Hasta La Gadget!

MADISON, Wis. — Spelling more trouble for organized labor in the U.S., Republican legislators in the Wisconsin state Senate approved a right-to-work bill here on Wednesday, sending the measure to a GOP-controlled Assembly where it’s also expected to pass. Republican leaders chose to fast-track the bill in what’s known as an extraordinary legislative session, allowing for less debate than usual.

Debate over the bill drew thousands of protesters to the state Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday, reminiscent of the passionate labor demonstrations surrounding Act 10 in 2011. But as with that earlier legislation, which stripped most collective bargaining rights from public-sector employees, vocal opposition from the state’s unions wasn’t enough to stop the right-to-work bill in its tracks.

Legislators are expected to take up the measure early next week in the state Assembly, where Republicans enjoy a comfortable majority. The office of Gov. Scott Walker (R) has already said he will sign the bill if it reaches his desk.

The fight in Madison is just the latest indication of how state Republican leaders, often controlling both the statehouse and the governor’s mansion in their respective states, are managing to enact laws that weaken the clout of organized labor. If the Wisconsin measure is approved, the Badger State will become the 25th right-to-work state in the country, following two other Midwestern states, Michigan and Indiana, that passed such laws in 2012.

“It is a symbolic tipping point, or an inflection point,” Paul Secunda, a labor law professor at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, said of potentially half the states in the country being right-to-work. “For the longest time there were 22 right-to-work states. Now the right-to-work people have the momentum.”

Under U.S. labor law, a union that wins an election in a workplace must represent all the workers in the bargaining unit, even the ones who may have voted against the union. Unions, therefore, prefer contracts in which all the workers have to support the union financially. Right-to-work laws make such arrangements illegal.

Under right-to-work, no employee can be required to pay fees to the union. Once provided with an out, many workers inevitably stop paying, leading to what unions derisively call “free-riding.” With less money in the coffers, unions can’t bargain as well or recruit new members as effectively.

The fallout from Michigan’s passage of right-to-work is already visible. Last year, the estimated number of union members dropped by 48,000, despite the fact that the state added 44,000 more workers to its economy, according to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the halls of the Wisconsin Capitol, union members voiced their own fears about what the legislation could mean for their wages, their benefits and their unions’ long-term viability.

“We’re going to have free-riders and free-loaders,” said Steve Buffalo, district manager for International Union of Operating Engineers Local 139, which represents heavy-equipment operators. “But these guys are so strong that I think we’ll stay intact. We’ve been here a hundred years and we plan on being around for another hundred.”

Conor Kuzdas, an apprentice with the operating engineers, said he worries what a loss of funding could mean for the training and safety of workers who come up behind him.

“I know everyone is worried about wages and pensions, but that’s a big thing for me,” Kuzdas explained. “There’s just a lot of dangerous stuff that we do … We want to make sure that the people around us are trained.”

On Tuesday, members of the Senate’s labor committee listened to a stream of testimony from experts, business owners, business lobbies and unions about their predictions if Wisconsin became right-to-work. Backers of the legislation promised more business would come to the state, while detractors assured it would result in lower wages with no additional jobs.

In the end, all that testimony did little to sway the expected outcome, as Republicans cut the session short and moved the bill out of committee, while many union members were still waiting to testify.

As expected, the bill then survived hours of debate Wednesday in the full Senate, with Republicans beating back a host of amendments put forth by Democrats, including one that would have raised the state’s minimum wage. The final vote split mostly along party lines.

One Republican, Sen. Jerry Petrowski, said he was voting against the measure because he wasn’t convinced of the purported benefits advanced by backers of the bill.

“I’m a Ronald Reagan Republican, and like President Reagan I was a union member for many years,” Petrowski said in a statement. “Under the law as it stands, unions are formed by a majority vote and everyone gets to choose where they work.”

Petrowski, however, was alone among Republicans in his opposition.

Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, said Republicans fast-tracked the bill to avoid discussion.

“They do that for a reason,” Neuenfeldt said. “The reason they do fast-track is they don’t want to have a public debate. They don’t want people to understand what they’re doing.”

The bill’s fast-tracking presents another problem for unions. If the law is quickly enacted, unions won’t have much time to extend their current contracts before the state becomes right-to-work. (Many unions in Michigan managed to do just that, likely delaying a loss of dues-paying members for a matter years.) Democrats proposed an amendment that would have put off the bill’s enactment for three months, but Republicans voted it down.

Just as discussion of the bill by lawmakers began Wednesday, union members and other protesters filled the balconies in the Capitol, shouting “shame” at the closed doors of the Senate floor, which was cordoned off by police.

