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Coast Guard Auxiliary sold Safety Decal?
Just saw this year's Coast Guard Auxiliary safe boating decal. Can you believe
it has a name of an insurance company on it? "Listen to the live broadcast of 'Nautical Talk Radio' with Captain Lou every Sunday afternoon from 4 - 5 (Eastern Standard Time) on the web at www.959watd.com or if you are in Boston or Cape Cod set your radio dial to 95.9FM. |
#2
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Coast Guard Auxiliary sold Safety Decal?
"Capt Lou" wrote in message Just saw this year's Coast Guard Auxiliary safe boating decal. Can you believe it has a name of an insurance company on it? Yeah, I don't much care for it either. Budget issues, is the story I hear. I guess it costs a few M to print and distribute them all. Its the same circumstance that has us viewing events at the "Tampax Arena" JG |
#3
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Coast Guard Auxiliary sold Safety Decal?
John Gaquin wrote:
"Capt Lou" wrote in message Just saw this year's Coast Guard Auxiliary safe boating decal. Can you believe it has a name of an insurance company on it? Yeah, I don't much care for it either. Budget issues, is the story I hear. I guess it costs a few M to print and distribute them all. Its the same circumstance that has us viewing events at the "Tampax Arena" JG George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, brought to you by Halliburton, Big Oil, the American Pharmaceutical Association, the NRA, and the Insurance Industry. |
#4
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Coast Guard Auxiliary sold Safety Decal?
"Harry Krause" wrote in message ... John Gaquin wrote: "Capt Lou" wrote in message Just saw this year's Coast Guard Auxiliary safe boating decal. Can you believe it has a name of an insurance company on it? Yeah, I don't much care for it either. Budget issues, is the story I hear. I guess it costs a few M to print and distribute them all. Its the same circumstance that has us viewing events at the "Tampax Arena" JG George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, brought to you by Halliburton, Big Oil, the American Pharmaceutical Association, the NRA, and the Insurance Industry. |
#5
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Coast Guard Auxiliary sold Safety Decal?
"Harry Krause" wrote in message news:c568n0 George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, brought to you by Halliburton, Big Oil, the American Pharmaceutical Association, the NRA, and the Insurance Industry. Go and clean the toilets at Ullico before you offer any further puerile comment on the Bush Administration. |
#6
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Coast Guard Auxiliary sold Safety Decal?
Just saw this year's Coast Guard Auxiliary safe boating decal. Can you
believe it has a name of an insurance company on it? Could be worse. For what seemed like a zillion years, our state had a Sec. of State who would issue official state documents with his signature, name and title prominently displayed in huge font at the bottom.In every case, the documents should have been signed buy the SOS, but this guy turned every fishing regulation, campaign initiative, or policy proposal into the equivalent of a campaign yard sign. At least the insurance company is (presumably) paying for the privilege. |
#7
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Coast Guard Auxiliary sold Safety Decal?
Harry Krause wrote:
John Gaquin wrote: "Harry Krause" wrote in message news:c568n0 George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, brought to you by Halliburton, Big Oil, the American Pharmaceutical Association, the NRA, and the Insurance Industry. Go and clean the toilets at Ullico before you offer any further puerile comment on the Bush Administration. From Business Week MAY 27, 2003 COMMENTARY By Aaron Bernstein Big Labor's Governance Lesson At scandal-tainted Ullico, AFL-CIO leaders ousted one of their own as CEO and set an example Corporate America should heed When it comes to good governance, Corporate America can learn a useful lesson from, of all places, the labor movement. For more than a year, the AFL-CIO has been plagued by a stock scandal at Ullico, a labor-owned insurer. The company's former chief executive and more than a dozen of its 28 directors, mostly union leaders, pocketed millions of dollars by selling Ullico stock at the expense of the union pension funds that own most of the company. What's notable, is that after months of internecine battles, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and other labor leaders who sat on Ullico's board moved decisively to clean up the mess. They ousted CEO Robert Georgine and put directors on notice that they'll have to pay back the profits they made. That could amount to at least $6 million. These actions stand as a model for other large companies. It's painfully clear today that corporate boards rarely fulfill their designated role as watchdogs over the CEO. Complacent directors allowed apparently illegal abuses to occur at a string of companies, from Enron to Tyco International. Many other directors do little to rein in executive excesses: Consider former General Electric (GE ) CEO Jack Welch's outsize retirement package, or the tens of millions raked in this year by the CEOs of American Airlines (AMR ) and Delta Air Lines (DAL ), despite huge losses. TOUGH FIGHT. The problem, of course, is that many boards remain clubby conclaves with little desire to check egregious CEO behavior. Ullico's board was perhaps even more inbred than most, since many of the directors Sweeney confronted are leaders of unions that elected him and pay dues to the AFL-CIO. Yet Sweeney and a few others, such as Laborers' Union President Terence O'Sullivan, who has since been named Ullico's new CEO, defied the