Corporate Suicide: Employees Assets or Liabilities?

After an eye-opening experience at the hands of a big box retailer for whom I had been employed for the past two weeks assisting them with a move into larger, more spacious digs at an area strip mall, it occurred to me that there seems to be mass corporate delusion in this country insofar as why we are where we are economically.

We have large, national retail corporations which somehow have gotten the idea that their employees, the faces which serve the public in most instances, are instead of an asset, actually more of a liability...or profit generator...

Or at least one of their expenses which bears scrutiny and continual monitoring...

If you haven't heard of the TALX forms (as in "talks"), you might want to look it up, along with the FTC complaint which was filed against them and a NY Times article dedicated to their agendas when employees are terminated or laid off.

They have been retained by many Fortune 500 companies whose sole purpose is to drag out and/or deny outright employee claims for unemployment compensation.

At most companies, you are requested to fill out and "consent" to a screening by their representatives of your personal history, employment history, and each and every dollar you may be receiving for public assistance both prior to employment, or thereafter if your employment is terminated for any reason whatsoever.

A third party contractor, as it were, so that you are forced to deal with them through the unemployment offices, rather than the company directly.

Which scenario can and appears does lead to the "whose on first" game during those unemployment interviews or hearings.

So far, several states have now made moves to curtail their activities but many have not. But this is a booming industry and business in this bust economy, to be sure.

Below you will find the links.

As one who worked in the labor/employment law field for many, many years and for probably the foremost labor law attorney in the nation (who was responsible for counseling Wal-Mart stores management through his retirement, eventually sitting on the Board of Directors), I certainly can see where this might be appealing to many national chains.

After all, there are quite a few fraudulent unemployment claims; however, for every ten there is the one employee who ends up living on the street while this process works it way through the unemployment review process.

And one in which it clearly takes a lawyer in order to assist such an employee, which of course then reduces his benefit amounts considerably. Or leaves him dependent on relatives for his day to day living, or out on the street until the conclusion of the government "process."

But maybe that is the point.

Each and every government office that denies claims or benefits from unemployment, or social security, Medicare, or whatever does so with the caveat "you can always hire a lawyer."

If you can find one for those minor claims but claims that mean the difference between life and...you know...

I know that during my tenure in the field of labor/employment law, this was not the case...

In fact, my boss treated me with the utmost respect, and listened to my point of view on many matters as an employee...

He, in fact, counseled that the employees were an employers greatest asset, and that in order to develop a loyal and dedicated workforce you did need to make the effort to treat them with both respect, and compensate them adequately for time worked - whether in the form of direct compensation, or "shares" of the profits of the company - for those lower paying positions also.

Reducing the "golden parachutes" as it were for top level management, and instead using those sums to compensate the "boots on the ground" at the store levels.

And All the way to the lowly janitor (or sanitation superintendent).

Profit sharing has gone the way of the dinosaur, although in order to feel any type of "ownership" of your job and the company, that clearly is the route that develops the best workforce.

401(k) plans and pensions don't have a direct impact on performance, or "ownership" status.

Sam Walton understood that, at least during those early years.

Before the banks and politicians got involved.

In fact, most of those early Wal-Mart employees became multi-millionaires as Wal-Mart grew and expanded throughout the country from its roots as a rather small, family run business in Bentonville, Arkansas.

And this entire debate over health insurance also has its spins with employers begging for "relief" from those huge health care costs.

Funny, though, in all my years of employment it really was I, not the employer, that paid those premiums for the most part. If not for my own, definitely for any dependent or spousal coverage I might need.

I got a better rate due to the "group" plans I was under, but still paid nonetheless.

So there was little out of pocket expense to those employers.

It really is the small businessmen that need that relief, those with few employees, and I just wonder why the small business administration or private sector isn't offering low cost health insurance to small business owners as part of their coverages and "mission."

That certainly would be one solution to the amount of uninsured we now have.

Along with bringing back those charity hospitals that were built with donations, (many of which have progressively been "privatized" after being built with donations or taxpayer grant monies and sums) or those community health hospitals built with all those property taxes back in the 60's and 70's.

There were earmarked sums on my property tax bills for those hospital costs, believe me, for over twenty years at the county level.

It seems to me that the corporate mentality is that employees are just another "fixture" or method in which to up corporate profits, with all the company tshirts that are sold (at their cost) or those covered parking fees...or gym memberships...

At least for the low to mid level employees.

I wonder, do they even consider just why it is that employee unions came into being to begin with?

Could it be that those sweatshops of the past which have disappeared for the most part here, are being used by modern day corporate America in China and Mexico instead as a thumb in the nose to the American workers?

Surely, that cannot be the case...

Or could it?

No wonder those ballyhooed reports on the number of unemployment claims are now hitting the papers and getting lower (artificially, of course)...this is, after all, a BOOM industry - outsourcing "managing" unemployment claims defense to third party (corporate) subcontractors.

By the way, all these articles are easily searchable and in the public domain, but I have included the links just to educate yourself while looking for those few, very few, jobs that are around in most states throughout the nation at this time....

The workplace certainly HAS changed....but is this a positive change, I wonder?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/us/04talx.html?pagewanted=2
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/07/talx.shtm


And here is an article on a Chinese manufacturing plant that highlights some of the points made in this article about just how this outsourcing is killing both the U.S. economy, and undermining the American workforce...at the cost of the many, for the benefit of the few...there IS a middle ground, and Constitutional remedies if Washington would only "rewind."

