Interesting discussion on BBC. Would you take a pay cut for the greater good?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/whys/

WHYS: 12 Dec 08 Would you take a pay cut for the greater good?
Airline workers in India, manufacturers in the UK, politicians and top managers in Singapore and actors in South Korea are all agreeing to cuts in their wages. Would you do the same? If YOUR job is safe, would you take a cut to save your colleagues?

[margotb822]

1. Yes, and

I'm in the military. I would also pay higher taxes if it meant funding health care and schools properly.

[shireen]

4. totally agree.

And i want health care and schools to be managed with efficiency, intelligence, and compassion.

[skeewee08]

2. Yes I would.

[shireen]

3. Absolutely, YES.

If it would keep my co-workers employed, absolutely yes. When we had lay-offs at my workplace a few years ago, I made that suggestion to my manager, that i was willing to take a pay cut if it meant saving jobs. It never happened.

Managers in general should be more sensitive to how their long-range plans for a company or institution affects their employees. I was devastated, a few years ago, when some people were laid-off. One year later, they were on a hiring binge. It's nuts.

EVERYTHING we do should, ultimately, be for the good of all people. But it does not work that way. It's done to benefit people with money and power. i HATE it.

[supernova]

6. Employers aren't interested

in a stable work force.

They would much rather have a more cowed workforce, a group who know they could be let go at anytime.

It's not about profitably, or long term planning (heaven forbid!), or even retaining worthwhile employees.

It's all about exercising power. It's all about employees KNOWING that the company is All Powerful (TM).

Having said all that, I wish your scenario were more common.

And yes, I'd take a decrease in take home pay to pay for better schools or universal health care, for example.

[SoCalNative]

5. Only after the execs and middle management did

and I mean the execs get NO bonuses, NO raises and work for $1 a year.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. The callers, both workers and management, generally agree with you.

[PVnRT]

13. That's the kicker

That has to come first, or fuck no, I'm not taking a pay cut.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. Of course. In my exerience, however this kind of act of goodwill is never rewarded.

[Maru Kitteh]

9. We support a household of three and my elderly mother on less than 27K

We're slashed to the bone here.

[ieoeja]

10. Sure. Unless I had been taking cut after cut after cut (like the UAW the past 30 years). n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. Oh yeah, not like the rest of us.

Only the UAW have had to make cuts. Everybody else is rolling in the dough.

[ieoeja]

22. And everyone will keep taking cuts until the workers stand up and say enough is enough.

Had there been any president willing to enforce the laws that protect labor during the past thirty years, the economy would not be in the mess it is now. The "housing bubble", "tightening credit", "auto collapse", etc are not causes, they are symptoms.

The cause is the loss of consumer income. Every time a corporation succeeded in driving down wages, they also succeeded in decreasing their pool of customers.

The UAW is 100% right and doing the single, best thing that can possibly turn this around. All those wanting Wal-Mart and China to set the "prevailing wage" are the fools who caused this in the first place.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

23. The cause is not the loss of consumer income.

The causes are poor lending practices and poor regulation of derivatives, exacerbating a naturally occuring recession. The presence or absence, and strength or lack of strength of unions doesn't have a damn thing to do with it. Find me one respected economist who supports your position.

[Blue Meany]

11. I've actually proposed this as a way of avoiding lay-offs

but those with seniority are not to keen on the idea.

[davsand]

14. Half of a loaf -V- None at all is the question here.

You may not be "full" on half a loaf but at least you are eating. A basic law of nature is that any animal dependent on another for survival will die if the "host" organism dies.


YMMV, but I'll work cheaper if it means I keep a job.




Laura

[JoePhilly]

15. Yes.

I've even asked to be removed from an award list so the people I lead would get more.

[JackRiddler]

16. This is propaganda preparation for pay cuts.

That's very nice - who wouldn't say they'd take a pay cut for the greater good?

Oh, the bankers and assorted whores of the higher bullshit industries (law, media, advertising, marketing, think tanks) who are largely responsible for economic crisis in the first place. They might say it, but in practice: they didn't do it. On the contrary, they burned the world so they could make billions (then, under pressure, a few of them made a show of taking lower salaries for a year in the course of imposing austerity on their workers).

What is the greater good? Who defines that?

Here is one of my definitions:

The "greater good" would be to achieve higher pay for the working classes, as well as unions, better working conditions, shorter hours, free education and full health coverage for all. That would include less cut-throat competition -- as when workers take pay cuts in competition with other workers, causing a race to the bottom -- and less pious bullshit about how "all must sacrifice" for a "greater good."

Therefore, no, I would not take a pay cut for the "greater good." Not as long as the Pentagon has a budget, or the bank-plunder criminals run around free.

[taught_me_patience]

17. No

And I wouldn't want anybody to take a pay cut so that my job could be saved.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. Just curious. Has anyone taken the time to listen to the program?

The replies, here, generally mirror the callers to the program.

[RedRocco]

19. hard to cut mine

min. wage, paid every 2 weeks. the second week I'm down to 1 meal a day

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. Been there, done that.

You have my sympathy. The CEOs take pay cut and skip the vacation to Bermuda.

An old French Socialist joke:

A tourist is visiting Paris and sees a cop arrest an old man who is going through the garbage looking for something to eat.

Tourist: "How unjust of you to arrest a poor old man who is just trying to find something to eat."

Cop: "Unjust? I assure you, Monsieur, that the laws in France are just. If a rich man were going through the garbage looking for food, I would arrest him."

[La Lioness Priyanka]

21. no. only because i barely make enough to get by. trust me, i am not exaggerating

hypothetically if i made enough money i would take a paycut

[MazeRat7]

24. I have and would do it again. n/t