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

[Norm Olsen]

I will be voting against this motion.

 

My experience over the last 5+ years convinces me that the problem addressed is a real one; an issue that needs to be addressed and I am in favor of addressing it.  I am not in favor of the currently proposed solution.  There are just too many hurdles, deadlines, and areas of confusion as to who can do what and when it can/must be done.  The Chair and prospective employee should be able to make a deal and feel confident that it is done; rather than live in limbo for weeks.  If one side has the ability to walk away from the deal, the other side has an equal opportunity.

 

May I suggest that we look for solutions involving actions prior to the start of negotiations.  That is, before the need for negotiations arises, this committee should have already established some basic guidelines as to what is acceptable in a contract and what is not.  This guideline (or perhaps boilerplate) would, of course, have the blessing of counsel and the EPCC prior to ever being used in a negotiation, and the Chair could/would be explicitly instructed, generally, as to what kind of modifications are acceptable and those which are not.

 

In the contracts which have caused this issue to become a matter of concern, the problem areas where no so much the numbers involved (i.e. the “how much” part), but ambiguous language as to when certain criteria are met and when they are not (severance pay, moving expenses, bonuses, etc).  I believe the suggestion given above applies to these sorts of things, and leaves the Chair the flexibility of negotiating the “how much” part, which will always be limited to a certain degree by budgetary constraints.

 

Norm

-- 

Norman T Olsen

Regional Representative, Region 1

Libertarian National Committee

7931 South Broadway, PMB 102

Littleton, CO  80122-2710

303-263-4995

 

From: Lnc-business [mailto:lnc-business-bounces at hq.lp.org] On Behalf Of Alicia Mattson
Sent: Sunday, October 18, 2015 9:30 PM
To: lnc-business
Subject: [Lnc-business] seeking cosponsors for EPCC and Contract Review motion

 

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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