I was shocked to read that Calpers, the California Public Employees
Retirement System, was planning to make treatment of workers one of its
criteria in voting shares. Calpers had been the leader among
institutional shareholders in promoting the downsizing agenda. When I
interviewed their chief investment officer a few months ago, I asked him
to comment on the irony of a public pension fund leading such an
anti-worker campaign, his reply was that they only care about better
results, not how they're achieved. I wonder if other folks had asked
equally pointed questions. I also wonder about the details of what
Calpers means - does it imply, for example, that a group of core workers
can be nurtured while peripheral/contingent ones are exploited out of view?
I plan to follow this up with Calpers very soon. I'll report on the
results, and would welcome hearing form anyone else with opinions on the
matter.
Treacy: Your Calpers Chief Investment Officer is being consistent! Was
there not a recent report out that showed those firms that had
engaged in massive downsizing had not shown any increase in labor
productivity? I know of one computer service firm that made all
their engineers, "contractors" instead of employees. Now that the
market for computer engineers has picked up their "contractors" are
leaving. Many of their customers have already left because they did
not like the kind of service they were getting from the disgruntled.
Like reinventing the wheel every generation or so managers have to learn
the hard way that if you want anything done above the burger flipping
level it requires people who know what they are doing and are willing to
share their knowledge with others in the organziation.
The next wave of union organizing is going to come from workers getting
more and more invasions into their health habits from employers who want
to cut health care costs. As workers realize that if they last more
than a few years, their aging gets the firms least cost underwriting
profile out of whack and puts their jobs in jeoprody. Computers have
lowered the cost of this kind of employee monitoring.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Doug
Doug Henwood [[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Left Business Observer
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