{"id":8711,"date":"2009-04-30T02:16:16","date_gmt":"2009-04-30T02:16:16","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-04-30T02:16:16","modified_gmt":"2009-04-30T02:16:16","slug":"senate-labor-committee-kills-a-bad-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/2009\/04\/30\/senate-labor-committee-kills-a-bad-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Labor Committee Kills a Bad Bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For years, the Republicans, Arnold and their Chamber of Commerce overlords, have been talking about &#8220;flexibility&#8221; in scheduling. That&#8217;s pretty much code for taking away the rights of workers.<\/p>\n<p>Well, today the Senate Labor Committee voted, along party lines, to kill <a href=\"http:\/\/info.sen.ca.gov\/pub\/09-10\/bill\/sen\/sb_0151-0200\/sb_187_bill_20090218_introduced.html\">Sen. Benoit&#8217;s SB 187<\/a>. Basically this would have changed the rules for the authorization of alternative schedules from the traditional 8-hour day, 40 hour week schedule. &nbsp;Currently, 2\/3 of a work unit must agree to any change. &nbsp;SB 187 allows the employer to strike the deal with just one employee.<\/p>\n<p>The Chamber of Commerce just loves this bill as they say they just want the ability for employers to juggle schedules. &nbsp;At the surface, that looks fairly innocuous. &nbsp;However, the problem is negotiating power, as it usually is. &nbsp;Under the current 2\/3 rule, employers must work with the group, thus employees have the advantages that collective bargaining brings. &nbsp;However, if one employee can agree to an alternative schedule, the employer once again has far more leverage.<\/p>\n<p>Look, in the new economy, perhaps 4 day work weeks might make a lot more sense. But we shouldn&#8217;t allow one employee to be pressured by his or her employee to be forced into it. &nbsp;Together with his or her work unit, that decision can be made as a group, as the decision will have impacts upon the entire group.<\/p>\n<p>None of these issues are a problem, if the employer has a good working relationship with their employees. It won&#8217;t be a problem for an emplyer with good labor relations to get approval for an alternative schedule. &nbsp;But where that is not the case, where relations are tense, the protection of the work unit is invaluable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For years, the Republicans, Arnold and their Chamber of Commerce overlords, have been talking about &#8220;flexibility&#8221; in scheduling. That&#8217;s pretty much code for taking away the rights of workers.<\/p>\n<p>Well, today the Senate Labor Committee voted, along party lines, to kill <a href=\"http:\/\/info.sen.ca.gov\/pub\/09-10\/bill\/sen\/sb_0151-0200\/sb_187_bill_20090218_introduced.html\">Sen. Benoit&#8217;s SB 187<\/a>. Basically this would have changed the rules for the authorization of alternative schedules from the traditional 8-hour day, 40 hour week schedule. &nbsp;Currently, 2\/3 of a work unit must agree to any change. &nbsp;SB 187 allows the employer to strike the deal with just one employee.<\/p>\n<p>The Chamber of Commerce just loves this bill as they say they just want the ability for employers to juggle schedules. &nbsp;At the surface, that looks fairly innocuous. &nbsp;However, the problem is negotiating power, as it usually is. &nbsp;Under the current 2\/3 rule, employers must work with the group, thus employees have the advantages that collective bargaining brings. &nbsp;However, if one employee can agree to an alternative schedule, the employer once again has far more leverage.<\/p>\n<p>Look, in the new economy, perhaps 4 day work weeks might make a lot more sense. But we shouldn&#8217;t allow one employee to be pressured by his or her employee to be forced into it. &nbsp;Together with his or her work unit, that decision can be made as a group, as the decision will have impacts upon the entire group.<\/p>\n<p>None of these issues are a problem, if the employer has a good working relationship with their employees. It won&#8217;t be a problem for an emplyer with good labor relations to get approval for an alternative schedule. &nbsp;But where that is not the case, where relations are tense, the protection of the work unit is invaluable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[978,7200],"class_list":["post-8711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-978","tag-7200"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pvhz-2gv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calitics.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}