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Morals and Layoffs
Radical changes in modern institutional structure have ushered in an era of short-term, contract, or episodic labor, writes economist Richard Sennett in his book The Corrosion of Character. Corporations have sought to remove layers of bureaucracy, to become "flatter and more flexible" organizations. In place of pyramid-style organizations, management wants now to think of organizations as networks. This means many more layoffs, writes Sennett, and also that promotions and dismissals tend not to be based any longer on fixed rules, since tasks are fluid, and the network is constantly redefining its structure.
Executives are paid more and more to re-shape companies, and work becomes less stable in direct proportion. Workers have never been more powerless, their tenure more fragile. Tech workers, many of whom came of age in an era of growth and full employment, are learning the lessons of the real world quickly. Tasks and missions are temporal, the people employed to execute them highly disposable. Work and workers are both flexible and expendable.
One of the most shocking and widely accepted tenets of the new techno-workplace is that the well-run company, the one that wants to compete in the global economy, has to be so fluid, evolving and responsive to change that thousands of employees can get dumped at one whack and it's not even controversial. That's a pretty long trek from the capitalist ethic that only a few years ago valued corporate loyalty as much as profits, and touted the company-employee bond.
And it raises all sorts of new questions -- especially for a generation of tech workers experiencing layoffs for the first time.
In the Corporate Republic, where corporations fund the political system, control most mass media, write legislation, and now dominate entertainment and culture (and soon, much of technology, from bio-tech to Net access), there are few agreed-upon rules about layoffs. Hardly any would get far in Washington, the world headquarters of corporate lobbying. (Congress, allegedly the public's lobbyists, are scrambling to get campaign funds from corporate donors.)
Unions, already on the wane, have never gained much hold in the Tech Nation, populated by educated, mobile, skilled and independent-minded workers. Some tech companies are comparatively generous -- extending health plans beyond the federal requirements with some benefits extending past a layoff date.
Cisco has offered to pay its laid-off workers for an additional year if they work for charities the company supports. It's nice, but it isn't the same as job security. And even that kind of moral responsibility is rare.
Under COBRA (The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) passed by Congress in l985, some laid-off or terminated workers (those fired for reasons other than gross misconduct) are entitled to continuation of health benefits for extended periods of time. COBRA doesn't cover companies with fewer than 20 employees, and it doesn't cover all workers terminated under all circumstances. If the company goes bankrupt, for example, COBRA doesn't apply at all. You have to check and see if you're eligible.)
Corporations have no particular incentive to be generous, or even ethical, to terminated employees. Most answer to boards of directors and demanding shareholders expecting maximum profits. Generosity towards workers doesn't serve the bottom line, even when it might serve the company's long-term interests. One of the reasons Cisco treats laid-off workers well, company officials have conceded, is to keep morale high among remaining employees, who feel better about the company and the work they do for it.
All sorts of class issues are roiling the new, techno-driven workforce, amid the thousands of layoffs being announced weekly.
The layoff was once the more or less exclusive province of the working class. but in recent years -- and especially recent months -- it has become a fixture of the white-collar and managerial universe, and of skilled, educated, tech workers. U.S. employment figures show the number of workers on nonfarm payrolls plummeting.
Now lawyers and journalists are getting laid off as well as tech workers, and when reporters started hitting the sidewalk, layoffs became a big story in a hurry.
Yahoo, Dell, AOL Time-Warner and scores of other companies have collectively let go of hundreds of thousands of employees (soon, probably to be followed by layoffs at the new company formed by Hewlitt-Packard's acquisition of Compaq). A generation of tech workers, for the first time, is feeling the impact of a workplace in which corporations seem to feel virtually no moral obligation to the employees they let go.
So just what moral obligation does a company have to laid-off workers?
Some possibilities:
- Maximum warning. Employees ought to have between three and six months' notice before they're laid off, time enough to look for other work in a sane, secure way.
- Continued health benefits. Employment used to be a contract: you worked hard for the company, the company took reasonable care of you. Employees who have been with a corporation any length of time at all -- I'd say six months -- ought to keep their health benefits until they find new work, a guarantee not even COBRA provides.
- Innovative responses. The layoff has become almost a corporate reflex, a statement to analysts, boards of directors and stockholders that management is lean and mean. When the market drops, capital gets squeezed,or takeovers occur, employment gets slashed. This often seems short-sighted. Tech workers are skilled and valuable. It's difficult to predict the nature of technology, and of consumer attitudes towards technological products and innovation. People laid off today might be urgently needed in six months. Shouldn't they at least have a chance to come up with other tasks, products, functions or ideas before they're booted out?
