Thread: Fired before Retired

Yep. More desperation contributes to this race to the bottom. Pink slips flying like confetti does wonder for fear. Sick.

In a weird way, reading these stories actually pushes me to work that much harder on my business. I do NOT want to end up in that situation. Terrible for those who are, though. Sad & infuriating @ the same time.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Unfortunately Jimmy, most people forget why Unions were formed many years ago to address issues like these. As Unions disappear so are folks protections in the workplace along with all their benefits and pay. Anyone these days who thinks a company has their good intentions at heart is seriously delusional. People are just a disposable resource and when their continued existence doesn't serve they are eliminated. Brutal times are coming if folks don't wake up and heed the call to arms.

People are an asset. If you are no longer an asset why should a company want to keep you?

Unions are disappearing for a reason and the reason is that they are looking out for themselves and not the workers they are supposed to "represent." At some point the company is correct in fighting unions and people have to understand all of the labor laws and demands of line level workers are one of the reasons the USA produces so little.

Edit: Also, and sort of related, one of the reasons things are happening now is due to the current recession. Companies now know that they can operate with much less labor and are becoming much more efficient thus less need for an abundance of employees. This will eventually put more and more work on current staff and probably lead to another growth in unionism which can be a good thing in some cases.

Originally Posted by ats200

People are an asset. If you are no longer an asset why should a company want to keep you?

Unions are disappearing for a reason and the reason is that they are looking out for themselves and not the workers they are supposed to "represent." At some point the company is correct in fighting unions and people have to understand all of the labor laws and demands of line level workers are one of the reasons the USA produces so little.

Edit: Also, and sort of related, one of the reasons things are happening now is due to the current recession. Companies now know that they can operate with much less labor and are becoming much more efficient thus less need for an abundance of employees. This will eventually put more and more work on current staff and probably lead to another growth in unionism which can be a good thing in some cases.

Every company throughout history has fought unions. Some have tried to start "company unions" to fool people. They know unions will cost them more money. No I don't think there will be another union growth spurt on a national level. The rules have all changed. We live in the world economy and things gravitate to the middle for all involved. Countries in the third world will increase their standing and places like the U.S and Western Europe will fall and they will all meet in the middle.

The only way to combat the corporations will be to form World Wide Unions where a strike means a shutdown of an industry worldwide. That will be the future of unions.

Well, I am not sure the companies even have their own best interests at heart.
I was a senior and exceptionally skilled prototype machinist and had taught almost all the younger employees how to do their jobs. I worked for a small company and was let go about 6 months before I was of age to retire. The company had no retirement plan to protect. I and about 15 others were let go so the boss could save a few bucks on insurance. Everyone over 55 and everyone under 25 was shown the door.
Over a period of about 4 years I watched that company which I had helped build slowly corkscrew into the ground. It was sold and and the new owners sold it again. Now the place looks to have about 6 employees and is out of the running as a prototype shop. They have now dropped the pay of the remaining few and only the boss gets a salary brought in from catch as catch can low budget job shop work..
Respectfully
~Richard

Hearing your story makes me wretch, Richard. 'Fills me w/ rage. My reverence for a good machinist is profound. What we're doing is the fulfillment of the somewhat unique definition F. Nietzche gave to the word nihilism: the devaluing of all the highest values in a culture. We're lighting our stoves with our seed corn.

This thread stirs so many emotions for me.

Over the years I have seen too many people promoted to their level of incompetency and then conspire to remove anyone who is a threat to their position. Character assassination and abuse of Personnel or HR has become the norm. I have found that there are no true friends in the workplace, because those you feel are your best friends, will eat their young to keep their jobs and come in on you every time when their job is on the line. I have seen too many CEO's who simply are protecting their large retirements and really don't care at all about the fortunes of those below them. I worked at one large company that went out of business. Had 20 years there and all retiree health care was lost as well as half the pensions for all employees. The CEO remains a multi-millionaire. Honesty in big business is a rare thing and it seems that so long as you are willing to keep your head down and not rock the boat, you can survive. This is not fun. I am so much happier since leaving the corporate world!!

Yo,

Lynn

Originally Posted by Lynn

This thread stirs so many emotions for me.

Over the years I have seen too many people promoted to their level of incompetency and then conspire to remove anyone who is a threat to their position. Character assassination and abuse of Personnel or HR has become the norm. I have found that there are no true friends in the workplace, because those you feel are your best friends, will eat their young to keep their jobs and come in on you every time when their job is on the line. I have seen too many CEO's who simply are protecting their large retirements and really don't care at all about the fortunes of those below them. Honesty in big business is a rare thing and it seems that so long as you are willing to keep your head down, you can survive. This is not fun. I am so much happier since leaving the corporate world!!

Yo,

Lynn

At the high-tech corp I was at for 17 years, this was the norm, I'm so happy to be out too.

Hello Lynn,
I agree with your post. I also am happy to be out of corporate.
I often worked as an independent contract professional until the major contract houses got greedy and told the Feds that some independent contract folks were skipping some of their taxes and taking extra deductions. That stratagem then made it impossible to get a contract job except through the contract houses who supposedly handled all the bookkeeping for the contractors and the taxes. So they got up to 90% of the the money or more and the contract person got little. In 1970 the contract house was billing my time at $65 an hour and paying me about $7.50. No raises were possible but the contract house did increase its rates. And there was no quitting a contract for bad work place complaints until the contract house said you could. If a guy complained, they were blacklisted. Earlier, good independent contractors were often hired on as regular employees. After the takeover, there was no way to get hired the contract houses had the ability to blacklist the smaller companies if they hires a man that quite the contract houses.

These are the same folks that made it possible for a restaurant to pay one half of minimum wage. They told the Feds that the waitresses were making a huge amounts on tips and not reporting them. With credit card tipping the restauranteurs may have had a minor point they had to pay fees and then pass the tips to the servers..

I feel sad for the younger members of our society. The path they face is a lot harder than we had. I changed jobs about twenty five times in the course of my career. I was lucky to have many skills. Now there are very few places for a skilled person. All the smarts are put into the machines.
respectfully
~Richard

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

The only way to combat the corporations will be to form World Wide Unions where a strike means a shutdown of an industry worldwide. That will be the future of unions.

This will be a bit difficult when some employers (China) has an AK to your head and your family trucked to the "re education" camps.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Every company throughout history has fought unions. Some have tried to start "company unions" to fool people. They know unions will cost them more money. No I don't think there will be another union growth spurt on a national level. The rules have all changed. We live in the world economy and things gravitate to the middle for all involved. Countries in the third world will increase their standing and places like the U.S and Western Europe will fall and they will all meet in the middle.

The only way to combat the corporations will be to form World Wide Unions where a strike means a shutdown of an industry worldwide. That will be the future of unions.

thebigspendur,

Amen to that...

After all, if capital can go global, then why can't labor organizing go global a well? Labor unions should have done so decades ago.

As for the gun at a laborer's head or the re-education camp in China...They are pikers, compared to U. S. corporations who wrote the book on physical intimidation, terror and the murder of workers. They could actually teach the Chinese a few lessons. Consider the late 19th century Homestead, PA steel strike, the coal field wars, the Pullman Company strike, and the early 20th century NYC garment workers' strike.

If the employers of NYC garment workers had acceded to their union's demands for safer working conditions, there would have been no Triangle Shirtwaist fire tragedy. The Triangle fire led to the deaths of 146 men, women and children--many of whom were forced to leap to their deaths from the 9th floor of a factory building to avoid being incinerated alive. The 100th anniversary of that industrial disaster was just remembered last month.