Meeting
Notes from the December 6th New York City meeting of
The Business Council's Labor & Human Resources Committee
The meeting was called to order at 10 AM on December 6th at the Pfizer World
Headquarters on 42nd Street in New York City.
Laurie DeLong, chairman of the Labor & HR Committee welcomed the committee
members, thanked Pfizer for their generosity in hosting the meeting and had
Tom Minnick review 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:
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.
After lunch, our final speaker was Jennifer Loftus, a National Director
from Business Council member firm Astron Solutions from
Manhattan. Jennifer covered topics including general compensation trends,
average wage differentials around the state and other trends in compensation
and benefits.
Using data from Mercer and WorldatWork, Jennifer presented data on projected
2006 general increase budgets, projected 2006 merit increase budgets and projected
2006 salary structure increase budgets. In the east and northeast, Mercer is
projecting a 3.5% merit increase budget projection while WorldatWork in projecting
the same 3.5% increase. In the east and northeast, Mercer is projecting a 2.8%
salary structure projected increase while WorldatWork projects a 2.5% increase.
In her discussion of average wage differentials around the state, she presented
a handy chart showing areas in the state vs. national. Not surprisingly, New
York City was at 117.2% of national while Buffalo was at 95.2%. Albany came
in at 99.4% while Syracuse at 102.5% , Rochester at 102.4% and Melville at
110.4%
Jennifer wrapped up her presentation with a discussion of emerging recognition
and reward practices, healthcare costs on the rise, healthcare cost inflation
and premiums, defined benefit and contribution pension plans and family friendly
benefits.
The meeting adjourned at 2:00 PM.
Additional information and questions about this December meeting or future
meetings should be directed to Tom Minnick at tom.minnick@bcnys.org or
518/465-7511 x210.