For that matter, tech workers could seek out companies with humane policies towards their workforce, making the companies more valuable and competitive. They could also begin demanding contracts and codified job security when the seek and accept positions -- especially when the economy is in their favor.
Regulatory agencies consider the impact of corporate decision-making on the environment, the consumer, and on anti-trust issues. Why aren't consideration of layoffs and job losses a factor in mergers like that between AOL and Time-Warner, or Hewlitt-Packard and Compaq? Maybe the loss of thousands of jobs isn't worth the short-term savings of some mergers.
Let's not kid ourselves. In the Corporate Republic, we can't expect companies, governments, unions or regulatory agencies to strengthen a sense of corporate morality or humanity. Corporations are more powerful than any of these entities, as tech workers are discovering by the thousands. Workers are on their own. Companies will demonstrate loyalty when they re-gain a sense that it's more efficient, ultimately more profitable, to keep experienced loyal workers than to employ insecure short-term ones. That's possible. But it isn't likely.
C'mon, Jon, i've come to expect a certain "knee-jerk" response from you on these posts, and frankly I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't see it here. Actually, I'd like to see some answers. After the events of the past two weeks, I think that all of us are rethinking our job stability.
John
The first thing anyone in the workforce needs to learn is how to separate feelings from business.
A job is a job is a job. You are selling your skills and time to the highest bidder. Beyond your contract you owe them nothing and they owe you nothing (that's why the contract exists: to define obligations).
I have been "right-sized" three times in ten years and it is a dog-eat-dog world out there. Anyone who thinks that their company will put employee well-being ahead of (or even on par with) the bottom line should wake up and smell the coffee.
This is not to say that people should go around with a chip on their shoulder. Just recognize that business is business.
Remember these two sayings: All's fair in love and war. and Business is war. and you'll get along fine.
I'm finding it hard to see anything new here.
I'm ex-military. When I was in, I was a commissioned officer. As such, I was expected to earn a master's degree in *something*, and fill a number of other career checkboxes. Failure to do so would make me ineligible for promotion to Major, and therefore ineligible to serve 20 and get a pension.
While I was in, I had a mentor, a Colonel, who'd changed jobs 33 times in his USAF career. Basically, he started looking for a new job as soon as he started a job, and he started something new each year.
I liked that, and that's how I run my life. As soon as I get a job, I'm looking for a job. I don't expect anything from my employer, except what I negotiate, and I don't even expect that to last.
I can remember my mother telling me to get a good job and hold it forever. And keep my money in a bank deposit account. Safety first. Sorry, illusion of safety first.
It's a cold, prickly world out there. Get used to it.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Many times "company loyalty" only goes one way with the employee giving it and the company giving the employee "the shaft." I have been there. However, I find it silly to expect that I can walk away from my job anytime, leaving my employer with ruined plans and wasted money but they must give me advanced notice before letting me go.
Don't get me wrong, an employer treating me right before letting me loose would be great! As an employee I should be willing to do the same for my employer should I start pursuing a career path away from them.
It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.
It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves under the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag.
No, the employers caused this when they did the mass layoffs for "downsizing" in the early nineties. Anyone who even watched that from afar should have learned that loyalty ain't worth shit, and you should always (a) keep your skills up; and (b) keep your eyes open for better opportunities. Since job-hopping is more accepted in the tech business, this naturally led to people switching more oten during the boom. Now that we're almost certainly in a recession, it's more difficult - but that doesn't mean that we should all turn into starched-collared Organization Men again.
sulli
RTFJ.
This thinking came because of the reverse...
Most companies haven't been thinking in terms of engendering employee loyalty for well over a decade now. I know, I've been in two of the downturns in the economy now- they (corporations) tend only to think of that bottom line. And worse, they think of it in only short-term thoughts. All this bloodletting they're doing to their staff makes them look good on paper, but they just got rid of at least part of the people that were needed to make their projects they have in progress go- they're butchering their medium-term and possibly their long-term profitability to look good in the here and now.
