Extra Pay for Hard Work? Novel Concept Gets Help from Congress
However, the Daily Kos took a crack at it — calling it a “stealth effort to wipe out collective bargaining” — and the congressman was happy to point out the inaccuracies.
First, the Kos post called the bill an amendment and said there was a vote scheduled this week — wrong.
“It’s not a license for employers to dispense with a CBA,” Rokita’s office pointed out. “It would simply allow them to give merit pay increases to individual employees above the ceiling set by the CBA. The CBA ‘floor’ would still apply.”
Kos post: “A union may or may not think bonus clauses are desirable. In production line industries, bonuses may not really be feasible. In intellectual industries, they may well be. One thing is for sure: a bonus clause can be negotiated. And many CBAs have such clauses. So Rokita is basically wrong about the need to modify the statute.”
Rokita: “Again, this confuses the issue. Yes, bonus clauses can be negotiated. But the RAISE Act specifically applies to raises for individual employees, regardless of what collective bonus structure may be in place under the CBA.”
Kos post: “So what is Rokita really doing? Keep in mind that the GOP generally opposes regulation of private businesses. Yet, this proposed amendment butts into the CBA that the company and the union have wrangled out. So the amendment changes the dynamic and allows the company to disrupt the agreement based on its own motives. And if the employer’s motive is to sow discord, it can do so virtually free of any oversight—’Oh, we just thought that the anti-union employees deserved a bonus for their excellent workmanship.’ Uhhh…right….”
Rokita: “Wrong again. The NLRA specifically prohibits discriminatory treatment of employees based on union membership, and the RAISE Act contains nothing that would change that. It specifically would amend only Section 9(a).”
Kos post: “Rokita and his GOP cohorts should be called out and exposed.”
Rokita: “Exposed for what? It’s a 2-page bill.”
The next step for the RAISE Act will be a committee hearing. Rokita is excited about how Rubio’s companion legislation should help move his bill along.
“It’s an honor that a fellow newcomer to the city and to this process saw the value in this language and given his national stature already this is going to be nothing but helpful for this pro-worker bill,” Rokita said. “This not an anti-union bill.”
Watching the floor in both chambers to see which members vote against merit pay — proving who’s controlled by union bosses — should be particularly interesting in an election year.
“The house of cards is falling; I just don’t know the rate,” Rokita said. “You’re going to see part of it in this year’s election.”
These morons don’t want a prosperous middle class. They want brown shirted union members all in lock-step with Dear Leader & company – who wants a life term in that role. There was a time and place for unions – that time has passed.
Heh. If it passes, how soon before it hits Obama’s desk and forces HIM to take a stand?
Well, hopefully this is just a wedgie bill. If it is not, some people are painfully naive about the unionized environment; I’m not. Under current law, you could negotiate a merit pay scheme with the union; they’d never agree to one, but it is theoretically possible to have one as a bargained wage provision.
As an employer, you’d be stupid to have one unless your merit pay was explicitly removed from both the grievance procedure and the unfair labor practice provisions of the law. Even if the union agrees to a merit pay system, every decision to grant or deny a merit increase is subject to the grievance/arbitration provisions of the labor agreement, so some arbitrator and possibly judge is going to second guess every management decision. It will be an evidence based test of every decision to award or deny a merit increase, and labor arbitrators these days are a wierd and not very employer friendly lot. Even if it is exempted from the grievance/arbitration provisions of the labor agreement it is still subject to the unfair labor practice provisions of the federal and most state laws. If you give a merit increase to Employee A who is an agency fee payer but not to Employee B who is a union member, the union asserts that you have discriminated against Employee B for his participation in the protected activity of being a union member. Even if you win on the facts before the NLRB or your state labor board, you’ve just spent one Helluva lot of time and money.
As a practical matter, merit pay systems are best left as a creature of the non-union states. Where they work, which requires a really good management culture, they make employment much more attractive. Where they don’t work, they make unionization much more attractive. Choose well.
Art;
In your first sentence, I read “Wedge”, which gave it the context of dividing the congressional democrats along the fault lines of their political contributors, the elitist liberals who don’t soil their psyches by actual dealings with the smelly union underclass, and the RICO modelled union mob leaders who spend money and send thugs to achieve their aims at the expense of the union membership.
Then I read it again. “wedgie”. Perfect.
I’d like to see Obama sell SEIU members the idea that they do not deserve more money for harder work, especially in an election year. Union members would also want to be rewarded for hard work during these hard economic times. If unions do not go for this bill, they are simply advocating mediocrity, which is why people are fed up with unions. The union “house of cards” really is falling, and it’s going to come crashing down on the Democrat’s heads. It’s about time.
How dare they suggest someone get paid for working harder than someone else. Don’t they know we are supposed to get paid more and more for doing less and less? /sarc
Why do we still have collective bargaining anyway. It is a relic of the 1930′s.
The unions will oppose this. They must. Their very existence depends on group-think. Individualism is fatal to them. It’s their kryptonite.