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100 Best Companies To Work For
Misha writes "Fortune.com is publishing a list of 100 Best Companies to Work for. Quite a few tech companies, with a few semi-startups, like Xilinx, who 'protected its employees from a nasty downturn in the industry by refusing to abandon a no-layoff policy. Workers took a 6 percent pay cut, but the CEO led the way with a 20 percent cut.'"
You think that a union would mean the CEO wouldn't make orders of magnitude more than you? You'd just end up with incompetent programmers making as much as the competent ones.
I would imagine if programmers unionized a lot of programming would be outsourced to places like India.
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The supermarket chain lets workers take off to volunteer and to care for sick pets
How cool is that? I'll bet there aren't many companies that will give you time off to take care of your dog when it gets sick. Until it was law many didn't even offer maternity leave. Some companies just get it. Treat your employees well, and they'll be happier and treat the customers well.
OK, I'll bite: Using these numbers, the CEO starts out earning 20 times as much as the $50K employees. After the cuts, he's earning 17 times as much. :)
The CEO's 20% cut equates to $200,000. That's how much he's cutting the company's expenses. It would take 67 of those $50K workers, each taking a 6% pay cut, to cut expenses by the same amount.
So this CEO, who normally contributes 20 times as much, is in this case contributing 67 times as much toward keeping everyone from suffering a 100% pay cut (unemployment).
Now, whether the CEO's yearly contribution to the company is actually worth 20 times the average employees', is of course, debatable
As far as "cutting back on essentials," that's easier to do with a 6% pay cut than with a 100% pay cut.
If you have to cut back on essentials because you're making less than $50K, you need to learn some damn spending habits.
P.S. an XBox is not an essential.
Isn't that happening now anyway?
The intent of a union is to protect workers rights. In no industry are workers careers valued less than in engineering fields. Engineers / programmers design products that make companies money, but yet as soon as an economic downturn comes around they are let go. "We can always hire some recent grads later." As soon as engineers start getting paid well, they have to worry about being replaced by H1-b workers, or their job being exported to India. Furthermore, employers should be training their employees with new technologies, a union would help to define and dictate what proper training and qualifications are. Everyone complains about PHB managers, and the one way to combat these is to use a unions to your advantage. In some places, seniority can be a good thing. Not always, but sometimes. Unions get a bad rap due to frivolous strikes, and are considered blue coller, but I for one would be proud to join a programmers union that stood up for my rights, and gave me some job security.
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
---outsourcing wouldn't happen (near as much) if corporations weren't given tax breaks up front to move offshore, and if the US leaders cared as much for their citizens as other nations care for theirs and instituted a little sane protectionism tariffs to protect still viable good industries in the US. "Programming" is not "buggywhip manufacturing" as critics like to say about protectionism in general. The root word "protect" is neither a swear word nor a word of derision, although some people seem to think it is. Perhaps a more unified programming/IT guild would have more political clout as an organization rather than as a collection of a million + individuals whom have little clout *as* individuals. There's a reason why coordinated organizations work better than groups of random individuals, else we wouldn't see organizations in any field or endeavor. At least agreeing on the basic premise that "jobs are good, let's keep them" would be hard to argue against.
--unemployed guy driving by walmart, knowing all this stuff is cheap and on sale. He thinks to himself, "uh huh, big deal, doesn't mean as much as it did when I still had a job".
I'm guessing that the article was written by the Fortune Magazine PR department. Friends of mine at Intel are routinely overworked, because Intel will not hire enough people.
Remember, Fortune is a "what the rich want you to think" company.
I think the poster has a valid point. Take a look at what you put in your statement.
"15k for car, including payments" If you are spending 15,000 a year for a car you are overspending and could downsize your life to get by a little easier. There's public transportation (~$30 per month), car pooling ($negligible), a $1000 used car, or SUPER-SIZE it and get a $7,000 car for $199 a month for two years.
People just don't think of VOLUNTARILY downsizing their lifestyles. Once they get to 40-50-60-75-100 k a year any regression means pain. It all has to get stripped away via reposession or bankruptcy. Which usually happens after they've lost their jobs and blew through their limite savings trying to find that next 'perfect' job. They never think: "I'll get something to fill that gap until I can something good comes along". Meanwhile people in bahrain work for 30-50 bucks a week and will travel hundreds of miles on foot to get jobs like that. People here complain about walking a quarter mile, they get in their damn SUV's to go two blocks to the store.
When a CEO takes a 20% pay cut so that employees don't have to take a 100% pay cut I think that's a big deal. Especially considering that most people could give a shit about what happens to their coworkers much less what happens to the below way below them on the corporate ladder.
When people get to a certain lifestyle they forget how to rewind and downsize to their previous lifestyle. They forget that they can go without that dinner out, those nice clothes, that 20+k SUV, that nice house. They forget that at one point they struggled in a $24k job and before that they struggle under a $14k job. They think they should just keep continuing to struggle under a $40 or $50k job. They forget that they once lived in a shithole with roaches and peeling walpaper and no cable. They forget that they worked flipped burgers or mopped floors. They forget working two jobs. They forget that they used to spend so much time with work and family and friends that the electricity bill for the month was the same as a dinner out. They forget that McDonald's is a convenience not a necessity. They forget that they could feed a family of 6 on ~$300 a month. They forget that they once didn't have a cell phone/pager or the internet. They forget that way back when wasn't really that bad.
People forget that their ancestors (voluntarily or otherwise) travelled thousands of miles in the worst conditions to make it somewhere for work. Again I'll say it, some people bitch about walking less than a mile to get somewhere.