This all came about from the last downturn in the economy some ten years ago when there were...wait for it...mass layoffs not unlike now, etc. The companies showed absolutely no loyalty then- why should the employees show them any loyalty when they're going to keep doing it over and over and over...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
[Bitter rant on]
I came into the job market in the mid 80's. Most Slashdotter's parents were ensconced in middle/upper management. NO jobs, LOTS of layoffs and bugger all security. You want to know why your situation sucks? Ask mummy and daddy.
[Bitter rant off]
Please explain how an obligatory ID or any other mean of identification is fascism? If you enjoy society's benefits such as the protection by the law enforcement agencies and the military they must be able to identify you as a citizen.
Not only that, but as soon as these people know they're being fired and they stop caring, the company will start to spiral downward even faster. This will cause the economic problems to show up more quickly and will force managment to travel BACK IN TIME to tell their employees that they're going to be in fired.
Katz is a moron.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
I believe that this is just one aspect of a very frightening shift of accountability and responsibility in the United States that has occured over the past 120 years. Abraham Lincoln once said that this "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth." Well, we've proven him wrong. The US is a government of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation.
Look, for example, at the Anti-Terrorism Act that would make hacking a terrorist act, punishable by life in prison and subject to RICO statutes. I'm not going to claim any support for hacking, but there is something fundamentally wrong with a nation where financial crimes against a corporation are considered far more serious that violent crime against an individual, yet corporations cannot be held criminally responsible for their actions. If you break in and deface Union Carbide's web site, you could have all of your possessions seized just on suspicion, and spend the rest of your life in prison if convincted. When they killed thousands of people in Bhopal, they got a slap on the wrist.
This situation is nobody's fault, and yet everybody's failing. Our governent is based on popular support, and the will of the people. The way our politicians gauge such support is based on who they hear from, and what they hear. They hear from individuals, and lobbying groups that represent individuals. And under modern US law, corporations are very large and very powerful people, capable of shouting far louder than anyone else.
Abraham Lincoln also said, "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." -- President Abraham Lincoln, letter to William F. Elkins, Nov 21, 1864 (from The Lincoln Encyclopedia [MacMillan, 1950]) (Quote reference thanks to Hank Kalet)
Where do you want to go today?
Any entity that has "free will", whatever that may be, has , by definition, moral obligations associated with it's actions. The entity can be an individual, institution, corporation, nation etc. Any thing that makes conscious decisions hears responsibility for it's activity.
There seems to be an almost unconscious and unquestioned attitude that persons are to be held accountable but large organizations are exempt from the usual moral considerations that apply to individuals. Corporations have a different and restricted type of morality. Corporations, with the sole obligation to make money for share holders, must respond to the "market forces" which is, after all, all thay are supposed to do in a "free market".
I don't see the problem.
"Do they owe anything to the people they dump? "
Sure, they owe what the contract promised, no more no less.
Corporations' disregard for their employees is equal to employees' disregard for their employers. Should companies give 3-6 months warning of layoffs? Why the hell should they? How many employees have to give that much notice if they feel like leaving?
Sure, people (including me) can lose a job at short notice. But, we can get a job at short notice. Even 15 years ago, if you left a job voluntarily for no reason better than to have 6 months unpaid chilling out with your family, it would make you unemployable in the eyes of many. Now, you are free to do that kind of thing.
Employees have far more information about the companies they join and work for. They are far more able to determine their employer's health for themselves. They have much better access to their managers. No more big boss on the top floor with the oak desk; most managers, while just as focussed on the bottom line, are far more approachable and forthcoming.
These days, few people would want to go back to the old paternalistic model. The quick hire quick fire culture was spawned as much by tech workers jumping for better pay every 12 months as it was by businesses jiggling their structures every 12 months.
It's the modern world, deal with it.
-----
"Please explain how an obligatory ID or any other mean of identification is fascism?"
Essentially people take liberty away a little at a time. However I think that such things are superfluous(sp) because we already have things like SSNs and driver's liscences.
"If you enjoy society's benefits such as the protection by the law enforcement agencies"
With many, many police and law enforcement agencies extremely open to corruption I really don't think this is much of a benefit. In fact all the police do is clean up after the mess happens and get a bunch of relatively non violent and non threatening people put in a situation of being living corpses and slowly go mad.
In fact they don't even *have* to protect you. I beleive I remember some case where a family sued the police department (Californian I believe) for negligence due to a murderer killing one of the family. They got off scott free becuase it was determined that that is not the domain of the police.
"and the military they must be able to identify you as a citizen."
