$2.13 An Hour?

In business ethics, getting the government to clobber your workers generally does not seem to strike a responsive chord as in something we should fix. After all, the government did it, didn’t they?

Still, I find it hard to justify the paltry minimum wage given to restaurant employees. It often leaves them in poverty and their dependence upon tips would seem to make any pretense at dignity a temporary pose, since happy servility may be the best strategy for tips that may possibly get you up to the minimum wage.

I believe that using the government to punish your workers by using the lobby clout of your various organizations be it corporations or sole proprietorships is perfectly identical to doing it yourself.

James Pilant

A higher wage for all workers | Al Jazeera America

Let’s say you are a waitress or waiter. Let’s say you worked the night of Jan. 28. And let’s imagine that somewhere in your restaurant a big-screen television beamed President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address while you were taking orders, delivering food and busing dishes. Like millions of other Americans, you would be among the most underpaid employees in the country’s economy: tipped workers. While you may have been pleased to hear the president’s executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, you would know this move is irrelevant to you. And you would know that during the 1 hour and 5 minutes it took him to deliver his promises — on everything from making health care affordable to boosting the economy — you would have earned $2.30.

For those who are not tipped workers, the idea that these workers are only guaranteed a paltry $2.13 an hour might come as a shock. But the reality is that millions of tipped workers take home much less than the federal minimum wage, which has excluded them for more than 20 years. The National Employment Law Project crunched the numbers and found that the value of the tipped minimum wage, in real terms, has fallen 36 percent since it was frozen in 1991. A 2012 study by Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC-United) found that waitresses and waiters, who make up the lion’s share of tipped workers, suffer three times the poverty rate as the general workforce and that tipped workers rely disproportionately on food stamps.

 

via A higher wage for all workers | Al Jazeera America.

Pregnant Hypocrisy

Okay, look – this is getting ridiculous. Everyday I am confronted with just tons of evidence how little pregnant mothers and children are though of in this society. And yet, the lip service, the worshipful praise given the importance of motherhood and the holy infinitely valuable lives of children seems to be in full verbal pandemic mode.

I want to scream.

If we cared about pregnant women, we would do something to make their lives easier like paid leave.

If we cared about children, we would fund their education as a priority and maybe even make sure they have enough to eat.

If you think motherhood and childhood are just wonderful but aren’t willing to lift a finger to help either, maybe you could do me a favor and just shut up.

James Pilant

Why Are Workplaces Still Not Ready For Pregnant Workers? | ThinkProgress

The majority of new moms say they worked while they were pregnant, yet their employers often failed to accommodate their pregnancies before giving birth or their needs afterward, according to a new survey from the National Partnership for Women & Families.

The organizations surveyed more than 1,000 women between the ages of 18 and 45 who had given birth between July 2011 and June 2012. Nearly two-thirds of the women reported being employed during their pregnancies, with more than half working full time. And many of them needed some changes to continue working while also maintaining their health: 71 percent needed more frequent breaks, 61 percent needed to change their schedules or take leave time to get health care, more than half needed a change in duties such as taking on less heavy lifting or getting more chances to sit, and 40 percent needed another workplace adjustment.

Yet many said they either didn’t bring up their needs for accommodation while they were pregnant, possibly out of fear of repercussions or refusal, or had them rejected outright. More than 40 percent who needed more breaks never asked about them, and of those who did, 5 percent were rejected. Nearly 40 percent who needed to change their responsibilities never brought it up, and 9 percent who did were denied. More than a quarter who needed to change their schedules or take time off didn’t raise their need while 9 percent were rejected. While the report notes that most employers who were asked for an accommodation honor the requests, the percent who are denied is still troubling. “Based on estimates of the number of employed women who give birth annually, this means that more than one-quarter million women are denied their requests each year, threatening the health of women and their children.” It also notes that a “significant number” of those who were denied said their employer claimed that it wasn’t obligated to honor their pregnancy-related requests.

via Why Are Workplaces Still Not Ready For Pregnant Workers? | ThinkProgress.

 

Fracking and Birth Defects

In the future of business ethics, fracking will be a centerpiece of everything that can go wrong ethically. We will begin discussing secret government discussions culminating in legislation totally at odds with preserving human health and safety. We will then discuss the incredible diversion of public lands into private hands for the benefit of the industry. Chapters will be written about how after any federal interference with the industry was disposed of, the industry proceeded to capture or destroy the state regulatory bodies. But the main focus will be on how the industry successfully sealed off access to any information on what it was actually doing.

