I've said for quite a while that companies have no morals - I absolutely agree with you on your points of companies being out to build increased stockholder equity. The 1st thing I was taught in business school was that that is the one and only reason to be in business - or the main reason. I choose to not agree, and if I owned a company would focus on building a company around the employees - I feel that a company exists as a way to enhance the lives of their employees - but in the 'real' world out there, it is not that way.

I truly believe that the only person you can change is the person you look at in the mirror. And that is the place to start. We can choose to complain and gripe, or to actually start doing something by starting with the way we live and treat others. If you are a business owner, you can choose the path you follow... you can be a leader by being a servant and make your employees better - and make your company successful like that. Or you can go out and try to screw everyone and run at low costs, etc. In the end, we all have one person to answer to... most people don't care about that.

-w-



>Hi Wayne,
>
>So Jet Blue stole a page from the dial-a-porn industry. Good for them.
>
>What it really comes down to, no matter how you slice it, is exploitation.
>Jet Blue (or whoever) used a large excess of pilots needing jobs to cut wages, change work conditions and get them to agree never to unionize. They have people do call-centre work from home to save office space and office overheads and also gain that a distributed work force is less likely to ever consolidate to have force in numbers.
>
>Wal-Mart takes pride in having no unions and in paying wages 50-60 percent of similar unionized shops. And the stock market rewards Wal-Mart with high praise and high stock prices.
>
>A rough translation of that is 'horray Wal-Mart, go ahead and keep screwing society in the name of more profit for your shareholders!'.
>
>"Efficiency" has absolutely NO REGARD for society and its pressures. "Efficiency" has regard only for maximum profis with minimum outlay and to hell with any impact anywhere EXCEPT on themselves.
>
>Our society is bigger than that! "Efficiency" is not really efficiency at all, but rather costs displacement, when it reaches the state that it has reached here now.
>You can argue that the Jet Blue pilots now have work again. And that's true. But now they don't buy things as often as before, their children's schooling is in jeopardy, and they all now frequent Wal-Mart for their needs. How anyone can view that as 'progress' or as having any goodness at all is way beyond me.
>
>It's time to get things back on track a put "societal efficiency" to the head of the priority list.
>
>regards
>
>
>>One thing I have read about Jet Blue that could be an answer to some of your questions is how their call center works. They actually do not have a true call center - instead, they have workers in their homes connected via vpn, etc. They do not actually have a physical location for a call center. Pretty ingenious in my opinion.
>>
>>From what I recall, they save a lot of money in overhead, etc and have very happy employees because they are able to work in a much more comfortable setting and can have much more flexible schedules. The idea has been adopted by some call center companies that furnish their services - it could be a great option to sending work overseas.
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>That Jet Blue or West Jet has cut costs drastically by staving off unions and by having pilots/attendants clean up cabin garbage and vacuum the carpeting and anyone doing whatever job is at hand offers an admirable model for profits by paring costs to the bone. But what the hell does it offer for society????