Author Topic: The Economy  (Read 1049 times)

Offline Mini D

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« Reply #45 on: March 31, 2004, 12:50:34 PM »
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Yet, I can say that several of my long time online aquaintances within the last year have suffered from layoffs and not all of them have been able to continue work in their field of experience. Some are still struggling to find something even close to providing the take-home pay they have become accustomed to. Some have even dropped off the radar and I'm concerned for their welfare.
The caveat is duly noted. There's a reason people were having problems finding pay to the level they became accustomed to in the late 90s.

As for the McDonnald's dig... continue on.  Neither company employs anyone for less than $10/hr and the average laboror salaray would be closer to $20/hr... with laboror salaries easily reaching $35/hr for experienced employees.

My experience is seeing the attitude of the work force that is out there today.  Especially the young workforce.  Its as if people have forgotten that you are getting payed to do a job because it's work.  It's not a hobby, it's not an interest, it's work.  Virtually every person I know that left my group, went to find more money with a young upstart company.  Most would brag about how much more they were making right up until the company failed.  They were more insterested in the salary and less in the security.  Fortunately for me, this forced the company to start raising salaries in an attempt to keep employees and I benifited.  Though, I'd gladly trade a % increase in salary for job security.

Effectively, our new hires are considered temps just because they're not likley to still be around in 1 year simply because of the stupidity of youth.   It only seems to be newsworthy when the company forces it... not when the employees are manipulating it.

MiniD

Offline Eagler

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« Reply #46 on: March 31, 2004, 12:54:41 PM »
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Originally posted by midnight Target
D. I'll go along with that Eagler.. but I am the good-looking smart brother. :cool:


i was thinking you were more like the dumpy, ugly but kinder one :)
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Offline Arlo

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« Reply #47 on: March 31, 2004, 01:01:45 PM »
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Originally posted by Mini D

As for the McDonnald's dig... continue on.  Neither company employs anyone for less than $10/hr and the average laboror salaray would be closer to $20/hr... with laboror salaries easily reaching $35/hr for experienced employees.



It's not a dig, D. It's an example of why "Fortune 500" status really has nothing to do with the standard of living of the employees. Your company treats it's employees well. Very good. But not convincing evidence that all companies do.

Besides, you mentioned that all of the employees are skilled laborers. That must mean that the menial tasks associated with day to day operations are carried out by contract labor (ie: cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, taking out the trash, etc). If any of these people actually work during your working hours, try getting to know one of them on a first name basis and see if, over time, they're willing to discuss with your all the financial and material benefits they recieve from their association with your company. If, that is, they ever reach that level of comfort to discuss such with you over lunch or something.

Offline Maverick

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« Reply #48 on: March 31, 2004, 01:24:37 PM »
So Arlo, are you advocating the same pay for disparate work and responsibilities? All workers of a company should be paid the same irregardless of their duties?
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Offline Mini D

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« Reply #49 on: March 31, 2004, 01:25:09 PM »
You're flipflopping arlo.  You're having to use "menial labor" as examples of contracting while dismissing McDonnald's employees because of their low salaries?

Companies aren't starting to outsource and contract cleaning crews, security, cafeteria staff... they've always outsourced/contracted it.  The fact that you have to play that card speaks volumes to the lack of examples to support your original point.  Or are those friends you are talking about layed off janitors that can't find any work right now that pays as well as their previous job?

Skilled workers were empowered in the late 90s.  They actually became a comodoty on many fronts.  Company loyalty went right out the window as a result.  Blame corperations all you want... just don't pretend it's all their fault that corperate/employee loyalty went out the window over the last 10 years.

MiniD

Offline Arlo

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« Reply #50 on: March 31, 2004, 05:12:17 PM »
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Originally posted by Maverick
So Arlo, are you advocating the same pay for disparate work and responsibilities? All workers of a company should be paid the same irregardless of their duties?


That was an interesting interpretation and all but no.

I'm saying that posting something along the lines of "Boy, my company is expanding and created more positions and we can't get enough warm bodies to fill them ergo the entire nation's economy is kicking arse" is not a valid observation.

Both Mid-T and MiniD have claimed otherwise and although their jobs and the companies they work for appear to be both secure and concerned with employee welfare, that doesn't make it the trend across the nation.

