Author: Site Staff

Posted on

With Culture Change Under Way, General Motors Shifts Focus Elsewhere


In General Motors’ first public review of its performance since emerging from bankruptcy 90 days ago, CEO Fritz Henderson said the restructuring process has allowed the company to change its culture and focus more time on customers and products, though the automaker hasn’t shed as many workers as it originally intended.


The difference between the old and new GM is where executives are able to spend their time, Henderson said.


“It’s where we spend our time as a leadership team, and spending more time on product and customer issues and far less time on” structural issues, Henderson said during a conference call with reporters and analysts on Wednesday, October 7. “That has fundamentally changed in the last six months.”


The company, which has received $55 billion from the U.S. government and expects to detail the state of its finances in mid-November, also said it has not shed as many U.S. workers as originally planned when it entered bankruptcy June 1.


Since the end of 2008, GM has reduced its hourly headcount to 49,200 from 62,000. Without commenting further, Henderson said the attrition rate of hourly workers has been slower than expected. The company wanted to end the year with about 40,000 hourly workers in the U.S.


The company also decided to retain more salaried employees than originally planned in its restructuring. A year ago GM employed 29,700 salaried workers in the U.S. and expected to have close to 23,000 by year’s end, but the company still has 24,300 salaried employees on the payroll.


Henderson attributed the difference to the company’s decision to retain salaried workers from parts maker AC Delco, which it has not sold.


And, Henderson said, GM has retained workers in key technical areas. The company’s push toward building electric vehicles has led to increased demand for engineers with experience in that area.


Since the company emerged from bankruptcy it has consolidated and streamlined its North American and international operations and replaced its two strategy and product boards with a single executive committee led by Henderson.


Henderson said he updated employees on the state of the company in a town hall meeting this week, stressing the company’s new focus on the customer and product, risk-taking, accountability and speed.


“We’re fostering an environment where people are prepared and accept taking risks for the future,” he said.


With many of the changes to its corporate structure and debt obligations complete, Henderson said the company can focus on developing products customers want.


“The most important thing we need to work on is how do we remain competitive in the market and transform the culture” of the company, he said.


—Jeremy Smerd


Stay informed and connected. Get human resources news and HR features via Workforce Management’s Twitter feed or RSS feeds for mobile devices and news readers

Posted on

House, Senate Bills Would Overturn Supreme Court Age Discrimination Ruling

For the second time this year, Congress will try to overturn a Supreme Court ruling on workplace law.


Senate and House bills introduced on Tuesday, October 6, would reverse a June court decision that made it more difficult for employees to sue for age discrimination.


The court held in Gross v. FBL that the plaintiff, Jack Gross, had to prove that age was the only reason that he was demoted from his job as a vice president at FBL Financial Group Inc. in Iowa when the insurance company Farm Bureau merged its Iowa and Kansas operations in 2002.


In a 5-4 decision, the court said that age couldn’t simply be a “motivating factor” in an employment decision; it had to be the decisive cause in order for age discrimination protections to take effect.


But Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa and chairman of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee, said that the Supreme Court was in effect “rewriting” the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.


The court “invented a new standard that makes it prohibitively difficult for a victim to prove age discrimination,” Harkin said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “This extraordinarily high burden radically undermines older workers’ ability to hold employers accountable.”


A bill written by Harkin and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, clarifies that when a victim shows age to be among the reasons for an adverse job decision, an employer must prove that it would have taken the action regardless of the employee’s age.


Titled the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, the bill has a House companion introduced by Rep. George Miller, D-California and chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.


It’s too early to tell how the measure might affect employers, according to Leslie Silverman, a partner at Proskauer Rose in Washington and a former member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Much will depend on the legislative details.


“Is it a narrow bill that puts the law back to where most folks thought it was before the ruling or does it have broader ramifications?” she said. “The Gross decision didn’t change the way employers do business, but it did make it much harder to prove age discrimination.”


The legislation represents a second move by Congress this year to overturn a Supreme Court decision. In January, it passed a measure that would renew the statute of limitations each time an employee receives a paycheck that is diminished by a discriminatory act.


The legislation, called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, upended a court ruling that narrowly interpreted the time frame for filing pay suits. It was the first bill that President Barack Obama signed into law.


The Ledbetter bill was killed in a Senate filibuster in April 2008. It also met resistance from then-President George W. Bush, who vowed to veto it.


But now Democrats have 60 members in their caucus—enough to squelch a filibuster—and a Democratic president in the White House.


“We’re going to get it done this Congress,” Harkin said. The congressional session runs until December 2010. “We won’t be facing a veto threat from this president, and that will make it much easier to move.”


