America: Land of the Layoff
Share this article
ADVERTISEMENT
(comments below)
ADVERTISEMENT
(comments below)
Comments
6 responses to “America: Land of the Layoff”
-
Move to Detroit where unemployment is at 28%. They can't bury their dead and all the copper has been stripped from the vacant houses.
I hear the workers there have really good protection in Detroit.
It is time to kick the statists out of the Commonwealth.
I'll buy your plane ticket for a signed legal agreement that you never return.
-
Anonymous,
Not going anywhere, Bud. Sticking up for workers is not "statist." That's your little Virginia fantasy.Peter Galuszka
-
There's no question that many corporations make the "firing" experience unnecessarily brutal: Clean out your desk, leave the same day and don't come back, lawyers and security guards at the ready. Not only do employees lose their jobs, they feel devalued and humiliated.
Firings weren't always handled that way. I wonder why the process has changed. Have corporate executives becomes more inhuman and less empathetic? Perhaps. Or have there been changes in the legal environment that prompts large, bureaucratic enterprises to impose impersonal, bureaucratic procedures in order to protect themselves from lawsuits?
Are there any lawyers among our readers who can shed some light?
-
Jim,
You raise good points but I think there is a bigger one. The issue isn't really merely whether management is polite and concerned when they dump workers. The issue is why other countries seem to have a much higher regard for the rights of the worker.
I was surprised, for example, when I had to manage people in Moscow who were Russians about just how much more they had in the way of legal rights than Americans did. Example: they had the right to something like five weeks of vacation (paid) and they could take it all at once. Imagine my surprise during my first summer there when some of my staff told me on July 30 that they'd see me in the second week in September. They'd be off at the dacha or the Black Sea. When I was scuba diving in the Bahamas and ran into some Germans, I asked how long they were staying (I could manage all of four days) and they said about three weeks.
Americans may be very productive and have a relatively high standard of living, but they sure as well work hard for it. But our labor laws favor mmanagement, especially in Southern states such as Virginia.that's the real point.
Peter -
I dunno.
I spent some time working overseas with another company on a oint venture.
These guys workd 35 hour a week, max. At the end of the day they packed up and left like robots: even in the middle of a meeting.
There is a reason Americans have such high productivity: we work like idiots.
RH
-
On second thought,there is another reason: we are able to take advantage of enormous government expenditures on infrastructure.
RH
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.