Why the hell does the military have to have to know that I am a citizen? I don't travel abroad and I don't plan to travel to Afghanistan any time soon so they don't have to worry about my safety.
I don't get the point.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
"Workers have never been more powerless, their tenure more fragile."
That's an out and out lie.
Workers during the start of the Industrial Revolution and up to the 1920s had no rights. No sick leave, no family leave, no workman's comp, no ergonomics, no disability, no insurance, no prevailing wage, no holiday time. Layoffs came with no advanced warning, heck back then you couldn't even have the warning of knowing what the stock price was doing.
There were no labor relations boards, no legal recourse, no comp time...nothing but the punch-clock and the 5 o'clock whistle, and the knowledge that if you didn't go in the next day there were 5 or 10 immigrants fresh off the boat or train waiting to take your job.
Again Katz has forgot that there was a world before 1990 and he ignores history. People have it good now compared to one hundred years ago, a fact that Labor Unions lament as thier Union rolls decrease.
After allowing employees to take a voluntary pay cut to save their company and thereby their jobs, Hewlett Packard has found the $130 million in savings was not enough to make investors happy. So, some of the very same employees who gave up salary "for the benefit of the company" are seeing their loyalty paid off in pink slips.
I worked for HP. In the 80s (I think, I started in the 90s), they had a program to give their employees 4 day weeks instead of 5 days. They took a pay cut of 20%, and (theoretically) worked 20% less. But since they still had the same amount of work to do, they essentially just took a 20% pay cut. They also had voluntary severance packages available to many. During the pre-dot-com slump (around 98, I believe), HP was again falling upon hard times, and we were all asked to take off between December 25 and January 1. We could take it as a pay cut or use our vacation days. They also instituted voluntary severance packages.
During orientation at HP they always bragged about how they had never laid anyone off without it being voluntary. They were sure to state that they did not have a policy regarding this, and that if times got particularly difficult they would be forced to do the unprecedented.
I believed them, and I believe that Hewlett Packard was a moral company with regard to its workers, while I worked there. I left for a dot com before Fiorina became CEO (voluntarily giving them a month and a half notice), so I don't know if the company's "morality" has changed since then. From what I've heard through only a few contacts, she isn't very liked by the employees.
In any case, to respond to Katz's comment that corporations "have no particular incentive to be generous, or even ethical, to terminated employees," I have to disagree. Corporations have a reputation just like individuals do. In fact it could be argued that corporations have an even more public reputation than individuals. You never know when the people you screw over are going to come back to haunt you.
I personally have nothing bad to say about Hewlett Packard. They treated me perfectly well, and I treated them well in return. I don't deny that things may have changed in the 3 years or so that I've been gone, though.
The decision to cut employees from a company is always not a very palatable issue for those who get to make the decision. I'm sure many get sleepless nights before and after making one. I've read somewhere this even ranks high among the causes of heart attacks in executives who need to make these decisions.
Layoffs however needs to be balanced against the realities of survival for the company. In other words, its a sacrifice of the few versus the good of many (hopefully). I know because I was there before and its not an easy task to be looking at your team and analyzing who should remain and who should go. I was not even sure if I would also be included myself in the rationalization of pisitions.
In these situations it is always better to do your utmost in your job because surely your boss will be able to notice this against others on your team. You can make a rational analysis too of your skills and capabilities as against other members of your team or the company's direction itself. Before anything else create your own "golden parachute" and jump before the ship goes on a nosedive.
$0.02
Return the bells of Balangiga.
While I agree that the idea that workers are 'entitled' to something after poaring their souls into a company is a GREAT idea, mandating this by law is a little overboard I think.
The entire notion that workers are 'entitled' to anything is just wrong. A company needs work done. It pays people cash in exchange for completing that work. PERIOD. You want more then that? Work for yourself. Easy enough..
I mean, what if you hired a painter to paint your house. He finishes, but when hes done, suddenly demand that you pay him an extra 50%.
When theres no work to be done, then the workers arent needed. So they have to find something else to do. If a company takes CARE of its employees, the benifits will be apperent. Treat them like dirt, and you dont attract good workers. Unions are, in reality, simply a company whos sole job is to hold companies ransom, using their workers as hostages. Ok, this sounds harsh, but really, thats what it is. THEY ARE A GOOD THING. If workers choose to go it by themselves, then great. They have the right to leave whenever they wish, JUST like the company has the right to say We dont NEED you anymore.
