---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 12:51:52 -0800
From: Ed Deak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Bell: More corporate madness
Dalton Camp could hardly be called a commie or pinko. A former advertising
executive, he was once the President of the Progressive Conservative Party,
who gave us the FTA under Mulroney. I got this without origins, but believe
he writes for the Globe and Mail, basically another corporate front paper.
Cheers, Ed (Ed Deak, Big Lake, BC, Canada)
============================================================================
===
>> January 13, 1999
>> Bell hanging up on operators for corporate greed
>>
>>Bell Canada is in the news again as just another corporation to put
>>profit before people. I suppose this is like saying Vince Lombardi was
>>just another coach who put winning first. Winning, you'll recall the
>>coach saying, wasn't just the best thing, it was the only thing.
>>
>>This week, Bell sold its telephone-operator business - the big 0 and the
>>vital 411 numbers on your phone - to the Americans. Doing so, the
>>corporation sold out 2,400 of its own operators.
>>
>>The explanation was the incontestable, inarguable, familiar one:
>>Employing the operators was costing Bell money its shareholders could
>>ill afford. In the corporate game, profit is not the best thing, it's
>>the only thing.
>>
>>We should not assume Bell's 2,400 operators will instantly be
>>reconnected with their new employer, Excell Global Services. The result,
>>it is feared, will be fewer jobs at less pay, and some employees will be
>>obliged to relocate.
>>
>>But none of this matters. Bell claims the new owners of the operation
>>are more competent in this line of work: No doubt Excell Global will
>>turn a higher profit. That matters.
>>
>>In 1995, Bell's president announced his company would be firing 10,000
>>of its employees over an ensuing three years. The president explained
>>the company had made a profit of $720 million in 1994, but was looking
>>at a profit of only $500 million the following year. He pleaded for
>>understanding. ``If we don't change now,'' he said, ``we'll let down
>>both our customers and our country.''
>>
>>How does not firing 10,000 men and women from their jobs imperil the
>>country? Of course, if it is really true that Bell had 10,000 employees
>>who had nothing better to do than hang about the water cooler - that's
>>the size of an army division - it's the president who should be fired.
>>
>>I suppose one must try to be realistic about this. Reference should be
>>made to previous editorials and speeches touching the subjects of
>>competitiveness, the need for, and inefficiency, the dangers of, and the
>>unwisdom of raising the subject of humanity, the lack of. Still, most
>>who preach this new gospel have jobs, at least during the time of their
>>greatest enthusiasm, so that direct empirical knowledge confirms the
>>theory of the primacy of profitability.
>>
>>The social scientists have a different view of what we might call the
>>Bell Syndrome. The view is at odds with that of the economist; there is
>>another way of looking at the practice of trading people for profit.
>>
>>Richard Sennett, of the London School of Economics, has written an essay
>>on the subject, not about Bell per se, but about the syndrome. It is
>>called The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in
>>the New Capitalism.
>>
>>The title is amply descriptive of Sennett's thesis. What the professor
>>means by the ``corrosion of character'' is the end result of a work
>>career of instability and uncertainty.
>>
>>``A young American with at least two years of college,'' Sennett writes,
>>``can expect to change jobs at least 11 times in the course of working,
>>and change his or her skill base at least three times during 40 years of
>>labour.''
>>
>>In the '60s, when Marshall McLuhan was our preferred guru, it was said,
>>to the bemusement of some, that the average working career would involve
>>changing jobs three or four times. That was then, this is now, and the
>>magic number is now 11.
>>
>>The consequences should not be surprising. Working people today live in
>>continuing states of career anxiety, often fearing ``they are losing
>>control over their lives.'' Sennett believes the workplace is empty of
>>the former values of loyalty, commitment, service, and trust. Those who
>>wryly say, ``It's a jungle out there,'' are understating the reality of
>>life in the modern corporation.
>>
>>The villain in all this trauma and tragedy is the ``blameless,''
>>faceless corporation, trying only to make a buck and satisfy its
>>shareholders. Sennett, however, identifies the problem more precisely.
>>Downsizing has less to do with profit-mongering than with the private
>>lusts of senior corporate executives.
>>
>>In fact, Sennett maintains, studies made of firms which have seriously
>>reduced their payrolls show they also achieved ``lower profits and
>>declining worker productivity.'' (For confirmation, check the career of
>>``Chainsaw Al'' Dunlap, the avatar of downsizing, whose increasing
>>exertions had made him a cult figure in corporate circles until he fell
>>upon his own sword and was himself downsized.)
>>
>>So, why do they do it?
>>
>>Sennett points to the modern practice of paying corporate CEOs in stock
>>options. By cutting payrolls and corners, the CEO maximizes profits in
>>the short term, which inflates share values to allow him to exercise his
>>options at maximum profit. He leaves when the fun is over, himself
>>richer for the experience, the corporation poorer.
>>
>>As for the downsized, many become a charge to society as whole. There
>>are serious costs, many of them not yet calculated. But society pays
>>while the corporation downsizers profit, enjoying tax breaks in the
>>bargain. If you think that's fair, I must have the wrong number.
>>
>>
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Dalton Camp is a political commentator. His column appears Sundays and
>>Wednesdays.
>>
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