You know it didn’t use to be this way? There was a time when you could be ‘A GE man’. You could work at a company for your whole life. You would not get laid off and rehired whenever it was convenient for the company, rather they’d show you some loyalty and you’d show them the same, this would be backed by employee profit sharing schemes, incentivising higher performance.
The heart of this deal between workers and management was ripped out when management chased higher share valuations, with stock bonuses for themselves instead of workers. It became cheaper to fire 1/80th of the workforce because you could break up unions that way, management could write off all those salaries to bump up the quarterly earnings, increasing the stock price and earning themselves bonuses at the expense of workers who as you said, just learn to get by.
You know it didn’t use to be this way? There was a time when you could be ‘A GE man’. You could work at a company for your whole life. You would not get laid off and rehired whenever it was convenient for the company, rather they’d show you some loyalty and you’d show them the same, this would be backed by employee profit sharing schemes, incentivising higher performance.
The heart of this deal between workers and management was ripped out when management chased higher share valuations, with stock bonuses for themselves instead of workers. It became cheaper to fire 1/80th of the workforce because you could break up unions that way, management could write off all those salaries to bump up the quarterly earnings, increasing the stock price and earning themselves bonuses at the expense of workers who as you said, just learn to get by.
Powell memo. That’s when it started.