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Ed Morrison · New pathways for a Cleveland comeback
January 20th, 2009
New pathways for a Cleveland comeback
Comments welcome.
Last 5 posts by Ed Morrison
- Signing off - February 3rd, 2012
- "The current global development model is unsustainable" - February 1st, 2012
- Market opportunities for developing Chicago's green economy - January 29th, 2012
- Plain Dealer flubs its explanation for firing Tony Grossi - January 27th, 2012
- Linking and leveraging university assets to strengthen regional economies - January 27th, 2012
January 20th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
You lost me right there. Voinovich promoted a Chief of Police who enabled a drug ring. In the name of fiscal conservatism, he created the most bloated Mayor’s office in the city’s history. He pioneered money-sucking initiatives like Gateway and the Rock Hall.
And those were his positive accomplishments.
I mean dude, if bringing back the Voinovich days is your goal…
January 21st, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Taken together with Chris Thompson’s submission, there’s plenty of raw material here about both our public- and private-sectors’ leadership crisis. It’s been such a long time since our institutions actually worked well that it’s tempting to assume it’s always been this way. It’s helpful to have some historical context. Thanks to both of you…though you may both want to have somebody else start your cars for you for the next few days…
January 21st, 2009 at 6:29 pm
John:
Thanks for the kind words and the warning.
The existing leadership fails the people of Cleveland and the county.
(That’s why, when I read the quote in today’s NYT, I immediately thought of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. Only after I read the speech did I realize I had it wrong.
http://snurl.com/ai2cx )
The good news: There are far better ways to approach the challenges that cities like Cleveland face.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:48 am
Where does the funding for the Greater Cleveland Partnership come from?
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Justin, most of it comes from basic membership fees of its constituent members, thousands of businesses in the region. They’re assessed a sliding scale in relation to how large they are. It’s simply a chamber of commerce.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
A VERY large chunk of GCP’s income…almost half…comes from Medical Mutual. With membership in decline and the relative cost savings to members from the health plan in decline, too, COSE made a deal with Medical Mutual (kept secret from its members) to abandon its traditional role in negotiating and managing the health plan in the best interests of its members and instead cut itself in on health plan income. My estimate (no one knows for sure) is that MMO pays COSE somewhere between $5-8 million in “commissions” and fees. This makes MMO the single largest funder of GCP…with the costs passed along to members in the form of higher insurance premiums.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:56 pm
The Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP) and its small business partner, The Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) are both membership organizations. Contrary to some of the assertions above, our income is derived from the following sources:
Membership dues – 40%; Advertising, sponsorships, programs & services – 50%; Grants from foundations and other programs – 10%.
Membership dues have a wide range; smaller businesses pay a smaller amount and Cleveland’s larger corporations pay their fair share.
Like every other chamber of commerce in the country, we also sell, service and support the many products and services we provide to our member businesses. As with all products, marketing and distribution costs are added into the price of the product. COSE’s relationship with Medical Mutual reduces the costs of marketing and distribution of health insurance to small businesses, and that is a key component of our cost advantage in the marketplace.
With all due respect to Mr. Polk, there is no secret deal. COSE members, through its Board of Directors (which is comprised over 20 small business owners), were fully involved in negotiating our master contract, as they always have been.
And, Medical Mutual, which is a member of the GCP, limits its financial contribution to the GCP to its annual membership dues, just like many other large corporations in Greater Cleveland. Medical Mutual also makes a voluntary contribution to Cleveland+, the marketing initiative conducted in concert with the other regional chambers of commerce in N.E. Ohio.
One of the significant changes we made a few years ago was to bring the COSE health insurance sales and service operations in-house. We did this to improve the level of service to our members and to give us the opportunity to talk to our members more often so that we can understand their needs better. We also reduced small business member dues by 33% and eliminated administrative fees on the health insurance product.