institutional taboos and took on their chums. "We still have boards that are handpicked by the CEO, for the most part, and those directors don't usually stand up to the CEO," says University of Delaware management professor Charles Elson. "Directors need to have the guts to make change. That's the lesson from Ullico." No question, it wasn't easy for labor leaders to oppose Georgine. He was was the head of the AFL-CIO's building-trades department for 26 years -- 10 of them after he took over at Ullico in 1990. Georgine packed the insurer's board with building-trades pals, who remained loyal even as the scandal triggered investigations by a grand jury, the Labor Dept., and other agencies. Sweeney, O'Sullivan, and other labor leaders had to mount an all-out battle. When the scandal broke last year, Sweeney, then a Ullico director, prodded fellow board members to mount an investigation. CREDIBILITY BOOST. Sweeney didn't make any money from selling stock himself and quit the board in December after Ullico refused to release the resulting report. After failing this year to win over a majority of directors, Sweeney and O'Sullivan lined up the union pension funds to vote their shares against Georgine at Ullico's annual meeting on May 8. Even so, the battle went down to the wi Georgine handed O'Sullivan his resignation at 2 p.m., just as the meeting began. AFL-CIO and Laborers' officials had arrived armed with proxy resolutions that would have forced emergency changes to Ullico's bylaws if Georgine hadn't offered his resignation. Those would have allowed shareholders to override directors (see BW Online, 5/9/03, "Tense Moments in a Labor Power Struggle"). In the end, Georgine backed down, and on May 13, a new board with a dozen union leaders untouched by the scandal voted to require directors to return their stock profits. Georgine's lawyer didn't return calls for comment. The outfit still faces plenty of trouble. Congressional hearings are due in June, and the criminal investigation remains unresolved. But the AFL-CIO now can cite Ullico -- not just as a case of executive greed but as an example of how to deal with it. Good thing, too, since the AFL-CIO is spearheading dozens of shareholder resolutions on CEO pay this year. Having fixed its own greed problem, labor can claim some credibility in that campaign. Bernstein follows labor unions from Washington Copyright 2000-2004, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved. We clean up our own messes, John. No member of ULLICO management who participated in the stock deals is still employed by the company, and those few directors who profited in the deals have either paid back the profits, are paying back the profits, are off the board, or are being sued for repayment. The new management team is squeaky-clean, our outside auditors are signing our financial statements without dissenting notes, and our chief regulator has approved our capital program. Business Week was a strong critic of ULLICO, but it was an honest one, without a political agenda. The right-wing controlled media, of course, is still playing its own game for its own purposes. The Congressional hearings on ULLICO ended last summer without any recommendations of action against the company. A few weeks ago, the company consented to a settlement on a nearly 10-year-old civil suit for about 20 cents on the dollar. ULLICO is still a company with problems, but these are business-related. It lost money in 2003, again, but it looks as if it will turn a small profit in 2004. The corporation isn't a not-for-profit, but it wasn't established to "make money" for its shareholders. It was established to provide insurance and other financial services for working men and women and their unions and jointly-managed trust funds. At that, it excels. In its 78 years, the company has never failed to pay a legitimate claim or benefit to a policy holder, and it operates a couple of investment vehicles, such as "J for Jobs," that fund hundreds of thousands of family supporting jobs each year. The first concern of our shareholders is that we serve working men and women. If we do that, a small profit is all that is expected. We just introduced a new insured pharmacy product for self-funded health plans. It is going to be gangbusters. We guarantee a fund that its monthly per member/per month price for prescriptions will not go up for a year, and will be less expensive than what the plan is now paying. Too bad your employer doesn't qualify, eh? Thanks for asking. Oh...I forgot. A significant number of our policyholders were killed in the 9-11 disasters. We paid all beneficiaries within 10 days, months before most other insurance companies even processed their paperwork. For many of the low paid workers killed in the Twin Towers' restaurants, ours was the first and for a while only compensation their families received. Their status in this country was uncertain, but their status as union members covered by our insurance was not. |
#8
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Coast Guard Auxiliary sold Safety Decal?
"Harry Krause" wrote in message news:c56go2 From Business Week snip That's good. They made Georgine an "offer he couldn't refuse" because the whole Fed Govt was in their pants. I'm glad you're on the right track. Here's hoping you stay that way. Big Labor's track record is not encouraging in that regard. |
#9
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Coast Guard Auxiliary sold Safety Decal?
"Harry Krause" wrote in message news:c56h02 Oh...I forgot. A significant number of our policyholders were killed in the 9-11 disasters. We paid all beneficiaries within 10 days, months before most other insurance companies even processed their paperwork. That's impressive, and worthy of commendation, which should be given when due. |
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