I understand employers don’t owe employees anything beyond wages earned and benefits agreed upon at hiring; the problem is that the relationship has deteriorated to the point where neither can trust the other. While the layoffs/downsizing today are horrible for the employees, I also remember in the not-so-distant past when American tech workers had the employers over a barrel and pressed their advantage to the fullest (leading to the tech outsourcing/H1-B scams we have today).
I don’t know what the answer is, but the current 20%+ unemployment rate and McJobs available are not sustainable.
The bosses seem always able to be inveterate rent-seekers. When pressed by their employees, they sent their lobbyists to the state and national capital and get the laws changed to their advantages. Even when the workers unionize, it does not work to their advantage, because then the union leaders negotiate deals to give short terns advantages to the workers but longer tern advantages to the union leaders. As in Wisconsin, they buy into the political power game and invest their members money in causes that have nothing to do with the interests of their members and everything to do with sitting at the tables of power with the power elite. That is, until they have less to offer. Their membership shrinks and they have less and less to offer the other power brokers, not campaign workers nor money note on election day, votes.