COSE receives payment for its sales operations and the servicing of the health insurance product; our revenues are based on that activity and are not calculated as a percentage of premiums. And, it’s important to note, our revenues do not rise as a result of premium increases, specifically because we did not want our revenue model to be in conflict with our members’ best interests. That’s very different than most of the other providers and distributors whom follow the industry standard of being paid sales commissions on insurance premiums.
When you average our revenues from health insurance vs. our health insurance premium base, COSE collects about 1.8% for its sales and service operations. That’s far less than the average cost for any other provider of insurance.
It’s important to note also that 100% of our “profits” from these operations are used to fund the other work we do for small business – from our annual Small Business Conference, (which over 1,100 COSE businesses attend annually at the IX Center free of charge) and special interest networks (for home based businesses, artist entrepreneurs and NEOSA) to our peer-based education and small business advocacy efforts.
Yes, the health insurance we make available to our members does indeed subsidize other operations for small business, as do service fees from other products and programs we provide. But the “load” on our products is kept to a minimum both by our desire to be efficient and fair to our members as well as to remain highly competitive in the marketplace.
More than 200 COSE members invest significant time and attention as active leaders and volunteers for the work that we do. These members that lead our organization know firsthand how tough it has been for businesses to stay profitable and remain competitive, and they factor that into their stewardship of the organization.
They are dedicated to helping small businesses maintain their independence and thrive. And, they push the organization – and staffers like me – to use COSE’s size and reach to continue to reinvest and help the small businesses of our community.
I hope that BFD readers, especially those who don’t belong to GCP or COSE, will spend a little time on our website (http://www.cose.org) to find out more about what we are doing for small businesses.
Nancy Pokorny
VP Business Development, COSE
January 25th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
1.8% of $500 million (the estimated size of the COSE health plan) would be $9 million. Not sure whether that includes the sum which MMO agreed to to
“make COSE whole” to subsidize COSE’s decision to reduce its dues and service fees. Twenty Board members out of 17,000 (purported) members aside, I’m certain that COSE’s announcement that it was reducing dues by 33% and eliminating admin. fees did NOT include the clarification that members wouldn’t actually be saving money. but would instead be paying through their health insurance premium. This is another example of an organization that claims the truth is what it says it is, and which attempts to use language to obscure what it’s doing, rather than illuminate it.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Let me add a little historical context here. The Greater Cleveland Partnership is the successor name of what used to be called the Greater Cleveland Growth Association, which used to be the sister organization of COSE, but which is now its master organization. COSE was begun as a separate organization of small independent privately owned businesses, and it had its own autonomy. It became a national model under the leadership of one…John Polk, the guy who’s commenting here. The first president Bush cited it frequently as a national model.
But the large publicly owned companies in the region, which controlled the Growth Assn. as they now control the GCP, grew tired of COSE getting all the attention and respect. They succeeded in getting Mr. Polk booted from his job (a development that made the front page of the PD, as I recall), and later took legal and financial control of COSE, including its prized health plan. It remains to this day one of the more shameful chapter in our region’s business history.
Large, publicly held business have never and can never really understand the very different worlds in which privately held companies, no matter their size, operate. It haunts us to this day in the form of the region’s dysfunctional relationship with supporting and encouraging (or rather not supporting and encouraging) start-ups and early stage companies generally. We’re doing a better job than we used to, but not nearly as good as we should be doing.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
History and philosophy aside (though they are fascinating topics which I’d love to discuss sometime),the initial question was where the money comes from…an important issue related to organizational transparency and accountability.
Assuming 17,000 dues-paying member companies (though the actual number is undoubtedly considerably smaller) paying a minimum of $300 each, COSE members know they’re paying a little over $5 million in dues.
They probably DON’T know that they’re paying additional $9 million through the health plan, plus an array of other user fees related to other service programs. The vast array of award programs generate additional sponsorship revenues, as do other activities.
The last public estimate of GCP revenues I saw was about $20 million per year from all sources.
The bigger question is: for what? A review of GCP’s last Annual Report and Program Of Work reveals almost no objective metrics…much elaboration of process, but no measurable deliverables.
