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Back in the 1950's, someone could join the company at the bottom rung (i.e. mail room clerk) and work their way up from there. I've seen many CEO's brag about how they worked their way to the top from the bottom.
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My uncle dropped out of college in his sophomore year and took a job with a construction company.....retired 41 years later as the CEO. They did over 19 billion in revenue last year!
We continue to create own UNDER-CLASS. The working poor who then must sign-up for government programs to subsidies housing to food. Companies keep restructuring too even changing rules. A friend lost his desk supervisor job .... but after 30+ years, his position required a degree he never had. Growing the company into a larger area. It was a non-profit yet..... the company since even consolidated all its offices into its original main city a coupe tears later.
Even warehousing and distribution use Temp agencies to gain some employees who then have no instances, can have come blemishes in there history and a lower wage. They can even work alongside regular employees .... but a separate yet kinda equal class is present. They also are not forced into scheduled overtime in warehousing passed its built for capacity.
You can't always blame working poor. So many places won't hire people with any blemishes in work histories. They are a big part of Temp agencies too.
The industrial revolution encouraged the idea of building wealth by skimming a small percentage from a large group of workers. The point was simple - no matter how productive an individual was, he was always limited to 100% of his output and no more. Whereas a businessman who organized a productive enterprise that hired 100 workers, and sold their output, for a mere 5% fee, had 5 times his own possible output (100 x .05) as profit. If he doubled his workforce and output, he doubled his profit to 10 times his own possible output. And so it went. Expand, and get filthy rich.
Thanks to the modern socialist bureaucracy, a corporation / company doesn't get rich by merely expanding their workforce and output. It prospers by cutting taxes, ducking regulations, reducing payroll (ghastly!), and other unmentionable skullduggery.
If ever government meddling was eliminated from private enterprise, we might see a renaissance of "old fashioned prosperity". However, the odds of any government voluntarily relinquishing power and revenue is slim to none.
One disturbing trend that has accelerated in the past decade is that companies are removing the bottom rung of the ladder by having all their "grunt work" done by vendors. Shareholders don't want to see their businesses "wasting" money on full salary and benefits of front desk reception, janitor, paper shuffler, even entry-level engineering jobs. So all the low level work gets done by Staffing XYZ, and it's difficult or impossible for employees of Staffing XYZ to move up the ladder because they are not able to apply internally for jobs at the client company, and sometimes they don't even rub elbows with anyone from it. This is different than 1950s America, where you could be a janitor at Ford Motor Co. and would have the full benefits of working for Ford and could get offered to work on the assembly line and move up the ranks.
This, what you just said, should be illegal!
Why? Because us, all of us end up supporting these people in form of food stamps and other programs. I work for an union and I am outraged what employers get away with nowadays. I support a higher minimum raise. I condemn companies who don't let their employees work enough hours so that they wont qualify for benefits.
People like Walmart owners should be ashamed of themselves. they don't pay their employees enough money so we and up paying for all these programs to help them. And meanwhile the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and you have all these conservatives who are asking why these poor people don;t pull themselves out by the bootstraps? Are they lazy or what? No, they are not lazy, they just can't pull themselves up by the bootstraps because these time are long gone. because you need 2.5 full time jobs at minimum wage to afford rent and so on and there's only 24 hrs in a day and what do you want them to do? Work themselves to death? Not even that will make their life easier.
We continue to create own UNDER-CLASS. The working poor who then must sign-up for government programs to subsidies housing to food. .
Now one moment. Those "Working poor" are also responsible for their issues. We all know that having kids when you really can't afford them happens often, but it's a mistake that can be avoided. Why they refuse to "Keep it zipped" or use contraceptives is beyond me.
The industrial revolution encouraged the idea of building wealth by skimming a small percentage from a large group of workers. The point was simple - no matter how productive an individual was, he was always limited to 100% of his output and no more. Whereas a businessman who organized a productive enterprise that hired 100 workers, and sold their output, for a mere 5% fee, had 5 times his own possible output (100 x .05) as profit. If he doubled his workforce and output, he doubled his profit to 10 times his own possible output. And so it went. Expand, and get filthy rich.
Thanks to the modern socialist bureaucracy, a corporation / company doesn't get rich by merely expanding their workforce and output. It prospers by cutting taxes, ducking regulations, reducing payroll (ghastly!), and other unmentionable skullduggery.
