Archive for February, 2007

The percentage of poor Americans who are living in severe poverty is the highest in thirty years, in which millions of working Americans are falling closer to the poverty line, and the gulf between this country’s ”haves” and ”have-nots” gets wider.

The McClatchy Company - owners of the Miami Herald – a CBS4 news partner - went through an analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, and found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty.

A family of four, with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 — half the federal poverty line — was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year.

At the same time, economists found worker productivity increasing sizeably since the brief recession of 2001, but wages and job growth have lagged behind. The share of national income going to corporate profits has dwarfed the amount going to wages and salaries. Median household income of working-age families, adjusted for inflation, has fallen for five straight years.

In about forty states, including Florida, the incomes of the bottom fifth of families grew slower than the incomes of the top fifth over the past twenty years, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

And now records show that 43 percent of the nation’s 37 million poor people are in deep poverty — the highest rate since at least 1975.

Nearly two out of three people (10.3 million) in severe poverty are white, but blacks (4.3 million) and Hispanics of any race (3.7 million) make up disproportionate shares. Blacks are nearly three times as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be in deep poverty, while Hispanics are roughly twice as likely.

And the poorest city in the country is the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., with 10.8 percent being severely poor.

Watch out for “A harsh new political climate for drugmakers” as Democratic control of Congress may lead to lower prescription drug prices. And to think, drugmakers already spend $100 million per year on lobbying.

Hoping to prevent Congress from letting the government negotiate lower drug prices for millions of older Americans on Medicare, the pharmaceutical companies have been recruiting Democratic lobbyists, lining up allies in the Bush administration and Congress, and renewing ties with organizations of patients who depend on brand-name drugs.

Many drug company lobbyists concede that the House is likely to pass a bill intended to drive down drug prices, but they are determined to block such legislation in the Senate. If that strategy fails, they are counting on President Bush to veto any bill that passes. With 49 Republicans in the Senate this year, the industry is confident that it can round up the 34 votes normally needed to uphold a veto….

I graduated from college in the late 1970s with a B.A. in History. I obtained an administrative job in Miami, and worked in local government administration for about 6 years. I then took off time to stay home with my children, and also ended up teaching them at home for 7 years, as we then lived in another state which had poor public schools.

In 1998 I was divorced, and then began the task of trying to return to work. I first took computer classes, just to become current. By then, we were living in Illinois, and I went back to school, got my Real Estate Appraiser’s License….and then found out that there were no jobs, unless one had connections. Next, I tried Medical Billing, and even went to night school for two years….again, no jobs, unless you were already working in a health care setting.

I have spent the last 4 years selling off possessions on Ebay…and now am looking for freelance test scoring work. I am amazed that my years at home have cost me so dearly, and that the only jobs readily available to me are the lowest level, where one must work any hours, which is hard with a child still at home.

I want to make sure that this never happens to my daughters, and have cautioned them to never be as complacent as I was. I am living in an area where one is judged by the real estate they own, the vacations they take….pretty interesting from my perspective! I have not had health insurance for many years, or a vacation. Sad that society has such odd priorities. As for networking, I have found it useless…

It happens once a year, when the leaves turn, the weather changes and kids head back to school. Working Mother magazine publishes its “100 Best Companies for working mothers” list. Before the glossy, 200-page, multimillion-dollar brochure hits the stands in October, the flurry of press releases covers the Internet in September as fallen leaves blanket the ground. Working Mother sends press releases with its list, quotes and information. The companies identified as the “100 best” send more press releases – with the same quotes and same information. Hundreds of newspapers dutifully rake them up and publish the same list, quotes and information without even a glance.

Are any of these companies really “best” for working mothers? Who knows? The magazine does not base its list on input from employees. Instead, it uses information supplied by company representatives/advertisers. While an independent survey-research firm collects information from companies trying to make the list, the magazine’s editorial staff “finalizes” the list.

Of the 100 companies, almost all are advertisers with the magazine, its parent company, Working Mother Media and its WorkLife Congress, and its organization, the National Association of Female Executives. The October 2006 issue includes ads from 64 of the companies. Of those, 55 are full-page ads, and one is an inside front cover.

Where is the conflict-of-interest disclosure?

