The solution for businesses is simple. Remove all the tasks from the current salaried workers that can be removed. Give those tasks to hourly workers. Ensure your salaried workers have 39 hours a week only, and see if you need to cut one or two of those back to hourly.
A business must have cash exceeding costs for the owners (that includes stockholders if applicable) to receive their salaries out of, and for expansion/renovation/competitiveness to be financed.
Exactly why is it fair to cut into the owners’ salaries? They are not there running a jobs charity organization.
One company I worked openly stated that they hired young engineers because they were cheaper than hourly workers.
“Exactly why is it fair to cut into the owners’ salaries? They are not there running a jobs charity organization.”
I understand that, but they are bound by the laws of the land (which many of them have used as justification to move jobs overseas). Many FReepers think people have stopped working because the freebies have become too generous, but that is only half the picture; on the flip side, for many people the fruits of their labor generate so little income that their standard of living isn’t very different of they stop working altogether. The supply & demand of labor has been skewed in the employers’ favor by two factors that can’t be ignored: the employers often have the option of sending work to countries with larger, unemployed populations (driving those wages significantly lower), and they also have access to massive waves of immigrant workers into this country (stripping American workers of any bargaining position for salaries of jobs that remain in this country). The latter has gradually shifted from unskilled work to white collar professions as well; I recently dealt with a group of three young consultants that included one American, a Canadian, and a Filipino (the latter two here on work visas). They were doing work for which there was no shortage of American workers, and their firm had somehow found a way to get foreign workers instead.