It’s possible that a list of quantitative achievements is regularly celebrated internally among the Board and staff leadership. And it is important to recognize that GCP is a private organization which works, not for the community, but for its members…sometimes generally, but all too often individually.
It does seem appropriate…if a tad cheeky…to ask what they’re doing with all that money to benefit the broad base of businesses who, together, invest a whole bunch of it. My guess is that if you asked a representative random sample of members what they’d like their Chamber to do for them, casinos and convention centers probably wouldn’t make the top 10.
January 27th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
As John Polk mentions in his post, the original question at hand is about how the Greater Cleveland Partnership is funded. Funding comes via membership dues from large and small companies, not from Medical Mutual of Ohio, as was originally stated. The revenues that COSE derives from the sales and servicing of the health care plan from MMO is indeed a large portion of our income, and those dollars are then used to provide a multitude of services to our members, from education and counseling to advocacy for small business members and non-members in our community.
As also mentioned, we work to provide all of our products as cost-effectively as possible, competing with everyone else to do so. And if we aren’t providing our products and services at a better price, we lose in the marketplace. It’s as simple as that – and a very effective method of policing the value of our products and services.
As a result, our funding is a result of decisions our members make. Small businesses decide to join COSE, decide to buy a product or service and decide to participate in our programming. We use no public resources and nothing is surreptitious. Our model for supporting the work we do is just like hundreds of other membership organizations around the country. To the credit of John Polk and small business leaders involved at the start of COSE, this model has worked well over more than 35 years.
Indeed, John Polk was a key architect of COSE’s growth in the early 80’s and 90’s. Part of his legacy was to create a very solid and independent governance structure insulated from the control of the Growth Association (as the Greater Cleveland Partnership was formerly known) for some of the very reasons John Ettorre points out. However, contrary to John’s comments, that control has never been eroded. While personnel and programs have evolved and changed over the decades, COSE’s small business members leading the organization continue to exercise full control over COSE’s products, programs and services. In fact, they are more independent today than ever before. This ensures we pursue the tasks most important to our small business members.
At the end of the day, what COSE delivers is evaluated by every one of our members every single year when they make the decision to renew their membership or not.
I agree that from a broad community perspective, COSE’s day-to-day support provided to our small business members may not be on the public’s radar screen–a lot of the things we do to help our members cope with the issues facing them just isn’t the stuff of headlines. But it’s not correct to conclude little or nothing is happening. Counseling, resource referral, educational programming, small business advocacy and direct assistance are all a part of our services—every day. With more than 100 educational and networking events a year and over 7,000 attendees to those programs, there is indeed a lot going on.
If you’d like to read about some of our accomplishments in 2008, please look at the online version of the December 2008 issue of the COSE Update Magazine by going to http://tinyurl.com/cak69v and navigating to page 22. Also, an open invitation to anyone reading this blog: if you’d like to receive the same updates we send to our members, send your request directly to me at smillardATcose.org and I’ll add you to the distribution list.
Steve Millard
COSE (Council of Smaller Enterprises)
January 28th, 2009 at 6:27 am
I keep wondering how “small business advocacy” became slavish adherence to a Republican agenda. But maybe that’s just me.
January 28th, 2009 at 6:38 am
Steve, I appreciate you personally responding. It says good things about COSE and about your leadership style. And I don’t want to quibble over the meaning of the word control when it comes to who has an actual legal ability to influence COSE decisions. I take you at your word that for all effective purposes its the membership that decides. And as I told you in an email after taking part in last fall’s small business conference, I felt plenty of the old COSE magic in the air at that event, with the kind of morale-boosting camaraderie, advice and support that only true independent entrepreneurs can offer each other. The region’s economy is doomed without that kind of meaningful continued support. Thanks for all your efforts.
January 28th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
This has been a really useful thread. Answering the question of who funds the GCP was important to me to understand the “motivation” behind the GCPs activities.
