Posted on 02/27/2009 4:10:50 PM PST by nickcarraway
And that, right there, is why people join unions.
I don't think it is "perfectly reasonable" to fire people, just so you can give yourself a raise, but then I was raised a Christian and I don't think only of myself and to hell with everyone else, as long as I got mine.
What goes around, comes around . . . .
I want to organize a boycott. If labor is fungible, so are companies.
Cheers!
You’re wrong. The raise I am giving myself in this case will pay for the proposed increase of SS taxes. My cost of business went up, so I have to cut it out somewhere else to compensate.
Otherwise I’d be making less and less while people who work for me make the same. If I decide it’s simply not worth it anymore, I quit the business, and nobody has a job.
There you go.
Well we are certainly heading in that direction now. Only we aren't talking about a little town, we're talking about the whole country, and that "corporation" is going to be the US government.
I think they should fire everyone and then think about all the money they’ll save.
Sure it's capitalism, may not be good business, but it is capitalism.
Corporate America has been "up or out" for a long time. A person there for 14 years, whom management sees as not having any more upward potential, is a "blocker", their position "blocks" somebody younger from moving up the ladder, who they think has more potential.
You may be right about that, stupid as it seems (where is the value on people these days?), but that was not my case, and I hope you didn't jump to that conclusion and assume it to be.
I started as a backup Operater, became a Liason Operator to a specific client; then worked my way into telecomm and researched, promoted, set up, installed and ran a whole new phone system (A true PBX - the company had the old Merlin system). Took over the position of Network Technician, and moved the company's clients from muxes and modems to routers and Frame Relay - vastly expanding the bandwidth available to the clients while keeping costs down.
This led to a promotion to WAN Manager, where I worked until the new management came in and wanted their own poeple in key positions - so off I went to never-never land.
So I hope you arent' assuming I worked 14 years in one position. As far as upward potentioal - that's hard to say. It was a small company - around 50 people, so until someone left (which only happened at the bottom), there was nowhere to go for me, or anyone else.
I was number 10 in longevity, and we had two programmers who had been in the same position for a lot longer than I had been working there, so I don't think "up and out" was something this company practiced, maybe they do now, though.
We'll have to disagree on that one. I've seen top corporate get replaced (usually someone moved on). It was like nothing ever happened, there was no "rough time" as you said can happen if you replace a low-level employee with specialized knowledge.
Actually, the reversed happened. It seemed the corporate suits were easily replaced with narry a wrinkle, but when a programmer left, we had a seriously rough time as they scrambled to cover his area of expertise.
It's like the programmers were so specialized, as they had to be, in their own areas, that it took weeks to get someone up to speed on it if they left. The suits, on the other hand, seemed like faceless, inter-changeable cogs. Who was worth more to the company? I say the programmer was. Who was perceived to be worth more? Yup, the suit! So the suit got a higher salary.
Actually, I know of two people from the same company that booted them like me (one was out-right fired, and the "forced to quit") who did just that, even though we all had to sign Non-Compete Agreements. One went to a client and one started up his own competing company. Both ended up taking clients away from the our old employer (who ended up not going after them over the NCA, as they were told it would'nt really hold up in court).
So if they were "useless" employees, and of "no value", how did they end up being successful?
And why only worry about your "top employees" walking to the competition? Mid-level people can do the same thing. Why is everyone so worried about the corporate suits and not people down the line?
Just to be clear . . I am talking about incoprorated companies where no person “owns” the company, but is an entity unto itself, and “owned” by shareholders. It is vastly different than a small business with one, or two, owners, who work closely with the workers and are actually involved with all aspects of what is going on there.
Yep, we will have to disagree. Yes, top management can be replaced without much difficulty, but labor is much easier to replace.
Coding and programming work is very cheap, for example. I fired a programmer I use regularly in January and am able to get the work done much cheaper via Elance and Scriptlance, which helps me get top talent for much, much cheaper, especially when the coder is in Nigeria or India.
Actually, I just hired a guy in Nigeria for $30 to fix some sloppy work an American had done for me for $200 late last year. I goo it fixed in 24 hours, while the American was difficult to reach and obnoxious, giving me a steady stream of excuses.
Great coders are common and cheap. Ideas men like me: very rare. Well, there you go.
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