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Gaffer Variety:
The Rape Goes On 032:
By Willie Gaffer:
March 20, 2006:
Verizon, IBM, and Sears are the latest corporations with grossly overpaid bigshots who are putting their tools to their workers. They are reneging on promises made and reducing pension benefits. If they want disgruntled workers, that is a good way to get them. These managers can only see short term. They care nothing about the companies they run or the workers they employ or the country that nurtures them. They are sociopathic predators intent on their own gain and nothing else. I consider them to be evil.
I will repeat myself on an issue I have dealt with before. What we desperately need is a mandatory federal pension plan to protect workers against that kind of rape. We need a plan that companies which have employees must pay into. The plan must be managed by a qualified administrator of consortium of administrators. All employers must be required participate, no exceptions. They must put in enough money to make the plan viable. It must be set up so that money can never be taken back once it is paid. That pension plan is part of the worker's pay and becomes their personal property.
Here is the point. If you have employees, you must be prepared to pay the full cost of having those employees. That includes retirement insurance, health insurance, and accident insurance. I once wrote an essay about the principles of ethical business practice. It was published in the "Gaffer's Shorts" as an essay entitled, "The Principles of Ethical Business Practice." I can reiterate some of what I wrote in that essay.
Everyone will give lip service to being ethical. Now, what does that mean? What is an ethical business? To answer this completely, I would need to define the parameters of ethical behavior at all points of contact between the universe and the business. Broadly this consists of the five interfaces with our colleagues, customers, suppliers, community and environment. Of course these are linked and cannot be treated completely separately, yet each has unique requirements.
How a company treats these interfaces will come out of the goals of the management. I believe most business executives have defined the wrong goals. Their primary purpose is to create income for themselves. That, I believe, is a very selfish short term goal. Ethical business begins with proper goals. For any business these are colleague fulfillment, customer satisfaction, environmental enhancement, and sound community citizenship. The total disregard of these goals is what caused the rape and near destruction of our country's resources including human resources.
Here are some of the patterns of behavior which will tend to satisfy our goals. First, we must be doing something useful. Then we must share the creative process with others. We must be a good citizen in the community. We must support the growth of everyone involved. We must enjoy the process. And; we must operate so as to improve rather than damage our environment. These things are like a glove. It's not very useful to put on just one finger. In these activities and goals, profit should not even make the top ten.
I this essay I will only consider fulfillment of employees because employee behavior will influence everything else about the business. If this is done properly the other things will happen naturally. Basic to this is the fair and honest treatment of workers. This must begin by having an equitable pay scale. On that let me say if a person is only worth the minimum wage, we should not want him in the firm. I have met a lot of screwed up people and more who were in the wrong job. I have never met a person who was not worth more than minimum wage, including managers, who, sometimes, come very close. These people, if they exist, could not carry their weight and would be a drag on their colleagues.
In addition, I have never met a human who was worth one or two hundred times what another person was worth. Most officers of most companies are grossly overpaid at the expense of the workers. This would be true even if they did it well. If the company was staffed by the kind of excellent folks a firm should want to attract or train, a pay scale ratio of two or three to one would be about right. The highest pay would be for special creative people. Not managers! We must understand, managers do not produce wealth. Workers do! Managers just brag when it works and whine when it doesn't. All hardware, tools, plant and equipment notwithstanding, the most valuable asset any company has is its colleagues. They, and only they, produce the wealth. It's about time management understood that and acted accordingly.
Before hiring people, a firm must make sure it can provide all of the tools and support required. A business must be profitable enough to support a staff. If it cannot pay the real and total cost of having colleagues it must not have them. These real costs include government mandated employee insurances and adequate medical coverage plus vacations, pensions and sick time but it goes beyond that. Safety and amenities in the work environment are involved.
Having colleagues is a serious responsibility. These people are not things to be managed, like materials or cash flow. They are not to be treated as simple assets but as peers and allies. The colleague's hopes and goals must become the employer's hopes and goals. They must have the opportunity to grow and learn. They must have the opportunity to learn the business and grow with it. They must enjoy their work. Fair pay for work done is important, but pay, by itself, is very much overrated as an incentive. Equitable treatment and creative opportunity is much more important.
The ultimate cost of cheating workers is enormous. Look at any retail firm which is paying at or near minimum wage. You will find shelves are not restocked. Articles will not be where they should be. Disarray is rampant. Service is poor. The people who are assigned to answer questions know less than the customers. Worst of all, is the generalized, "don't care" attitude of these workers. Even as they do the "Hi! How are you." ritual, you can see the anger in their frozen smile and posture. This all costs money, directly in product quality. How many times do we go to another store because we could not get help or answers at the first store we chose? How many times do we write a firm and its products off, then watch later as the CEO, with a bewildered look, announces chapter eleven? He need not be bewildered. He need only look at how he has treated his colleagues.
To continue, all the legal and decency requirements must be met. There must be adequate health insurance. State and federal taxes must be handled properly. The work environment must be clean and attractive. There should be a clean, attractive area outside the work environment for people to take breaks and have lunch. This area should be off limits for any business activities. I don't know how many times I have seen some hot shot manager invade an employee break area with a business meeting. That is arrogant, shabby, contemptible behavior.
Finally, we must treat worker health and safety the same as
any other asset and act to protect it. Careless activities, including
smoking, must not be allowed anywhere in the work environment.
All necessary safety equipment must be provided. Safety rules
must be established and vigorously enforced. Most work accidents
occur because the colleague took shortcuts. Because shortcuts
can be short term profitable, many employers pretend not to see.
This practice is unconscionable. I would rather go bankrupt. If
the above requirements are met, the colleagues will be happy and
rich in many ways. They will then bust their respective butts
to make sure the business which creates this feeling is successful.
The business will prosper and so will the colleagues. It's a shame
most managers are too stupid to understand this.
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