Padilla says she works 40 to 50 hours a week doing human resources, administrative and social media work for several U.S. clients while looking after her two children.

She works through oDesk, a web service that links employers and workers in a virtual work environment so people can work remotely. There are more than 400,000 contractors looking for work on oDesk and almost as many jobs have been posted.

Padilla says she likes the remote work arrangement. “I’m able to manage my schedule.”

ODesk is first a marketplace where those who need work done and those who can do it can advertise and connect. But oDesk does more than just facilitate first contact. Once an employer hires a contractor, oDesk provides tools to manage the engagement.

Workers log in through oDesk to work for clients. While online they can chat, and the client can see what the contractor is working on. For those who want to be sure they’re getting the time commitment they’re paying for, oDesk can capture screen shots from the worker’s PC at random intervals.

Gary Swart, chief executive officer of Menlo Park, Calif.-based oDesk, says his is the fastest growing online remote work marketplace, but it’s not the only one.

Elance, operated by Mountain View, Calif.-based Elance Inc., has around 65,000 employers and more than 100,000 active contractors, according to Brad Porteus, its chief marketing officer. Elance tends more toward fixed-price, relatively short-term jobs, while oDesk focuses more on longer-term projects where pay is open-ended and based on hours worked.

But like oDesk, Elance provides tools to help employer and employee work together. In both cases, a popular feature is the way the marketplace acts as a middleman for payment. Employers pay the agreed fees to oDesk or Elance, which then releases payment to the contractor when the work is completed.

ODesk guarantees contractors payment for the hours worked at the agreed rate. Elance allows clients to release funds to contractors when they reach milestones to the client’s satisfaction, and offers a dispute resolution system for cases where the client is dissatisfied.

There are other online job markets with narrower focuses, such as Rentacoder, which specializes in programming work, and YourEncore, where the contractors are retired scientists and engineers. Swart says employers with tight budgets who are facing limited supplies of some hard-to-find skills even in a weak economy are increasingly turning to remote workers. And in some cases that means very remote workers — on the other side of the world.

Canadians face growing competition

Amanda van der Gulik has built two websites from her home in Uxbridge, Ont., relying entirely on Elance contractors to supplement her own work.

“I use Elance for pretty much every part of my business,” she says. And the contactors she uses are physically located in different places around the world, from Canada to India.

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With city officials looking for ways to close a $208-million gap, Council President Eric Garcetti said that council members had received 89 requests to speak on the job-cut plan. That number was expected to rise as more people moved through the council chamber.

The proposal submitted to the council would scale back the workforce in 33 departments while shielding key positions, particularly police officers. But employees and activists said several other city agencies also play a critical role in protecting public safety.

Backers of the Human Services Department, which is slated for elimination, said the agency’s conflict- resolution mediators have helped reduce ethnic tensions since the 1965 Watts riots. Supporters of libraries said their books and computers keep students out of trouble after school.

“Don’t let our city experience a bankruptcy of spirit, a bankruptcy of culture,” said Roy Stone, president of the Librarians’ Guild within the American Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees Union Local 2626. “That is far worse than the financial bankruptcy you’re considering.”

Other labor leaders argued that officials should drop the layoff plan and go after uncollected debts, which they estimated at $600 million. “Maybe a hundred of those attorneys that are scheduled for layoffs could help,” said Bob Schoonover, president of Service Employees International Union Local 721.

Whether the proposal will be approved by the council is unclear. At least a third of its 15 members spoke out against the job reductions earlier this week. And Wednesday morning, members signaled support to advocates for various programs and agencies who were in the audience.

Backers of the Cultural Affairs Department, which is slated to lose at least 16 positions, showed up wearing stickers such as “Art Fuels L.A.” and “Art Feeds L.A.” Councilman Tom LaBonge, who represents part of Hollywood, quickly grabbed one of those stickers and put it on his own lapel as the testimony began.

Adolfo Nodal, a onetime general manager of the department, urged the council to confer with the agency’s current manager and its volunteer board to find more surgical ways to reduce arts programs.

“They can work with you to make the right cuts,” he said. “But don’t destroy us.”

