Day 7: New Belgium Brewing Compnany (Case) and Workplace Rigths

First was passing back yesterday's exams. Without revealing confidences I was basically pleased considering the large amount of material, the limited time and English is not their first language. The class average was 80%, very consistent even slightly higher than typical exam averages in the U.S. That said, some students were a little distressed by their grades. I rather suspected there is a bit of grade inflation here relative to the students. The exam is just three days away now. The objective is to try to align our respective expectations.

The New Belgium Brewing Company was scheduled for discussion today. This is one of my favorite cases and I was really looking forward to it. It's always interesting to spend about 30 minutes doing all the wonderful things NBB does, singing its sustainability praises, then targeting their conversion to wind power. The substantial investment was only possible because the workforce agreed to give up their profit bonuses for five years (I'm assuming it's five years of no bonuses because the case says that's the payback period for the turbines. Sounds like a good number). When I ask U.S. students, are you ready to give up your compensation?, it's fun to watch all the "this company is so great" students retreat. Of course I tried the same tactic with with these students. For some reason I never got the sense that this case or its issues "clicked". It may be an old lesson that I have to relearn many times; each class is different and don't expect to be able to replicate what worked with one class with another.

Fortunately I saved a good question for the end. "What if a Panamanian went to the U.S. to study the New Belgium model. They studied everything NBB does. Maybe even worked there for a time. The Panamanian returns here to establish a company (a brewer, a restaurant, small manufacturer, a service company, anything) that follows NBB's methods. Would it work?" They had some very good ideas.. here's a summary:

- There are cultural differences with respect to attitudes toward the environment and expectations at work. Workers here just aren't used to the same approaches to empowerment, etc.

- There would be a strong need for training about environmental issues and business processes.

- There is a general lack of education and awareness about sustainability in Panama. (This is not surprising for a developing country).

- There would be problems with technical support and infrastructure. For example, no local companies could sell or support these types of systems. The government would be of little help.

- There would be a definite challenge trying to do any green marketing or pass along a green premium in the form of price. Consumers in Panama are very price sensitive.

I was extremely please they came up with these ideas.

The last half of the class we returned to the issue of workplace rights. I had the idea to take key rights topics in the assigned chapter and have two columns on the whiteboard, one for the U.S. and one for Panama. Using my own knowledge and the text, we're able to fill in the U.S. side of the ledger very easily. Then I asked them for the Panamanian side. There were often uncertainites and even disagreements in the class. In those instances I encouraged students to pursue such a topic as a class project (every student must complete a project where he/she connects any course topic to practices in Panama).

Here's the list of workplace rights topics and what they suggested was true for Panama. I figure there's no need to present what is true for the U.S.

1. Minimum/living wage $285/month (that's $1.38/hour)
no juristiction enforces a living wage

2. Legally required benefits Social security type system for pensions
a seniority benefit every 90 days, 10% of monthly pay
vacations

3. Workplace health/safety OSHA-type system of standards, inspections, fines
widely-agreed this system was an ineffective deterent
(variety of compliance and corruption challenges)

4. EEO anti-discrimination rules and regulations in place
cultural values/ineffective enforcement are challenges
*see further discussion below

5. Sexual Harassment weak legal system doesn't always protect employees
some MNCs (Dell) have been especially diligent


I'm going to finish up the list tomorrow with three more items: Drug-testing, Surveillance and Unions.

An extremely interesting issue has emerged the past two class sessions, employers will openly discriminate against "ugly" people. For instance one woman told me job listings often ask for a picture of the applicant or will use a requirement such as "athletic". A male student told me of a general manager of a "customer service" unit came through, saw a new employee (male) that was deemed to be "to ugly to work with the public". This employee was fired on the spot. It has caught me a little off guard. I asked about job competencies, and whether some who might be deemed unattractive generally could also present themselves very professionally (clean, neat, etc.) There was a modest concession of the point, but I couldn't escape the sense there was a strong sense that (a) such discrimination was widely practiced (b) was generally consistent with prevailing norms and values and (c) there is no effective legal recourse for such a circumstance.

I'm going to reflect on this issue for a while. My initial reaction is this is fascinating, silly and troubling all at once. But it will take a little while to think more critically about it.

Tomorrow the issue of "cultural relativism" is up. Not sure whether to continue to pursue this.