If ever government meddling was eliminated from private enterprise, we might see a renaissance of "old fashioned prosperity". However, the odds of any government voluntarily relinquishing power and revenue is slim to none.
What you are explaining is the concept of creating wealth and the concept is much older than the industrial revolution. It's the very foundation of capitalism - true socialism focused on creating jobs, without creating wealth. That works until one runs out of money. But you create wealth, and the jobs will come. Government regulation is a balancing act - to much diminishes wealth and has a long term negative impact on jobs, too little has a negative impact on society in terms of health, safety, and abuse. There is a find medium, in my opinion the previous US administration swung the pendulum into over regulation so that, as well meaning as it was, it was hurting the people.
What the OP described is a business focusing on it's core competencies in order to stay competitive in the marketplace - to sell better quality goods at lower prices because you, the OP, won't buy lower quality product and higher prices. Sometimes businesses lose quality, you get some idiot answering the phone that works at a temp agency responding to a customer complaint, the company loses business. It's a balancing act, a fine medium here as well.
Where do they get these employees working in the skilled jobs? They don't print them out at the factory, they don't instantly appear, they come from the labor pool including the working poor. Yes it's society's role to introduce opportunity, but it's an employees responsibility to take advantage of this opportunity. Yes it's not always fair, and takes hard work, but it's there. Experience at a temp agency is still experience.
Why? Because us, all of us end up supporting these people in form of food stamps and other programs. I work for an union and I am outraged what employers get away with nowadays. I support a higher minimum raise. I condemn companies who don't let their employees work enough hours so that they wont qualify for benefits.
People like Walmart owners should be ashamed of themselves. they don't pay their employees enough money so we and up paying for all these programs to help them. And meanwhile the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and you have all these conservatives who are asking why these poor people don;t pull themselves out by the bootstraps? Are they lazy or what? No, they are not lazy, they just can't pull themselves up by the bootstraps because these time are long gone. because you need 2.5 full time jobs at minimum wage to afford rent and so on and there's only 24 hrs in a day and what do you want them to do? Work themselves to death? Not even that will make their life easier.
Please don't assume that all conservatives think that way. I don't. I see your point that companies are undercutting wages via temp agencies, staffing agencies, H1Bs, H2B, illegals, OPT, DACA, offshoring, and requirements creep (requiring more and more just to get the job that pays the same or less than it did in the past despite demanding more of the worker), personality tests, credit checks, even demanding previous wages and social security numbers. And blocking felons from working again due to "crime checks" on applications then complaining that all they are is crooks and should rot in jail (Gee, I wonder what hope do they have when you block their only point to getting back on track. It's Les Miserables in modern times!)
And, worst of all, with those people on dependency, the liberals then offer to be their "savior" in exchange for their votes. Of course, much like the corporatists, the liberal government types don't want an independent middle class either as it would cut their power, so they also make sure that they make "little more than enough to get by". Just enough to keep voting for you but never enough to be well enough to not need the programs (and hence, perhaps, give the votes) anymore.
So it's actually against the best interest of the conservatives to turn a blind eye to these outrages.
Now one moment. Those "Working poor" are also responsible for their issues. We all know that having kids when you really can't afford them happens often, but it's a mistake that can be avoided. Why they refuse to "Keep it zipped" or use contraceptives is beyond me.
But should a business pay for their mistakes?
I'm torn on that one. On the one hand, I've heard the stories of people who abuse the system to have multiple kids by many different people. On the other, if taking your advice to the full, we could end up with a situation where only an elite upper class could be "allowed" to have kids as conditions get worse for the rest of us, leading to a self-imposed sinister form of population control by the elites on us.
Those "Working poor" are also responsible for their issues.
But somehow the CEOs and executives who treat the companies as their personal piggy banks, watching ticker symbols all day instead of thinking long term, are not to blame?
These brass make mistakes and the solution is layoffs, stagnating salaries, and cuts in benefits to the rank and file. But never, ever, cut their bonus checks.
Upper management is not responsible for anything. Put all the blame on the rank and file.
But somehow the CEOs and executives who treat the companies as their personal piggy banks, watching ticker symbols all day instead of thinking long term, are not to blame?
These brass make mistakes and the solution is layoffs, stagnating salaries, and cuts in benefits to the rank and file. But never, ever, cut their bonus checks.
Upper management is not responsible for anything.
I'd have to agree with that one. I heard that Toys R Us, when going under, laid off a ton of their workers but made sure that their new leadership got a big fancy raise (Golden Parachute).
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