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/apple-sweatshop-problem-16-hour-days-70-cents-172800495.html

The Downside To Government Provided Health Care: Not Just More Taxes

Last week Barack Obama called leaders of the insurance industry, pharmaceutical companies and labor organizations for a pow-wow regarding one of his fundamental quests as stated during his campaign: health care reform.

Although these three industries are not in any way directly tied to patient care and delivery, it appears Mr. Obama is playing diplomat with this issue and appeaser with these industry leeches in order that they don't lose a piece of their pie under any anticipated governmental program.

Under Obama's plan, it is estimated that approximately 119 million Americans would shift from private insurance to the governmental plan, putting America on the path toward a completely government run socialized health care system. This, of course, would not sit well with the private insurance carriers who would stand to not only lose business, but their very shirts and the jobs of many who are currently hawking those policies to private businesses and individuals.

The pharmaceutical industry, of course, is quite concerned because under any government plan generics and other effective lower cost drugs (think penicillin and cheaper antibiotics) on which there isn't as much profit would most likely be the preferred and "authorized" treatment with Uncle Sam picking up the tab.

Many of those drug company representatives peddling their "new and improved" wares to doctors would also lose their jobs in the process, and a few of those free bonus trips, and the physicans and health care providers a few holiday gifts.

The unions earned their seat at the appeasement table due to the fact that any government plan would impact Big Labor and their own health care plans which have their administrative mark ups also built in which would, most likely, be negotiated away during the next collective bargaining session.

Mr. Obama during his campaigns assured the American people that the governmental plan he was proposing would simply be an "alternate," with Americans then able to make a choice between the government plan or retaining their own private carriers.

What was left unsaid, however, is that most private insurance is not bought by individuals in this country, but by their Big Business employers. Employers who have shareholders to answer to, and are now facing economic woes of their own throughout many major industries due to this Washington precipitated economic meltdown.

Just how long do you think those employers will keep those group plans once the government plan undercuts them?

What also was left unsaid is that the Obama plan also intends to parent America's children and youth, and mandate that parents must insure their children and themselves, and also feed Washington in providing fines and fees for non-compliance.

In other words, another non-consensual tax in the making that, if Medicare and Medicaid are any indication, will be used for other "discretionary" purposes and be an unaccountable bottomless pit of taxation.

I look for this scenario to go one of two ways:

(1) Mr. Obama will continue in his role as appeaser to all with the exception of Joe Citizen, and will attempt to placate the union bosses and fat cat pharmaceutical executives and insurers by cutting back his legislation to be a bare bones "emergency treatment" policy, with the intent not to totally "socialize" health care in this country but afford Americans then to visit their local insurance agent and sign up for supplemental coverage.

Sort of like Plan A or B supplements for the seniors, only privately obtained. And those supplemental plans will be also subject to increasing costs based upon claims as with the plans now offered, with the government plan as "primary," which will not kick in unless and until you have used the government benefits first, with the insurance industry then able to use the government as the scapegoat for denied treatments.

(2) Or Mr. Obama and Congress in the fine print of the bill will enter into public/private partnerships with the major insurance carriers in this country, and Big Labor privileges of adding in their profit and cut into the government contracts to the amounts which will be required to be withheld from employee/union member paychecks as "administration" fees, with the pharmaceutical industry perhaps being afforded longer patent rights for new medications retroactively and sums for promised grants for future research costs, especially since the embryonic stem cell bill now has been accorded them for their future profits also.

(NOTE: the patent for the original outrageously expensive drugs for AIDS which are used by and large still today expire in 2017, since litigation over ownership rights for the drugs began almost immediately after its "discovery" and have extended the patents on them already an additional 10 years since the patents don't begin until ownership is established, with two companies now sharing those profits since the case was subsequently settled in the early 90's).

The lives of Americans, and especially the large baby boomer generation, are now being bargained for between the insurers, pharmaceutical industries, and big labor.

And I wonder just what recourse will be included for citizens if denied treatment, or if there are any delays or negligence in the care received by government employed physicians and hospitals? What kind of shell game then might Americans face in attempting to redress those grievances between the bureaucrats, insurers, big labor and pharmaceutical companies playing "Whose on first?"

Another take:

http://www.getbetterhealth.com/tag/galen-institute

Gee, I wonder if in this instance as in others whether following our Constitution might be a better idea, and break up the "associations" of these large industries in order to facilitate a truly free market once again, and get Big Labor out of the insurance and health care business which they had no right to enter into in the first place.

Maybe simply beginning to perform their Constitutional function in regulating and overseeing both the type of plans sold at either federal or state levels depending on carrier customer base and home office location.

For accountability, then funding a centralized complaint department for the American citizens to utilize which might be a better useage of those stimulus monies instead of what is going to become another Lawyers Employment Act in its violation of citizens privacy rights with that concocted national health care database for citizens medical information for the feeder industries and states nefarious purposes in the interest of "public unsafety."

I foresee such a bureaucratic administrative nightmare in the end will result in eventually putting small business physicians and software providers out of work, and ultimately increase costs due to government fees and costs which will be tacked on to the patients bills in order utilize that huge mistake-in-the-making system to store and transfer patient records, even if the correct records get transferred. Just imagine the potential lawsuits for unauthorized, misused or incorrect information.

Maybe what we need to do here is step back a moment and look at the legal and "long view."

What a novel idea.