I'm also saying that the trend from MY perspective appears to be more along the lines of companies resorting to running their operations with as few permanent employees as they can get away with and utilizing temp labor to handle the non-skilled (and in some cases "semi-skilled") labor to avoid the additional cost of benefits and retirement. Then again, that's based on MY observations of the local situation and conversations I've had with others online about their experiences and observations.

Bottom line: The bottom line of the corporate sector has never impressed me much when talking about the economic health of our nation. The quality of life of it's average citizen has. Creating a billion minimum wage service sector jobs or supplanting actual long term careers with temporary help isn't going to really help things.

There ya go.

Offline Arlo

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« Reply #51 on: March 31, 2004, 05:32:13 PM »
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Originally posted by Mini D
You're flipflopping arlo.  You're having to use "menial labor" as examples of contracting while dismissing McDonnald's employees because of their low salaries?

Companies aren't starting to outsource and contract cleaning crews, security, cafeteria staff... they've always outsourced/contracted it.  The fact that you have to play that card speaks volumes to the lack of examples to support your original point.  Or are those friends you are talking about layed off janitors that can't find any work right now that pays as well as their previous job?

Skilled workers were empowered in the late 90s.  They actually became a comodoty on many fronts.  Company loyalty went right out the window as a result.  Blame corperations all you want... just don't pretend it's all their fault that corperate/employee loyalty went out the window over the last 10 years.

MiniD


I'm not flip-flopping at all, D. No, the friends I mentioned aren't layed off janitors (and what a crappy little implication on your part).

And no, the American workforce isn't "disloyal to the corporation." It's the other way around. Corporate America sold out it's loyalty to the American worker awhile back by cutting back it's indiginous workforce in favor of building plants overseas to cut the largest overhead - employee pay and benefits. And more and more what "unskilled labor" it does utilize in the states is coming from temporary service agencies. It's a rotten thing to do to the American workforce. It's corporate America that needs to rebuild the trust, not the other way around.

There are plenty of Americans who would gladly tow the company banner, as you do, if only they would be allowed to. But unfortunately most of the execs would just as soon fire as many employees as it takes to make the end of the year profit/cost margin look acceptable at the board meeting and to hell with the long term effects. And the middle managers sing the same song you do, heaping praise on their bosses ... that is until their jobs are forfeit as well.

Sure ... there are exceptions but the rule is looking clearer day by day. May that never happen to you and yours, bro. But don't get all belligerent with me because I offered a counterpoint you couldn't stomach. Now ... have at it but there it is. Have a nice day anyway. :D

Offline Mini D

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« Reply #52 on: March 31, 2004, 08:28:41 PM »
I never implied your friends were janitors arlo... the whole janitor subject is something you resorted to.

And please find where I said anything about the economy.  I don't believe I've mentioned it at all in this thread.  I only adressed your assertation that companies are not hiring people to keep them anymore.

It is still incorrect.  It will continue to be incorrect.  As is your assertation that corperations are the only entities being disloyal.  Hell... the deserve to have people quit and hop from job to job looking for pay increases.  After all the evil they levied on the people.  Now who is the one being rediculous here arlo?

I worked in a company where this was not going on.  People continually quit simply for more pay, only to end up  unemployed when the other company folded.  This wasn't because the company had stopped being loyal to it's employees, it was because the employees became a commodity and behaved accordingly.  Nobody drove them off.  Nobody downsized them... they simply left.  Now... where's the loyalty again?

I'm showing the inherant nature of people to go where they think the getting is good.  To look for the quick buck without considering much else.  It really came back to bite alot of people in late 2000... both at the corporate level and the personal level.

Are buisnesses using temp labor these days?  Of course they are.  But even you are toning it down to "unskilled labor" now.  Does this explain why your friends are unemployed?

The same can be said for tech support jobs moving overseas.  Ask SOB if the company he works for is BEGGING him to go full time.  He'd be a great person to talk to about how difficult it is for these companies to hire anything near competent help these days, much less hold them.

So.. to wrap up with you arlo... I'm not bragging about my company or my position.  I'm saying in an area where things were pretty easy for folk and work was anything but difficult... in an area where anyone could stay as long as they liked... we saw the turn over rate go from 3% to 30%.  That's without any cutbacks.  That's without brutal policies being levied.  It's just that the workforce decided the time for jumping ship was ripe.

MiniD

Offline Arlo

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« Reply #53 on: March 31, 2004, 10:34:19 PM »
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Originally posted by Mini D

So.. to wrap up with you arlo... I'm not bragging about my company or my position.  I'm saying in an area where things were pretty easy for folk and work was anything but difficult... in an area where anyone could stay as long as they liked... we saw the turn over rate go from 3% to 30%.  That's without any cutbacks.  That's without brutal policies being levied.  It's just that the workforce decided the time for jumping ship was ripe.

