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

[Joshua Katz]

I agree with many of the gentleman's points.  I would like to answer a
couple of them, though, to explain why I am voting differently, and urge
others to vote with me.

I absolutely agree that guidelines should be established as a general
rule.  In many instances, this is already the case - that is, there are
provisions establishing certain things in the Employee Manual.  Yet, at
times, contracts have simply ignored this fact and stated different terms.
The EPCC can establish guidelines for contracts, or even boilerplate with
blanks to fill in, but there's no teeth, and there's no teeth precisely
because the EPCC has no approval authority.  In fact, as it stands, the LNC
doesn't necessarily see the contract before it is executed.  How are these
general rules to be actually enforced?

The LNC could adopt the rules, rather than the EPCC, and since the LNC has
authority over its chair, this would have more teeth.  In furtherance of
that goal, the EPCC was instructed to review past contracts and to make
recommendations, and did so, but the LNC took no action.  At that time, the
argument that was advanced against such rules was the chair's need for
flexibility, and I think this is an argument worth considering.  I believe
that the current proposal takes that concern into account:  it gives the
chair the flexibility to negotiate a contract, but still allows the EPCC to
ensure that it meets general adopted standards.

For example, as I suggested at an earlier session, I think it is ideal,
during an LNC term, to align any contracts written with any goals adopted
by that LNC (obviously, I also have opinions on what those goals should be,
but that's a separate point).  This cannot be defined to an objective
enough standard to allow the construction, in my opinion, of any
boilerplate, "fill in the blanks" language.  We can say something like I
just said (and I would support such a policy) but it requires
interpretation to decide if a specific bonus structure is sufficiently
aligned with goals adopted by the LNC.  I believe the ideal way to
implement such a policy would be to allow the chair to negotiate the
contract, followed by EPCC approval (and LNC distribution to allow for any
possible action), just as this proposal calls for.  This is why I
previously mentioned that, in my view, this proposal does not call for lots
of cooks dealing with a broth; it just establishes a taster before the
broth is served.  I am sympathetic to, instead, using bullion cubes or a
very precise recipe, but the LNC chose not to establish such a process, and
I found some of the arguments against it convincing (while remaining
sympathetic to the ideas).

Joshua Katz

Joshua A. Katz
Westbrook CT Planning Commission (L in R seat)

On Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 6:11 PM, Norm Olsen <region1rep at donedad.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20151024/13b3d2c0/attachment-0002.html>