Tag Archives: Business

A, Orwellian Language, Political Bullying

Will the Real Transparency Bill Please Stand Up?

5 Comments
This airfare from Hipmunk.com shows the per-person price of this flight--including the fare, taxes, and mandatory fees. Alas, luggage fees and other optional fees might still apply, but the customer does have some choices with those.
This airfare from Hipmunk.com shows the per-person price of this flight–including the fare, taxes, and mandatory fees. We can thank the Department of Transportation’s 2012 full-fare rule for this information. Alas, luggage fees and other optional fees might still apply, but the customer does have some choices with those.

Since 2012, I’ve enjoyed being able to look up airfares online and know right away what a given flight would cost–fare, taxes, and mandatory fees. Alas, the airlines provide the full fare apparently not from a desire for good customer service because of a 2012 Federal Department of Transportation rule requiring them to.

I say it’s apparently not motivated by the airlines because the airline lobby and unions are trying to get Congress to undo that rule. Doing so would allow airlines to go back to showing us only the fare upfront and then socking us with the taxes and fees late in the checkout process.

What do they call the bill that would make it harder to me to know what a flight would cost me? The Transparent Airfares Act, of course!

This is an example of Orwellian language: the name says the opposite of what it means. Advocates use Orwellian language when their position is weak.

Because the name its supporters use is dishonest, it’s important that the bill’s opponents avoid using it. What should opponents call it instead?

  • The Obscuring Airfares Act
  • The Airfare Surprise Act
  • The Airfare Bait-and-Switch Act

Or something else?

I learned about this bill from this informative Omaha World-Herald story and Christopher Elliot’s Seattle Times article.

Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), at right, introduced the Real Transparency in Airfares Act to counter the airline industry’s Orwellian bill. In this photo, he is receiving the foreign minister of Singapore, K. Shanmugam.

New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez (D) has introduced an alternative to the industry-sponsored bill called the Real Transparency in Airfares Act. His bill would leave the full-fare rule in place and double fines on companies that violated it. At first, I was uneasy with this name because it includes the Orwellian name of the industry bill, but this framing makes sense to me now.

Strictly speaking, though, the Menendez bill doesn’t seem to increase airfare transparency, just toughen the rule’s enforcement.

But we can do more than use a different name. We could point out that the full-fare rule protects customers, and that airline profits have been at record highs since the rule came into effect! Coincidence? Probably, but it doesn’t seem to have hurt the airlines.

Furthermore, this is another case in which wise government regulation creates confidence between an industry and its customers. Confidence is good for business. While airlines might make more money if the full-fare rule were scrapped, that might come at the cost of trust. Loss of trust increases the chance that travelers would look for other options.

What do you think? Should the industry bill be known as the Airline Industry Shoots Itself in the Foot Act?

Business, Orwellian Language

Pro-Business Often Means Pro-Boss

4 Comments

An earlier post pointed out that many policies that are commonly called pro-business are really pro-management and advocates using that name. But in the spirit of using shorter words, why not call them pro-boss policies?

Boss is more emotionally charged than management and makes clear that the policies would benefit those at the top, not necessarily business as a whole.

What do you think? Is this accurate? Is it helpful to Framologists?

B, Business

Why Pro-Business Policies Aren’t

1 Comment

Everybody knows what pro-business policies are: low taxes, low minimum wage, less regulation, reduced ability to sue corporations, “right-to-work” laws (a topic for another post), etc. We “know” this because that’s what business lobbies usually want.

But these policies should be known as pro-management, not pro-business. That’s because they give management more power and money while depriving workers and the community.

To thrive, business needs not only management but workers, suppliers, customers, and a prosperous community. Real pro-business policies support all of these.
To thrive, business needs not only management but workers, suppliers, customers, and a prosperous community. Real pro-business policies support all of these.

But businesses also need workers:

  • Educated workers who can do their jobs with a minimum of training
  • Healthy workers who can come to work each day and do their best
  • Loyal workers who feel valued by their employers
  • Prosperous workers who can not only pay their bills but patronize their own and other businesses.

Businesses also need customers. In Economics 101, I learned that demand means the desire for a product or service plus the ability to pay for it. That means the community must prosper, not just management. People can’t patronize businesses without money. (And yes, this is related to the triple bottom line.)

And when we don’t trust a business or industry, we don’t want to support it. Wise government regulation of business helps create that trust.

So real pro-business policies would sound like this:

  • Strong support for public education to create an educated workforce
  • Strong public health efforts and ready, affordable access to health care, including preventive health care and mental health care
  • Support for workers’ work-family balance with family leave, child care, and so on
  • Support for living wages so the workers, community, and its businesses can thrive
  • Support for government regulations that give people confidence in business.

Do you think pro-management is a good reframe of pro-business? What might be better?

Business, C

Why Corporations Want You to Confuse Your Rights with Theirs

Leave a comment

When the New York City Council approved a ban on sales of soft drinks in containers larger than 16oz, ban opponents used some ideological sleight-of-hand. It was so subtle that I noticed it only now!

Big Gulp cup--32 ounces
The issue should have been whether corporations should be allowed to tempt people to use too much of an unhealthy product, not individual liberty.
Photo Credit: Majiscup – The Papercup & Sleeve via Compfight cc

By framing the ban as an issue of individual liberty, they obscured a crucial fact: the ban would have regulated the behavior not of individuals but of businesses. Individuals would still have been able to buy all the soda they wanted.

Therefore, the real issue was whether irresponsible corporations would still be allowed to tempt customers to use too much of an unhealthy product. All the talk about government overreach, the nanny state, and personal choice was really about the City’s treatment of corporations, not people.

All the talk about government overreach, the nanny state, and personal choice was really about the City’s treatment of corporations, not people.

This case demonstrates what corporations gain from confusing the rights of individuals with those of corporations and the harm this confusion can bring the public. It will be very difficult to ban harmful products if the bogus individual-liberty frame is allowed to define future debates.

However wise or foolish this ban proposal may have been, governments have a responsibility to regulate commerce within their borders and also a responsibility to protect the health of the community. In similar future cases, Framologists should name who is really affected by the proposal and identify the real issue as corporate responsibility, not individual liberty.

Do you know if soda-ban defenders used this approach? I’d love to hear about it!

W

Framing Workers

1 Comment

While extreme conservatives frame business owners and the 1% as job creators, George Lakoff makes an important point about the role of workers in business. Chapter 14 of his excellent Little Blue Book is titled “Workers Are Profit Creators.” And so we are!

Here’s what he recommends saying (emphasis in original, p. 85):

  • Workers are profit creators. Corporations can profit only if people work for them.
  • Health care benefits and pensions are part of the pay earned by workers. They are deferred payments for work done.
  • Health care benefits and pensions benefit the workers and the companies that provide them.
  • Health care benefits and pensions add to profits. They buy loyalty so that companies can avoid the costs of recruiting and training new employees as well as the costs of operating with untrained employees.
  • Corporations have an ethical responsibility to pay in full for work done. That includes benefits and pensions.
  • Corporations are ethically responsible for setting aside funds for workers’ deferred payments and not using them for anything else. Spending those funds–on capital investment, stockholder dividends, or payments and bonuses to top managers–is unethical.

I strongly recommend the book. But how do you think workers should be talked about?