A Sin and a Shame...Bob Herbert reveals how corporate greed multiplies the misery...

[rfranklin]

A Sin and a Shame
By BOB HERBERT
Published: July 30, 2010

The treatment of workers by American corporations has been worse — far more treacherous — than most of the population realizes. There was no need for so many men and women to be forced out of their jobs in the downturn known as the great recession.


Many of those workers were cashiered for no reason other than outright greed by corporate managers. And that cruel, irresponsible, shortsighted policy has resulted in widespread human suffering and is doing great harm to the economy.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Andrew Sum, an economics professor and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “Not only did they throw all these people off the payrolls, they also cut back on the hours of the people who stayed on the job.”

As Professor Sum studied the data coming in from the recession, he realized that the carnage that occurred in the workplace was out of proportion to the economic hit that corporations were taking. While no one questions the severity of the downturn — the worst of the entire post-World War II period — the economic data show that workers to a great extent were shamefully exploited

-more-
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/opinion/31herbert.html?_r=1&ref=bobherbert

[xchrom]

1. Recommend

[blindpig]

2. He oughta call a spade a spade.

Corporate greed is a function of capitalism. The rules and necessities of Capitalism make corporate greed a forgone conclusion.

Kill Capitalism

[Scruffy1]

4. Capitalism is the strangest belief sytem of all.

It's amazing that there are still those that believe that "the evilest people doing the evilest things is for the common good." I run into them all the time at anti-war rallies and such. They have been trying to reform capitalism my whole life with no success and yet their blinders installed by the masters do not let them see the truth. All wars are about profit and the masters don't care if you starve or go homeless. This is why they promote sports so much-it instills the belief that there has to be winners and losers. The logic that someone else has to lose for me to live escapes me.

[rucky]

3. Bob Herbert's been on fire, lately!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

5. I LOVE that finally we are getting to the real stuff! Yeah Bob Herbert!

Keep it up, my friend.

[amborin]

6. K&R

[Lorien]

7. No kidding. My wages have been cut in half (when I can find work) as have my colleagues

my neighbor, who works for a news service, got a cut in hours while most of his coworkers got axed. Our clients/ companies HAVE NOR HAD ANY SIGNIFICANT DECREASE IN PROFITS prior to the cuts. The managers just used the recession as an excuse to squeeze employees as much as possible. So many proud Capitalists left their humanity and common sense behind decades ago.

[woo me with science]

8. K & R. Workers cease being people

when corporations grow and executives no longer have to know or respond to their employees.

It is the same dynamic when you try, as a customer, to get satisfaction from a company. Nobody is responsible....It is always some faceless person above.

It is much easier to terminate a number than a person who has friends and family and an identity.

It is frightening that those who control our lives are so disconnected from us.

[northernlights]

9. when they have no customers, maybe then they'll get it

I just look and look and look for ways to cut back, too.

I just bought a solar cooker -- that plus other cutbacks has cut my propane bill in half.

Same with heating the house.

Food -- the savings from the propane and oil will go into buying from local food coops -- more expensive, but not corporate.

And next year I'll be growing as much of my own veggies as I can.

I buy nothing I don't need anymore, except a couple lottery tickets each week. Just in case.

In the meantime, at my company, people were so disgusted with how we were treated that, recession or no, they had a 40% turnover from people walking out.

I was ready to check out this past winter. I only stayed here to take care of my dogs. I was planning to give us a great summer, then adopt out all the animals and do myself in. But they caught on to the level of misery at work and gave us all raises, started being nicey, nicey, nicey. So it's gotten a little better, but I don't care and I'm not buying in. I just keep cutting back on my expenses.

They can hoard all they want. I'm planning to turn to bartering next, too. This is class war folks. We can play their game right back at them. It takes ingenuity and determination.

[McCamy Taylor]

11. No. They do not plan to be in business that long. They build up their company on paper

and the sell it to a multinational, so that they can retire rich.

[northernlights]

16. you are talking about startups...

I am talking about big biz. My solar cooker *helped* two small businesses, in Mexico and California. It *hurt* big energy because I'm not turning back.

I work in a call center for a mutual fund company. Last Monday night, at least a dozen dissatisfied customers grit their teeth, took their losses and closed their accounts. They won't be fooled again and they will not come back. Good on them, I say. They tried to coerce me into opening a 401K with them...no way.

The more people see they are just being used and discarded, that the deck is totally stacked against them, the more they will pack up and go home.

Big biz *thinks* they'll get new customers in the developing countries where they're sending our jobs. But at 2 cents/hour, those people can't afford their products either. And they've lived in poverty so long, it'll be many generations before they'll spend a buck on a back of chips when they can buy 100 pounds of potatoes with that same buck.

So they'll be forced to lower prices...and look for even cheaper labor. Rinse. Repeat.

It won't work. And I just may live long enough to see it cave in on their heads.

[penndragon69]

10. If the refugniCONS had won the election:

You can bet that all these wealthy corpses would be hiring people like
crazy to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

But since they lost....they will continue to strangle America
until they can get their fangs back into power.

Obama bad....Neo-conjob Fascist gop'ers good.

[McCamy Taylor]

12. Didnt the GOP win the election? They determine economic policy.

No Enployee Free Choice Act. No help for small businesses--- which hire. And now the attack on government workers. The goal is clear. Crush unions.

If Obama thinks he will get away with union busting because he is a Democrat, he had better think twice. Unions are capable of fronting a third party splitter just to cost Obama the election to prove their clout and to prevent any future Democrat from doing what he has done.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. The technical term for this is "capital strike"

If big business is unhappy with a government, it fires people, stops investing, and blames the government.

[Kat45]

13. Great article. I had just posted it on my Facebook page.

I have a couple of wingnut facebook friends; wonder if they'll read it and argue with me.

[donheld]

14. A hearty K & R