Los Angeles Management Consultant, Dan Curtin Predicts the Impact of the Coming Obama Era on U.S. Business and the Workforce

Los Angeles, CA, November 07, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Daniel Curtin, SPHR, a Professional consultant, certified in the field and with over 30 years experience in the discipline has predicted the impact of the recent elections on U.S. business and its labor force.

The November 4th, 2008 election is not only a bellwether for the country's “red to blue” political shift, but it also signals a significant swing in the federal governments' role in the relationship between US business and its employees. For over 20 years, (including to some extent even during the Clinton administration), the emphasis of the federal government has been to extricate itself out of the relationship between U.S. business and its employees and let the states take over a more active role. Some significant “conservative” Supreme Court decisions also impacted federal and state labor laws, further diminishing the impact of these laws on the business front.

· That is certain to change in 2009 when Barack Obama takes office. The legislative and executive branches will both be under Democratic control, and it is only a matter of time before the Supreme Court will lean more toward the left of center as new appointments of justices are made by the new administration and ratified by the Congress. The impact will be felt in the following areas:

· There will be an expansion of the federal workforce in employment law enforcement agencies such as the OFCCP, EEOC and the NLRB. This expansion will be "paid for" by punitive fines collected from these agencies for violations of federal employment laws by businesses rather than taxes.

· Congress will pass new laws and regulations and mandates in the areas of health care benefits, pension plans and increased enforcement of those regulations. Fines on employers will most probably increase.

· Significant concessions to organized labor, including the card signing bill which forces collective bargaining without secret elections on businesses in this country will revive the union movement and increase labor organizing, especially among Hispanics.

· Trial lawyers will take advantage of the new environment to file more lawsuits against businesses based on the new regulations.

Even if Obama tries to hold a rein on the liberal wing of the party in its regulatory zeal, the new bureaucracy will take on a life of its own and impact business in spite of him. All of these impacts will increase the costs of “doing business” in this country. Any businesses with employees will have to "up their game" when it comes to paying attention to employment laws and regulations. The chances of getting sued or charged by a regulatory agency will increase dramatically over the next four years.

The state of California, which already has tighter labor and employment standards is the model of where the country will probably move toward in new labor legislation. This state will not feel the impact as much since the Feds many times defer to the state agencies here. Changes in the laws governing labor organizing, which is regulated only by the federal NLRB and the National Labor Relations Act will impact California and its workforce. This is true since the state workforce is made up of heavy Hispanic immigrant populations which are warming up to unionization.

These impacts are not necessarily bad, since workers rights and the labor movement have had to exist in a very hostile business environment in the last eight years. Hopefully, the pendulum will swing to the middle with some balance this time so that workers can improve their standard of living or at least an energized labor movement will help to halt the shrinking of our middle class. It is a different world and the world is much more integrated economically. That alone may limit what final impacts these changes have our business economy as we have become less competitive as a maker of hard goods products. Our government can no longer legislate in a vacuum as it has become a very small world and there are many consequences we cannot predict to every action affecting the business markets. The new administration will need to be very careful in its actions.

Dan Curtin, SPHR, MAOM is a Principal of Curtin Associates, a human resource consulting firm, located in Los Angeles, CA. http://curtinassociates.com.

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