In short, a business ethics train wreck.

The part I can’t predict will be how much damage the process will eventually cause.

James Pilant

Fracked Up: New Study Links Birth Defects To Living Near Fracking Site | Crooks and Liars

Living near hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — sites may increase the risk of some birth defects by as much as 30 percent, a new study suggests. In the U.S., more than 15 million people now live within a mile of a well.

The use of fracking, a gas-extraction process through which sand, water and chemicals are pumped into the ground to release trapped fuel deposits, has increased significantly in the U.S. over the past decade.

Five years ago, the U.S. produced 5 million barrels of oil per day; today, it’s 7.4 million, thanks largely to fracking.Supporters of the industry say it creates jobs and spurs the economy, while critics say its development is largely unregulated and that too little is known about pollution and health risks.

The report by the Colorado School of Public Health, released Jan. 28, gathered evidence from heavily drilled rural Colorado, which has among the highest densities of oil and gas wells in the U.S.

“What we found was that the risk of congenital heart defects (CHD) increased with greater density of gas wells — with mothers living in the highest-density areas at greatest risk,” Lisa McKenzie, a research associate at the Colorado School of Public Health and the lead author of the study, told Al Jazeera.The study examined links between the mother’s residential proximity to natural gas wells and birth defects in a study of more than 124,842 births from 1996 to 2009 in rural Colorado.

The study found that “births to mothers in the most exposed (areas with over 125 wells per mile) had a 30 percent greater prevalence of CHDs than births to mothers with no wells in a 10-mile radius of their residence.”

via Fracked Up: New Study Links Birth Defects To Living Near Fracking Site | Crooks and Liars.

Is the NFL a Socialist Plot?

Read below and see what you think. The article doesn’t mention that the teams are also immune to anti-trust laws and they don’t pay federal taxes.

James Pilant

From a British perspective, American football and the Super Bowl look downright socialist | Joe Ware | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Although known as “America’s game”, the National Football League’s success has been built on the model of a socialist state. It has a salary cap which limits each team’s spending, a revenue-sharing system – effectively a tax – which transfers money from the high-earning franchises to the poorer teams and most interestingly of all, the NFL Draft.

The Draft is the lifeblood of the NFL. Unlike British football where each club has its own academy system to develop young players, in America that job is left to the universities. The Draft is the three-day jamboree at which each team takes it in turns to select the best of the upcoming graduates from the college ranks. Like a huge American Football version of the Hogwarts Sorting Hat. But in contrast to the Randian economics of the Tea Party movement, it’s not the best team that is rewarded with the first pick in the draft, but the worst.

The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

The most pathetic and miserable outfit is awarded the top pick. Next is the second most feeble until right at the end, after all the other 31 teams have snapped up the best of the talent, it’s the turn of the previous year’s Super Bowl champions.

What this rather socialist approach does is create parity. Which leads to hope. Fans of teams in the doldrums know that the silver lining of a few poor seasons will be a crop of good young players which could transform their team into winners again. This is how the New Orleans Saints could pick second in the 2006 Draft and win the Super Bowl four years later. And the players don’t get any say in the matter. Unlike in Britain where the best players can choose to join already established powerhouses, in the US, the equivalent superstars have to join the teams most in need of their services.

via From a British perspective, American football and the Super Bowl look downright socialist | Joe Ware | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

Bowles-Simpson Ridiculed!

That high lighted paragraph below has to be one of the greatest take downs ever. (My thanks to Paul Krugman!)

James Pilant

David Brooks Wants Bowles-Simpson for Everything — Daily Intelligencer

Just because it failed to result in the legislative compromise it was tasked to create — and arguably even failed to produce an actual, concrete proposal — it did succeed in creating an aspirational model for centrist pundits to tout. Brooks alone has cited Bowles and Simpson in nearly two dozen columns.

If you define the goal of Bowles and Simpson as creating policies outside the political process that can be held up by centrists as emblematic of the failure of both parties in equal measure, then the Bowles-Simpson commission succeeded brilliantly. Why not extend the power of the Bowles-Simpson brand beyond mere deficit scolding to other policy areas? What about a Bowles-Simpson commission for everyday life decisions? The husband says we should spend $5000 to repair our car, the wife says we can\’t afford it. Then they hire a Bowles-Simpson commission to tell them they should reject that debate and instead ride around on an invisible unicorn.

via David Brooks Wants Bowles-Simpson for Everything — Daily Intelligencer.

College Athletes Should Be Paid

Making millions off of unpaid athletes who work hard and risk injury is wrong.

