Back in the rest of the world, companies don’t need to cut benefits if workers do it for them. You can hear it when you talk to working moms, all the old theme songs played at twice the volume. Do I dare ask for flextime? Miss the meeting for the doctor’s appointment? Governor Palin made it sound as if it was all in a day’s work when she talked about juggling BlackBerry and breast pump. But as conditions get worse and 75,000 jobs turn to powder in a day, the strain on survivors can only grow. It doesn’t help that on TV every Tom, Dick and Suze keeps telling us that this is a good time to “dig in and show your boss how good you are. Take on extra projects. Shine at whatever you do.”
A job, like a marriage, has its honeymoon phase, its strengths and strains and things that make us crazy. But now as all our emotions are rewired, we are grateful for what we once just assumed and frightened of things we once ignored. It would be lovely to rely on the wisdom and benevolence of bosses everywhere to realize that when people are frightened about losing their job, loyalty, productivity and morale all plunge. If employers are tempted to exploit such fears, squeeze more work out of fewer people, roll back benefits because there are 100 people lined up for every job, they may find that as in so many things, the short-term fix is long-term dumb.
Interesting that this author would chose to compare elected ( maybe appointed in the case of the French Justice Minister) officials with a fixed term of office who happened to be women, to regular hired (and sometimes fired/laid off) employment.
[blockquote] If employers are tempted to exploit such fears,…,they may find that as in so many things, the short-term fix is long-term dumb. [/blockquote]
I don’t think employers ever cared. They will always go for the short-term fix.
If the “short-term fix” means the difference between making payroll and shutting the doors of the company tomorrow, yes they will. I think you would be surprised to know that in many small businesses, including mine, the employees are making more than the equity owners. The owners only get paid after all the overhead, bills and the employees are paid, including all their legally-mandated benefits. That’s the way a business works. There are a lot of business owners just struggling to keep the doors open now, and a lot are making big personal sacrifices so they don’t have to lay people off.
[i]A job, like a marriage, has its honeymoon phase,[/i]
And so I’m in the divorce stage? Or more like an annulment, I guess, since I didn’t even get any alimony. 😉