All the media commotion about clunkers and health care reform has diverted attention from the deceptively named Employee Free Choice Act, but don’t think for a nanosecond that big labor has given up on it.
In the case of obsolete computers, TV sets, cell phones and myriad other electronic products discarded for recycling and reclamation, the challenge of how to safely dispose of them has become a major NIMBY issue.
Industrial research and development programs are the seed corn of
product innovation. Unfortunately, one of the first cost-cutting measures some companies
take when faced with the challenge of a recessionary economy is slashing their R&D programs.
In the face of union membership that continues to decline, labor leaders
are desperate to get EFCA passed so that union organizers can see which
individual workers are voting against union representation.
Even though the economy today looks more like the green of gangrene than the green of profit, a brief look at history reveals that a recession-even a depression-is by no means a bad time to launch companies and products.
Forward-thinking companies need to plan now for where they want to be when the current recession ends. Waiting until they see the bottom will leave them way behind.
The good news is that American fourth and eighth grade students improved their math and science scores in 2007. The bad news is that they continue to lag behind their peers from top-performing Asian countries.