James Pilant

AJ McCarron: ‘I truly believe college athletes should be paid’ | Crooks and Liars

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/aj-mccarron-i-truly-believe-college

Now that AJ McCarron has exhausted his eligibility at Alabama and departed for the NFL, he can speak freely about the imbalances of the NCAA system without fear of repercussions.

That’s what McCarron did on Wednesday in New York City.

The former Crimson Tide quarterback was a guest on FOX Sports 1’s “Crowd Goes Wild” and was asked about Tuesday’s news out of Chicago in which the seeds were planted for a college athlete union.

“I truly believe, during some point in the future, college athletes should be paid,” McCarron said. “The NCAA is not a bad organization – don’t get me wrong, it’s an unbelievable organization – but in some way they’re taking advantage of college athletes that sign their name into a certain school.

“When I was (at Alabama) in ’09, I think revenue when we won the national championship that year was like $62 million. And when we won it in New Orleans (in 2011), it was like $78 million. Then when we beat (Notre Dame in 2012), it was like $92 million. I mean that’s absurd money.

“And with players’ jerseys being sold and them not seeing any of that, and then being used for video games, I think eventually something’s gotta give and players end up being paid.”

Okay, I’m Outraged.

Day after day, I am bombarded by evidence of stupidity and evil. I expose myself to this hail of slings and arrows by reading in my field, business ethics, each morning. This particular incident appears to be a public school, not a private, so not usually part of my endeavors. Nevertheless, sometimes an act is so cruel and bizarre as to give rise to anger on my part. This is one of them.

Please read the article below and see what you think.

This child is a sixth grader. The power contrast between an entire school and one child does not require any analysis on my part.

While ridiculing people’s religions may be okay inside another church’s Sunday school or other service, the public school is for all Americans of all religions. The freedom of religion guaranteed in this country protects all religions and is supposed to protect everyone from this kind of coercion.

I’m tired of talking to people who claim to speak from the Bible or the Constitution without reading either. I’m tired of people who claim that if you don’t share their beliefs, you should be on the next boat to somewhere you won’t annoy them. I’m tired of people taking the doctrines of Christ and using them to exercise this kind of cruelty.

James Pilant

School Allegedly Told Buddhist Student His Faith Is ‘Stupid’ & He Should Convert Or Switch Schools | ThinkProgress

A Louisiana teacher who taught her sixth grade class that evolution is “impossible” and that the bible is “100 percent true” ridiculed a Buddhist student during class and announced that those who don’t believe in god are “stupid,” according to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana.

When the child’s parents reported the incidents, the Sabine Parish superintendent allegedly told them “this is the Bible Belt,” and asked whether the child, referred to as “C.C.” could either change his faith or transfer to a school where “there are more Asians.”

According to the ACLU, the teacher, Rita Rourke, works at a school in Sabine Parish, La., that consistently touts Christian beliefs through portraits of Jesus Christ in the halls, a “lighted, electronic marquee” outside the school that scrolls Bible verses, and regular staff member recitation of prayers with students during class. “The day after meeting with the Lanes, the Superintendent sent a letter to Negreet Principal Gene Wright stating that she approved of Negreet’s official religious practices. Wright read the letter to the entire Negreet student body over the school

via School Allegedly Told Buddhist Student His Faith Is ‘Stupid’ & He Should Convert Or Switch Schools | ThinkProgress.

Resource Curse

If West Virginia isn’t a good example of having a valuable natural resource and getting not much more than pain from it, there isn’t one. I’ve predicted no effective sanctions for the company that polluted the water of 300,000 people for weeks. I stand by that. Sometimes, an industry gains control of a regulating body. We call that a “captive” agency. In West Virginia, the government is held “captive” by the coal industry. They own that place. The coal industry is going to do pretty much what it wants there.

How sad it must be to live literally on top of billions of dollars of a mineral resource and know you are never going to get much out of it and what you get is likely to be more pain.

It would seem to me that basic ethics would dictate that a state would find a way to distribute profits more equitably from the people’s land.

James Pilant

West Virginians say they don’t fault coal industry for water crisis | Al Jazeera America

Some analysis of how the coal industry has affected the economy of West Virginia shows that it likely contributes to poverty rather than its alleviation, and that most counties where poverty reigns in the region are also those that rely the most on coal mining.

Two economists, Stratford Douglas of West Virginia University and Anne Walker of the University of Colorado Denver, published an analysis in December comparing 409 counties in Appalachia for trends in poverty and education stemming from the “resource curse” of coal.