Another factor that could give the bill momentum is strong support from AARP, the huge advocacy organization for older Americans.


“Unless Congress passes this bill, too many older workers who have been victims of arbitrary age discrimination will be denied their day in court,” Nancy LeaMond, AARP executive vice president of social impact, said at the Capitol Hill news conference.


Supporters of the legislation said that workers over 55 have been hit especially hard by the recession. More than 2 million in that age group are jobless. About 25,000 age discrimination cases were filed in fiscal year 2008, a 30 percent increase from 2007, according to the EEOC.


“Older workers are disproportionately being laid off in this economy,” Miller said. “They’re the first to go. They’re the last to be rehired.”


Gross, who consistently earned strong performance reviews, said that workplace fairness can gain support across the aisle.


“This issue transcends politics and presents an opportunity for both parties to come together and protect their aging constituents back home,” he said.


—Mark Schoeff Jr.


Stay informed and connected. Get human resources news and HR features via Workforce Management’s Twitter feed or RSS feeds for mobile devices and news readers.



 

Posted on

EEOC Sues Staffing Firms in Three Separate Cases


The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued three staffing firms in September in three separate lawsuits.


In one suit, filed September 15, the EEOC accused Adecco of failing to take appropriate action when female employees complained about sexual harassment at a client site.


The EEOC reported that Adecco assigned Veronica Jalpa and other women to Pittsburgh Plastics Manufacturing Inc. in Butler, Pennsylvania, and that a Pittsburgh Plastics supervisor sexually harassed them through sexual comments and touching. The EEOC said Jalpa asked for a different shift to avoid the supervisor but was fired by Adecco.


The agency also claimed another employee was compelled to quit because of ongoing sexual harassment. Adecco continued to assign women to the plant despite the sexually hostile work environment, according to the EEOC.


Adecco said in a statement it has a zero-tolerance policy toward discrimination by anyone—including its employees, associates and clients—and takes complaints seriously.


Adecco said Jalpa never informed the company of the incidents reported by the EEOC. The company said its records indicate Jalpa’s assignment was ended for frequent tardiness. However, she never informed Adecco of the problems even after the assignment ended, the company said.


The second person mentioned by the EEOC did inform Adecco of inappropriate conduct that may have occurred off site during non-working hours approximately one month after it occurred, the company said. Adecco reported it took action consistent with its policies and as required under law.


“Adecco has fully cooperated with the EEOC and we are disappointed that it has decided to take this course of action given the information that was made available to the agency,” Adecco wrote.


The EEOC said it earlier filed a lawsuit against Pittsburgh Plastics.


“As more companies use staffing agencies to recruit employees, it is vital that both the company and the staffing agency understand that they are each legally required to protect their employees from sexual harassment,” Debra Lawrence, acting regional attorney for the EEOC’s Philadelphia District Office, said in a statement.


In another case filed September 15, the EEOC sued Balance Financial Inc.


The suit claimed the company discriminated against a blind woman in Chicago because of her disability, according to the EEOC. The agency said the company made a job offer to the woman to work at its planned Chicago office and that she began performing services for them from home.


The EEOC said the company rescinded the job offer after finding out she was blind. Balance has since ceased operations in Chicago. A court document identified the woman as Jocelyn Snower.


Melanie Damian, an attorney for Balance, said the woman was never employed by the company. Although offered a position, the woman did not fill out the paperwork to be hired and did not take a drug test, causing the offer to be withdrawn. In addition, the company no longer does business in Chicago and didn’t have the number of employees needed to be covered by the law in this instance.


“We think the case is without any basis,” Damian said. The company will be responding to the EEOC’s complaint, she said.


In a third suit, filed September 30, the EEOC sued Axiom Staffing Group Inc. and Axiom Staffing Group of Virginia Inc. for allegedly refusing to hire a woman because of her back impairment at the companies’ Hagerstown, Maryland, site.


The suit claims the woman, Deborah Reynolds, was told that she would be “too much of a liability because of her back,” according to the EEOC. A person at Axiom also allegedly told Reynolds that the staffing companies would never hire anyone with health problems because it “would be too burdensome to replace them should something happen,” according to the EEOC.


Reynolds said she could perform clerical or customer service duties as she had for years, but the companies’ representative would still not hire her because of her back, according to the EEOC.


—Staffing Industry Analysts


Stay informed and connected. Get human resources news and HR features via Workforce Management’s Twitter feed or RSS feeds for mobile devices and news readers.

Posted on

High Court Seeks Obama Administrationā€™s Views on San Francisco Health Care Law


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, October 5, asked the Obama administration for its opinion on whether it should review a ruling upholding San Francisco’s controversial health care spending law.


