What's so all-fired wrong with the idea of job security, anyway?

[IntravenousDemilo]

There is none anymore. Corporations are making profits hand over fist, while senior management are raking in obscene amounts of money and enjoy expensive perqs on top of that. Meanwhile, companies that are doing very well still impose massive layoffs on their staff, are reluctant to give sick benefits to their contract workers, and otherwise treat employees with total disdain. And it's all due to a mad, pornographic rush to shore up the "bottom line" at the expense of workers' rights. Employers have total power, employees none, unless they have union representation, and even then...

This is not right. This is not just. This is not fair. This is not equitable. Considering the riches accumulated by CEOs, labour has to stand on its collective hind legs and demand job security as a right -- yes, even a "job for life" for loyal employees, as was the case not so very long ago. The powerful cannot have everything, and as long as society has chosen to accommodate them and their massive profits, job security is the very least they should be offering in return.

Certainly there will be those who say, "Oh, times have changed" and "It's a new world, with new rules". Well, you know what? No one asked us if they could change the rules midstream. We who have kept our noses clean, got our education, worked hard, and played by the rules as set out at the beginning of the game, are getting the royal shaft from the robber barons, and no one has lifted a finger to stop it or effectively raised a voice in protest.

Unless we do something about it, something drastic and possibly violent, the situation is only going to get worse. Meanwhile, welcome to the 19th century and the world of Henry Clay Frick, George Pullman, and Andrew Carnegie.

[mestup]

1. "collective hind legs" That's the problem, getting unified.

The "poor" and "labor" have been relentlessly demonized in this but-I'm-SPECIAL! American culture. Selling unity is tough.

"Socialist ideology, like so many others, has two main dangers. One stems from confused and incomplete readings of foreign texts, and the other from the arrogance and hidden rage of those who, in order to climb up in the world, pretend to be frantic defenders of the helpless, so as to have shoulders on which to stand." Jose Marti

[Selatius]

I agree with that statement

In such a socialist movement, you always have to protect yourself against those who are not simply fighting for the common person but are simply fighting to attain power. Stalin is a great example. The only defense is if the people don't become complacent and too trustworthy of those they appoint to carry out the mandate of the people. It means the difference between somebody like Stalin getting power and somebody like Hugo Chavez getting power.

[drb]

2. Amen!

Perhaps it's our turn to change the rules. And since they didn't ask us, we don't have to ask them!

[Mountainman]

3. Well IMHO, we can do better than we are doing but no one can promise a

job for life. I just isn't feasible.

We need to build an economy were there are jobs for everyone that wants one but we can't make certain forces be just what we would like them to be.

That's a lot like passing a law that everyone is to be happy.

You have a responsibility to take the world as it is and make yourself as marketable as you can while you make the world more just.

I'm sorry but no one ever promised you a rose garden.

If you work to keep youself off the unemployment rolls, than that is that much less of a problem we will need to fix. If we all do this than we will have the stength to help those who really need it. I'm all for unions since only collectively do the small people have power.

We need to be finding solutions within our own groups and not expect the government to pass laws to make the world what we want it to be. The power is in your hands to change things.

[IntravenousDemilo]

8. Not feasible? Why the hell not? It was feasible before.

And yes, I was promised a rose garden. Finish school, get your degree(s), stay out of trouble, learn a trade, work hard, and you will be rewarded. That was the mantra; those were the rules. Admittedly, that was in the 1970s, but I'm the same person now as I was then, except that now I'm even better at what I do. I was not consulted about the rule-change, and I insist on being consulted in matters that have to do with me.

And the worst thing of all -- the most powerful man in the world was a middling student, and yet he is able to control the lives of people clearly superior to him. This galls me more than I can say. At least Clinton was a Rhodes scholar.

[Selatius]

4. Were you recently fired from your job?

If you are, you have my sympathies.

The fact is you live in a society dominated by control and ownership over limited resources. You have to play by their rules, not yours. To be a capitalist is to be in a state of control over resources and the means of production for personal gain. That's the way of this world. To be the best requires you to be as ruthless and cutthroat as possible, to be the most cunning, most heinous, most unmerciful son of a bitch competitor ever seen in the business world. If that means laying of 10,000 workers, destroying labor unions, and rolling back labor standards and environmental protections, and doing business with authoritarian governments in the name of efficiency and cutting costs, so be it. If that what it takes to "win," then somebody will always do it because that's the lowest common denominator in capitalism.

Ask the Walton family or the Bush family. They have been rewarded with unimaginable wealth and power. Because "that's the American way."

[IntravenousDemilo]

6. Well, no, I just finished a job, but it was on contract,

and in fact, the contract was extended. But I have been laid off from perfectly profitable companies.

It's my considered opinion that those who despoil the environment, indulge in cutthroat business practices, lay off thousands, etc, are criminals who should be arrested, tried, convicted, put in the stocks, and pelted with all manner of objects, including bricks.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

5. If I had known then what I know now

I would not have devoted decades to a career that has left me washed up well in advance of retirement. I would not have sacrificed countless nights and weekends in the hopes of securing a comfortable old age. All I worked for 25 years to achieve has disintegrated in the last five. As things stand now I will spend my last years in the poverty I worked so hard to avoid. Maybe it's simply a matter of winners and losers, and I lost. But if I had known then what I know now, I would have eschewed the game entirely.

[cornermouse]

7. I was thinking about this today.

Employers like to tell us that manpower is their highest expense. Wages, insurance, retirement, and training are not cheap. I understand that a high turnover rate from unhappy workers is also rather costly.

If this is the case, then one can make the argument that if manpower is the most expensive part it can also be said that manpower is the most valuable part of the working business. Theoretically, an employer would take reasonably good care of something with the value of their employees in order to avoid increased costs associated with high turnover, continual retraining, and the turmoil that accompanies things like this. The fact is some of them take better care of and value their equipment than they do their employees.

It was certainly has been true in the past. In the past, if you encountered a good employer who treated you well, it tended to encourage both longevity and loyalty, not coincidentally resulting in reduced turnover and healthier employees (retraining and insurance) and an employee who might be willing to consider working for less financial return if they weren't treated badly.

In the 70s and the 80s, employers pretty much announced that they weren't going to play by those rules any more and started treating their employees like an unnecessary expense. By the 90s employers were actively making plans for us to quit our job every 4 or 5 years if I remember correctly. The whole thing has been really strange.

Sorry if this isn't exactly cohesive. I'm still thinking it through. I just can't help think that if you have something with a replacement cost that is not cheap, i.e. good employees, you do everything within reason to retain them.

[Spinzonner]

9. "Job Security"

What a quaint idea you have.

Apparently you missed the memo about the 'New Order'.

:sarcasm: