Tag: employment

Please, SOMEONE Ask Herman Cain to Define “Sexual Harassment”!

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

November 7, 2011

Hmmmm . . . . . . .

So far, we’ve heard very little from Mr. Cain about his actions that led to sexual harassment claims back in the late ’90s when he led the National Restaurant Association. Yesterday, he told reporters he simply was not going to answer any questions on the matter. O.K. Perhaps, though, he’d answer a very general question, “What, sir, do you think ‘sexual harassment’ is? What’s your understanding of the real world meaning of the term?” His answer would help us understand what he means when he repeatedly says, “I have never sexually harassed anyone.” So, please, some brave soul with a press pass, ask him! . . . .

Here’s one of his, sort of, references to sexual harassment, according to Politico where Cain was referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1991, where Congress created the right of victims of intentional discrimination, including sexual harassment, to seek money damages in court, rather than just a court order: “This bill opens the door for opportunists who will use the legislation to make some money,” Cain, then CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, told Nation’s Restaurant News. “I’m certainly for civil rights, but I don’t know if this bill is fair because of what we’ll have to spend to defend ourselves in unwarranted cases.” 
 
Potentially, Mr. Cain’s definition of what he considers to be “sexual harassment” will reveal far more than has been thus far about his character. Certainly, we’ve heard a lot from Cain himself about his present predicament, most of which can be boiled down to “Quit asking about that,” and “Get out of my face.” That approach, of course, is standard, and no surprise at all when a politician does it. But no one in the media has to my knowledge asked him, “Just what, Mr. Cain, do you think sexual discrimination in the workplace is? Can you provide some examples?”

 It’s time to do so. George Will once wrote, “Conservatives define themselves in terms of what they oppose.” Would that characterize Cain’s response? In any event, his answer is important. It would reveal more about his character. It could help him. It could sink him. So, please, someone ask him!

Please Give Us Some Examples of “Nothingness.”  But, like some of us think a tomato is not a fruit, but a veggie (I do, despite so-called “science”), I guess we all have our own definition of sexual harassment. Here’s the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s:

“Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when (1) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment, (2) submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or (3) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.” [29 C.F.R. § 1604.11]

The laws prohibiting sexual discrimination were, by the time of the infamous Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas showdown, already on the books, aka The Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC definition above, as in most laws intended to have a long reach, is couched in general terms. Some phrases do appear to be commonsensical, though. “Requests for sexual favors” is one. But others, from the first sentence in the EEOC regulation, leave room for disagreement, for example: Unwelcome sexual advances, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.

What do most of us label as verbal conduct of a sexual nature? Telling a sexually loaded joke?  Calling a woman a “babe” or a “cutie”?  These are just a few of many possibilities and remember that they apply to males as well. And, of course, women can themselves be guilty of sexual harassment. And it also covers all gender identifications.

Here’s some explicit examples deemed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to be sexual harassment. It’s from their agency-wide guidance, Understanding Workplace Harassment (FCC Staff): Examples of actions that may create sexual hostile environment harassment include: 

  • Leering, i.e., staring in a sexually suggestive manner
  • Making offensive remarks about looks, clothing, body parts
  • Touching in a way that may make an employee feel uncomfortable, such as patting, pinching or intentional brushing against another’s body
  • Telling sexual or lewd jokes, hanging sexual posters, making sexual gestures, etc.
  • Sending, forwarding or soliciting sexually suggestive letters, notes, emails, or images

Perhaps some cub reporter will ask Mr. Cain what kind of actions he considers to be sexual harassment. I think we’d all love to hear the answer.

GOP/Tea Party — Heavily Employed in Lying About Unemployment

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

October 23, 2011

From our nemeses in the GOP, we constantly hear how the Obama administration has during its tenure failed to create any jobs whatever. Of course, that’s patently false. This, in turn, proves to already-made-up GOP and Tea Party minds that Keynesian style stimulus does not work. Of course, that too is patently false. Are you sensing a pattern? . . .

Here’s a bit of outright lying beamed to us by FOX News, the GOP/TP’s media outlet, FOX Business’s Follow the Money, October 19, 2011:

BOLLING: All right, very quickly, guys. This is Harry Reid responding to Senator McConnell’s blame-game accusation.

REID : “The massive layoffs we’ve had in America today have, of course — are rooted in the last administration, and it’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine. It’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers.”

BOLLING: First of all, can I just point something out? Public-sector jobs have increased by almost 160,000 since President Obama took office. What is he talking about?

STEPHEN HAYES (Fox News contributor): Yeah, you’re going to hear that clip again and again and again.

Yeah, Mr. Hayes, we are going to hear that Harry Reid clip again and again because it is true. And yes, we will hear and see the Bolling/Hayes palaver again and again because it is bombastically false, even for FOX News.

