Dear Barack Obama,

[Writer]

How about we take a look at the rampant habit of large companies and corporations to layoff workers in order to reduce operating expenses? My husband has been under a layoff threat for the last ten years - since we've graduated from college, by the way - and it hasn't stopped. How are we supposed to get ahead, or even survive, when every year (I'm not exaggerating) a company announces layoffs as a means to satisfy poor performances (en lieu of improving sales, improving products, or reducing salaries of the CEO)? Layoffs should be the LAST RESORT of a company or corporation facing a dire business situation.

So if I can forward a suggestion to you, Sen. Obama, it is that we push through heavy tax penalties on corporations who layoff a certain percentage of their workforce. Layoffs need to become taboo means through which a company or corporation can sustain itself. Otherwise, we will continually face an uneven economy with a widening class gap. In fact, capitalism cannot function when people are not working - we need government intercession in order to save capitalism from its nefarious self.

So, Sen. Obama, what do you say? How about we start making companies and corporations pay for crippling the economy by stripping workers of their means to survive? It's time to introduce a little humanity in our market system.


Sincerely,

~Writer~

[Youphemism]

1. Do you have a suggestion for how to do this...

...without driving those big companies to hire contract and independent labor instead of maintaining a workforce?

I'm sympathetic to the problem, but I see companies finding a way around a tax system... And if they didn't, a company hurting enough to have layoffs might be driven out of business by a tax penalty -- which would eliminate even more of those jobs.

Any thoughts on how to avoid those issues?

[Writer]

2. Let's make sure this includes contractors... I don't know about independent labor.

If one freelances there is little the worker can do. But a contractor works under a contract, and those people should be subject to the same law, if a corporation lays off the worker before the end of his or her contract.

((I'm not an economist!))

[SwampG8r]

3. i wish there was some way

to regulate the payoffs the ceo's get
i see guys running good companies into the crapper and making a fortune doing it
maybe sec regulations

and go here i was talking about you
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6387852

[Writer]

4. No kidding.

So my husband and I are packing our house, getting ready to move closer to work and my school. He happens to mention to me that he doesn't know whether he'll have a job in a couple of months (!). Note that he got laid off in Dec. '06 after ten years with his first company. He's been with his current for just over a year, and now again? These are very large corporations and he is a white collar worker. He's also highly skilled and specialized. And we have been going through layoff threat after layoff threat for the last ten years. There's always that constant, ebbing fear that the axe is hovering above our heads. How can people live like this? Our age group (30's) has seen nothing but one economic downturn after another, and now they're pointing out that our age group is not saving and not prepared for retirement? Well take a sniff, Sherlock, because the stink isn't that difficult to decipher.

Mr. Writer later told me that he thinks he's safe, but he said that before the last time he got a pink slip.

Corporations need to be held accountable.

[SwampG8r]

8. we are lucky

mrs swampg8r is a midwife and nurse practitioner and i am now the grill chef at the restaurant i work in

i get em in the mood and she brings the bacon home lol

[Writer]

11. Medical professions are IT as the nation ages.

That's a fact. And especially since she's a nurse practitioner. Very lucrative.

Unfortunately we all don't work in the medical industry, however.

[SwampG8r]

15. she rubs it in my face

that she has seen more naked women than i ever will
even if i moved into a strip club

[AlCzervik]

5. And how about manufacturing things again in this country? that would be awesome

and then my husband would actually be home instead of being gone 250 a days a year, i would really like to see nafta go away.

[Writer]

6. Yes! We need to start using our hands again in the United States. n/t

[SwampG8r]

10. totally agree

the loss of manufacturing at a time when china and india will be screaming for goods is crazy

[mrreowwr_kittty]

7. Unions!

There needs to be a massive resurgence in the labor movement. This needs to happen at the local level as much as the national. If you guys live in a Right To Work (AKA Right To Be F*%ked By Your Employer) state, you are learning how little you matter. Even in states with better collective bargaining laws, unions are under attack.

There's only so much Obama can do. We need to fight for unions and worker protections at the local and state levels, because that's where a lot of the erosions have happened.

[Writer]

9. Indeed! Workers need to stop blogging and start walking the streets.

If we claim we're part of a movement, we need to act like it. We need to toss aside the language of capitalism (money = power) and replace it with the language of democracy (people = power).

[SwampG8r]

12. florida

my home state is right to work
that means
if you act right
they will let you work

[mrreowwr_kittty]

14. Same thing here in AZ.

But the good news is that the few unions we have are gaining membership like crazy the past 2 years. Seems like every week a supermarket or hotel chain is unionizing. That's pretty impressive, considering how hostile the environment is here. That means that workers are deciding on their own that being in a union is a good idea.

[StrongBad]

13. Bad Idea. Would result in massive economic inefficiency.

Like it or not, the sole objective of a business is to make a profit by making revenue exceed production costs. The failure to accomplish this basic goal would cause an enterprise to collapse because it would no long be able to sustain future production.

If you take away a business owner's ability to reduce costs by cutting labor, you are basically enabling the collapse of an entity that employs a substantial amount of people.

In a sudden short term crisis, sometimes the only option a business has to stay in business is to cut its labor force. To penalize that economic decision would greatly undermine economic efficiency.

It is because of this necessary drive for profit (which is incompatible with economic justice) that liberal capitalists argue for the existence of a social safety net. It is to smooth out the necessary downturns in the natural business cycle.

Resources would be better used investing in social welfare and better infrastructure.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

16. Okay, but at the same time the plutocrats are pushing to privatize everything.

Including the safety net. Which means it won't be a safety net anymore. Also, they don't want to pay the taxes necessary to maintain social welfare and infrastructure. So they get no penalty for cutting the labor force AND generous tax breaks. They even manage to extract tax breaks and subsidies from local communities by promising to provide jobs, which they then cut when it becomes expedient to do so. WalMart is famous for doing that. They extort local communities for tax abatements and TIFs, while driving small businesses out. Then when those communities start making noises about being reimbursed for Medicaid and other services (because they don't give workers benefits) they pull out and leave the workers and the community hanging.

[StrongBad]

17. True, they are wanting to privatize everything...

...but it would be much easier, politically speaking, to legislate a more progressive tax structure then trying to legislate sanctions on businesses that are doing what need to be done to stay afloat.

In addition, there is great irony in the fact that the businesses that will be most effected and hurt by this proposal are the small to medium sized businesses. They have much smaller operating margins than the big guys.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

18. Very true about the small biz's

I bang my head against the wall with the small biz association in my state. They've been convinced to go along with the GOP/Club For Growth agenda, despite the fact that everything they stand for is in direct opposition to their best interest. It's so frustrating. Take health care: A single payer system would be a boon to small local companies but they buy into the b.s. that the insurance industry tells them at their luncheons. I could go on with other examples about tax breaks, bond issues, grants, etc.
It's no use. :banghead: