The Coronavirus

[pbrower2a]

(04-06-2020, 02:17 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-06-2020, 11:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Businesses with deep pockets will be able to have employees ready to go when those businesses restart operations.

This reminds me a bit of how things used to be when America was Great.  Working for the Bell System back in the day, my father used to be expected to give a bit extra in a storm, but the company would give loyalty to their employees back.  He tells the story of spending the night during a hurricane keeping the generators driving the phone system alive, leaving his late stage pregnant wife at home.  She used to tell the story from a different angle.  There seems to be much less of that in the modern telecommunications industry, with the companies trying to hire contractors if possible, thus having to pay them nothing in off peak times.

America was great when business treated employees well because such was not only right -- but also even good business. Then came the MBA school ethos that said that everything is money, and that the only people who matter are shareholders and executives. Such is exactly what one would expect of the greedy, materialistic young adults intent on getting ahead quick and didn't care about making themselves better as the liberal-arts program had as an objective. There was a time when the MBA degree did not exist, and people actually got their start into management (except in such businesses as retailing and restaurants from the shop floor and thus recognized that there was a human being at every work station instead of some machine in human shape. This is before robots, of course. 

Quote:This used to be The Way.  Companies were loyal to their employees and vice versa.  A few deep pocked private companies might have an echo of it.  I don’t think you would generally assume all such owners are similar.

Of course not... but the perception of what constitutes rationality changes from  one era of the cycle to the next. At some point workers will need a stake in the system if it is not to end up with sullen, resentful workers who put in just enough effort to avoid being cast onto the street. Workers treated badly become goldbricks, especially in non-growth industries. Figure that as a 1T rolls around, employee retention could be a problem in places that treat employees like dirt.  

Quote:This might be touched by generation theory.  A willingness to sacrifice to a larger entity for the sake of all can exist with other entities than the federal government.  Maybe some of it might survive the Conservative time.  If so, I have not seen much of it yet.

There is little wrong with our system that powerful unions and elected officials beholden to them can't solve. Cheap labor treated badly loses its motivation and its productivity.