chamber of commerce on unemployment

[Hannah Bell]

With just 11,000 jobs lost in November instead of the 130,000 expected by economists, Americans are increasingly hopeful that a jobs recovery is in the works. Despite that good news, the U.S. jobless rate is hovering at 10 percent, and this number doesn’t include part-timers or millions of despondent workers who have given up looking for employment. With these “underemployed workers” added in, more than 17 percent of America is either out of work or forced to accept a part-time schedule.

Put mildly, this is a national crisis.

But as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously quipped before a gathering of business leaders, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” From the perspective of corporate social responsibility, not letting a crisis go to waste means rethinking the role of business in society—and that means taking a fresh look at the CSR Pyramid. As the CSR Pyramid illustrates, businesses have a primary economic responsibility to “be profitable...”

...the “be profitable” responsibility of a business offers more benefits to society than most realize. Far from being consumed with greed, the private sector delivers humanitarian benefits at levels unmatched by any government, any charity organization, or any individual. By meeting their first responsibility to be profitable, the businessman, the entrepreneur, the warehouse manager, and the assembly worker are as vital to the common good as the scientist, the health professional, the educator, and the social services worker.

This holiday season, as we remember the 17 percent of our neighbors and family members who are struggling to survive, we must look to our entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and workers to provide for America’s economic and humanitarian well being. As the example of Wegmans shows, “doing well by doing good” is a motto that works equally well in reverse: American businesses “do good by doing well.”

http://bclc.chamberpost.com/2009/12/american-joblessness-and-the-social-responsibility-pyramid.html

[Goldstein1984]

1. Dear Chamber of Commerce...

I promise to do my best as a responsible production unit to be profitable.

As a first step, I am setting my consumer unit function at idle, and have cut my Holiday spending budget by 90%.

[mdmc]

2. This unit has not purchased gifts this holiday season

or at least has cut gift giving 75% from last year..

[blindpig]

3. Geez Hannah, you messin' with my blood pressure?

These dudes are just askin' for it.

Let's decorate some lamp posts.