According to a code of ethics for journalism, the magazine and its staff should “avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived” or “disclose unavoidable conflicts” and “deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.” Journalists should also “remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility” and “… shun … service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.” (Working Mother CEO Carol Evans serves on the board of directors for a national organization with representatives from several of the “100 best.”)

Many of the “100 best” are multinational corporations with offices throughout the world. A quarter of the companies have offices in Norway and Sweden, two countries with some of the most comprehensive and generous benefits in the world. An employee (mother or father) for XYZ Corp. in Norway gets at least a year of paid leave shared by both parents. A female employee at that same company in the United States might get six weeks of paid maternity leave and a lactation room at work. A male employee might get up to five days off. If it is such a hardship for companies to offer benefits in the United States – as business groups and their lobbyists claim when fighting against employee-benefits legislation – why are they able to provide these benefits to employees in Norway and Sweden?

Let’s explore the meaning of “hardship.” At least a dozen executives from the “100 best” appear on the Forbes Richest Americans list, meaning they earn at least $1 billion a year. Forty “100 best” CEOs also made the Forbes Top CEO Compensation list, starting at $249 million a year. Six of the “100 best” appear on the Forbes Largest Private Companies list, with earnings starting at $21.3 billion a year. Fifty appear on Forbes 2000, a comprehensive list of the world’s biggest and most powerful companies. The top three are “100 best” companies, with market values of $230.93 billion, $348.45 billion and $184.17 billion.

Executives from five of the “100 best” are on U.S. Chamber of Commerce board of directors. Most of the “100 best” are members of local or state chambers of commerce, many of which are members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent $38.9 million on lobbying in 2005 and $53.4 million in 2004. Key issues for the national chamber are blocking efforts to raise the minimum wage and revising the Family and Medical Leave Act.

So, for example, we have a “100 best” company, whose market value is $279 billion. It’s run by the richest American, earning $53 billion a year (that’s about $25 million an hour, give or take), and the fifth-richest American, earning $16 billion a year and the proud owner of a 413-foot yacht with two helicopters and a 60-foot submarine. Through business affiliations and a strong lobbying force, they fight the “hardship” of paying employees more than $5.15 an hour.

What kinds of benefits do the “100 best” offer?

One pharmaceutical company offers four lactation rooms in its Pittsburgh “office campus.” The campus has 16 buildings and more than 500 female employees. And four lactation rooms. The company has more than 16,000 employees worldwide and 55 locations in the United States and Puerto Rico. And four lactation rooms. In Pittsburgh. A Pennsylvania county health department awarded this company for being “breastfeeding friendly,” saying, “Studies show babies derive greater health benefits when breastfed for six months or longer.” How many employees use the lactation rooms at this company? How many can? Besides, if it’s best to breastfeed for six months, why doesn’t this “breastfeeding friendly” company offer six months of paid maternity leave instead of six weeks?

Another pharmaceutical company has one on-site daycare center at its headquarters office, yet it has more than 28,000 employees in 11 U.S. locations and dozens of countries around the world. A communications company offers two on-site daycare centers, yet it has more than 200,000 employees in 15 states.

The only criterion for determining who makes the “100 best” list, apparently, is the information each company provides about itself for the magazine’s survey. If this list were more than a pay-for-play marketing piece, one might believe that some of the following information would be grounds for ruling out certain companies. At the very least, one would like to believe that this information would be discovered and disclosed in the name of quality journalism.

The investment and the financial-services companies paid more than $1 billion for lawsuits for unpaid overtime, retaliation firings, hostile work environments and sex discrimination. (Interestingly, a reporter who wrote an article for Working Mother’s October 2006 issue opened an article for Inc.com in 2005 with the $54 million lawsuit. Granted, she was writing about three other companies in the Working Mother article, but it would be interesting to know if she mentioned the lawsuit to the magazine’s editors.) According to a June 24, 2006, Toronto Star article, the company faced two more lawsuits; one filed in Washington federal court on behalf of six named plaintiffs in four states and all female advisers who worked at the brokerage since 2003; another filed as a separate class-action gender-discrimination in California.