– David Zahniser at Los Angeles City Hall

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/hundreds-line-up-to-speak-against-la-worker-layoffs.html

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[UKPRwire, Thu Jan 28 2010] Consensio, a leading conflict management and workplace mediation provider, today announces the launch of its Conflict Clinic. This free interactive service will allow HR professionals to access information on informal conflict resolution processes, including mediation and conflict coaching.

Consensio’s Conflict Clinic is a unique and bespoke service which offers HR professionals a one-stop shop for enquiries about managing workplace conflict. The Conflict Clinic will provide clear, practical and professional advice in a timely manner.

Although many organisations are aware of the costs of conflict and would like to offer informal in-house dispute resolution processes, they face various challenges. These include a limited capacity of staff with conflict resolution or mediation skills, a lack of awareness of mediation services, as well as the prevalence of employees who choose the formal route to conflict resolution.

The new ACAS Code of Practice on Grievance and Disciplinary Procedures recommends the use of mediation to resolve workplace conflict as a means of decreasing formal grievances and Employment Tribunal (ET) claims. Current figures show that ET claims are at a record high and these numbers are expected to continue to rise in 2010. With this in mind, and reacting to client demand for access to impartial professionals, Consensio has developed the Conflict Clinic to allow organisations to directly contact an expert for support and guidance.

“The use of alternative forms of dispute resolution, including mediation, to resolve workplace conflict is important in any type of organisation. But in order for this to be successful, staff within organisations require adequate skills, as well as confidence. Due to the significant cost of conflict to organisations and employees, organisations need to work harder to solve conflict before it reaches formal process and escalates to Employment Tribunal”, said Anna Shields, Director of Consensio. “The Conflict Clinic has been created to help organisations get support and advice from experts in the field, to answer questions and concers HR professionals may have, and to promote informal ways of resolving conflict, such as through the use of mediation or conflict coaching.”

To access the Conflict Clinic, please visit: www.consensiopartners.co.uk.

About Consensio
Consensio is a leading provider of conflict management and workplace mediation solutions to organisations across the UK. Consensio believes that each client is unique and its team of experts pride themselves in creating and delivering cost-effective bespoke solutions to help manage workplace conflict. Consensio works in partnership with its clients and offers an array of services including: mediation, coaching, consultancy and accredited training. Consensio’s customers span small organisations to FTSE 100 enterprises, in both the private, public and third sectors across the UK. For more information about Consensio, please visit: www.consensiopartners.co.uk.

http://www.ukprwire.com/Detailed/Business/Consensio_Announces_the_Launch_of_its_Conflict_Clinic_65689.shtml

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This type of learning requires taking risks and challenging one’s attitudes and assumptions. The results include an improved ability to embrace opportunities as they arise, a greater capability in coping with challenges as they emerge, an enhanced ability to lead self and others through change experiences and increased conflict resolution skills. Above all, there is an improved ability to move from what may appear as a breakdown or burnout position to a more positive state of mind or position.

Over more than 20 years as a career transition coach, I have worked with hundreds of displaced business executives. My experience working with these executives, along with my experience teaching MBA students, has demonstrated the need for transformative learning experiences among our corporate leaders.

At all levels, I hear requests to teach “more individual leadership courses with personalized learning and change” and “productive and non-productive thinking styles and practices.” People participating in higher level business education want to improve their skills in areas like critical-analytical thinking and problem-solving, emotional intelligence levels, communication approaches, conflict resolution, team leadership, transition and performance management. Such requests support research which suggests that transformative experiences involving self-reflection are necessary before a leader can effectively lead others.

In order to make changes in behaviours, instructors need to move beyond purely intellectual knowledge transfer. To enable change to occur and to help participants implement new ideas, instructors must incorporate new ways of thinking and experimenting with new behaviours into program design and delivery. Most importantly, the specific needs of the executives and students have to be considered.

I have done just that in two of my MBA courses at McMaster. In the Leadership course, students are thrust into a “disorienting dilemma.” Early in the course, they complete a series of tests measuring their thinking styles, emotional intelligence, stress management, time management and cultural intelligence. They become “aware” of thoughts, behaviours, feelingsmany of which are unhealthy and unproductive. Students prepare a self-reflection and action plan in which they define what thoughts and behaviours they wish to change and how they will change them. A second critical reflection piece, allows students to walk through their transformative journey and learnings. Students describe the experience as “life-altering”, “revealing”, and “an individual leadership experience absolutely necessary before attempting to lead others”.

