Friday, December 19, 2008

suggestion

The only people who should get bonuses for work done in the period immediately preceding the bonus should be the people who are doing the actual production of whatever it is that is being measured. For management, bonuses should be rewarded for long-term gains, not short-term ones. The farther one is from the bottom of the production line, the longer a period ones performance should be based over. Because let's face it, when a companycuts costs by cutting workers, the people who are making that cut work are the workers who are left. They bear the burden of the decision right from the start. If the decision turns out to be a good one, then reward it, but not until time shows whether those cut were redundant or vital. Until then, reward those who make the cuts work.

Economists love to talk about increases in productivity, but all an increase in productivity means is that your workers are worried about losing their jobs. Productivity does not fall in hard times.

I say this after reading yet another tale of managerial self-largess*. How did America return to the feudal system?


* courtesy of Pryme

8 comments:

Pryme said...

"How did America return to the feudal system?"

A: Very slowly. but we're not there...yet.

daveawayfromhome said...

No, not yet, but bust the UAW (and bankruptcy would, I believe, nullify the union contracts), and we may be well on the way.

It all depends on how pissed off the People get.

Unknown said...

Did you say pissed off people? Here, in the US? Maybe in the early years but I am continually surprised at how complacent US workers are and how much power they hand over to the corporations. Ford was an ass, but he was right about paying the working well so that worker can afford to be a consumer.

and productivity? I am too tired for productivity, plus there is also my facebook addiction . . . . R

daveawayfromhome said...

The complacity of Americans in the face of the Bush years, in the increased work necessary just to maintain our lifestyles, in watching executives make obscene fortunes from our hard work (yet blame us if the company fails, even as they continue to collect)... the list goes on and on, and yet we still barely march, let alone riot.

Religion isnt the opiate of the masses, television is (religion is the psychotropic of the masses).

Unknown said...

TV IS the opiate of today. Good call and good post Dave.

daveawayfromhome said...

It's about time for the pendulum to swing back towards the workers.

Unless we want to live in a third world country.

Chance said...

Yeah, there's no explanation except evil for the Republican attitude that the working man making too much money is what's wrong with this economy. You can give window dressing tax cuts all you want, but if a head of household isn't making enough to feed his family, pay the house and car, and afford a Christmas present now and then, the economy is not going to work. A tax cut for a middle-class wage earner is nonsense and totally unhelpful. "Wow, an extra $1000 a year from my existing salary! Hooray!" Without a middle class with buying power and job security, there is no economy. Welcome to recessionland, where the very rich need to make sure that everyone else isn't just not-rich, but desperately, pitifully, poor.

PS: Yes, the 'Bleak Midwinter' and 'Midwinter's Tale' is the same title. That's one of my favorite movies. What a jerk Brannagh is, not putting it on DVD.

daveawayfromhome said...

Middle-class tax-cuts are good, but upper-class tax increases would be much better. Go back and look at taxation rates from the past - up through the early sixties, marginal tax rates on amounts over a couple hundred thousand or so was as much as 90%, and yet the country seemed to be doing pretty well.
The problem is not with paying taxes, the problem is with paying taxes and getting nothing for it. Health care, retirement benefits, college educations, a better (and more varied) primary educational system, pre-school education, vocational education, more cops on the beat, public transportation. All these things would be expensive, but beneficial.
What have Republicans given us for our tax dollars? Richer Republicans.