“The ‘resource curse’ occurs when a region’s resource wealth makes its people poorer,” Douglas told Al Jazeera. “Some places, like Norway and Texas, are richer because of their resources. Some other places seem to be poorer because of their resources, and our study indicates that these may include the coal-mining counties of the Appalachians.”

While it can apply to many kinds of natural resources, from oil and gas to minerals and timber, the resource curse involves steep levels of inequality, high poverty and environmental degradation in places whose economies rely on one resource. The promise of the commodity also comes with the economy having to rely on its price, often leading to a cycle of boom and bust.

“No doubt, coal mining provides opportunities for relatively high-wage employment in the region, but its effect on prosperity appears to be strongly negative in the long run,” the economists wrote in their analysis.

One of the biggest problems, the analysis stated, is that the coal industry does not provide enough high-paying jobs to people who obtain college degrees. These people leave the state, contributing to economic decline over the long term.

In addition to taking steps to diversify the economy, the authors suggested that Appalachian authorities try the tactic that wealthy Norway has, charging higher dues on companies that mine coal in the area.

The authors noted the recent rise of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of shale gas deposits in the region, and said it wasn’t an antidote. 

“The shale gas industry, like the coal industry, shows a strong tendency toward boom and bust.”

via West Virginians say they don’t fault coal industry for water crisis | Al Jazeera America.

Dimon Screwed Up, Got a Raise Anyway!

I apparently misunderstand the theory of the free market. I thought that successful performance was to be rewarded. And that disastrous or failing performance was to be penalized. But I am mistaken. For Jamie Dimon, failure is not failure, disaster is not disaster, life is good all the time – great job if you can get one!

Business ethics!! Do you reward constant business ethics violations? If you count settling multiple regulatory settlements in the billions of dollars as business ethics violations which apparently JPMorgan’s board does not, it might make you uncomfortable. Apparently in the mind of JPMorgan, business ethics is a matter of opinion, right?

Once again, I have another negative example to show my students. Instead of virtue being rewarded I have an example of rampant misconduct involving incredible amounts of money being rewarded. It makes my job more difficult.

But it’s not just me. Everyone who values justice, everyone who believes in right and wrong, everyone who believes in the value of business ethics, is being slapped in the face by this decision.

It is a blatant reward for misconduct and incompetence. It’s wrong. It’s destructive. It’s the wrong example for every human being on this planet.

Do we live in such a morally bankrupt system that not only do we have to suffer massive financial lawbreaking but watch it being rewarded too?

James Pilant

Jamie Dimon gets raise despite JPMorgan’s massive regulatory fines – Salon.com

JPMorgan Chase’s “punishment” was short lived. Last year, following the egregious “London Whale” scandal — a multibillion trading loss by the bank (which led to $1 billion in regulatory fines) — Dimon’s salary was cut in half to a measley $11.5 million.Wall Street memories are evidently as short as its pockets are deep. Dimon is getting a raise again. The New York Times reported:

JPMorgan’s board voted this week to increase Mr. Dimon’s annual compensation for 2013, hashing out the pay package after a series of meetings that turned heated at times, according to several executives briefed on the matter.

… JPMorgan’s directors may have decided that Mr. Dimon, as his peers may, should get a raise, but to ordinary Americans — and possibly to regulators — the decision to increase his compensation may seem curious given the banner penalties that federal authorities have extracted from the bank. It is not unheard-of for chief executives to lose their jobs when their companies have been battered by regulators.

via Jamie Dimon gets raise despite JPMorgan’s massive regulatory fines – Salon.com.

New York Times Uses Creative Math

Is fact checking so hard? Is it ethical to portray yourself as a world class newspaper used by policymakers around the world and then, just make stuff up? That’s not business ethics.

James Pilant

1.5 Million Fracking Jobs? Is Legalized Marijuana Affecting the NYT | Beat the Press

Whereas about 1.5 million fracking jobs have taken place in the United States, only 2,500 have occurred in Australia, according to the Victoria report.\”

It\’s not clear where the NYT got the 1.5 million jobs figure, but it\’s a safe bet that it is not from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The December, 2013 jobs figure for oil and gas extraction 48,400 higher than the December 2007 number, before the impact of both fracking and the recession. The figure for mining and support activities is up by 98,400. If we assume that this is all due to fracking then the total increase in employment is 146,800, less than one-tenth of the NYT\’s number.

via 1.5 Million Fracking Jobs? Is Legalized Marijuana Affecting the NYT | Beat the Press.