The nature of labor-management relations is always fragile at best. Most times, these two sides view each other as adversaries, working towards different things that the other side views a disastrous. In recent years, the two have blamed each other for many of the problems that plague companies across the country. One excellent example of this is the blame placed on the UAW in the downfall of GM, which led to the government takeover of the nation's largest car company.
With the election of a number of far-right conservatives in the November 2010 elections, the tone in many state capitals has become either covertly or overtly anti-labor, and states across the country, most notably Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana, having massive protests and budget fights as state Democrats fight for the unions and Republicans fight for budget cuts that they find to be necessary to keep those budgets balanced or at least closer to financial stability.
Currently, companies are using the poor economy as a reason to fight the unions, and in some cases, are winning their arguments. Last week, the National Mediation Board ruled in favor of American Airlines, and banned their flight attendants' union from going on strike because "the carrier’s fragile finances and the weakened national economy would weigh heavily on its decision". It seems that we are in a period where Labor will be taking a hit, and I, for one, am interested to see if that will change if/when the economy rebounds and if/when jobs start coming back to union companies.
Oh yeah, here's the link to the story on American Airlines: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/americans-flight-attendants-forbidden-to-strike-2011-03-25?reflink=MW_news_stmp
Tom
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Benefits...at a cost
Benefits are the second part of an employee's compensation, besides your wages. They can include health care packages, stock options, pensions, and a wide variety of other things that you get from you company at a low or no cost. Because you pay less of the cost, it falls onto your employer to pay for your medical bills, your pension, and the other financial issues that must be taken care of as part of your agreement to work for that company.
One of the biggest problems that many cities and states are having is paying for these programs and benefits as costs skyrocket and tax revenues either remain the same or decrease in this poor economy. This causes governments to borrow, leading to deficits that must eventually be dealt with, which is what we're seeing in states across the country, from our own to Ohio to Wisconsin. Here is an article about this exact problem in San Francisco, and the way that they are remedying the problem, by making the employees pay "much more" for their benefits.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/22/BACV1IG6IJ.DTL&feed=rss.news
This is, I fear, the way of the future, and that we will all be paying a significantly higher portion of our income to keep these benefits as the cost of just about everything goes up, and people's paychecks remain roughly the same.
One of the biggest problems that many cities and states are having is paying for these programs and benefits as costs skyrocket and tax revenues either remain the same or decrease in this poor economy. This causes governments to borrow, leading to deficits that must eventually be dealt with, which is what we're seeing in states across the country, from our own to Ohio to Wisconsin. Here is an article about this exact problem in San Francisco, and the way that they are remedying the problem, by making the employees pay "much more" for their benefits.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/03/22/BACV1IG6IJ.DTL&feed=rss.news
This is, I fear, the way of the future, and that we will all be paying a significantly higher portion of our income to keep these benefits as the cost of just about everything goes up, and people's paychecks remain roughly the same.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Inve$tment Bank$ Compen$ation
Well, once again it appears that I am commenting on a topic that I talked about previously when Dr. Weyant said we could talk about anything. My last post was about CEO's that would take Pay Cuts to work their "dream jobs. So, here I am, talking about compensation and pay.
Investment Banks. A large factor in the financial crisis and one of the main victims of the blame game in the financial meltdown's aftermath, although most of that ire was deserved for their part in things like mortgage bundling and shady loaning practices. Also, the pay scale and bonuses of investment bank employees are very high, which leads people to think that these investment bankers are getting rich while the rest of the country suffers. This article from efinancialnews seems to back that up, as it reports that "Average compensation cost per employee at investment banks that provide comparable data was $405,777 last year, a decline of just 0.5% on the previous year. At the same time, revenues and pre-tax profits per employee fell by 7% and 8% respectively."
Articles like this will clearly not help the investment banks PR problems, as they're still seen by many as bastions of corporate greed and shady business practices.
http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2011-03-14/pay-and-bonuses-clear-as-mud?mod=mostread-PE
Investment Banks. A large factor in the financial crisis and one of the main victims of the blame game in the financial meltdown's aftermath, although most of that ire was deserved for their part in things like mortgage bundling and shady loaning practices. Also, the pay scale and bonuses of investment bank employees are very high, which leads people to think that these investment bankers are getting rich while the rest of the country suffers. This article from efinancialnews seems to back that up, as it reports that "Average compensation cost per employee at investment banks that provide comparable data was $405,777 last year, a decline of just 0.5% on the previous year. At the same time, revenues and pre-tax profits per employee fell by 7% and 8% respectively."
Articles like this will clearly not help the investment banks PR problems, as they're still seen by many as bastions of corporate greed and shady business practices.
http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2011-03-14/pay-and-bonuses-clear-as-mud?mod=mostread-PE
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