Other viewpoints on this forum appear to be that the GCP (“the existing leadership”) must serve the city and people of Cleveland. As is apparent from these comments, the GCP is beholden to its member business rather than the community at large.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:44 am
Mark, I’d be happy to talk to you at some point about COSE’s advocacy activities which are non-partisan. We have an advocacy committee made up entirely of small business owners (about 25 of them) and its pretty diverse with democrats, republicans and independents/libertarians — like our membership base.
COSE focuses on small business values and needs — which vary tremendously. It is often hard to get consensus, and in those cases we don’t take positions.
We are very often on the other side of the hard core republican agenda. Small business needs tend to be practical and functional, not ideological. For a lot of organizations that do small business advocacy (or claim to) it is a lot easier to sell what is partisan to the small number of folks who buy that than to really push through the issues to what small businesses need.
It is not uncommon for us to take positions contrary to the list of “typical” business organizations. And, last year we were a lone business community supporter for a democrat sponsored state bill to reduce business regulation that should have gotten support from other business organizations, but didn’t because of politics.
Here’s our current agenda (in advocacy category), if you have an interest. http://delicious.com/COSESmallBiz
January 29th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Justin:
As is apparent from these comments, the GCP is beholden to its member business rather than the community at large.
In most places, these two factors don’t diverge. Effective chambers do both: manage their membership and become an effective voice for a shared direction.
January 29th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
As a C.O.S.E. “member,” I beg to differ with Steve Millard of COSE when he says: “At the end of the day, what COSE delivers is evaluated by every one of our members every single year when they make the decision to renew their membership or not.”
As a self-employed individual, each year I must decide whether I want C.O.S.E.’s outrageously overpriced health insurance or the even more overpriced insurance available to individuals on the “open market.” That’s not much of a choice at all, but it’s the only value C.O.S.E. represents to the vast majority of its members and that’s pretty pathetic.
I suppose C.O.S.E. could cancel my membership and my insurance coverage in response to these remarks, but at least I would have some B.F.D. readers as witnesses.
January 29th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
About half of COSE’s members are companies with one or two employees. As you point out, companies of that size have a great deal of difficulty obtaining group health coverage at all, much less at a reasonable price. As a self-employed guy myself, I have my own stories regarding the COSE health plan. Believe me, I feel your pain. Buy me an Earl Grey tea (best I can do on BFD) and I’ll tell you sometime…
For all the hoopla surrounding “consumer-directed health plans,” and the calls for “empowering consumers” and directing purchasers to the individual health insurance market via mandates or otherwise, the fact is that no such market exists. More than 90% of individuals applying for health coverage don’t buy it. Most of the time cost is the issue, but often the applicants’ health renders them unattractive to insurers, which don’t HAVE to cover individuals.
Likewise 4 out of 5 people qualifying for COBRA coverage don’t buy it. Once again, the obvious reason is price; if you’ve just lost your job and your income, $1000 per month or more for COBRA coverage is a crushing expense. The people who DO buy COBRA coverage generally have health conditions which require them to maintain the coverage at any price.
The health insurance market for small businesses and individuals is badly broken.
What does all this have to do with your COSE health coverage? Three things:
1) The deep-thinkers advocating “fixing” health insurance by mandating that individuals purchase coverage say that doing so will “stabilize the market” by covering everyone and eliminating hidden subsidies for the uninsured. The more likely scenario is that individual health insurance prices will explode…but it won’t matter, because you’ll required to buy it;
2)If I were in the business of selling coverage to one-and two-employee companies, a mandate would be very good for me, and;
3)Even in the “voluntary market,”thousands of COSE members are members, irrespective of the cost, because they have no alternative source of health coverage at any cost. In the face of that, the question is: is your membership a compelling value because you see it as GOOD for you, or because you’re in the desert and will pay anything for a drink of water?
The small group insurance industry often reflects the “take it or leave it” attitude toward their small business customers. If you don’t like their prices, you’re free not to buy their products.
The nicely-polished way to say that is, “We must be doing something right; our customers keep renewing.”