In my strategic organizational change course, students are also thrust into a “disorienting dilemma.” Students form groups and given an assignment. One week after group formation, case analysis and write-up, the students encounter their dilemma. I fire two members of each team. Those fired are moved to new teams, and the assignment begins again. The first official submission is a self- reflection piece by each team member, where they have to describe the experience of either being terminated and forced to work with a new team, or being a survivor, having teammates pulled from their group and new people placed on their team. Following submission of the case, students are asked to submit a second self-reflection piece on the experience after the dilemma. One student described the experience as, “At first I was in shock and completely out of my comfort zone, but when given the chance to reflect, and better understand where my thinking and actions were coming from, I learned and was able to practice different approaches to handling change situations.”

The goal of any business school should be to produce graduates who enter the workforce able to make key strategic decisions and initiate change within their industries.By encouraging students to fully understand self-thought and resultant behaviours, transformative learning helps build more authentic leaders for the future.

Dr. Teal McAteer is on the faculty of the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University and teaches organizational behavior and HR management. Dr. McAteer also has her own consulting practice specializing in the areas of strategic human resource management, motivation, career planning and development, change, stress and time management, and health and wellness.

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The study of work is changing along with it, leading McMaster University to expand its labour studies

program into a school of labour studies, a change that is to be announced officially at a reception today.

The school will be the first of its kind in Canada, just as the labour studies program was the first of its kind when McMaster launched it in 1976.

Since then, scholars in labour studies have followed issues that include the ascendancy of trade unions, the rise of women in the workforce, the decline of manufacturing, the growth of technology, globalization, and huge demographic shifts in the workforce.

And what began as an effort to empower local workers and union officials through education has grown into an academic program that draws students from as far away as Mexico, China and India.

“This is a recognition of where labour studies is in terms of what has been going on internationally, in Canada and in Hamilton,” said Don Wells, director of the program and now chair of the new school. “Labour studies has become so much more central to the major changes that are going on.”

Today, the community certificate classes that first linked the needs of unions to the resources of the university continue.

There are also about 1,400 students in McMaster’s first-year labour studies classes, which are part of the broader faculty of social sciences.

Some of those university students will go on to specific undergraduate degrees in labour studies. A handful will go all the way to master’s degrees, and one day the school hopes to develop a PhD program.

Graduates commonly end up working in labour law, research or negotiations, or in the fields of human resources or journalism.

In practical terms, the status change from program to school means more visibility and autonomy.

“I think it’s a very important step forward, symbolically and practically,” said McMaster president Peter George. “It will give them a much higher profile, not only on the campus and in the community, but also nationally and internationally.”

Until the change, faculty members in labour studies were cross-appointed from other parts of the university, always working under the primary authority of their home departments, limiting the program’s ability to plan for itself.

Still, it grew, developing a distinctive character both within McMaster and on the broader academic scene.

An external review of the university’s undergraduate programs in 2008 described labour studies as a “high-quality, innovative and community-rooted” program that deserved higher status, prompting the process of creating the new school, which the university’s senate and board of governors approved late last year.

Owing partly to its subject matter, labour studies grew up without much regard for traditional distinctions between professors, staff members, graduate students and undergraduates, who typically work on a first-name basis.

More than collegial, its model is co-operative, Wells said.

Another ingredient in the program’s success has been McMaster’s location.

Seated in a city and region where labour issues, economic restructuring and their consequences are particularly evident, scholars are in regular contact with the community, where they gather and share information.

The school’s research is practical, Wells said, and is typically aimed at solving specific problems. Current research projects include poverty and education and aboriginal employment issues.

“It’s a tradition of engaged scholarship,” Wells said. “It’s not just a fascinating intellectual question, but it’s about what potential impact people doing that research can have on the community.”

And while academic education and research in labour studies is producing papers and graduates, the school continues to offer non-degree certificate courses on its own and in conjunction with the Canadian Auto Workers and Mohawk College.

Certificate courses cover subjects such as conflict resolution, labour history and the impact of Walmart, and continue to bring members of the workforce into the university fold.