It’s interestingly wrong. Here we have Bolling and Hayes, FOX minions, insisting that public sector jobs have grown since 2009. This is from the network who has been first in promoting the firing of nearly every public sector employee in the nation. It is false that Bolling and Hayes do not know the numbers – public sector jobs have fallen since early 2009, and precipitously so since the end of the Census uptick in Jan. to April 2010. Bolling and Hayes simply lie, as does nearly the entirety of the GOP/TP. And to lie so bluntly when they firstly, know the truth, and secondly, they also know that the public sector job statistics are available to anyone who can reach the DOL netsite. The GOP/TP through its concerted effort has destroyed more than 550,000+ public sector jobs primarily in those state governments they control. Witness Wisconsin, Ohio, Maine, and Florida.

An August 30, 2011, the Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of Public Employment and Payroll, provided its most up-to-date public sector data. It’s summary: “The 90,740 state and local governments across the country had 16.6 million full-time equivalent employees in 2010, 203,321 fewer than were employed in 2009, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The majority of these employees, 9.0 million, worked in education, followed by those working in hospitals (986,471), police protection (946,196) and corrections (731,692).

Part-time state and local government employees numbered 4.8 million in 2010, a decrease of 27,567 from 2009.

Local governments — which include counties, cities, townships, special districts and school districts — accounted for 12.2 million full-time equivalent employees in 2010, while state governments employed 4.4 million. Both figures showed decreases from 2009. The number of full-time equivalent employees is equal to the number of full-time employees added to the number of hours worked by part-time employees divided by the standard number of hours for a full-time employee.”

“Public-sector jobs have increased by almost 160,000 since President Obama took office,” Mr. Bolling?

Lies About Private Sector Job Growth Also on the GOP/TP List. Also, Republicans nearly en masse claim the Obama administration has failed to produce private sector jobs. In fact, since the Recovery Act took effect, the private sector has gained 1.4 million jobs. So urgently do they want to bury Keynes and communitarianism forever, they are desperately trying to keep this fact hidden from the electorate. However, the Department of Labor’s official blog, (Work in Progress) produced a stinging rebuttal to GOP/TP claims with a chart produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Program.

Well, last week the Democratic Senate was halted in its attempt to pass a portion of the American Jobs Act, i.e., that portion that would help create hundreds of thousands of state and local jobs for teachers and first responders. Craven to the ‘enth degree, the GOP voted unanimously to prevent the measure from being voted on (joined, unfortunately, by Democrats John Tester (OH) and Bill Nelson (NE), and so-called Independent Joe Lieberman (CT)).  Here’s Reid’s response: “By asking millionaires to pay an extra half a penny on the dollar, this bill would have created jobs by keeping our communities safe and ensuring that our children continue to have access to a high-quality education. Unfortunately, protecting millionaires and defeating President Obama are more important to my Republican colleagues than creating jobs and getting our economy back on track. Democrats agree with the overwhelming majority of Americans that teachers and first responder jobs are worth defending, while lower taxes for millionaires and billionaires are not.”

Unfortunately, we suffer from GOP capture of legislative business.

Boehner Accidentally Tells the Truth About Tax Cuts

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

September 16, 2011

Mr. Boehner: “And here in Washington, there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of the economy and it’s led to an awful lot of bad decisions. And the reality is that employers will hire if they’ve got the right incentives, but the incentives have to outweigh the costs. As an example, businesses aren’t going to hire someone because the government’s going to give them a $4,000 tax credit, if the government mandates that are imposed on them cost a lot more than that temporary credit. In our recent years, these mandates have been overwhelming.”

“Government’s threat to job creation has two other components. One is the current tax code which discourages investments and rewards special interest. It strikes me as odd that at a time when it’s clear the tax code needs to be fundamentally reformed, the first instant to come out of Washington is to come up with a new host of tax credits that make the tax code more complex.”

In fact, what he criticizes is actually the ultimate Republican tax-cutting plan: It rewards the private sector for acting in its own best interest. And it gives wary companies that are now just hoarding their profits in cash the confidence that can get them to start expanding again.

And, it’s also the ultimate Democratic jobs-generating plan: It guarantees results before federal tax dollars are spent.

Moreover, it’s the ultimate tea party no-new-taxes/no-new-programs populist plan: It produces the new jobs without government adding more taxation or more reams of red tape.

And it is, by definition, the most shovel-ready plan any economist can conjure: By using job-generating tax credits to prime our economic pumps, not a dollar of taxpayer money would be spent before the private sector has created and filled the jobs.

A side benefit of this is that it is not one of those programs that reward the special interests that have invested in our politicians — presidents, senators and representatives — by giving them campaign money as a down payment for future access and consideration. All employers have a chance at getting this tax credit — all they need to do is hire new employees.

