Blevins on the EFCA

Johnblevins John Blevins (South Texas) had an opinion piece supporting the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in the Houston Chronicle this past Saturday.

Here’s a taste:

The EFCA . . . would provide employees with an alternate method of creating a recognized union — the “card check.” When a majority of employees signs a card supporting self-organization, a union is formed that the employer is required to recognize. (Card check is allowed under current law, but employers are free to ignore it).

[Joseph] Gagnon’s[, who previously against the EFCA in the same paper] critique of the EFCA is a familiar one, and it goes something like this: By permitting card check, the EFCA would undermine the “truly free” choice that secret-ballot elections provide.

Without the secret ballot, union organizers would allegedly be free to coerce their fellow employees.

In fact, this critique featured prominently in a recent (and absurd) employer-sponsored ad campaign featuring a Sopranos actor posing as a mob boss pressuring employees. Fortunately for us all, the New Jersey crime families have yet to make significant inroads into our nation’s service industries. Sleep tight America.

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Thoughts About Violence Against Trafficked Women on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

November 25th is designated by the United Nations as “International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.”  The date was selected to “commemorate the lives of the Mirabal sisters,” who were assassinated on November 25, 1960 during the Trujillo dictatorship, as explained in the General Assembly resolution designating the day:

Previously, 25 November was observed in Latin America and a growing number of other countries around the world as “International Day Against Violence Against Women”. With no standard title, it was also referred to as “No Violence Against Women Day” and the “Day to End Violence Against Women”. It was first declared by the first Feminist Encuentro for Latin America and the Caribbean held in Bogota, Colombia (18 to 21 July 1981). At that Encuentro women systematically denounced gender violence from domestic battery, to rape and sexual harassment, to state violence including torture and abuses of women political prisoners. The date was chosen to commemorate the lives of the Mirabal sisters. It originally marked the day that the three Mirabal sisters from the Dominican Republic were violently assassinated in 1960 during the Trujillo dictatorship (Rafael Trujillo 1930-1961). The day was used to pay tribute to the Mirabal sisters, as well as global recognition of gender violence.

The resolution “[i]nvites, as appropriate, Governments, the relevant agencies, bodies, funds and programmes of the United Nations system, and other international organizations and non-governmental organizations, to organize on that day activities designed to raise public awareness of the problem of violence against women.”  

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As Honest As We Like to Think We Are

So . . . if no one knew when you lied, would you do it? Would you lie to save money? Would you lie to save your client money? Would the amount of money matter?

I have often taught negotiation ethics using Richard Shell’s division of people: the idealists, the pragmatists, and the poker-players. The poker-players assume that everyone who negotiates views it as a game: we all know that bluffing and puffing are part of the system -– caveat emptor. The pragmatists think that lying is generally unwise -– you’ll be found out, it’s not worth it, etc. The final school is the idealists -– lying is wrong and you shouldn’t do it.

It is wonderful when you can find a real-life example of idealistic telling-the-truth, and so I connect here to a lovely story about J.P. Hayes, a golf player. He played a nonconforming ball for a single hole of the second stage of the PGA Qualifying Tournament. He realized it more than a day after the “violation,” called it on himself, and disqualified himself from the tournament. This has, according to Yahoo, some severe career-altering effects down the line.

Now, the easy move here would be to either do nothing or blame the caddy. Hayes rose above both those temptations, putting all the blame on himself and asserting that everybody else on the PGA in his shoes would have done the exact same thing. We’ll never know, but let’s hope so.

Also, Hayes already has more than $7 million in career earnings, so it’s not like he’d consigned himself to another year working the counter at the Quik Stop. But still, knowing you’re taking yourself out of the running for a year of career stability and wealth takes some serious situational ethics.

But, as J.P. puts it, at least he can sleep at night. What would you have done?

Cross posted at Indisputably.

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