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Fall 2011 OCMA News |
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Fall 2011 OCMA News |
OCMA Meeting Explores Important Issues
The nearly fifty (50) OCMA members attending the October 26, 2011, meeting heard about several important issues affecting the metal casting industry: the continued implementation of the massive health care reform legislation, prescription drug trafficking and its impact on the workplace and community, and lurking pitfalls facing employers anxious to limit on & off-the-job social media activities. Rep. Terry Johnson, (R-Portsmouth), was the luncheon speaker. Rep. Johnson is in his first term in the Ohio House of Representatives and he is the first Republican to hold the seat in the 89th District in 53 years! The key points of his presentation are summarized below. 1. A important issue in the 2010 election when Rep. Johnson upset the favored Democratic candidate was prescription drug addiction and the impact it was having on the communities of Portsmouth and Lucasville. Dr. Johnson was serving as the county coroner when he confronted numerous overdose situations where ordinary working citizens were overdosing on prescription drugs, generally painkillers such as oxycontin, percocet, and vicadin, and alcohol - a deadly mix. 2. Dr. Johnson ran on the issue of prescription drug addiction and the crime it was creating in the community. As county coroner he recorded more than twenty deaths from prescription drug overdoses. As a member of the community he was concerned about the increase in crime linked to the prescription drug problem including double and triple homicides. He promised to address this issue as the newly elected state representative. Once elected, he worked with an action team to draft legislation that was enacted in record time-four months! 3. The legislation is having its expected affect. The number of “pill
mills” providing illegal prescription drugs has been reduced
in Scioto County from 11 to 2. While “pill mills” are continuing
to open and operate in Detroit and Florida, they are being shut down
in Southern Ohio. 5. Rep. Johnson also argued that we need an effective energy policy. It is imperative that Ohio be able to use the bountiful resources with which it has been blessed. He is encouraging the development of the Marcellus and Utica shale deposits with common sense regulation of the mining and drilling operations.
Tom Wagoner, President/CEO, Accelerated Benefits, provided an update on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, health care reform legislation. The main points of his update are outlined below: 1. Tom began by alerting the members to the importance of Kathleen Sibelius, Director, U. S. Health and Human Services, who is responsible for implementing Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The legislation included 1600 “shalls” and the first ten “shalls” for which regulations have been proposed have resulted in more than 10,000 pages of regulations! The White House and Congress may be having difficulty creating jobs for Main Street, but they have no difficulty creating jobs for lawyers! 2. An important issue to be determined regarding your company’s health insurance plan is whether it is grandfathered or not. Grandfathered plans are not required to participate in new plan requirements. A plan is grandfathered with respect to individuals enrolled on March 23, 2010. Changes in the plan adopted before March 23, 2010, will not cause a plan or policy to lose its grandfathered status, even if they take effect after that date. 3. Changes to grandfathered plans that are impermissible include: - Cannot significantly cut or reduce benefits; 4. In order to maintain grandfathered health plan status, the group health plan must maintain records documenting the plan terms in effect on the grandfather date. These records must be made available to participants, beneficiaries, individual policyholders, or state or federal agencies upon request. Records must be kept for as long as the plan coverage takes the position that the coverage remains grandfathered. 5. Outlined below are several reasons to not be grandfathered under PPACA: - From 2010 to 2013, not having a grandfathered plan allows
for more flexibility to manage immediate costs concerns through benefit
buy downs and changes to contribution levels; 6. Outlined below are several reasons to be grandfathered under PPACA: - From 2010 to 2013, grandfathered plans are not required to
include some benefits, such as 100% coverage for in-network preventative
care services;
7. 2011 Compliance Points - Prescription required for health account reimbursement for
over the counter medications; 8. 2012 Compliance Points - Uniform Coverage Summaries/60 day notice for material modifications
(3/23/2012) if more than 10% of your workforce is Spanish-speaking
recommends that you do it in English and Spanish; 9. 2013 Compliance Points - Employer notification of exchanges and premium subsidies; 10. 2014 Compliance Points – The Promised Land? - Penalties for employers who don’t provide minimum coverage
to full-time employees (50 or more employees only); 11. 2018 Compliance Point - 40% excise tax on high cost “Cadillac plans” begins. 12. IRS Form 8928 – A Reporting Nightmare! Historically, the IRS has not been very active in examining health plans for compliance however; IRS final regulations require employers to self-report violations of these rules and pay related excise taxes. Employers must report health plan compliance failures annually on IRS Form 8928. Violations of COBRA, HIPAA, and the genetic anti-discrimination law (GINA) can result in excise taxes of $100 per day per individual. No excise tax is imposed during the period when the employer did not know, or exercising reasonable diligence would not have known, a plan failure existed. To avoid excise taxes under this new self-reporting regime, employers
and administrators of group health plans should have procedures and
processes in place that are designed to reasonably ensure compliance.