Now it turns out the template for this approach was just created. On Aug. 5, President Barack Obama announced a program to give companies tax credits for hiring unemployed military veterans. Employers hiring unemployed veterans would get a $2,400 maximum credit for every short-term hire and $4,800 for every long-term hire. The plan would give companies a $9,600 maximum credit for every long-term hire of a veteran with service-connected disabilities.

Well, if this works for creating jobs for unemployed military veterans, why not expand it to include all unemployed Americans? That Republican-sounding idea was raised by the former chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer: “There are 15 million other unemployed people,” Romer said. “Let’s do a big tax cut for any firm that’s willing to hire. Someone, I think, ought to be making the case for swinging for the fences, not small programs.”

GOP mantra, though, “no taxation without representation; no taxation with representation.”

Really, They Will Say ANYTHING! – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on $45 Billion for School & Home Rehabilitation

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

September 14, 2011

From the newsstand copy of POLITICO that I found in a Starb*cks this a.m., a report about Eric CAN’Tor’s thinking on a portion of the American Jobs Act, i.e. spending $45 billion dollars on rehabilitating schools and homes: “I don’t believe that our members are going to be interested in pursuing that,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) told reporters Monday. “I certainly am not. There are perhaps laudable goals behind the proposals, [but] the fact is we don’t have the money. And we’ve got to prioritize. And right now, it’s about getting people back to work.”

I wondered, is Mr. CAN’Tor acquainted with how buildings are “rehabilitated”? Without exception, these projects require construction workers and the use of durable goods, two areas where the unemployment rate runs from 9.1% (durables) to 13.5% (construction). That’s a bit more than 2 million people, many out of work for more than two years, and many more doing part-time work only, among the huge numbers of underemployed. In addition, rehab projects require electricians, plumbers, architects, security personnel, inspectors, permitting, and other allied professions. These jobs then cause other services to gear up. Think insurance, food services, etc. The dollar put into the economy “grows” – $45 billion for these projects might then result in $145 billion in carry on spending from the private sector that, now, is sitting on huge piles of cash, literally, cash in money market funds.

The real answer, though, is of course the obvious one: CAN’Tor and his minions are out to remove Keynes from the economics texts, to dismantle governments – don’t kid yourself – of all sizes. Supporting useful fiscal stimulus (they actually do know it’s useful) is, to them, off limits. And all this despite the mischief it spawns in the country. In poker terms, they are all in. They believe, despite all the evidence, that the private sector will leap to the rescue, and rehab those schools and homes! If only they could pay well below the minimum wage; if only they were utterly unregulated; if only they didn’t have to do this; if only they didn’t have to do that; if only; if only. . .

The Wounded Stock Market and the Political Abandonment of the Working Class

Michael MatheronLeave a comment

August 4, 2011

Today, I’m not simply referencing the equities market collapse over the past week, including today’s significant losses as of 2:30 p.m. There are many other reasons for this week’s swan dive. So, eager as I may be to do so, I can’t put this entirely at the door of the GOP and its maniacal dancing monkeys, the Tea party. This week, though, undeniably, the debt “deal” is among the forces decimating equity prices and Americans’ confidence. 

The deal’s unrelenting tight-fisted approach seems, at present, to rule out any fiscal stimulus emerging from Congress. The independent Federal Reserve’s “according to Hoyle” monetary stimulus efforts seem to have done little good stimulating employment growth and lending so far, and it shouldn’t be expected to be helpful in the future. The fed funds rate has for a long time been as low as a snake in a cesspool, and, today, the Treasuries that were almost a pariah two days ago are rallying across the board, sending interest rates lower than low. To what avail after four years of recession? (Note: We never emerged from it in 2009 . . .) And now, without fiscal stimulus, the country and the equally shaky world faces a likely killing dose of American “fiscal austerity” and the further unemployment it brings with it. Who will be able to buy cars, refrigerators, computers, or bubble gum? Who, then, will be able to provide the earnings that could revive this critically sick stock market? 

Well, no one, it seems, in D.C., thought about that very much. The Tea Party wrecking crew pushed our overly accommodating President and most of the Democratic and Republican parties into a final package that will pummel employment at all levels and in all sectors. The debt ceiling deal just signed into law will, perhaps radically, worsen employment, lessen personal income, and diminish already anemic personal spending. If we avoid what would be remembered as the 2nd Great Depression, we need to make some WPA-type Hail Mary passes, and soon. 

For now, though, the Tea Party and the GOP it commands stand stolidly and stubbornly by the windows in their House and watch all this destruction without so much as offering the tiniest ray of hope that we, as a nation, will pull together again as we did in the 1930s. Unfortunately, the President, an apparently conflict averse leader, as well as much of the far too “civil” Democratic party, also watch from afar as well. Just watching, it seems, deeming it too uncivil or uncouth or strenuous to fight for the country. The unindicted co-conspirators.