About Me
- Name: Rick
- Location: La Crosse, Wisconsin, United States
These blogs find me in one of my favorite roles, communication teacher. I feel blessed to be able to make a career out of better understanding, and helping others better understand, how humans communicate.
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Okay, so I'm weird. I think the communication in organizations is really interesting. The fact that I teach and study it has nothing to do with it. . . probably.
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
What's the future of work? Chapt. 1
In the musical 1776, which is based roughly on the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the John Dickinson character (Dickinson was a delegate from one of the Carolinas) says to the assembly "most people would rather cling to the hope of being rich than admit to the reality of being poor" (maybe not an exact quote, but close). I think about that quote as one of the few explanations for why people let corporations get away with what they do.
There clearly is a new social contract between employees and corporations. Nobody who is even a little aware would take a job with a corporation assuming they will be taken care of for life. That guarantee has dissappeared in the last 20 years. Now the only guarantee is that the top executives will be taken care of for life. Between the completely exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and options and the excessive "golden parachute" severance packages CEOs win if they succeed or fail. In 1980 CEO pay was about 40 times that of the average worker. Now the average CEO makes over 200 times the average workers pay.
Why would the many (workers) tolerate such excess to the few (the executives)? Money is power, of course, but can't the vast majority who make workers pay (even millionaires are have nots in this day and age) bind together and get legislation passed to limit extreme differences in pay? They could, but for some reason it is not an issue that voters seem to care much about. I think the John Dickinson quote gets at one reason. To raise your voice against unreasonable pay is to admit that you yourself are a have not. That's a fact, but it's not a comfortable fact.
There clearly is a new social contract between employees and corporations. Nobody who is even a little aware would take a job with a corporation assuming they will be taken care of for life. That guarantee has dissappeared in the last 20 years. Now the only guarantee is that the top executives will be taken care of for life. Between the completely exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and options and the excessive "golden parachute" severance packages CEOs win if they succeed or fail. In 1980 CEO pay was about 40 times that of the average worker. Now the average CEO makes over 200 times the average workers pay.
Why would the many (workers) tolerate such excess to the few (the executives)? Money is power, of course, but can't the vast majority who make workers pay (even millionaires are have nots in this day and age) bind together and get legislation passed to limit extreme differences in pay? They could, but for some reason it is not an issue that voters seem to care much about. I think the John Dickinson quote gets at one reason. To raise your voice against unreasonable pay is to admit that you yourself are a have not. That's a fact, but it's not a comfortable fact.
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I've heard older generations make claims about how sad it is that you can't trust anyone anymore, how you can count on your job being there tomorrow just about as much as you can count on your wife being there. Maybe it is sad. But that's life.
In this day and age, everyone's out for "Number One." And you have to be. In order to keep your head above water in the working world, you have to be on the lookout for what's best for you. In the past, people were loyal to their employers and the employers loyal to the employees. This new "social contract" indicates that we can't count on the stability of one job. It seems that in order to stay ahead, we must treat ourselves as a small business and turn the tables on our own employers these days.
But I don't think it's fair to rip on huge corporations for making upper managment train their own replacements. We're all out for Number One, especially huge corporations. In a way, laying off 100 people and giving their jobs to the people in India who are still clinging to the hope of being rich is a good thing. Because it's when we fall that we show our greatest strengths. If we weren't working hard enough then to make our employers see the value in us, we'll only work harder to achieve our dream of being rich. This day and age everything is about speed and efficiency. We want to work as little as possible for the most money possible. Employers want to get the most work out of us for the least amount of money. It's all about finding a happy medium for Number One.
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In this day and age, everyone's out for "Number One." And you have to be. In order to keep your head above water in the working world, you have to be on the lookout for what's best for you. In the past, people were loyal to their employers and the employers loyal to the employees. This new "social contract" indicates that we can't count on the stability of one job. It seems that in order to stay ahead, we must treat ourselves as a small business and turn the tables on our own employers these days.
But I don't think it's fair to rip on huge corporations for making upper managment train their own replacements. We're all out for Number One, especially huge corporations. In a way, laying off 100 people and giving their jobs to the people in India who are still clinging to the hope of being rich is a good thing. Because it's when we fall that we show our greatest strengths. If we weren't working hard enough then to make our employers see the value in us, we'll only work harder to achieve our dream of being rich. This day and age everything is about speed and efficiency. We want to work as little as possible for the most money possible. Employers want to get the most work out of us for the least amount of money. It's all about finding a happy medium for Number One.
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