Two of the lawsuits resulted in court-ordered judgments. A federal jury awarded a former financial-services employee $29 million for sex discrimination and retaliation firing. A London court awarded $1.6 million in 2006 to an employee at a bank with a hostile work environment. (The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also censured the bank in 2006 for evidence of gender discrimination.)

The two automakers have paid millions of dollars in settlements for disability discrimination, hostile work environment, hiring discrimination, sexual harassment and racial harassment.

Three technology companies are under scrutiny for widespread discrimination, sexual harassment, low wages, employment instability and lack of trade-union freedom for employees in the electronics industry in Mexico. Executives for one of these companies face felony conspiracy and identity-theft charges in a boardroom spying scandal that began to unfold last year. Another company is in court for a sex-discrimination lawsuit filed in 2005 by a fired female executive.

A food company is “focused on flexibility,” according to the list, but during a recent restructuring, flex schedules were the first to go. According to a Nov. 6, 2006, article by Advertising Age, “some part-timers were asked to go full time or be shown the door, and most of them chose to leave.”

A health-care company paid a $4.05 million settlement in 2003 for a retaliation firing of an employee trying to prevent sexual harassment.

The Environmental Protection Agency fined a chemical company $16.5 million in 2005 for withholding information about chemical exposure. A Florida Supreme Court upheld a verdict for a woman whose child was exposed to chemicals while she was pregnant, and the company paid the child $4 million in 2003. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the company several times for not reporting worker injuries properly. The company also paid a $343 million settlement in 2004 for contaminated drinking water.

A pharmaceutical company was pressured by a human-rights organization to stop child-labor practices in India. It and other “100 best” transnational companies were accused by an international development agency and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development of failing to follow guidelines for child labor, women’s rights, labor rights, health and safety and ultimately failing to resolve complaints against them.

The EEOC obtained a $487,500 judgment from another pharmaceutical company for sexual harassment and retaliation firings. A former pharmaceutical-company executive went to prison for price-fixing. He paid a $50,000 fine, and the company paid a $66 million fine. Criminal investigations, settlements and fines cost another pharmaceutical company more than $1 billion.

Another pharmaceutical company funded a drug study of 300 poor, black and Hispanic pregnant women in Dallas, giving 168 of them placebos, which raised the need for C-sections when they gave birth.

Sales representatives sued a pharmaceutical company for $225 million for unpaid overtime. Twelve female employees sued in 2005 for sex discrimination, including lower pay and fewer promotions. Two employees were refused access to the company’s management-development program after taking maternity leave. The plaintiffs’ lawyer said the company’s policies looked good on paper but were quite different in practice, saying, “As soon as a woman indicates that she’s planning to become a mother, her male supervisors start pushing her toward the exit.” A company representative responded to allegations of discrimination by citing the company’s appearance on the Working Mother “100 best” list.

That’s where the rubber hits the road. When companies start using their placement on the “100 best” list to defend their policies, it becomes important to establish the credibility of this list. Not only do the “100 best” bombard the media with press releases about being on the list, they publish it in their annual reports, they spend more advertising dollars to entice potential employees, and they spend more hours completing next year’s survey.

Are any of these companies “best” for working mothers? Maybe, but nobody will really know until someone talks to the mothers who work for them – not just the ones with access to a lactation room or an on-site daycare center – and spends more time delving deeper than the company PR kit.

