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BTW, While profits are key, corps make benevolent decisions all the time. 10 years ago, I was in finance at a corp whose style was usually "lean and mean" and we deliberately left it up to a dying employee with cancer the decision of whether he wanted to continue working or not near the end. He did, as his colleagues to him were family. We knew if he chose to work, we'd need to overstaff as he was not himself, we went over budget, and both the entity and the corp were fine with it. The only unease was it was hard to see him, and act natural. My boss' bonus was affected the most by the deciision, and he was the most forthright about insuring the decision was strictly the employees.
I know that corps make benevolent decisions sometimes because well, corporations are people, my friend (grin), and people act benovently sometimes.
True. I'm not too worried about Whopper machines though. Whopper machines need operators and mechanics and factory workers to manufacture them. I think centuries of industrialization have taught us that technology just transforms the workforce. It doesn't elminate it.
But with inflated whopper (and any other product involving low wage labor) pricing you'd have a ripple effect, artificially raising wages and therefore making human labor relatively less attractive throughout the economy. Loss of BK jobs in exchange for more BK technology jobs results in more high skilled positions (rich get richer) to maintain the technology and fewer low skilled positions (poor get poorer) because they've been replaced by said technology.
WestCobb, The mom and pops in my town and our nearby cities treated people miserably. Paid less than 15% above minimum wage, almost none had benefits, the most vacation I knew of was one week/year no matter years of service, and the owners lived like kings in nearby towns. Rape and pillage would aptly describe what they did. I applaud any entity that puts them out of business. Thankfully, my relatives in retail worked for regional chains that while paying the same, offered Health Insurance and more vacation time. My mother also worked retail, and after 10 years, also went to an awards bankquet at the restaurant atop the World Trade Center. Transportation and of course all expenses paid.
Bob, are you sure about this? We're dealing with anecedotal evidence here, which is definitely flawed. But I bet some mom and pops treated their people well, and some didn't. Those who did retained a higher quality workforce and probably did better in the long run. I remember this mom and pop burger joint in my town that was ALWAYS hiring. It was just a guy and his wife and one employee (who was always rotating). I was going to apply for the job, but my friend told me not to. He said the wife treated the employees like utter ****. I didn't apply. I did eat there sometimes because the burgers were good, but the restaraunt was kind of dirty. I was a teenage boy, so my standards for cleanliness were pretty low -- however, the place went out of business. I don't know all of the ins and outs as to why, but I would guess their labor problem contributed to it.
Its easy for me to remember him, because sadder still is, it happened right around this time (the news it was not treatable).
We had lost two others within 1 year, also from cancer.
I also worked for a family run, century old corp, whose owners often secretly made sure unusual employee expenses were paid, when needs were dire. I only found out after leaving them, and bumping into people who knew about it, as they were often the suppliers of the services. The odd thing is the perception of the family was 100% the inverse of the reality. They are a very private family, but are forces behind many charities behind the scenes. Almost never public, by choice. Glad to see they are doing better than ever, too.
West Cobb, We had just 1 mom and pop that treated people ok, they would NOT raise prices the way others bilked the public, and their neighboring businesses hated their guts. Sadly, I'm sure. BTW, that neighbor lasted 100 years until a fire destroyed their business, lasted 7 years after WM came in. All those bilking died.
Mom and pops do sometimes involve themslves with charity, but it is to promote themselves usually. Larger corps do not need promoting, and they give to help.
Its easy for me to remember him, because sadder still is, it happened right around this time (the news it was not treatable).
We had lost two others within 1 year, also from cancer.
I also worked for a family run, century old corp, whose owners often secretly made sure unusual employee expenses were paid, when needs were dire. I only found out after leaving them, and bumping into people who knew about it, as they were often the suppliers of the services. The odd thing is the perception of the family was 100% the inverse of the reality. They are a very private family, but are forces behind many charities behind the scenes. Almost never public, by choice. Glad to see they are doing better than ever, too.
It's a good story, bob. I know that the "evil rich people" are people too. And I believe in the goodness of people. Experience has taught me to do so. Most people in normal circumstances will be decent.
Of course businesses are not charities, and I don't expect them to be.
West Cobb, We had just 1 mom and pop that treated people ok, they would NOT raise prices the way others bilked the public, and their neighboring businesses hated their guts. Sadly, I'm sure. BTW, that neighbor lasted 100 years until a fire destroyed their business, lasted 7 years after WM came in. All those bilking died.
Mom and pops do sometimes involve themslves with charity, but it is to promote themselves usually. Larger corps do not need promoting, and they give to help.
Hmmm.... you think the guys in the PR shop would agree with this? Nothing wrong with giving to get by the way... I agree with Ben Franklin that ideally, we do well by doing good.
Corps, like all people, WestCobb, tend to make some benevolent decisions, some simply rational, balanced decisions, and some ruthless to the point of sadistic decisions. Until robots can run them (Satire, of course), I'd expect the same results.
A big one like WM is run less like a centralized corp, than 4,000 individual corps. Local managers play a huge role in employee treatment, because its not always about money.
In college, I worked for a huge telemarketer who treated people so well, I would have taken their offer to work in finance at corp hq, except the commute would be horrific. In short, I stayed 4 years p/t at job I had no intention of staying past 1 summer at. Left when f/t professional job caused conflict in time requirements, and I missed working there immediately. BTW, they made ooodles of money while paying well, offering great perks, and doing everything they could to foster employee goodwill. Most corps I have worked for have not come close to the environment this place created, and I do not expect them to. So sometimes, the best environments occur where one would least expect them to, and again, since they wanted me in finance, I was exposed in preliminary discussions with their profitability, and they had created a win/win, and they knew it. But retail is a low margin game, and labor costs are about the only controllable variable.
WestCobb, I am talking mainly about the typical 200-500 employee subsidiaries. They actually do the giving, and are the contact people w/charities. Corp hq are unknowns to these charities.
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