If we DO end up going down that road, then we might as well just say everyone works, and the government 'issues' them moneys. Instead of companies charging for items, the government places a fair price on things. This is what we're going to if we start mandating that workers are entitled to something other then fair pay.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Microsoft isn't innocent. They'd rather that it hadn't happened, but they aren't innocent. When a single company takes that large a chunk of the finances of an industry, then it's not innocent when the industry tanks.
But that's a long way from saying that they intended things to happen this way.
In a way, Microsoft is rather like Yahoo and Amazon. They used ballooning stock prices to create a speculative bubble. When the bubble popped, so did most of the industry built around it. And most of the "fault" should go to the stock speculators who blew that bubble so insanely large. Most of them have already been subjected to heavy fines for their part in the fiasco. In this spot I include the employees who were paid in stock options.
One of the groups that should be faulted is the accountants who wrote the rules that allowed taxes to be deferred for employees being paid in stock options. And who allowed the stock being paid to not be charged against the company immediately. Those *** got off scot free, and they certainly didn't deserve to. That was a reasonable benefit for a small company, say with fewer than 50 people. It should have been phased out as the size of the company increased.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
When I worked for larger corporations (>10000 employees) and spoke of expanding the organization, the question was always what would we do with these people should the program go away or once the program is complete? There was always the concern of getting into the position where we would have to lay someone off simply because we had nothing for them to do anymore.
In the dot-bomb economy, however, companies are more concerned in getting the product to market ASAP and expand rapidly, hiring many more people than they actually need (cf. The Mythical Man Month) without any concern, really, as to what is to happen to these people once they get product to market.
They seem to view people as a commodity (which is sorta true), but completely ignore the fact that they're dicking with peoples' lives. In a contract situtation it is understood that it can end at any moment, so prepare for that. But when one accepts a position, even though it is at-will, the employer has the responsbility to do everything in their power to ensure that employment continues.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
What everyone seems to be missing in all the layoff paranoia is the same thing that makes it easy for a company to hire you, makes it easy for them to fire you. America has a very dynamic work force. They transition jobs very quickly. What this means is that jobs are almost continually being created and destroyed. A company can feel free to hire a bunch of people in hopes the demand will be there, because they know if the demand isn't there, they can fire them. Compare this with Europe, where layoffs are extremely discourged by the governments. You have less jobs created, because they know that once they hire people it is extremely hard to fire them. This is what causes the American economy to creat more jobs than most other economies. That is why the American unemployment is typically lower than other countries. So as we lament the ability of companies to lay off American employees, let's not forget that that same ability is what got a large portion of those employees hired in the first place.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
In the best of times, of course companies hire. In the worst of times, the only reason a company will hire is if they know they can fire them just as quickly.
That being said, most companies realize that when they hire again, people will remember how they were treated. So unless it is a dire emergency, most (larger) companies will give some sort of package.
"Love is never saying you're too proud." -Tonic
Some possibilities:
Maximum warning. Employees ought to have between three and six months' notice before they're laid off, time enough to look for other work in a sane, secure way.
Continued health benefits. Employment used to be a contract: you worked hard for the company, the company took reasonable care of you. Employees who have been with a corporation any length of time at all -- I'd say six months -- ought to keep their health benefits until they find new work, a guarantee not even COBRA provides.
Innovative responses. The layoff has become almost a corporate reflex, a statement to analysts, boards of directors and stockholders that management is lean and mean. When the market drops, capital gets squeezed,or takeovers occur, employment gets slashed. This often seems short-sighted. Tech workers are skilled and valuable. It's difficult to predict the nature of technology, and of consumer attitudes towards technological products and innovation. People laid off today might be urgently needed in six months. Shouldn't they at least have a chance to come up with other tasks, products, functions or ideas before they're booted out?
This would be best done in a collective bargaining situtation which is almost non-existant in the IT sector.
Plenty of professionals have unions (teachers,professors, nurses for example). There is no way this would pass into a law without being so watered down as to be completely ineffective. Don't like the idea of unions? Then maybe you might want to give up your weekend and 8 hour work day, without unions we'd have neither of those.
If the employee doesn't feel a sense of loyalty to the company, why should the company be criticized for not having loyalty to the employee?
The 90's were marked by workers hopping from one dot-com to another with remarkable speed, in search of a better deal. Headhunters were ruthless in grabbing workers, sometimes snagging them from the same company they placed them with as soon as the 'no-touch' period was over.