Randy Bryce, a former Democratic state Senate candidate and member of the Ironworkers Local 8 union, was removed from the gallery for disrupting the proceedings just as Scott Fitzgerald, the Senate’s GOP leader, began reading the bill. Bryce told The Huffington Post afterward that he spoke out because he never had a chance to testify the previous day, even though he was listed on the schedule.

“I told them they’re turning Wisconsin into a banana republic,” Bryce said. “The way they’re passing this bill is wrong — it’s not democratic.”

Bryce said he and many of his union colleagues had given up a day’s pay from their construction jobs to join the protests on Tuesday and Wednesday. Ultimately, they never got a chance to put their comments into the record.

“I don’t think what I did is nearly as disruptive as what [lawmakers] are doing in there,” Bryce said.

Much of the language in the right-to-work legislation was drawn from similar bills in other states. Business lobbies, in general, tend to push right-to-work bills, since they have a way of weakening unions in already-unionized workplaces. By extension, the bills also hurt the Democratic Party, since unions tend to back Democratic candidates.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, a state trade group, is one of the leading proponents of the measure in Madison. Wisconsin still has above-average union density when compared with other states, with 11.7 percent of wage and salary earners belonging to a labor union. The national average is 11.1 percent, and just 6.6 percent in the private sector.

But overall, union membership in Wisconsin has dropped sharply since Act 10 rendered most public-sector unions unable to bargain; the state’s overall rate of union membership fell by more than half a point last year alone, likely driven by more public-sector workers dropping out of their unions. If passed, a right-to-work bill would similarly depress membership in the private sector.

“Membership always dwindles after right-to-work legislation passes,” said Secunda. “And at the end of the day, this is going to go through.”

Ten years ago, I shipped the world’s first fair-trade avocados from small-scale farmers in Mexico to Europe — and my social enterprise was born.

At the time, I’d never heard of a “social entrepreneur”. I just wanted to use my business skills to help small-scale farmers transform their lives. Now, I identify as a social entrepreneur down to my bones, and my enterprise has scaled around the globe and impacted thousands of farmers in many countries.

Our mission is far from complete, but the anniversary is an occasion to reflect on the keys lessons learned during 10 life-changing years.

1. Be the change. Social entrepreneurship isn’t just a new approach to business. It’s a way of life. We won’t effect meaningful change in the world around us without constantly questioning and challenging ourselves to live and be better — every moment of every day.

2. Only do what’s win-win. Self-interest is out. We must constantly see the world from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, both in our regular, day-to-day lives and in our business and development decisions, seeking not what will benefit us the most, but what will most benefit the world as a whole. To do this requires empathy — one of a social entrepreneur’s most crucial assets.

3. Have clarity about your mission and values. Having clarity about our mission and values is extraordinarily powerful. Every time we act according to our values, they become clearer within us and attract like-minded partners and new opportunities.

4. Use the market as the engine for positive change. As social entrepreneurs, it’s our task to harness market forces in ways that generate positive change. To do so, we must be innovative with our business-and-development models, understanding that the best of intentions are meaningless if we can’t build a sustainable and scalable structure to fulfill them.

5. Broaden your understanding of return on investment. Being a social entrepreneur means treating your entire life as an investment, and understanding the term “return” on a much deeper level; which goes way beyond the traditional monetary ROI definition. The ultimate return we’re after — in ourselves and in all our stakeholders — is the deep satisfaction of meaningful change.

6. Surround yourself with passionate entrepreneurs and leaders. I don’t hire employees; I hire entrepreneurs! And I don’t appoint “managers”; I hand-pick passionate and mission-driven leaders who train and inspire new leaders in our local organizations. This creates a virtuous cycle. It is truly amazing what a group of entrepreneurial leaders with a shared mission can accomplish.

7. Aim big but be humble. From the beginning, I wanted to build an organization that would be truly global and would make this world a better place; and I still feel a constant desire to reach the next level of scale and impact. Reaching for the stars is crucial if we want to change the world. But it is also profoundly humbling as it reminds us that the world is much larger than our mission. Our world faces a myriad of massive challenges, and we need all the passionate, big-thinking, yet humble entrepreneurs we can get.

8. Our movement is important. Over the last decade, I’ve come to understand the social entrepreneurship movement from many different angles and repetitively realized how remarkable and important it is. We are connecting new dots that no one else is connecting, responding to urgent needs in creative ways and building a world that’s more equitable, transparent, connected and inspiring. Let’s join forces with each other, while constantly breaking down old silos and stubborn structures to collaborate across different sectors, public and private.