MiniD


Sounds pretty much regional, and I'm sorry to hear it.

Here, my generation was almost universally endowed with the work ethics of our fathers. We were taught to seek out the work we either enjoyed or was good at and barring that, to learn to enjoy or get good at the work we eventually ended up doing.

Those who were fortunate enough to go to college and receive a degree (and that wasn't exactly uncommon) were expected to excel, of course. But even those who went from high school into the workforce and starting a family of their own (which was MUCH more common) were taught that if you "made a good hand" that the company you worked for would appreciate you and you could stick with them and have a good life and eventually retire and go fishin'.

Someone forgot to tell the company execs that. I've seen my fair share of workers with ten to fifteen years service (in some instances more ... up to even less than a year from retirement) "downsized" from the workforce and having to start over again, often in a completely unrelated field where their years of experience meant nothing.

So it looks as if neither of us can claim a universal exact as to the nature of the relationship of the corporation and the worker in America.

Let me add that the term "union" has never been well received in this neck of the woods. Local business owners resisted them for obvious reasons and made sure that employees knew that the "way up THEIR ladder" (any chance of eventually becoming middle management .. which is the highest you could expect to go without a degree) would require the type of loyalty that didn't hold with such things. That being the case, the only union members locally are tradesmen or some of the few companies that migrated here whose corporate HQs were formed in an area where unionized labor already existed. Many of those "outsider" companies no longer exist here.

I've been a "company man." I've had friends who were "company men." We went to work and no matter our position on the ladder we gave it our best, we worked as professionals even if we weren't considered "professional status."

We are now in our forties and the "nineteen fifties" work ethics our fathers passed onto us ended up making us sheep for the slaughter in a world of cutthroat business practices.

Somewhere along the line a generation of executives decided we were expendable. Unless one managed to get into the "GOB" (good old boy) network and played company politics with the right people, it just didn't matter anymore how good you were at your job. Even then, there was no guarantee that the good `ol boys themselves wouldn't get downsized if the company had an out of town network of higher execs that had their own GOB network ... but at least some of them had golden parachutes.

Do I sound bitter? Damned straight. Do I feel betrayed? You betcha. So forgive me if I don't accept your version of "how good corporate America is versus the selfish and lazy American workforce" as a universal.

If, somehow, your region managed to avoid all of this and company ethics, by and large, still values it's workforce, that's great. I bear no animosity toward you for that. I just wanted you to get a different perspective from someone who HAS worked for a long time to achieve what you have and has obviously met more disappointment in that regards than you (or your father) has.

And as for the point of the thread: your local economy may be teh watermelon but that don't fertilize the flowers over here.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2004, 10:36:58 PM by Arlo »

Offline lazs2

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« Reply #54 on: April 01, 2004, 08:35:11 AM »
well... just in my time I have seen some radical changes.   It used to be that high school was a lot of education for construction jobs... you could flunk out and make a LOT of money in construction as a painter, carpenter, sheetrocker etc... hell, even laborors made more than your average bank employee.,

now.. the construction trade is pretty much minimum wage... even plumbing and electrical are being roughed in by non english speakers at minimum wage.

City employees have to have high school educations to mow lawns and they prefer 'some colloge'...

There are a few of us dinosours out there that have high school educations that are in managment positions but when we die/retire we will be replaced by better educated young guys (for better or worse)... for the most part tho....

Those of us who continued our education through night school and such prospered... many didn't (they either didn't want to or couldn't go back to school)and fell by the wayside.

Oh well... no matter what.. things have gotten better for me.. my worst day at the desk is still better than carrying a hod with 100 lbs of plaster while climbing a ladder two stories all day.

lazs

Offline Mini D

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« Reply #55 on: April 01, 2004, 01:57:25 PM »
I don't believe I accused anyone of being lazy arlo.  The discussion was on loyalty.  I see very little desire towards it from new employees today.  Hell, even bringing up the cut-throat aspect of things highlights my point.  The employee force has changed.  Corperations have changed also.  We're just disagreeing on who caused what.

The basic statement I'm making is that companies are just as prone to want to pay less as employees are to want to make more.  No one side is innocent.  To believe just one participant is the evil entity is simply wrong.

MiniD