Sunday, September 21, 2008

Opportunity to solicit views of HR

This also was on the agenda update for the ECOA Annual Conference this coming week:

Measuring the Divide between HR and Ethics featuring Patricia Harned, president, Ethics Resource Center and Deborah Keary, HR director, Society for Human Resource Management. This plenary session will review and analyze results of two recent surveys, each of which separately asked HR professionals and ethics and compliance professionals about their experiences and perceptions regarding working with the other.

Not being able to immediately find an email address for Ms. Keary, I sent the following email to each of the SHRM directors shown on the SHRM website:

From: RDShatt
To:
Sent: 9/21/2008 ____P.M. Central Daylight
Time
Subj: HR and Ethics & Compliance


Dear ________,

I am writing this email to you in your capacity as a director of SHRM and because I have noticed that Deborah Keary is speaking this week at the Annual Conference of the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association on the subject of the experiences and perceptions of HR professionals and ethics and compliance professionals regarding working together.

The reason for my interest in this is that I have been badgering the ECOA and ethics professionals with the question, "Do you think the law undermines business ethics?" My question has been accompanied by this argumentation in which I set forth a "yes" answer based on common knowledge about human nature and common sense analysis of what is needed for society to be able to regulate behavior to be ethical.

In my argumentation, I supplicate ethics academics, officers and consultants as follows:

[You ethics officers] have front line involvement and first hand experience that specially enable [you] to discern circumstances and factors that abet or that impede the inculcation and institutionalized practice of business ethics in [your] corporation. [You] are in the best position to evaluate my descriptions of how the law affects the pychology and thinking of employees when it comes to deciding to engage in an unethical activity or not. To the extent [you] ethics officers are uncertain about what I describe, [you] can conduct interviews and surveys of employees to find out about employee thinking and psychology. [You] consultants and academics working in the business ethics field also have a close in view of things.


For good or bad reasons (you can decide which; see Letter to ECOA Members), the ECOA has told me not to bother them anymore.

My feeling is that HR has as close in a view of the employees as the ethics officers, HR's thoughts about my argumentation would be of equal value as those of ethics officers, and my question about the law undermining the business ethics of employees is something HR, as well as ethics officers, can and should have a legitimate interest in.

If you would care to inform yourself about what I have been urging on the ECOA and to offer me your thoughts from an HR perspective, I would be very interested in hearing from you.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck

Friday, September 19, 2008

Profs. Agle, Hart and Thompson re ethics "surveys, ratings and metrics"

Email earlier today to each of the three professors:

From: RDShatt
To:
Sent: 9/19/2008 ____-P.M. Central Daylight Time

Subj: Profs. Agle, Hart and Thompson re ethics "surveys, ratings and metrics"

Dear Professors Agle, Hart, and Thompson,

The below is from an updated agenda release of the ECOA I saw related to its Annual Conference:

Surveys, Ratings, and Metrics: Ethical Issues in Data Collection and Analysis
featuring Brad Agle, Associate Professor of Business Administration, University
of Pittsburgh; and, from the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young
University, Associate Professor of Ethics and Public Management David W. Hart
and Assistant Professor of Public Management Jeffrey A. Thompson. The professors
address the numerous traps and failings that can undermine efforts to build
accurate ethics and compliance metrics. They will help attendees learn how to
see behind published surveys and ratings to see if the underlying methodology
makes them invalid or, even worse, misleading.

I am not sure exactly what the parameters are of "surveys, ratings, and metrics," but I have a question I am interested in that I think falls within the scope of the same.

For the past year I have been an Ancient Mariner asking of ethics academics, officers and consultants, "Do you think the law undermines business ethics?" My rhymes may be found here.

In my rhymes, I supplicate ethics academics, officers and consultants as follows:

[You ethics officers] have front line involvement and first hand experience that
specially enable [you] to discern circumstances and factors that abet or that
impede the inculcation and institutionalized practice of business ethics
in [your] corporation. [You] are in the best position to evaluate my
descriptions of how the law affects the psychology and thinking of employees
when it comes to deciding to engage in an unethical activity or not. To the
extent [you] ethics officers are uncertain about what I describe, [you] can
conduct interviews and surveys of employees to find out about employee thinking
and psychology. [You] consultants and academics working in the business ethics
field also have a close in view of things.

I ask you, Professors Agle, Hart and Thompson, in your consideration and evaluation of "surveys, ratings and metrics" related to ethics, have you delved into, or are you aware of others delving into, surveying of employees and their thinking and psychology, as referred to above, that may reveal something that has an effect of making their conduct less ethical?

Just asking.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck

Nada from the law professors

I did not receive a reply from any law professor to my March/April 2008 email or my August 2008 email.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Form of emails to state chambers of commerce

Subj: Help me complain about idiotic federal judges

I have contacted my senator, Senator Jeff Sessions, who is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and complained about the stupidity of two United States district court judges, The Honorable William H. Pauley, III, of the Southern District of New York, and The Honorable Alvin W. Thompson, of the District of Connecticut, and urged that the Judiciary Committee in the future weed out judicial nominees who are are totally devoid of real world common sense as are Judge Pauley and Judge Thompson. See this link. I have informed the US Chamber about this (see this link).

