Meeting
Notes from the October 6th Western New York meeting
of The Business Council's Labor & Human Resources Committee
The meeting was called to order at 10 AM on October 6th at the HR offices of Six
Flags Darien Lake in Darien Center.
Tom Minnick welcomed the committee members, thanked Barb
Totten from Six Flags for their generosity in hosting the meeting
and reviewed the contents of the meeting book.
After a short introduction by each attendee, Tom Minnick, in his role as Manager, Center for Human Resources at The Business
Council proceeded with a legislative review.
The best labor news of 2005
was the overturning by the federal courts of the state's "labor neutrality
law," enacted in 2002. This
was the law which prohibited employer use of "state funds" for expenses associated
with opposing a unionization effort in the workplace. It also required the compilation
of detailed financial records for an employer to defend itself. The Business
Council's news of this is here: http://www.bcnys.org/whatsnew/2005/0517neutrality.htm
After a short review of employment and union membership data, showing New York as the highly unionized state in the country,
Tom covered the following pieces of legislation that saw full or partial action during the 2005 legislative session:
- Waiver of striker's unemployment insurance waiting period, S.654/A.1302
- Access to personnel files, S.3697/A.4411
- Workers' Compensation posting
penalty, S.4185/A.6676
- "Card Check" at residential facilities for the disabled,
S.3008/A.3292
- Workers' Compensation reform, S.5064
- Restriction on nurses overtime, S.169/A.1199
- Mandated leave for blood donation,
S.514/A.5497
- Paid family leave, S.1501/A.1301
- Enhanced whistleblower protection, S.3893/A.7185
- Freedom health plans,
S.1405/A.2688
- Employee's mail order pharmacy bill of rights, S.5456/A.8420-A
The presentation wrapped up with a pitch to attend next year's "HR Voice in Albany Day" on April 4, 2006. This is the annual
state lobby day for HR Professionals in New York State. There were 56 attendees this year and the goal for 2006 is 100 attendees.
George Hansen, Executive Director of Empire State Advantage presented next and ran the group through the basics of the
Excellence at Work program. The Empire State Advantage "Model for Excellence" is a simple framework for leading and managing
an organization and is based upon up-to-date research of the best practices and success factors of each economic sector-
business, education, government, healthcare and not-for-profit.
The Model serves as a reference point for assessing the organization, identifying opportunities for improvement and measuring
progress from strategic planning to front line execution. It can be customized to an organization's specific needs and integrated
into existing improvement practices and quality tools, such as strategic planning, balanced scorecard, re-engineering, ISO 9000,
six sigma, customer surveys and empowerment.
Organizations throughout New York State have the opportunity to earn recognition for excellence in management systems through
the ESA awards. For the past ten years, ESA has offered recognition for superior quality in management systems, most recently:
- The Empire State Gold, Silver or Bronze certifications
- The Governor's Award
for Excellence.
These awards are based on the onsite review and judging process. Participants compete only against the standards defined in the
Empire State Advantage Framework for Excellence, not against each other. Often, organizations honored with these awards set
the standard for excellence within their economic sectors.
The Empire State Advantage: Excellence at Work program was developed through a rigorous process that included interviews with
leaders in each sector to identify the drivers and survival issues they faced; research of the transformations that have occurred in
each sector over the past five years; a market study to find out how sector leaders define success; and assessment of past
excellence models to determine core competencies.
This in-depth research allows ESA to guide organizations through their easy-to-implement program which covers all aspects of
operating an organization from strategic planning to front-line execution.
George provided information to the group through a powerpoint presentation and he distributed a folder containing the evaluation
criteria and other information about the program to all attendees.
Bill Marks, Regional Director in Western New York for the New
York State Division of Human Rights, concluded the day's
program by giving the group a detailed overview of the Division, its mission, structure and caseload history plus a description of
how a complaint is processed and options that employers have along the way. He also discussed several interesting cases of
interest to the group. He also distributed a Basic Guide to the NYS Human Rights Law. He fielded a number of questions from the
group. Julia Day, Acting Regional Director from Rochester accompanied Bill and made several remarks to the group.
Bill and Julia emphasized the Division's policy of outreach to employers and urged the attendees to contact him with questions or
to arrange a speaker for a business or civic group.
The meeting adjourned at 3:00 PM.
Additional information and questions about this October meeting or future
meetings should be directed to Tom Minnick at tom.minnick@bcnys.org or
518/465-7511 x210.