“We didn’t have a town-and-gown distinction from the very beginning,” Wells said.

McMaster’s labour studies program grew out of a joint venture between the university, the Canadian Labour Congress and the Ontario Federation of Labour, starting its life as a way to help workers themselves learn more about the world of work, including the labour movement.

Harry Waisglass scrambled to find the funding to start the experiment, leaving his job as the federal Labour Department’s director of research and development to start the program at McMaster.

He hustled again to keep the program from being cancelled on the eve of it receiving degree-granting status.

Waisglass retired from McMaster in June 1981, one month after securing the program’s future, realizing what he called a dream.

Today, Waisglass is nearing 90, and health issues prevent him from attending today’s ceremony.

His son David Waisglass (whose father’s work influenced him in the creation of Farcus, a syndicated cartoon about working life) said seeing the program grow confirms his father was on the right track, even though he had to battle through initial resistance to the idea of unionists and academics coming together.

“Throughout his long career, he’s fought to apply research, analysis, critical thinking, study and education in union-management relations,” he said. “To see the labour studies program become a school in the faculty of social sciences is just perfect.”

When labour studies grew into a degree program, 14 years before George became McMaster president, he was dean of social sciences.

He said it was important to maintain the original commitment to teaching non-degree courses to members and staff, right in their union halls.

“The commitment early on was to take education out to the labour community — don’t insist they come to the university, where they may feel a little awkward or shy,” he said. “That outreach to the labour community is important.”

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Derailment is a term used to refer to the usually sudden deviation of a senior employee from his or her career path or job. Derailment scenarios are varied and may arise from any of the following: disillusionment or disenchantment with a job or career after several years, gross incompetence, inability to perform job functions effectively or outright misdemeanor.

What is required to get an employee a job? In order to secure an excellent job, the emphasis of employers and employees is on simple, objective measures of success and achievement – basic and higher educational degrees, the prestige of institutions attended, membership of professional associations, work experience and other indices of merit.

What ensures an employee stays on the train and gets promoted? Interestingly though, the factors that are required to keep an employee, once employed, in a constant upward flux up the career ladder are more behaviour-based and intangible than those that got him there in the first place. While possessing a good degree in the right discipline, attending reputable organisations, having the right professional qualifications or affiliations, being the right age or gender and having the right work experience might be fundamental to an employee’s success and ability to procure an excellent job position, it is his ability to communicate successfully, prioritise well, maintain good interpersonal relationships, manage subordinates, relate successfully, be viewed favorably by superiors and work well within a team that keep him moving along in the train. The employee finds that his inability to meet these subtle / ‘soft’ aspects of job demands renders him unable to make anticipated progress in his career. He may then continue in his career, achieving more senior levels of employment, but if he does not soon realise that he must exchange the skills for which he was employed with new managerial/organisational skills required to keep him moving, he may get knocked off that career train, or as the term goes, derailed.

Several studies conducted on the subject of derailment generally discover that, once in management positions within organisations, senior staff spend increasing amounts of time engaging in highly subjective activities such as ‘paying homage’ to even more senior colleagues and riding the waves of organisational politics. Managers and executives who do not possess such ‘skills’ and are not able to handle such activities effectively may find themselves frustrated out of the career train entirely.

Studies on the reasons why executives derail in the career ladder, when a lot more might have been expected of them indicate that derailment occurs for a number of reasons including managers having strengths that are so strong they eventually manifest as liabilities; intolerance to other employees; poor communication skills; inability to think strategically; unnecessary aggression towards others; poor conflict resolution; inability to adapt or manage changing situations and; an overly narrow outlook or orientation. These problems are obviously distinct from the initial skills and attributes required at the onset of a career and appear unlikely to have been focused on either during the employment process or during early career development stages.

What can managers do? In order to remain relevant, prevent derailment and maintain upward movement on the career train, managers can attempt to: seek feedback on their management skills throughout their careers; seek developmental opportunities that help overcome flaws and add new skills; continually seek coaching and mentoring; and consistently take responsibility for personal development.

What can organisations do? The underachievement or derailment of employees, on whom precious resources have been spent in training and development, is a genuine source of concern for organisations. Signs of imminent derailment usually do not manifest overnight but may be detected in an employee’s pattern of behaviour and manner of handling management situations. Organisations that promote the fostering of skills which can help a manager or executive perform effectively when he eventually rises to senior management positions are likely to reduce the incidence of eventual executive derailment.