I hope your state Chamber of Commerce will contact your US Senators and Representatives about these idiotic judges and complain as well.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck

US Chamber and complaining about idiotic judges

Subj: Re: I want to complain to our lawmakers
Date: 9/11/2008 7:10:31 P.M. Central Daylight Time
From: RDShatt
To: LRickard@USChamber.com
CC: RLundberg@USChamber.com

In a message dated 8/11/2008 6:38:40 P.M. Central Daylight Time, LRickard@USChamber.com writes:
Mr Eskelson is no longer with ILR. I am sorry, but this is not the type of work we do. The names and addresses of Members of Congress are readily available on their website.

Thank you, Ms. Rickard. I have initiated a complaint to the Senate Judiciary Committee about Judge Pauley and Judge Thompson by sending to my senator, Senator Jeff Sessions, who is on the Judiciary Committee, the message set forth at this link. I will also contact my representative, Spencer Bachus, and perhaps other Senators and Representatives. I previously forwarded to Mr. Lundberg at the US Chamber my correspondence with you, and I am, accordingly, copying Mr. Lundberg on this email. Further I have been in touch with state Chambers of Commerce and will follow up with them to urge them to contact their US Senators and Representatives about the situation with Judge Pauley and Judge Thompson, and judicial nominees who are like Pauley and Thompson.

Sincerely,
Robert Shattuck

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Complaint to Senator Jeff Sessions about Pauley and Thompson

Dear Senator Sessions,

I wish to complain to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the stupidity of two United States district court judges, The Honorable William H. Pauley, III, of the Southern District of New York, and The Honorable Alvin W. Thompson, of the District of Connecticut. The gist of my problems with these two judges may be found at the following two links: http://robertshattuck.blogspot.com/2007/11/september-2007-credit-card-currency.html and http://robertshattuck.blogspot.com/2008/04/letter-to-judge-thompson.html.

I hope the Judiciary Committee can in the future weed out judicial nominees who are are totally devoid of real world common sense as are Judge Pauley and Judge Thompson.

Thank you.

Robert Shattuck

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Alabama Attorney General Troy King

From The Birmingham News

Alabama Attorney General Troy King has no accountability in deal with trial lawyers
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Skip Tucker

There is a disturbing lack of accountability in Attorney General Troy King's burgeoning relationship with trial lawyers in his contracting them to sue on behalf of Alabama, as in the state's lawsuits against 73 pharmaceutical companies.

Importantly, Alabama Voters Against Lawsuit Abuse doesn't oppose these suits, as such. What AVALA opposes is King's secretive handling of the lawsuits. King promised openness, honesty and restraint. Alabama citizens have seen none of these.

Instead, he is misrepresenting AVALA's call for state accountability as an effort to thwart or undermine the lawsuits. That charge is untrue.

AVALA has only asked, in the main, that contracts with private, personal-injury trial lawyers be publicly put up for bid and that such contracts, once agreed upon, be put on the Internet for public consumption. And that all trial lawyers hired to represent the citizens of Alabama submit a detailed accounting of time and expenses before they are paid, and that most of the money from any award go to the state General Fund.

King says he is putting the contracts up for bid and that, since they are reviewed by a legislative committee, they are open to sunshine. These things just aren't true. King's bid process has been strictly in-house, so nobody but King and his fellow travelers know how he uses it.

King hired the firm of Hand Arendall to handle the pharmaceutical lawsuits. Hand Arendall immediately associated the infamous Jere Beasley law firm to handle the lawsuits.

Everyone knows the contracts/association were a done deal from the start. Every lawyer I have talked to about it, whether plaintiff or defense, agrees on it. Where is the openness? The Legislative Review Committee can delay such a contract but cannot void it. Where is the accountability?

Beasley has asked, and been refused by a jury, for some $800 million in punitive damages. In the state's lower courts, out-of-town defendants such as the pharmaceutical companies are often on the short side where justice is concerned. When you add the power of the state to such a lawsuit, the playing field is tilted even more.

The fact that punitive damages were refused proves the lightness of the case. Yet King agreed to push for maximum punitives. Where is restraint in this lawsuit-hungry land for which state-sponsored cases cry out?

AVALA has been asking for openness and restraint from the attorney general and the governor's office for more than a year. King has flatly and continuously misrepresented his position and ours on sunshine and restraint. He has demanded it of other offices and yet protects his own fiefdom. That's intolerable.

King says AVALA has been bought by pharmaceutical companies. Nothing is farther from the truth. We've even offered to take a polygraph on that fact.

King has said he's representing the people of Alabama. Sadly, his record doesn't appear to reflect it. On top of this sorry episode, there's King's questionable use of his office and his position. He had an expensive night in Atlanta for which someone else picked up most of the tab. He apparently used his position to try to get someone in his office a job with the state two-year college system, even while his office was supposed to be investigating the system.

King is the second-highest paid attorney general in the United States. Unfortunately, he might be the most secretive. A darkness greater than night hangs over his office like a pall.

Skip Tucker is executive director of Alabama Voters Against Lawsuit Abuse.
E-mail: 1avala@bellsouth.net.
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