There are those who will suggest that the reason you renew doesn’t matter…I’m not so sure…
January 31st, 2009 at 1:58 am
So, John, I hope you’ll join me in advocating for the one method of financing health care that will retain the freedom to choose our doctors without bankrupting the country–single-payer national health insurance, otherwise known as Medicare for All!
February 1st, 2009 at 12:16 am
Whoa…That’s quite a leap…Interesting to think about and discuss…never happen in our individualistic capitalist society…Medicare works reasonably well…Medicaid is a godawful mess…and previous statewide attempts to extend health care to everyone are cratering due to costs…Health Care For All is a slogan, not a strategy…
February 1st, 2009 at 8:56 am
Not so fast, John. It’s being done in Massachusetts, and thus far all the reports say it’s working splendidly. Why can’t all 50 states adopt the same model?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/26/090126fa_fact_gawande?printable=true
February 1st, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Massachusetts doesn’t have a single-payer system; they’ve enacted one of those individual mandates I spoke of earlier. And I think you’ll find that the Governor of Massachusetts recently announced that they’re “putting the brakes on” their statewide mandate because of MUCH higher-than-anticipated costs and a chronically low “pick-up rate (i.e., they can’t figure out how to MAKE people buy coverage).
There are some decent working experiments in access. Minnesota has had some success with a means-tested plan for participation in a public health insurance plan in which all licensed insurers must participate.
And health insurance has been mandatory in Hawaii for a couple of decades. Such plans have worked best in the US where populations are relatively small and homogeneous.
I have to say that, given the past ten years of private-market “reforms” which have doubled costs and added 10 million more people to the ranks of the uninsured (so far), I’m much more a fan of government intervention in this market than I’ve been in the past. But one must look only at the abomination which is Medicare Part D to be extremely skeptical that the political process can be relied upon to do little other than screw up.
Add to that the fact that four of the most powerful lobbies in DC…hospitals, physicians, insurers and pharmaceutical manufacturers…wouldn’t stand for a single-payer system and the price controls implicit in the approach, and it’s just a non-starter. Better we should identify the problems which exist and fix them as we can.
February 1st, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Screw the powerful lobbies. We need to roll right over their bloody carcasses, and the current financial environment offers the best chance of doing that. It’s time for consumers to get enraged about what these clowns have done to the American health care system, if you can even call it that.
February 1st, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Viva le Revolution(aires)!
February 1st, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I know this health care chat is a total diversion from the original subject, but fixing health care is essential to repairing our economy, local AND national.
Right now, ALL of the best health care systems in the world (the U.S. is 37th out of 119 countries) provide universal care, and they do so at a cost of 60 percent per capita of what we spend in the U.S.
At the same time, 60-66% of the actual money spent on health care in the U.S. comes from tax dollars(to fund Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans, Military, and federal employees)right now.
So we are paying for universal care. We’re just not getting it.
If this infuriates you, there’s a meeting of the Single Payer Action Network of Ohio tomorrow night (Feb. 2) at the CH/UH Library on Lee Road at 7:30 p.m. in meeting room B. I am out of town so I won’t be there this month, but you can tell them Carla sent you.
February 1st, 2009 at 8:50 pm
At the risk of heading this conversation back to where it started, consider this: fifteen years ago, Cleveland’s business community was known by everyone as on the leading edge of private-sector health care reform.
Cleveland Tomorrow had given birth to Cleveland Health Quality Choice, one of the first efforts to develop a community-wide means of measuring the cost and quality of regional health care.
COSE was the national model for small business reform, not because of its position papers, but because its health plan was 30% lower in costs than the next best deal…and averaged premium increases of 10% or less for ten years in a row.
At the same time, REI was showing us that, despite the fact that Cleveland led the state in uncompensated care, the number of local employees working without insurance in Cleveland was lower than in any other urban area in Ohio.
All this was considered important because labor costs are a key component in a community’s competitiveness for job creation, and health care costs in Cleveland are considerably higher than elsewhere in Ohio or the Midwest generally. And the costs of uncompensated care, as we see in the case of Metro, are a drag on the County tax base.