− Becky Kruse

Someone once said that the road to hell was paved with good intentions. So is corporate America. The plans, programs and policies employed by even the most honest and forthright companies to promote a healthy organizational climate very often fail to produce the intended results. Despite the best of intentions, the plans are soon abandoned and forgotten. The programs fail and the policies appear to be worth no more than the paper they were written on. The organization becomes infected with cynicism and frustration. Morale suffers. There may even be a myriad of casualties (usually some innocent employees) strewn along the way. Everyone begins to look for answers. New plans are developed. New programs and policies are rolled out and the process repeats itself again and again.
An in-depth investigation into these failures, however, would reveal that the original plans were sound. The programs and polices were intelligently crafted and well intended. What else could account for this phenomenon? Sad to say, but history will continue to repeat itself because of the one item most frequently overlooked during the postmortem: management.
Management is that group of individuals charged with the execution of these plans, programs and policies. I will include all levels from vice president down to foremen in my definition of this group. Since these managers run the company, it is here where the attention should be focused. In my opinion, the telltale sign that an organization has serious management problems occurs when and employee, usually at the water cooler or over a cup of coffee, is overhead to say, “Had I been in charge, I would have done things 180 degrees differently.”
During my now thirty years in midlevel management at small, medium and large companies, I’ve often felt that way myself. Whenever I think that I’ve seen it all, I’m surprised again. But in spite of the fact that I am the consummate corporate cynic, I have always given the company at least “20 degrees” for having good intentions. So while I myself might have not have done things 180 degrees differently, I certainly would have by 160.
About five years ago and probably out of pure frustration with the “system,” I wrote a book about those 160 degrees of deviation that needed correcting. After recalling all of my observations and personal experiences, I decided to offer my opinions on how those deviations could be identified and fixed. A review of my finished work revealed a distinctly cynical view of the corporate world. I guess that was to be expected. And so be it! I titled my book, “160 Degrees of Deviation: The Case for Corporate Cynic.” I am by no means an expert on organizational culture but I sure am a product of it!

Jerome Alexander MBA CPA
Chicago, IL USA

http://thecorporatecynic.wordpress.com/

I worked for 25 years in the visciously insecure film/video industry. In the early 90’s, it became clear to me that no job was secure. I have made a career change at 50 years of age. I am now a mental health therapist. I am excited about the potential of UP and I want to help build the organization.

– Jeremy Cohen

I worked part and full time as a temp in numerous offices. My experiences in an outplacement firm inspired my short film “The Great Pretenders,” a satire about the current job environment and the downsizing of the middle class.

– Jonathan Shultz

I have been a male paralegal for over 10 years (think of male nurse stereotypes) and I lack the time, energy or will to tell all of my stories right now. Suffice it to say, I went to law school for better income but will never feel secure working for lawyers.

After working in the insurance industry for 32 years, and almost 10 at my last job as a manager, I am finding that a middle-aged educated competent woman is like the kiss of death.I was forced out of an $80,000 job by a 30-something on a mission to “gaslight” me. She saw me as an impediment to her ascention to the top, and all I wanted to do was make it to the finish line.

I’ve done some temping to generate income. Working my “mojo” is no longer an option. The 30-somethings running the places are too busy IM’ing with friends to realize that they can only keep the balls up in the air so long before things come crashing down around them.

My education, salary history and experience are the unholy Trifecta. Corporations see they can buy two of me for a lot less and twice as cute. Do I just jump on top of the “obsolete” pile and wait to die without medical care, feeding or housing?

We treat our homeless better than our unemployed. The impact of being disenfranchised has kicked my self-worth out from underneath me. I feel like a carcass Corporate America has stripped of all its flesh and left to decompose. Living in an “employment at will” state may be business friendly, but who do you think makes up “business?” I love the idea of a “white-out”…all white collar staff workers call in sick on the same day. Could anyone run the PBX or repair the copy machine? I think not!

I worked for years in financial institutions and had felt as though I had gotten pigeon-holed in certain positions that I really didn’t find satisfying. I had always thought about going to law school, so I finally did it, thinking that a law degree would help me find get a better job with a bank or credit union.

I never really wanted to practice law per se, but everyone had always said that the JD would open a lot of doors for me. Now, as a hostage to the fundamental needs of life like eating, I’m a practicing lawyer, chasing after clients that aren’t able to pay me. I HATE IT.

Since I graduated from law school, I have submitted over 1,000 resumes for compliance jobs, in house counsel jobs, and what not, looking for anything that would capitalize on my “experience and training.” I’ve had probably a half dozen interviews. As you’ve probably guessed, none have panned out.

The other day I was cleaning out a desk drawer in my home and found my SSA statement. It listed the income I’ve reported for every year since I’ve entered the work force. Much to my chagrin, this statement reminded me that I now make less money than I did twenty years ago when I was a lowly clerk.

If it weren’t for my girlfriend, I would be living in my car or in a shelter. And as a consequence of the financial strain, our relationship is rife with tension. George Bush recently said that this economy is strong and that “if you want a job in America, you can find a job.” I’ve never felt like such a loser in all of my life.