However, the aggressive result-orientedness of many organisations and the continual rewarding of ‘performance’ may mask unhealthy management practices which, if left unchecked, will resurface when employees move along the train and take up more senior positions.

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The FBI estimates that each year 1 million people are exposed to some form of workplace violence. A recent study found that the No. 2 cause of on-the-job deaths among women was workplace violence. No business is immune from the risk of violence on its premises.

While violence cannot always be anticipated, this does not relieve employers of their obligation to provide a safe workplace. First, federal law requires it. With the Department of Labor adding investigators and stepping up workplace safety enforcement, compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations should be a management priority. Second, workers compensation insurance provides Texas employers only limited protection against liability from the inevitable lawsuits following a workplace tragedy.

Potentially violent situations can quickly arise from many sources. An irate former boyfriend might be harassing an employee at work with constant phone calls. A laid-off employee may make threats on his way out of the building. An employee under stress may develop a hair-trigger temper and become very difficult to handle. The possible circumstances are as numerous as they are volatile.

Whether workplace violence stems from a current or former employee, an unknown assailant or an employee’s domestic situation, many incidents are foreseeable and/or preventable. Management is often ill-equipped, however, to recognize a developing situation and take appropriate action. With this in mind, the following steps summarize some of the ways employers can minimize the risk of workplace violence:

Accept reality: The recent shootings reinforce the fact that the risk of workplace violence is omnipresent. Employers must be proactive to prevent or minimize exposure to such incidents.

Use effective pre-employment documents and conduct background checks: An effective application coupled with valid legal releases and disclaimers provide key information on the applicant. Employers should conduct background investigations to discover prior convictions, litigation history, motor vehicle records, employment references, credit history, education records and other relevant background information concerning the applicant.

Establish policies on workplace violence: Employers should establish a written zero-tolerance position on violence, threats or abusive language and make clear that any violation of these rules can be grounds for termination. A workplace violence policy should also include a procedure to confidentially report threats.

Conduct substance-abuse testing: Private employers should test all applicants and employees for substance abuse to the extent allowed by law. Negative test results should be a condition of employment.

Develop procedures for investigating threats: These procedures should include specific guidelines for conducting an investigation and interviewing witnesses and the individual who allegedly made the threat. To the extent necessary, employers should retain security consultants, psychologists, attorneys or other professionals for advice on how to handle threats quickly, effectively and legally.

Train supervisors and employees:Supervisors should be instructed to identify violence risks and report all threats to management immediately. Supervisors should be trained in conflict resolution, stress management, managing change in the workplace and recognizing the early warning signs of violent employees. They should also be trained to be sensitive to the fact that seemingly small issues can suddenly escalate into workplace problems. Employees should be trained regarding their responsibility to report threats or violence.

Implement an employee assistance program: EAPs can help employees who are having a difficult time handling stress in their lives.

Audit and improve security measures: Employers should establish a relationship with local law enforcement officials and a security consultant. Employers should also conduct an audit to determine areas of vulnerability and/or procedural weaknesses. Basic systems for protecting property, such as lighting, pass keys or cards, intercoms, employee identification, surveillance or alarm equipment and other systems or devices should be considered.

Rarely does anyone head to the office expecting violence. There is risk, however, at every place of employment. By implementing comprehensive policies geared toward workplace safety, employers will significantly reduce the risk that their office will be the site of the next tragedy.

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In the absence of clear metrics for success, comparable across post-conflict zones, the profession of peace-building can be cynically dismissed by policy hawks. And with professional programs to train peace-builders developing worldwide, greater rigor is needed in this area. Furthermore, as resources for international peace-keeping operations become more limited, the stakes increase for monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of humanitarianism.

The use of indices, such as the Human Development Index or the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, is widespread among donor agencies. Often such indices are used in post-conflict situations as an indirect measure of reconciliation. Yet they are a degree removed from the micro-level reconciliation processes that often take place at the community level. The lag time between those processes and their translation into broader development or corruption indicators can be several years. It is also possible to see improvement in development indicators without actual conflict resolution at the community level—latent rivalries may be temporarily suppressed only to reemerge under socioeconomic stress. An indicator with higher resolution is thus needed to assess the progress of reconciliation.

