[Lnc-business] seeking cosponsors for EPCC and Contract Review motion

Tue Oct 20 21:33:06 EDT 2015

Alicia,   what you wrote I did not find too outlandish or unusual for an organization,  and I do not wish to hamstring the chair after all, if we do not like the way he does his job we can just un-elect him the next time around,  of impeach him if we can not wait that long.    Still,  you bring up some valid points and for the full airing of this issue I would be willing to sign on as a co-sponsor so we can hear from both sides.
Roland Riemers  ND 
      From: Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com>
 To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org 
 Sent: Monday, October 19, 2015 11:43 PM
 Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] seeking cosponsors for EPCC and Contract Review motion

Roland,

1.  I've been through the process before when we were just told the general counsel had reviewed it, and that was all we knew about it.

2.  Yes.  I am familiar with at least one past experience in which the EPCC had substantial objections and the Chair didn't want to make any changes.

3.  If you'll take a look at the PDF document I attached to my previous email to show what changes I want to make, you'll see that it's all about the Employment Policy and Compensation Committee, which is what the EPCC stands for.  It's very different from the Executive Committee.  The EPCC's job is also defined in the passages I'm proposing to amend, so reading that PDF that I sent will get you up to speed on what their role is.

-Alicia

On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 8:40 PM, Roland Riemers <riemers at yahoo.com> wrote:

Questions:
1.   In regards to the sharing of the general counsel review,  what is now taking place?   Is that review shared or not?
2.    Has in the past, the EPCC made objections, and the chair ignored these objections?
3.    For us newbes,  if would be nice if all this official business was conducted without abbreviations (I never cared for it in the military and I don't care for it now in business).  It took me some time to figure out what LNC stood for,  let alone what it is suppose to do,  but I am still in the dark on EPCC.    I assume it is an executive committee?   If you have to use abbreviations when typing,  then just use the spell checker later to replace the abbreviations with the full name.   Or, if you really need to use abbreviations,  spell them out the first usage so we are all clear on what you are writing about.   Thanks
Roland Riemers ND
      From: Sam Goldstein <goldsteinatlarge at gmail.com>
 To: lnc-business at hq.lp.org 
 Sent: Monday, October 19, 2015 7:01 PM
 Subject: Re: [Lnc-business] seeking cosponsors for EPCC and Contract Review motion

Alicia,
I will cosponsor your motion.
Sam Goldstein

On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 9:07 AM, Vicki Kirkland <vickilp12 at gmail.com> wrote:

I will cosponsor. Vicki KirklandRegion 2 Rep LNC407 841-LP12 (5712)
On Sun, Oct 18, 2015 at 11:30 PM, Alicia Mattson <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:

Many of you may recall that in the last LNC meeting, I made a motion to modify the EPCC's role in director-level contract review.  It received a majority vote, but due to several abstentions, the vote wasn't sufficient to adopt it without having given previous notice.

Based on good feedback during and after the meeting, I've made some additional changes to the proposal, and at this time I'm asking for co-sponsors for the attached motion.

Our current policy has a number of defects:

   - It requires that a proposed director-level employment contract must be reviewed by the EPCC, but it doesn't say that any EPCC objections or concerns have to be fixed.  In theory a chair could say, "They reviewed it and didn't like it, but I don't have to listen to them, so I signed it."
   - Our policy requires that the contract be circulated to the LNC, but it doesn't specify that this ought to happen before the contract is signed so that any problems identified by the LNC can be addressed before execution.   

   - Our policy requires that the general counsel review it, but it doesn't require that the general counsel's advice be shared with those conducting the review.  It could be that only the chair knows what the general counsel's advice was.   

   - Compensation is a non-trivial percentage of our expenses.  The director-level contracts have substantial financial impacts well beyond that person's base pay rate, and we just need more eyes reviewing those offerings.  Contracts can offer additional benefits beyond the standard benefits in the employee manual.  I pointed out recently that the wording of bonus structures in recent years has been changed such that having a good quarter at the beginning of a year can create a bonus multiplier effect -- one good quarter can create bonuses in other quarters even if the other quarters were terrible.  The prior wording did not contain that flaw.  More eyes reviewing the contract will reduce the chances of missing that kind of detail.   

My proposal would:

   - make it clear that the LNC must see the contract before it is signed.
   - require that General Counsel advice be shared with the EPCC and LNC.
   - require that a review body approve the contract, not just have a chance to review it with no power to require changes.  That review body can either be the EPCC (we did create them to play this sort of role), or if the EPCC members were cantankerous and played the role of 3-person-roadblock to hiring person X rather than finding functional contract language, a Chair could go around the EPCC and have the entire LNC approve it instead.
   - change how the EPCC is appointed.  It is currently appointed by the LNC Chair, but since the EPCC would have a role of approving the chair's proposal, that committee should be selected by the LNC rather than be appointees of the Chair.   

   - disallow the LNC Chair from serving on the EPCC, where he would be one of three votes approving his own proposal.
An additional feature is that because the LNC must see the contract 10 days before it is signed, if the EPCC were to initially approve a contract but the LNC had a serious objection to it, there would still be time for the LNC to use an email ballot to override the decision of the EPCC.

There is a term in this proposal that I want to point out.  If the LNC approves the contract, it requires "an affirmative vote from a majority of the fixed membership of the LNC."  If there are no LNC vacancies, and everyone votes, then this is the same requirement as a majority vote.  The "fixed membership" clause says that the denominator for calculating a majority isn't just the number of ballots cast.  The denominator is the total number of LNC seats including any vacant ones, regardless of how many might have abstained from the vote.

Co-sponsors?

-Alicia

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