When a "mom & pop" or family-originated business burgeoned due to whatever reason, as my first employer's had done, it's spirit of "family" seemed most important to the owners. They perceived, correctly IMO, that despite employee envy of owners' wealth & power, employees respond MOST RELIABLY to tangible emphasis via praise: good work produced, thankfulness expressed for employee dedicatedness, PAY increases, recognition of jobs WELL DONE! Such was surely the case with my first employer, Victor Mfg. & Gasket Co., Chicago. Once a week, the son of one of the brothers who founded the company in the '20s, went about the "rounds" of the original plant, Plant #1, in which I worked, conversing with lowly employees of every rank. Many knew him well. His name was George Victor. I was in awe of a man whose father and uncle had had the foresight to found such an empire in their Chicago garage! This was great! I have never again been as happy at a job as I was then. Now, my nephew Dan, 5 years younger than I, spent his final 18 years of employment as an Engineer with Southwestern Bell Telephone, which became SBC, Inc., before he retired. SBC had made some horrible business-oriented mistakes, and consequently, mass lay-offs were begun, about 5 years before Dan was due to retire. Those labor reductions were across the board, including white-collar employees who were essentially the "life's blood" of the Co. Gradually, Dan's workload was increased more and more, to the point where he revealed to me by phone once, that if he worked 24 hours a day, he could not possibly complete the assigned work. He "Engineered" switches, installations of new land-lines in developing housing areas, this being statewide in Kansas. He sounded absolutely exasperated, but indicated his direct supervisor understood this. His boss must have had enormous pressure placed upon him, but cut Dan "slack". Dan was sent to attend a top-level meeting of Engineers to be addressed by one of the Corporate Engineering Managers. As he described that meeting to me, it became apparent, I thought, that SBC was intent on making his life there, as well as some hundreds of others, miserable enough, that he would request an early retirement. The Speaker advised these highly-trained, long-term technical employees to "thoroughly investigate their "Strategic Imperatives" ". Dan asked him during the question and answer period, WTF are "strategic imperatives"? Dan stayed with SBC all those years because of, primarily, full company-paid medical coverage, "guaranteed" for life, after retirement. Definitely a comely offering to keep employees! Dan retired in 2001. SBC began providing the promised health coverage, but soon, within a year or two, advised him he would have to begin sharing the premium burden, which meant that he would be required to pay about $290 per month. This after the "promises" of lifetime paid benefits. My view? We are ALL exploited to one degree or another by a gluttonous "system" which feeds upon it's constituents' existences in many ways not even revealed. Frank
Something similar has occurred in the town that I live in. People who worked for the paper mill in town had negotiated contracts that included retirement and medical packages yet, although the company they negotiated these contracts with is still in existence, they sold their paper mills to another company that later sold them again, and they were eventually shut down. Then the company that had owned the mills before selling them quit paying retirement and medical benefits. Although it seems clearly illegal to me, the courts agreed that they could do that. Our town did much the same. Town employees were promised retirement and medical benefits for life but when the town hit on hard times due to the loss of the mill, its largest taxpayer by far, they quit paying retirement benefits and began charging retired employees for medical coverage. This too was okayed by the courts, So apparently, negotiated contracts are one-sided in favor of the the government and its corporate friends.
@Ken Anderson Evidently, the courts see the Company/Union Contract as a legal instrument binding upon only those two parties. Sometime in the '90s, Greyhound Bus Co. drivers went on strike, it dragged out a long time, and finally Dial Corp., headquartered in Phoenix, bought the company, and immediately fired all the striking drivers. "Right to work State", some were re-hired as non-union, but most steadfastly believed their union would eventually "bail them out"; of course it did not. Amid rampant cries predicting carnage on the highways due to "inexperienced non-union help taking the wheel", Greyhound Bus happily continued it's service as a non-union company. Ditto events way back when President Reagan fired the striking Air Traffic Controllers country-wide. Supervisors and other management had been keeping the planes flying, and they were able to pre-judge the abilities of hired replacements successfully enough that no "predicted disasters" occurred.
There is a saying that promises are made to be broken. Although it's the exception rather than the rule, it really hurts when you are hit especially if it involves your career. I have been with our company for almost 29 years and according to the policy of retirement, I would receive 2 months salary for every year of service that I had rendered. Although my retirement year is still 7 years from now, I can already retire now and get that benefit. It's big money that some of my older colleagues have availed of that retirement. They say a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush. What if something goes wrong with our company, they mused. I am hopeful that our company will be true to its retirement policy when I it is my turn to retire. Being the number 1 bank, I think I have a good basis for that optimistic thought.
@Chris Ladewig Well, if we are considering worker representation (Unions), appearing in representation of workers' positions to their Employers, we might ponder the rather intangible affair resulting from Union representation for Professional Workers, Doctors, maybe even Politicians...... See how silly this can become? As an example of my position, I cite my Father. A highly skilled Tradesman, Tool & Die Maker. Did not believe Unions truly represented the rank and file as much as they promoted themselves. His feeling was that if a person had skills, applied himself by showing his worth, a decent employer would recognize and reward that fact, no Union present. Thus, my Dad never in his entire working lifetime joined a Union, and that in the highly-Union controlled Chicago area. Frank
@Corie Henson Be ever vigilant and cautious, Corie. Consider my older Nephew, who worked Professionally for THE most prestigious of American companies, Bell Telephone. The promise of lifetime paid medical benefits kept him with the company till the end, at which time massive professional layoffs had delegated to his desk the work of many others taking early retirement. A few years after retiring, the "paid" promise evaporated, requiring that he pay a major part of the premiums himself. Frank
Frank I use to work for Litton industries they were a non union company they honored their employees and treated them as a valuable part of the company. The division I worked for was bought out and the first thing they did was lay off all the people with seniority and hire in minimum wage workers. Every company I have worked for since that time has the attitude that if you don't like it or we don't like you for any reason there's the door. In a right to work state they can fire you for any reason at all. They can change the rules at will. What they let go of people for one day will be OK to do the next depending on whose doing it. There are quite a few skilled people out of work right now being skilled does not mean as much as it use to.
@Chris Ladewig All I'm saying, Chris, is that possession of, say, a skilled-trade Apprenticeship Completion presents is a much more "saleable" position to a prospective employer than mindless loyalty to a Labor Union official. Frank