The New America

8/24/12

We just laid off 7 people at work today and that is just at our branch, folks were let go at all 80+ locations. [8/29 update: company 401k match has also been suspended] Some were let go due to a local attempt at expansion that failed and the others were laid off due to a need to maximize short term profits. Likely this decision came from TPG Capital who are the financial backers of the company for which I work. The thing is, the company is apparently quite profitable both in terms of net dollars retained and in terms or year-to-year growth. This is but one illustration of the problems with corporate America in the 21st century: the emphasis on short term profit at the expense of the long term stability, a stability which must include a labor force that is capable of actually purchasing the goods that these corporations manufacture/distribute etc. Companies and their investors in this post-Fordist economy (Henry, not Gerald) are more concerned with how much they will be able to sell their holdings for at some date in the near future than how the company and its employees will do in the long term. And it got much worse in the Bush years (yes, George W).

 

Two examples will serve to illustrate the difficulties faced by those laid off in our specific case: first, the company does not reimburse for unused vacation or sick time (even though that it technically illegal in California and some other states, they found a federal loophole as a way of getting around it) second, regardless of how long one has been employed with the company you get a mere two weeks severance pay. One fellow had been there for 17 years...still just two weeks severance. And in this economy, two weeks is an insult. Especially with the cost of COBRA or private insurance. None of the wages paid to these people are high enough for them to save the ideal 3-6 months salary as reserve against such a layoff, especially when many have spouses that are currently out of work. Likewise an unemployment payment that maxes out at $450 per week is entirely inadequate.

This kind of action is what makes the 2012 election especially important. Even though Obama is hardly an adequate defender of the middle and lower classes against corporate greed, at least through actions like the Affordable Care Act and increasing the term for which one can receive unemployment, he is attempting to make the transition less painful for those who have become unemployed. Romney and Ryan have already promised to repeal the ACA and gut other safety nets as well. Likewise, we already have five members of the Supreme Court who routinely rule in the interests of corporations (Citizen's United, Wal Mart) against the people and we simply must not let a potential four retirees in the near future be replaced by a Republicans administration.

In closing let me make the point that the attitude represented by these actions is endemic of our current corporate structure. Correcting it is not a matter of convincing individuals within the structure to be compassionate et al, it is a matter of legislating the way the corporations as a whole behave and taxing them, their officers and their investors in order to fund a sustainable livelihood for those dispossessed by their actions. In so doing we are sadly recognizing both the fact that short of a revolution they are not going away, and also that the result of their actions may be high unemployment for some time to come. They are profitable in part by virtue of their outsourcing/downsizing: fine, but they should in turn contribute in a greater way to maintaining the lives of those who are the victims of these actions.