Where were the moralists when the shoe was on the other foot? They were silent, and the overwhelming response was positive towards a culture in which employees were free to pursue the best options available to them without guilt or recrimination.
And yet, Mr. Katz would have us believe that the worker is powerless before the "Corporate Republic". This same worker that drove companies into a frenzy to try to woo him during the boom, is now powerless when we slip into a recession.
Business is cyclical, and at the bottom of a cycle, jobs are hard to find, and companies layoff people as part of cost cutting. That's reality. It's the other side of the coin that gave us massive salaries and stock options, and record low unemployment.
The fact is, most people who are getting laid off are finding other work. The churn is going up, but the overall unemployment figures are staying pretty stable. Yes, if you had an inflated position, and were hired because you knew how to spell 'computer' in the midst of the boom, you're going to have some problems. But if you kept your skills up, the jobs are out there. Hell, my company's hiring people right now.
Loyalty appears to be on the decline, but on both sides of this issue, which would probably make for a more boring, though relevant, story. Way to take the high road Jon.
Yours truly,
Mr. X
...been on both sides...
I think this is a well written argument. But it is also a complex arguement. There are any number of things wrong with the practices of many corporations, but it is still the best system in the world, at least in the US.
Does a company owe you anything? I think that they do owe something. US history (can't speak to other countries) is full of instances where companies abuse workers and take advantage of them. A number of workers' rights have been exacted into law to prevent these abuses.
So what does a company owe you? IMHO, they owe you more than your next paycheck. As your tenure increases, a company owes you notification of ending your job. The same applies in the reverse. You owe them notice. I don't have a great solution for implementing this. Humans are driven by emotions and if you tell your boss you are leaving in 4 wks, you might get launched. I'd vote for a bill to prevent early terminations for people who have notified you.
This gets complicated. What about pregnancies? Does a person (male or female) who takes leave for a new baby owe the company some amount of time back at work? I think they do.
Ah, my thoughts run amuck...
What about CEOs (and other executives) who are paid quite handsomely in stock (options or shares)? Often they have a short sighted view of the company because their compensation is tied to company success. Not necessarily profit/loss/market share performance. Usually stock price performance. My wife's company, for example, has laid off quite a few people. Does the business justify it? I don't know, but I doubt it's all business related. I think that as the stock has declined in price, there have been more actions taken. To me, that is contrary to the fundamental nature of a company. A company exists to continue to exist and derive a profit. Working to raise the stock price, which has very little relation to the success of the company, is poor business practice. Once you have issued stock, unless you need to issue more, stock price has no relation to the company's performance. Except in investor's perceptions.
I saw a comment on workers leaving poorly run companies or those with poor benefits. The problem here is that information does not flow well between companies. There is no place you can go look and see what a company really does with it's employees or how they are treated. Unless you know someone in the company, you are gambling when you accept a job.
The flip side of that is a company does not know what they will get when they hire you. They are (to some extent), gambling that you will do a good job. We have all seen people hired who did not perform. Sometimes that is the person's fault (laziness, lack of QA, etc.) and sometimes they are not suited to the job. However, it's a learning experience. For both the company and the employee.
IMHO (again), employees have some responsibility to perform. I would not want to see IT worked unionized with some certifications (not the current ones, new ones that measure skills), some expectation of performance, and some rules or guidelines to protect the company. At the same time, employees should be somewhat protected from random or stock-related firing. I'm not suggesting a company cannot fire people or lay them off, but some notice is required and some benefits must continue.
One last pet peeve and I'll cease rambling today. I'm well paid. As a DBA/developer, I'm paid near the top of my profession. However, one thing I think should be implemented is that public companies (can't regulate privates) should have some rules to prevent huge disparities between bottom and top level workers. Corporations often give out huge salaries to attract top level talent at the expense of others. I'm not looking for actual caps, but some type of relative percentages between a entry-level manager and a CEO. Between a Director and a programmer. Maybe we would have to use averages among levels, but I think the disparities contribute to inefficiencies as well as ethical abuse of non-executive employees. Especially in public companies. I think there is quite a bit of fiscal irresponsibility to shareholders in this area.
Thanks for listening.
One note: CORBA does not (necessarily) apply if a company goes bankrupt or ends their health benefits. Keep that in mind if you are the sole wage earner in a family.
