I read this blog post and I have to tell you it is exactly how I feel so I cut and pasted it directly verbatim. Read it carefully.
I talk about a lot of things on this blog but I rarely touch on legislative issues that will be impacting our trade. I keep myself well informed but most people aren’t coming here to get their employment law update. If you are, I am sorry because you’ve probably been in a state of perpetual dissatisfaction.
One thing I have noticed is that many of the practitioners in Human Resources are thoroughly against most employee friendly legislation. The dominant professional organization in the space (SHRM) has taken stands that nearly mirror the US Chamber of Commerce (a huge pro-business organization). Most of the HR bloggers I’ve talked to and interacted with are willing to speak out for pro-business interests.
Taking The Fight To The EFCA
Kris Dunn (of HR Capitalist) and much of his crew over at Fistful of Talent have taken on the torch most recently on the subject of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). He has an older but still great article about the act on Workforce. Some have been informative, some have been funny and others could probably be classified as tedious. There are only so many articles I can read about the EFCA before my eyes start rolling back in my head and I die in boredom.
Let’s not mistake my feelings on the possible legislation versus the commentary: the EFCA, as written, is a big stinky pile of garbage. It is like the unions wrote out their wish list (and then some) and tried to cash it in like they were Bill Gates at an ATM. It could be severely damaging if passed. I am doing what I should be doing as a citizen: I am writing my representative and senators (no matter how little they actually care about my opposing viewpoint), I am voting appropriately and I am sharing my feelings on the law with all of you.
Missing The Greater Issue
Let’s face it though, I don’t have much influence on national politics (yet!). I have always believed that effective people focus on what they can impact and change. I can speak to people I know in HR about this issue that I know but still, it is going to lack effectiveness.
Let’s imagine that the EFCA passing as written is inevitable. It may very well be given large Democratic majorities at the federal level. So if the law passes, how would your company react? Would employee relations become an even bigger priority? Would you be looking at compensation and benefits more closely?
If we spent some of the intense energy used on trying to prevent EFCA from passing and instead worked on ways within our own companies to make it inconsequential whether or not the act passes, how much further along could we be? Instead of speaking out time and time again about and hammering the same points about the garbage law, articles could focus on how to make your business EFCA proof. And we could enact policies in our own organizations about pay transparency and a smart, progressive employee relations policy that takes all of the wind out of union bosses trying to recruit our employees to sign up.
Pending Pro-Employee Legislation = Pro-Activity Clue
So HR often gets a bad rap as a reactive bunch. It doesn’t have to be that way. One of the first and really easy things you can do as an individual or department is look at the pending employee legislation. If you look past the legislation, you’ll see a list of complaints that some of your employees may have had: my FMLA leave was administered incorrectly, my pay is different than my co-workers and I don’t know why, and why does this person get a new chair and desk while I’ve complained about my back and neck hurting?
You can use pending legislation as a check list. How effective is our FMLA administration? How do we examine whether someone is being paid correctly? And your organization can address these things now, make them right and prevent serious problems down the line.
And that’s not to say that good companies don’t get nailed for trying to make good faith efforts with bad laws. Admittedly though, many of the problems revolve around companies that can’t keep their own house clean and that railing against new legislation is a convenient crutch for fixing bad internal practices. I think with the new administration, a priority should be given to reexamining internal policies and pushing forward in the name of prevention and pro-action.
directly from: http://www.yourhrguy.com/2009/02/02/are-hr-people-terrified-of-empoyee-friendly-legislation/