What happened to all that leadership, do you suppose? Did we solve all our problems, or just stop discussing them…or did we figure out how to cut ourselves in on the cash flow?…
I’m all for taking on the health care status quo, and have the scars to prove it. But righteous indignation, or even being morally right, won’t cut it. You have to have a better story…and be willing to fight like hell against some powerful, ruthless people unencumbered by personal morality.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:13 am
The opportunities are expanding all around us. How will the Greater Cleveland Partnership link these opportunities to the Euclid Avenue corridor?
Report calls for innovation in medical education
Disruptive Innovation, Applied to Health Care
Health Care IT a Major Step Toward Reform, Smarter Ecosystem
Patient-Centered Medical Homes Can Improve Care, Reduce Costs
Collaborative innovation for the post-crisis world
The next generation of personalized health care
Here’s some of what we are doing in Indiana:
Science alliance will build jobs
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:18 am
You know what happened: the powerful health systems (powerful in both political and market terms) in this region got the upper hand, and costs started rising again.
February 2nd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
It does seem that the business community has ceded a lot of this territory to The Cleveland Clinic, and to UHHS secondarily. Many(most?)of our movers and shakers are on those boards; it’s a slightly more civilized version of the Hatfields and McCoys.
There is the need for some serious adult supervision of the sorts of initiatives listed above. It should give us all the creeps to have these organizations, however pre-eminent, deciding how much we’ll pay for what kind of health care, and what the future shape of our region’s delivery systems should look like. Employers should be demanding a voice in this. If such a demand currently exists, I haven’t heard about it.
With our population (even regionally) shrinking steadily, even as our health care industrial complex continues to expand, our health systems risk becoming to the 21st century what the steel industry was to the 20th…crippled by high costs and excess capacity.
As yet, of course, there’s no global market for hospital and physician services. So those increasing costs will just sit growing in Cleveland…
February 2nd, 2009 at 3:25 pm
John:
We see little evidence of health care policy innovation. Whatever happened to the linkup between Google and the Cleveland Clinic announced about a year ago?
February 2nd, 2009 at 5:27 pm
JP, I’m not so sure about that statement about no global market for hospital and physician services. Obviously, people from all over the world come to get their hearts fixed, which of course you know about (I’m guessing you’re saying that’s a trickle relative to their entire patient flow, and perhaps you’re right).
But along with the Mayo Clinic and a few other health systems with world-class reps, they’re doing a growing business in second opinions, a very profitable little sidelight that can be managed and executed entirely in digital fashion, and at something like $500 and up a pop, and take all of about 15-20 minutes of a doctor’s time. Those are flowing in from around the world, and they may be doing a few hundred a month. When I wrote about this service two or three years ago, they were at the point of possibly adding extra doctors just to handle this piece of business. It’s no doubt grown considerably since then.
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Despite its well-deserved reputation and very aggressive marketing, more than 80% of the Clinic’s patient flow comes from within a one-hour drive from its headquarters…the number is probably higher, given the evolution of its community hospital feeder system.
Michael Porter lionized The Clinic’s clinical and business process innovation in his book, “Redefining Health Care,” which was written at least as much as a prospect development tool for his consulting practice as it was a “redefinition of health care.” And certainly much of The Clinic’s work in this area is considered proprietary, part of the Clinic’s “secret sauce.”
But after a few years away from it, I was genuinely astonished at how little the health care reform dialogue has changed in the past ten years. In Northeast Ohio, it has backslid considerably, as the major players in service delivery, insurance, and group purchasing have decided to keep their heads down and focus on maximizing revenue.
In large measure, the phenomenon may have its roots in the bloodshed surrounding the MMO/Columbia HCA deal in the mid-90’s, and the resulting consolidation of the local provider community into two competing mega-systems. Now UHHS and CCF are the two largest private employers in the region, and like the 1000-pound gorillas of the old joke, they can sit wherever they want.