Is the point of getting a Ph.D. really to make more money than everyone else?
The only "capitalist ethic" is that the terms of a contract must be honored. Corporate loyalty is a recent concept, borrowed from socialism as a kind of advertising theme, like corporate social responsibility in general. In practice, an employer and employee are independent parties with a contract between them that specifies limited cooperation for mutual benefit. Each tries to negotiate the terms of this contract to their own greatest advantage. Your talents, experience and your time are your capital. A job, health benefits, stock plans, etc. are the company's capital. You make a contract, and when it's over it's over.
The idea that a company owes something to former employees has nothing to do with capitalism. It's completely in the realm of social theory, which should apply equally to an individual's behavior. How much do you owe your high school teachers after graduation? What about the guys you used to play basketball with every week? Maybe these folks did a lot for you then, but this is now, and you have new friends. You have kids now. There's only so much time.
People who run companies are responsible for obeying the law and honoring their contracts, and that's all, same as everybody else. Whether people try to influence corporate morality by legislation, or by our behavior as consumers of products, or as consumers of employment, or through any other method, corporations will never be responsible for doing more than they have to.
Understand this basic truism - your job is not secure, it never was, it never will be. A company's primary goal in life is not to provide jobs for its employees. It's primary goal is to survive and the only way to survive is by making a profit. If a company has to make a choice between making a profit or shedding employees it will eventually shed the employees, it has no choice.
Fortunately you don't need or want job security. What you really need to strive for is career security. As long as you have unique skills you will be able to find another job and getting laid off is unfortunate but by no means catastrophic.
I've been laid off by a Fortune 500 firm and I've also been laid off by a 200 person firm. In both cases I was lucky and able to find a new job immediately. Keep current in your field and you'll have no problems. (Of course, if you're a ditch digger or a middle manager you might want to seriously re-consider your career patch
Don Dugger
"Censeo Toto nos in Kansa esse decisse." - D. Gale
You say that "laws should spring forth from society and not be sent down from above."
That's a vague word, however, "society." You seem to be speaking of the society of the corporation itself. That society is definitely not codified in law. The society that is codified in law is the society of shareholders. Namely, it's not against the law to do something for the worse of the members of your corporation, but it _is_ against the law to do something for the worse of the stockholders.
I agree that this is a problem. Passive shareholders should not have more control over a company than the people who make up the backbone of the company. The two remedies I can see for this are 1) change the law so that stockholders aren't the end all be all, and 2) keep more stock inside the company so that the needs of the shareholders ARE the needs of the members of the corporation.
A great contrast to the American stockholder-centered corporation is the Japanese corporation. If you're interested check out Stock Market Capitalism by Ronald Dore. It shows a very interesting contrast between the American mega-merger mindset that's fostered by our stock market and the Japanese loyalty mindset fostered by their corporate structure.
Btw, IANAL, so please point out any errors I've made.
I don't think that's it. I think the government favors big corporations. I've worked in big companies and small, and there's no way the big ones were efficient. They waste almost all their money.
Local governments give huge tax breaks to attract big corporations so they will 'create jobs'. They don't care if the additional burdens kill some small companies that could create tomorrow's jobs.
Every layer of government regulation benefits the big players over the small ones because the cost of compliance can be amortized better. (OK, that's an economy of scale).
Now let's look at what happens in the US when a recession hits...
1. Workers get laid off willy-nilly into a grossly-inadequate social security system. No money, no health care.
2. Remaining workers get increasingly concerned, start saving rather than spending so that they have their own savings to fall back on due to said inadequate social security and health system.
3. Consumer spending reduces, so demand reduces, profits reduce so obscenely overpaid US bosses take the easiest and most macho option and cut staff.
4. Despite niggerdly govt benefits, government spending (remember that unlike Europe the US is not set up for a large government sector, unless it's the military, of course...) goes through the roof. Government either raises taxes beyond what Americans are used to, resulting in further reduced spending and/or more defaults on consumer debt, or goes into deficit mode.
GOTO 1 and repeat until bottom falls out of economy or (depending on point 4) inflation goes through the roof. Or both (look at the US in the early '70's.)
Look back at the early '90's US recession: Europe and Japan kept going quite nicely in comparison. The point of such laws is *to reduce the possible collapse of demand that would lengthen and deepen a recession*. Unfortunately Americans have this quaint idea that the normal order of society is a permanent boom.