It has a lot less to do with geography than it does with perspective. I'm sure that if you looked where you live you could find plenty of people nearby living on substantially LESS than what you make. Be thankful you have the OPTION of going from 50-40k instead of possibly being a $18-0k person.
People look at the CEO and say "BFD he's already overpaid so what if he takes a cut". The fact is that he didn't have to, he could have cut some employees, hell he could have done like most CEO's and jumped ship to another company, or just taken the 6% pay cut every other employee got. He could have just covered his own ass but he didn't. Think about how many people here would take a pay cut so that others could stay employed or a company succeed. How many people here would think "hmmm.... maybe it's time to start looking for something else" or "well if they just got rid of 'John' that's enough for people to not have to take a cut".
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Due to their unique grip on the marketplace, Microsoft is able to extract more money out of their customers per employee than almost any other company in the world. Of course they can afford the luxury of treating their employees very well.
I do not buy into the assertion that because a CEO is earning 20x, he's contributing 20x.
/. against anyone in the corporate management structure. For every corrupt, lying, stealing, cheating CEO out there there are hundreds of hardworking, dedicated, worth-every-penny CEO's that go to the mat for their company every day. If you don't think so then why don't you try going out and forming your own company and see how easy it is... ...just like I did. Anybody can complain about a situation. It takes someone with balls to actually do something about it.
Really? And what measurements did you make in order to come to that conclusion? A good CEO is worth every penny he or she is paid, while bad ones aren't worth a single penny or a single share of stock. Good CEO's can drive the company to new business, higher profits, and allow their employees to share in that wealth.
Further, before you denigrate all CEO's, what about the lowly guy (or group) that came up with an idea, marketed it, and formed a hugely successful business from it. It's their company; they risked a lot to make it, and worked very hard for it. Who are you to dictate to them what's "reasonable"?
I for one am a bit tired of the constant vitriol on
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Good question, Vic. The answer is this: diversity.
No, the real answer is "racial quotas", which is the total opposite of a meritocracy. Companies are rampantly reviewing their workforces to make sure they've got "enough of the minorities" to keep the lawsuits away. Is this really the best we can do? Whatever happened to "this person is the best one for the job because of their superlative skills" instead of "we're hiring you because you're black"?
Whatever good intentions there were when "affirmative action" was put in place have long since degenerated into reverse discrimination these days. Discrimination of any type, whether it's in favor of or against minorities, is a bad thing and is actually illegal, although in this liberal day and age you'd have a hard time getting any judge (who wants to keep their job) to rule in such a manner.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Try explaining that "statistical anomaly" to the white person who didn't get the job... because of their skin color!
What you're endorsing is discrimination, my friend, and unless I missed something somewhere it's against the law to discriminate against someone based on their race, religion, creed, age, sex, or national origin. Of course, you're saying that it's perfectly alright for some people to be discriminated against as long as some other people benefit from it. Right...you just keep on feeling righteous about your attitude. Just know that if you reversed the words "black" and "white", you'd have Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the rest of the race-baiting entourage threatening lawsuits, boycotts, and more. But if you're white...hey, don't feel bad, some other white person got hired somewhere, so you're just out of luck. Sounds an awful lot like what happened to black people back in the 60's. It wasn't right then, it isn't right now.
"All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others" -- George Orwell, Animal Farm
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Why should you deny Indians (or whoever else they decide to outsource programming to) jobs? Are they somehow inferior to the citizens of your own country?
The important thing is that they are not citizens of my country. And the focus of the American government should be to promote the interests of U.S. citizens, not act as an employment agency for the third world.
A few thousand programmers would go on the job market-- highly qualified programmers, whatever you say about Microsoft.
"Go on the job market"? What bullshit-speak! Translation: A few thousand programmers would lose their jobs. Many would have trouble finding work. Some would lose their homes and cars after being unable to make the payments. Many would incur debts and financial troubles that would hound them for decades. Others would be forced to move far away from their families and friends to accept work elsewhere in the country. You don't dump a few thousand people out of work and then expect that they will be absorbed back into the job market within a few weeks.
The average programmer's wage would probably go down some, and, after a while, the numbers of new coders coming out of college would decrease to compensate.
So why should I be satisfied if my wages go down? Should it be okay by me if I can't live in as nice a home? Should I not mind having to save-up for things that I can easily buy now? Am I supposed to be happy to be forced to hold on to a car until it is no longer in good condition?
The programmers that lost their jobs would hardly be starving in the streets
I know qualified tech workers that have been out of work for many months. They are having trouble paying their mortgages, rent, car payments, and utility bills. One was reduced to cleaning people's houses so that she could pay her bills. Don't start your preachy shit about how it's okay for people to lose their jobs.
-- IT workers are generally adaptable people-- they could go back to school, become teachers, or something else that's needed.
How the hell am I supposed to give up a good income while I "go back to school"? Am I supposed to sell my house and tell my family to come live with me in a dorm? Become teachers? Have you even looked at how little pay the average teacher gets? Why not suggest that software engineers who lose their jobs apply at McDonalds, Walmart, and JC Penney?
However, for the 3rd world worker, an IT job seems far more important than to a (relatively) wealthy American. For them, a job programming could mean the difference between food on the table, and the gutter.
If you think that they need your job more than you do, then why don't you take a job at McDonalds so that some third world IT worker can have your job? Have you gone into your boss's office and tried to convince him to bring in a third-world worker to replace you? You seem to think it would be fine if it happened to "several thousand" people at Microsoft, but I don't see you volunteering to give up your job for the benefit of random strangers in third-world countries.