According to Mr. Wagoner, these reporting requirements will force employers
to adopt digital reporting procedures.
Rebecca Bennett, Frantz Ward LLP, presented a primer on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter and discussed the pitfalls that may snare an uninitiated and unsuspecting employer. Major points of her presentation are provided below: 1. First, to understand the pervasiveness of the World Wide Web and social media activity, it is important to realize that hundreds of millions of adults are engaged in these activities. Facebook has more than 800 million users; LinkedIn more than 120 million users, and Twitter more than 200 million users and these numbers are growing at exponential rates. 2. In 2006, approximately 8% of adults online were engaged in social media sites use. Five years later in 2011, more than 65% of adults were engaged. According to Pew Research Center surveys more than 83% of youth 18-29 utilize social media sites; 70% of adults 30-49, and 51% of adults 50-64 are utilizing social media sites. The bottom line; your employees are using social media. 3. Your employees are likely to be doing one or more of the following on social media sites: - Uploading photos and videos and viewing them; 4. Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social networking and microblogging service, enabling its users to send and read messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based post of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile page. Facebook is a social networking service and Web site launched in February 2004. Users create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. 5. Examples of employee postings. - A California teacher blogged about other employees & her
replacement and entitled the Blog Entry “Save Us White Boy”; 6. A listing of the pitfalls for employers includes the following: - Ignoring social media use of your employees or underestimating
its power; 7. The employment at-will doctrine generally allows an employer to take action against an employee based on the content of their blog or social networking profile so long as the employer is not discriminating, retaliating, etc. 8. Employer liability issues include: - Privacy laws; 9. Harassment, Defamation, & Discrimination Blakely v. Continental Airlines, Inc., the New Jersey Supreme Court held that the employer had a duty to prevent defamatory & harassing statements made by its pilots in an on-line forum. In Varian Medical Systems, Inc. v. Delfino, former employees posted derogatory messages about their former employer and its executives on an Internet bulletin board. A California court held the employees liable for their actions. In Simonetti v. Delta Airlines Inc. a female employee, author of a Diary of a Flight Attendant blog, was terminated for “inappropriate pictures in uniform on the web”. She charged the company with discrimination alleging that male employees had engaged in similar conduct without being terminated.
10. Invasion of Privacy and the Stored Communications Act (SCA) In Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group, the Federal Court in New Jersey upheld a jury verdict in which the employer was found liable for violating the SCA when the company’s management accessed a MySpace chat group without receiving authorization from members of the chat group. The plaintiffs were rewarded punitive damages. 11. One of the most important aspects of social media’s Twitter and Facebook is their power to organize. Proponents of the “Arab Spring” credit their ability to use these media to communicate during the protests with its ultimate success. The protests of “Occupy Wall Street’ also credit the super-fast communication characteristics of Twitter. The NLRB has taken great interest in Twitter and Facebook and has ruled that communications on these website can be “protected, concerted activity”. 12. In NLRB v. American Medical Response of Connecticut, Inc. the Board ruled that an employee’s negative statements on Facebook about her employer are protected, concerted activity. “Souza posted the Facebook comments in 2009 from her home computer, hours after her supervisor said a customer had complained about her work. The expletive-filled posting referred to her supervisor using the company’s code for a psychiatric patient. Her remarks at the time drew supportive posts from colleagues.” The case was settled and the employer revised the blogging and Internet policy, but Souza was not reinstated. 13. Should Employers Mine Social Networking Sites for Information? - The Upside: Employers can find bountiful information about
applicants/employees and learn about issues that are important to your
workforce. 14. What about access to employees’ on-line profiles? - Courts have allowed parties to discover social networking
profiles. 15. Social Networking Policies for Employers - Social networking and related issues should be addressed
in employer’s policies. Ms. Bennett suggested a single, consolidated
policy that clearly defines the issues and covers all needed subjects.