The need for such an indicator became particularly apparent to us while working with Fambul Tok, a nonprofit organization that facilitates unofficial community-based reconciliation in Sierra Leone. The first step in their process consists of a community deciding whether it wants to reconcile—the chiefs hold participatory meetings along with Fambul Tok facilitators to determine the will of the community. If the community decides to go forward, then committees are formed to oversee and organize the process. Over the next several months the community prepares for a culminating ceremony around a bonfire, where the victims speak out about what the perpetrators, who are present, did to them during the war. The perpetrators must publicly acknowledge what they did and ask the victims for forgiveness.

Following the bonfire ceremony, other cleansing actions are carried out according to local traditions. The committees also organize reconciliation activities, such as community gardening and soccer tournaments, to keep bringing the community together. Often perpetrators will take over the gardening responsibilities of their victims, and both will play together on the same soccer team. The cost of the ceremonies and activities is paid for in part by Fambul Tok, but the community must also chip in to ensure commitment and ownership of the reconciliation process. These costs are no small detail in a land where starvation and extreme poverty are rampant.

The Fambul Tok process is quite different from that of Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC was held in Freetown, which was not the most impacted region during the civil war. Moreover, poor people from the rural parts of Sierra Leone had little means of traveling to Freetown to attend the Commission. The TRC gave victims a chance to testify about what happened to them, and while this is of course extremely useful, it is not equivalent to engaging the community in the design process of its own reconciliation. The end result of the TRC was a report of recommendations and findings (distributed on the Internet). It is a critically important document, albeit one that can’t encapsulate the side-by-side soccer tournaments that victims and perpetrators are now playing in the remote rural areas where the fighting started.

Communities that have gone through the Fambul Tok reconciliation process are not only healing the wounds of the brutal civil war but also building capacity for sustainable development. The civil war destroyed community bonds and traditions along with lives and property, and now the participation in town meetings and reconciliation committees has empowered them. The ceremonies offer release, and this combination of release and empowerment generates a community that is ready to participate in its own development. With so many failures in development due to the divide between donors and recipients, professionals have come to recognize the critical importance of community-based, participatory development projects.

What is needed is a composite indicator to substantiate the impact of this reconciliation approach through surveys and analysis of the various criteria of lasting reconciliation. The indicator could be used to determine progress in the reconciliation process, which in turn could determine the disbursement of precious development resources, increasing the success of sustainable development overall.

There are several variables to consider when ascertaining the efficacy of traditional techniques such as Fambul Tok: a return to functional livelihoods; mental health indicators suggesting a recovery from post-traumatic stress; anger management strategies; and gender dynamics, particularly in the context of parenting and spousal relations.

An indicator would not only help the process of reconciliation be more transparent, accountable, and effective, but also highlight the importance of reconciliation in attaining the larger goals of development.

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As people age, they often forget the vast differences between child and adult.

There are, of course, the physical differences, perhaps most clearly demonstrated in the disparate sizes. A 5-year-old looking up at a 30-year-old, for example, is not unlike the typical, 5-foot-9-inch, adult male looking up at one of the NBA’s 7-footers. It can be intimidating.

The passage from child to adult involves ever-increasing levels of responsibility. That hustle and bustle is part of the reason why adults can easily forget what it’s like to be a kid. A child worries about things that don’t really matter to a grownup. Little things can seem like huge things in a young mind.

That’s why it’s so important for adults to do what they can to help children get through every crisis — real or imagined — that is part of the growing-up process. And that’s what National Mentoring Month is all about.

January is Mentoring Month, a special time for adults to help children.

It’s an awesome responsibility, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. It could be something as simple as taking the time to read a story to a child, or helping with homework, or perhaps showing a girl or boy how to shoot a free throw.

There are many ways an adult can mentor a child. One of the most efficient ways is through organizations such as your local Big Brothers Big Sisters.

In San Luis Obispo County, for example, BBBS has been an integral part of our communities for 15 years, during which time officials have paired up more than 1,200 local children with adult mentors. Similar groups are operating throughout the Central Coast.