The San Francisco law, which went into effect last year, requires employers with at least 100 employees to make health care expenditures of $1.85 per hour for every employee working at least eight hours per week. For employers with 20 to 99 employees, the contribution is $1.23 per hour. Employers with fewer than 20 employees are exempt from the spending mandate.


Expenditures can include payment of group health insurance premiums and contributions to health savings accounts, health reimbursement arrangements or a city fund.


In Monday’s request, the Supreme Court asked U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan for the administration’s views on whether the justices should consider the case.


The Golden Gate Restaurant Association challenged the law on grounds that the law ran afoul the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, which pre-empts state and local laws and rules relating to employee benefit plans.


However, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the law unanimously in 2008 and the full appeals court in March declined to review the panel’s decision.


Earlier this year, the Obama administration declined to file a friend-of-court brief in the case. The Labor Department said the government generally does not file unsolicited briefs with the Supreme Court at the petition stage.


However, the Labor Department during the Bush administration a year earlier filed an amicus brief with the federal appeals court that argued ERISA pre-empts San Francisco’s law.


President Barack Obama has supported the San Francisco law.


“Instead of talking about health care, mayors like Gavin Newsom in San Francisco have been ensuring that those in need receive it,” the president said during a February meeting with mayors.


Business groups worry that if the law is allowed to stand, it would set the stage for other state and local governments to pass their own health care spending measures, and result in multistate employers having to comply with a hodgepodge of health care benefit requirements.



Filed by Jerry Geisel of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.


Stay informed and connected. Get human resources news and HR features via Workforce Management’s Twitter feed or RSS feeds for mobile devices and news readers.

Posted on

Senate Finance Committee Keeps Insurer Fee in Health Care Reform Legislation


The Senate Finance Committee has rejected an amendment that would have removed a $6.7 billion annual fee on health insurers that is included in a health reform bill the panel is considering.


Continuing its lengthy deliberations on the reform bill, the Senate committee voted 13-10 on Wednesday, September 30, against the amendment by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, to remove the annual fee that he said ultimately would be passed on to consumers in the form of higher premiums.


Income from the fee is intended to help fund health insurance premium subsidies that would be provided to the low-income uninsured.


Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said he plans to trim the Senate’s traditional weeklong Columbus Day recess to two days to enable the full Senate to consider health care reform legislation in mid-October.


It isn’t clear yet, though, when the Finance Committee will complete action and when Senate Democratic leaders will meld that panel’s measure with a bill already approved by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to put one bill before the full Senate.



Filed by Jerry Geisel of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.


Stay informed and connected. Get human resources news and HR features via Workforce Management‘s Twitter feed or RSS feeds for mobile devices and news readers.

Posted on

Senate Panel Stiffens Employer Fees in Health Care Reform Bill


Employers that do not provide health insurance or provide coverage that is not considered affordable would lose a tax break under an amendment to a health care reform bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee.


Under the reform measure put together by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, employers not offering health insurance would be assessed a fee to partially offset premium subsidies provided to lower-income employees who purchase coverage through state insurance exchanges that would be set up under the bill.


The fees—based on the cost of those subsidies and subject to an annual cap of $400 times the total number of a company’s employees—also would apply if the premium charged by an employer exceeds 10 percent of an employee’s income and the employee obtains coverage through an exchange. The fees would apply only to employers with more than 50 employees.


Under an amendment proposed by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, and approved Wednesday, September 30, by the Senate committee on a 14-9 vote, employers would not be allowed to take a tax deduction for those fees.


Revenue generated by eliminating the tax deduction for such fees would be used to offset revenue lost from another change included in Nelson’s amendment—individual tax deductions for medical expenses.


Baucus’ proposal would allow individuals to deduct medical expenses only if they exceed 10 percent of a taxpayer’s adjusted gross income, up from the current threshold of 7.5 percent. Under the Nelson amendment, the 7.5 percent threshold would continue for taxpayers age 65 and older, while the 10 percent threshold would apply for everyone else.



Filed by Jerry Geisel of Business Insurance, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.


Stay informed and connected. Get human resources news and HR features via Workforce Management’s Twitter feed or RSS feeds for mobile devices and news readers.

Posted on

How Business Can Improve Workforce Readiness

A recent Conference Board report, “The Ill-Prepared U.S. Workforce,” shows that nearly half of the 217 employers surveyed provide remedial training to shore up employees’ writing, math and problem-solving deficiencies. The report was co-sponsored by the Society for Human Resource Management, the American Society for Training & Development and Corporate Voices for Working Families.


