another reminder that caution in drawing conclusions from "the obvious," is often wise.
The Flavor of the Season: Disparate Impact?
In times past, one could go a fairly long time without much discussion of disparate impact, but two posts in other blogs today caught my attention. First, Paul Secunda has a post about new scholarship Seiner and Gutman on the New Disparate Impact.
Professor Secunda calls it a "very worthwhile read among the increasing literature on this watershed case [Ricci v. DeStefano (S.Ct. 6/29/09)]. He quotes the abstract of the article in full, but the last paragraph and one-half is enough to give you a flavor and a tease:
Like any field of endeavor, there tend to be trends, hot buttons, flavors of the week,month etc. in the employment law field. Is it disparate impact's turn? Maybe you should think of it as being on a trip to Ben and Jerry's -- it's too early to order, but not too early to think about what other scoop you want to go with yourdisparate impact Chunky Monkey.
Professor Secunda calls it a "very worthwhile read among the increasing literature on this watershed case [Ricci v. DeStefano (S.Ct. 6/29/09)]. He quotes the abstract of the article in full, but the last paragraph and one-half is enough to give you a flavor and a tease:
Then my fellow Texan, Russell Cawyer, who blogs at Texas Employment Law, had this note, Is the EEOC Getting Interested in Disparate Impact Claims? It was two informal discussion letters from the EEOC, one on the subject of requiring a master's degree and the other on "credit checks" as they relate to the possibility of a claim for disparate impact that caught his attention.... After Ricci, however, in a broad category of disparate-impact cases liability now turns on what the employer knew when it took the challenged action. If the employer had no reason to think that the practice would have an unlawful disparate impact, it is immune from liability for its past actions.This is a dramatic development, and it suggests that the Court sees disparate impact as not fundamentally different from intentional discrimination. Beyond its doctrinal importance for disparate-impact claims—which itself is considerable—the Ricci affirmative defense reflects an entirely new direction for this area of law. In this Article, we parse the language of Ricci to derive the new affirmative defense. We explain its significance for disparate-impact theory and discuss the limited safe harbor it has created for employers. We also situate the new defense within the broader context of federal employment-discrimination law, including other affirmative defenses that the Court has created for policy reasons. We thus explain how Ricci heralds a new disparate impact.
Like any field of endeavor, there tend to be trends, hot buttons, flavors of the week,month etc. in the employment law field. Is it disparate impact's turn? Maybe you should think of it as being on a trip to Ben and Jerry's -- it's too early to order, but not too early to think about what other scoop you want to go with your
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