Remember, one size does not fit all.
OCMA Vice President of Environmental Affairs Ryan Burke, OSCO Industries, Inc., presented the environmental report. Key issues are outlined below: Area Source Boiler Rules If you are operating a boiler burning something other than natural gas, this operation will be covered by the Area Source Boiler GACT rule and you need to be aware of how the proposed regulations may affect your operations. Iron and Steel Foundry Area Source Rule There is some confusion regarding the applicability of the Operation and Maintenance Plan requirements for large foundries. If any member is requested to include another operation other than melting in their plan, please contact OCMA Vice President Ryan Burke, OSCO Industries, Inc. at 740-354-0368.
It doesn’t matter if you are in an attainment or a non-attainment area, the NAAQS PM 2.5 rule is problematic for all foundries. States are beginning to require facilities to estimate emissions of PM 2.5, which is difficult since a test standard has not been promulgated. Bottom Line: Allow yourself more time for permitting in the near term. Beneficial Reuse Update There has been a minor breakthrough concerning progress towards an expanded beneficial reuse rule for foundry sand. At the request of OCMA Executive Director Russ Murray, Stephanie Salmon, AFS Washington Office, set up several meetings with Ohio Democratic representatives so we could alert them to the delay at USEPA that was keeping the Risk Assessment of Spent Foundry Sands in Soil-Related Applications from being issued in final form. Ms. Salmon also coordinated meetings with representatives from Indiana and Pennsylvania. Russ accompanied Kim Myers, Griffin Wheel Company, along with Jeff Hannapel, The Policy Group, and Stephanie to the meetings where educational discussions were held. As a result of these meetings, U. S. Representative Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo) who was initially responsible for securing the funding for the USDA study, agreed to inquire about the delay. When her office was told the delay was primarily because the study was not a priority, Rep. Kaptur drafted a letter to Suzanne Rudzinski, Acting Director, Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery (ORCR) which was also signed by Tim Ryan (D-Niles) and Betty Sutton (D-Barberton) as well as representatives from Indiana and Pennsylvania, requesting her office to expedite the completion of the study and finalize the risk assessment. Hopefully, this letter will result in the completion of the foundry sand risk assessment in a timely manner and publication as final with recommendations to the states to improve the opportunities for beneficial reuse of spent foundry sands. 8th Annual Golf Outing After a couple of outings during tough economic times, this year’s outing returned to more ideal conditions. Golf Committee Chair Dave Greek Jr., Hill & Griffith Company, and other members of the committee worked harder than ever and we received tremendous support from our member companies. The fruits of their labor produced an outing that exceeded the all-time high in profitability and was held in the most beautiful conditions. With all the bills paid and the contributions submitted, this golf outing brought in approximately $23,500, the highest profit ever! Hats off to Dave and his team! More than 100 golfers attended the outing on Friday, August 26, 2011, at the Cumberland Trails Golf Club where we have held the outing since its inception. The winning team was sponsored Foseco Metallurgical Inc. and was comprised of Greg Donohoe, Foseco Metallurgical Inc., Gary Utley, Carl Early, and Rocky Jackson, Alliance Casting Company. The lucky foursome will be treated to a round of golf at the award winning Sand Ridge Golf Club in Chardon as guests of Fairmont Minerals Ltd. Just cannot wait until next year. Great playing everyone.
Dave Greek Jr., Chair, Hill & Griffith Company OCMA Golf Outing Major Sponsors AFS Central Ohio Chapter OCMA Golf Outing Hole Sponsors Volunteers Larry Boyd, Energy Industries of Ohio and Mike Blankestyn, TRC Environmental Corporation. Photos courtesy of Nick Cannell, NCI, Inc. Next OCMA Meeting in January 2012 The next meeting will be held either January 18th, 19th or 26th. We are waiting to set the date because we have invited Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel to address our membership and his office does not set his schedule this early. By offering three dates we have a better chance of success than if we pick just one date. We will let you know the exact date as soon as we know it. Additionally, we will be convening a panel of foundry sand suppliers to discuss the impact that demand for sand from the “fracking process” is having and may have in the future on the Ohio metal casting industry. Please mark you calendars.
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