9. There will be failures and crises. Success depends on how you meet them. I’ve launched new ventures that failed miserably, been wracked by self-doubt, had would-be partners betray me and been through some of the darkest moments of my life. In every case, it was the inner clarity of my mission that helped me decide what to do and gave me the strength to make the right decision. Without fail, my crises turned into opportunities that led to growth. That’s because life wants us to grow, and continually presents us with new challenges that help us live up to our responsibility vis-à-vis ourselves and our world.

10. It is worth it. I left my corporate career with a vague but powerful intuition that a more meaningful and satisfying life was possible. Today, 10 years later, my life continues to be full of hard work, long days and difficult decisions. But in having a clear mission, a passionate team that shares it with me and the knowledge that we’re creating real change in the world, I feel an immense sense of purpose and satisfaction on a daily basis — and a desire for more.

Google released a new version of their Google Calendar app for Android. There made some small adjustments and tweaks after receiving feedback on their earlier versions. The previous version had taken away the ability to view week by week. The update brings back a 7-day view and introduces a pinch-to-zoom function. You can also elect to show the week’s numbers … Continue reading

PAOLI, Ind. (AP) — A dispute between co-workers at a southern Indiana auto body shop Wednesday escalated into a shooting that left one employee dead from a self-inflicted injury and the other wounded, police said.

Michael Dale Kilpatrick, 48, of North Carolina, died from a gunshot to his head, Indiana State Police Sgt. Phillip Hensley said. Kieth Wagner, 30, of Bedford, Indiana, was airlifted to the University of Louisville Hospital in Kentucky, where he was being treated for gunshot wounds to his abdomen and neck. Hensley said Wagner was conscious at the scene and it appeared he could survive his injuries.

The altercation began with Kilpatrick and Wagner arguing in a driveway outside Classic Muscle Cars and Parts, located along State Road 37 north of Paoli, located about 45 miles northwest of Louisville, Hensley said.

The argument escalated into a fight, and Kilpatrick and Wagner began wrestling in the driveway. A short time later, Wagner ran from the fight and locked himself inside a building, the officer said.

Kilpatrick followed Wagner to the building and began beating on a window. Fearing that Kilpatrick was going to break out the glass, Wagner unlocked the door and let Kilpatrick and a witness inside, Hensely said. Once inside, Kilpatrick shot Wagner at point-blank range with a semi-automatic handgun.

The suspect “tried to shoot at the witness and missed, goes behind the property, fires off a couple more rounds, goes to end of the property to the tree line and at that point, took his own life,” Hensley said.

Orange County sheriff’s deputies and state troopers were chasing Kilpatrick when the man took his life, Hensley said.

Kilpatrick was a temporary worker, Hensley said. It was not immediately clear what city in North Carolina he was from.

“I believe the suspect in the case had only been here for two weeks and wasn’t going to be working here beyond the weekend and conflict just kind of stemmed from that,” the officer said.

Jonathan Gruber, the influential and controversial MIT health economist, is among four people that the Massachusetts governor asked to step down from a powerful state commission.

The news, first reported Wednesday by Jon Keller of WBZ-TV, lit up social media. But it’s not clear whether the resignations have much to do with Gruber specifically — or whether they are part of a routine political transition, now that a Republican governor has taken over from a Democratic one.

Gruber, an outside adviser to the Obama administration during the enactment of Obamacare, famously talked about the “stupidity of the American voter” during a series of videotaped academic lectures. When those lectures came to light last summer, Gruber drew widespread criticism, particularly from conservatives. More recently, Gruber’s billing for consulting services in Vermont has come under scrutiny, following an auditor’s report questioning the hours Gruber said that he and a research assistant had worked.

But Gov. Charlie Baker’s decision to remove four people from the Massachusetts Connector Board, which oversees the state’s universal health insurance program, is consistent with broader, unrelated policy priorities the governor has laid out in the last few weeks. Baker has been critical of the connector, blaming it for state budget problems. Earlier this month, he reorganized it. As Jessica Bartlett of the Boston Business Journal has reported, the change gives Baker, a former health care executive, more power over the board and its programs.

In a letter thanking the four outgoing board members for their service, Baker said, “As with all incoming administrations, I am establishing a new leadership team and I have instructed those individuals to take a fresh look at the Connector and to implement ideas to improve the operation of that important state entity.”

“The gov’s chief of staff was clear,” Gruber told the Boston Business Journal, via email. “He wants to have his own set of people on the board. He has four slots to appoint and he’s eager to take the connector in whatever direction he wants and he wants to do it with his own people. I served 9 wonderful years on the board and the governor has a right to appoint his own people to serve his vision.”