In addition to defining the problem, the report also offers some solutions, summarized here:


• Be clear about what workforce readiness requires. A combination of basic and applied skills is best.

• Track the cost and quality of training programs, distinguishing between career advancement, job-specific training and workforce readiness training.

• Offer direct training or funding with corporate philanthropic dollars to encourage workforce readiness curricula in K-12, technical schools and colleges.

• Coordinate HR, community relations, corporate communications and corporate philanthropy departments. Establish strategic partnerships with schools and colleges to improve readiness skills.

• Make full use of publicly funded sources for workforce training, encouraging communities and employees to seek out support too.

• Use the organization’s corporate voice to focus public policy discussion on the need to link education with workforce readiness skills.


Workforce Management, September 14, 2009, p. 33 — Subscribe Now!

Posted on

Sears Settles Discrimination Lawsuit for $6.2 Million

Sears Roebuck & Co. has agreed to pay $6.2 million to settle a federal lawsuit that claimed the retailer violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by firing disabled employees instead of accommodating them on the job.


The settlement, approved Tuesday, September 29, by a federal judge, is the largest obtained by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for a single suit, the agency said. Sears does not admit any guilt as part of the settlement.


“This will provide relief to a lot of people,” said John Hendrickson, a regional attorney for the EEOC. “People are going to get some monetary compensation for the discrimination they suffered.”


Sears Holdings Corp., the parent of Sears Roebuck, said in a statement that it chose to settle the suit “because the factually intense nature of the case would take quite some time and considerable expense” to litigate.


“Despite the settlement, Sears continues to believe that it reasonably accommodates its associates on leave due to work-related illnesses or injuries under the Americans with Disabilities Act,” the company said in the statement. “We have always proceeded and will continue to proceed in good faith when considering and making reasonable accommodations for our associates.”


The EEOC suit, which sought class-action status, was filed in November 2004 in federal court on behalf of John Bava of Barrington, Illinois, and other employees. Bava took workers’ compensation leave after being injured on the job, but he says he was fired at the end of his one-year leave and his attempts to return to work were never accommodated.


Bava said he learned he had lost his job “for medical reasons” when he called Sears’ corporate offices to determine why his employee discount card was rejected during a store purchase.


The EEOC claimed in its suit that Sears’ workers’ comp leave policy was inflexible and violated the ADA by failing to work with disabled employees.


The settlement also requires Sears to amend its workers’ comp leave policy and train its employees in ADA compliance.


“I’m very happy with it,” Bava said of the settlement.


A February hearing has been scheduled to determine how the $6.2 million will be distributed. 


Filed by Lorene Yue of Crain’s Chicago Business, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.


Stay informed and connected. Get human resources news and HR features via Workforce Management’s Twitter feed or RSS feeds for mobile devices and news readers.

Posted on

Why Employees Leaveā€”Employee vs. Employer

Employers and employees differ over the importance of recognition in an employee’s decision to look for a new job. Twenty-nine percent of employers view this as a significant factor, while 39 percent of employees feel this plays a significant role.

Click chart to enlarge. ▼
Adobe Acrobat required


Workforce Management, September 14, 2009, p. 25 — Subscribe Now!

Posted on

Big Managers Raise Salaries to Make Up for Low Bonuses

Large money management firms have raised salaries for key investment professionals as a retention tool because bonuses during the past two years were low, reports executive recruiter Heidrick & Struggles.


Compensation levels peaked in 2007.


“As bad as ’08 was, the hope is that ’09 will be better. The reality is no one is going to know for a couple of months,” says Jane Hobson Marcus, partner in the global asset and wealth management division of Heidrick & Struggles. “The reality will be less than what the expectations are today.”
 
The report was based on conversations with investment and sales and marketing executives, as well as interviews with corporate executives and human resources officials at money management firms.


Investment management compensation seems stronger than expected in 2009, especially in fixed income. The reason: Many products are enjoying double-digit returns year to date.


Marcus said she was surprised during the conversations leading up to the report by “how much noise there is in the market on comp, more so than normal.”


She said money management leaders such as CIOs wonder whether their talent base is going to be raided.


“Not ever in the 20 years I’ve been recruiting do I remember a time when there’s so much concern over the stickiness of the talent base,” Marcus said. “We’re almost all getting tangled up in what the other guy is doing. I’m concerned that people will overreact.”



Filed by Nancy K. Webman of Pensions & Investments, a sister publication of Workforce Management To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.


Stay informed and connected. Get human resources news and HR features via Workforce Management’s Twitter feed or RSS feeds for mobile devices and news readers.