And the Clinic having co-opted MMO, the area’s largest health insurer, there is no one between area providers and purchasers with any interest in keeping costs in check. Providers set the prices, and MMO says, “Thank you, sir, may I have another?” Especially considering the composition of MMO’s Board (www.mmoh.com), it’s not surprising.
February 2nd, 2009 at 9:39 pm
To my mind, fundamental change is needed. As John Polk says: “… after a few years away from it, I was genuinely astonished at how little the health care reform dialogue has changed in the past ten years. In Northeast Ohio, it has backslid considerably, as the major players in service delivery, insurance, and group purchasing have decided to keep their heads down and focus on maximizing revenue.”
How can we continue to nibble around the edges of this issue, when incremental change only seems to make things worse?
February 8th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
I came in late on these posts, but I thought I should at least offer Carla above some advise…so hopefully she will see this.
You should certainly cancel your COSE membership and pay the higher street rate. Why pay for something you’re not using, and that you feel so negative about? Just cancel it and move on. good idea right?
February 8th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
You know what, Steve, the COSE Update article crowing about getting Issue 4 off the ballot last fall was just gross. Technically non-partisan, granted, but just nauseating in its presumption. God forbid people get sick and keep their jobs!
February 11th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Oh Mark….so sad. I feel bad regarding your response.
So many business owners, and I am one of them, have sick time and vacation policies already in place. I can’t afford to give my employee’s 2 weeks of vacation, 5 sick days, and tack another 7 on top. Even smaller business’s who only give 5 vacation days give time off for employee’s who are sick or who’s children are sick. It’s called “just take the day off, do what you need to do and hopefully i will see you tomorrow”…its under the table and understood. Every small business owner, even the tightest one’s who are cheap NEVER want to lose a good employee, so they will ALWAYS work with them when they are sick. and yes, they get paid. so “gross” was a strong word on your part. So thank you Mr. Millard for getting Issue 4 off the ballot. I will take care of my employee’s.
February 11th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
The anonymous “John”’s comment regarding my assessment of COSE is amusing. He said “I came in late on these posts, but I thought I should at least offer Carla above some advise…so hopefully she will see this.
You should certainly cancel your COSE membership and pay the higher street rate. Why pay for something you’re not using, and that you feel so negative about? Just cancel it and move on. good idea right?” Well, I finally did see your comment, “John.”
Kind of reminds me of that tired old saw “If you don’t like this country, leave it!” Actually, I love my country, and would hope to help it live up to more of its stated ideals.
This is not to say that I love COSE, but then paying many thousands of dollars a year for a service does not obligate one to love it, or even to refrain from criticizing it.
At least I am not afraid to attach my full name to my comments. Should I be, “John” — whoever you are?
February 12th, 2009 at 1:12 am
Here’s another COSE conundrum: the very expansive (and expensive) full-page advertorial in this week’s CRAIN’S touting opposition to the “card check” legislation currently before the Congress.
The advertorial is much more likely to be put up for an award for advocacy from the American Chamber Of Commerce Executives (ACCE)than it is to have any serious impact on the discussion. It will certainly have no effect on any member of the Northeast Ohio Congressional delegation in any real position to affect the legislation.
The average COSE member company has six employees. Of its total membership (whatever it is, it ain’t 17,000), probably fewer than three percent even have to think about organized labor (maybe “john’s” is one).
There may be a couple COSE Board members who felt compelled to Stand Up For Business, but the issue is just bogus as far as the vast, vast majority of COSE members are concerned.
It’s much more likely to be appreciated by GCP’s larger employers, who MAY have labor problems, or to The US Chamber or some other organization up to which COSE must kiss.
Maybe the advertorial is representative of the “Elephant Repellant Effect.” You remember the old joke: “What’s that you’re holding in your hand?” “It’s an elephant repellant.” “There are no elephants around here.” “See? I’m a genius.”
Of course, when you have 14 or 15 million dollars’ worth of members’ money to play with, the cost of a full-page, four-color ad (a mere few thousand dollars) is relatively negligible.
Just another unfortunate example of members’ money at work for…whom?