I got axed in this round of layoffs, and yes, my life is changing, it’s scary, ima stressed out, angry and everything, but I can’t say I didn’t see this coming. I have no illusions. Corporations only understand the language of money and the balance between profit and loss. So, to think that we are anything more than a cell in an excel sheet is being naive and buying their kool-aid.
Companies go where it’s cheaper and jump at the opportunity to produce more value with less cost. As disgusting, immoral, or inhumane as that may be, that’s the way they operate and the wider picture is that they do all this because the law allows them to, so basically the fact that these cut were even possible to perform in this manner is a political issue. The lawmakers know very well what the companies are doing, that there are ways to get around the WARN act, or that there are ways to cover age discrimination buy “throwing in” a couple of younger employees. I don’t mean to start a political debate, much less talking about various political options or start a union-non-union debate, but the fact is that they did this because our lawmakers allowed them to, by having”blind eyes” to outdated and unfair labor law solutions. Europe has large, greedy corporations as well, but it’s much hard to lay people off by going around the worker rights. Today it’s GM, tomorrow another company, but the principle is the same.