The benefits of such direct adult-to-child interaction are many. Children who have adult mentoring are more likely to outperform peers in school. Mentored kids shy away from violent behavior, avoid alcohol and drugs, and are likely to have stronger relationships within their own families.

A word or two about shying away from violent behavior. The Associated Press reported Thursday that more than 25 percent of teenage girls in this country are involved in some sort of violent behavior, either at home, at school or in the workplace. The crime rate for teen boys is even higher, at nearly 34 percent.

What this data suggests is that adults need to do a better job of reaching out to boys and girls, and helping guide them to safer forms of problem-solving and conflict-resolution.

The sad truth is that far too many teens and preteens turn to violence, using their fists and weapons, instead of their reasoning skills, to deal with life’s many challenges.

The study, a result of information collected in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, also noted that teens — boys and girls — are far more likely to resort to violence after binge drinking or marijuana use. Those are two areas of behavior in which adult mentors can play a direct, and positive role.

Violent crime rates among teens were also much higher in kids who had dropped out of school — another aspect of a teen’s life that can be positively affected by direct adult supervision and guidance. Those figures make a compelling case for adult mentoring.

It is true that mentoring takes is some time and dedication, but it is also clear that the effort pays incredible dividends in the life of the child under your wing — and for you.

National Mentoring Month is a great place to begin a process, the rewards from which last a lifetime.

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• The act would require all state and local governments to collectively bargain with public safety employees–police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel.
• States would be forced to permit bargaining over wages, hours, and all terms and conditions of employment.
• States would have to provide a dispute resolution mechanism, such as binding arbitration.
• PSEECA allows the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) to determine whether a state’s collective bargaining arrangements meet the standards as defined by the act. If they do not, the FLRA could impose a collective bargaining system on the state.
• The FLRA would have considerable authority to enforce the act, including:
• • Determining the appropriateness of units for labor organization representation;
  • Conducting hearings and resolving complaints of unfair labor practices; and
  • Supervising or conducting elections to determine whether a labor organization has been selected as an exclusive representative by a voting majority of the employees.
• States would be granted the authority to pass laws more expansive than those the federal government imposed.
• States would not, however, be allowed to pass narrower laws than those contained in the act.

Policy Objections

• Unionized state and local government employees earn 11-12 percent higher pay than comparable non-union workers.
• They also have more expensive benefit packages than non-union workers.
• The act would end local control and flexibility by forcing the minority that has chosen not to collectively bargain to do so. Different states and local governments have different needs and should be free to fit their policies to their individual needs. Collective bargaining does not work everywhere.
• Large majorities of public safety employees already collectively bargain. The states in which collective bargaining is appropriate and affordable have already chosen to do so. The legislation represents a solution in search of a problem.
• Not all issues should be collectively negotiated. For instance:
• • Police unions should not negotiate the terms and conditions under which their members may use deadly force.
  • Many state and local governments promote police officers on the basis of merit and performance instead of through collectively bargained seniority schedules. Merit-based promotions and raises encourage hard work and help put the best workers in the most sensitive positions. However, unions prefer seniority-based promotions. States should not be forced to bargain over this issue.
• Experience demonstrates that collective bargaining does not lead to increased cooperation between public safety employees and their employers.
• • The process is inherently adversarial: Pitting employees and employers against each other at the bargaining table creates as much conflict as cooperation.
  • Consequently, public-sector employees will often strike when the law explicitly forbids it, putting vital public services at risk.
• PSEECA may deter or even eliminate volunteer firefighting. Firefighters unions vehemently oppose volunteer firefighters because they reduce the need for paid firefighters. They levy stiff internal fines against unionized firefighters who volunteer off-duty. By requiring all states and localities to collectively bargain, PSEECA would make it easier for unions to crack down on volunteer firefighting.

Economic Effects

• The act imposes an expensive unfunded mandate on state and local governments.
• Without providing financing for the mandate, the act will force these governments to either cut services or raise taxes.
• The act prevents employers from hiring workers who would do the same job for less than union wages, thus undermining potentially more qualified competition.
• This gives the union much more negotiating power but harms workers who could negotiate a better individual deal with the employer. A non-union worker who prefers merit-based promotions must instead accept what the union negotiates for him.

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