09.04.07
Toward A Manifesto For Labor Day
I went to work today, but there was a power outage, so I left. When you work with servers and networks and VPNs, you are not going to get much done if nothing runs.
I was thinking about why we celebrate Labor Day. A century or two ago, there were no protections. Industrial age factories sprung up, led by men who would do anything to make more money, or so it seems. Labor built this country, and skilled, intelligent labor, enabled the “robber barons” who owned and ran the factories to quickly build unprecedented fortunes. See the MSN Encarta article about the industrial age.
Remember the child labor that we like to chide third world countries about? We had children working full days in dangerous jobs without safety equipment here.
Thanks to the labor movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, much of that kind of abusive mistreatment has been banished from our shores. Wage increases and benefits raised the standard of living for the common person, which is true economic growth.
My question today is how do we prevent it from coming back? As employee wages stagnate and skilled technical jobs move overseas where people will work for quite a bit less than local residents can afford to work, how do we prevent our corporations from becoming bless-me clubs for CEOs?
CNN/Money reported that CEOs make 364 times more than workers. It is a fascinating article, because it shows pretty clearly that our rewards are skewed. Fund-shufflers are even more highly paid than CEOs, according to the article.
I believe that the obscene compensation at the top of corporations could not happen if our smaller businesses were a stronger and more influential part of the economy. It is time for smaller businesses to look at large companies in our localities and determine how we can beat them. When small locally-owned businesses (SLOBs) and Owner-Managed Businesses (OMBs) are regularly beating their larger out-of-the area competitors for sales and contracts, and on issues of local significance, suddenly, those larger out-of-the-area competitors will have to cut pay at the very top, because they will not be able to squeeze their laborers any further.
SLOBs and OMBs are the hope for American business, for communities all over the country, and for the individuals in each community that need jobs that won’t turn tail and run the first time that sales go down in an area. SLOBs and OMBs do not get the $1 land contracts, because they do not promise to produce 500 minimum wage jobs (and cause the loss of 350 fairly decent-paying jobs in the process). SLOBs and OMBs also tend not to suck money from towns and cities all over the country into a headquarters building that is quite remote from most of the field locations.
Let us make it clear: if America wants its employees to be fairly compensated, then America needs to focus on building and strengthening the small businesses that will do the job. As this happens, however, small business owners need to be aware that it is not “your” business as much as it is “your community’s business” held in trust by you. In times of profit, don’t be afraid to throw in bonuses for your employees and contributions to community-based non-profits. In times of hardship, don’t be afraid to sacrifice and to ask your employees and community to join you in sacrifice.
America is a mess. Corporations helped put us in this condition. Small, locally-owned businesses and owner-managed businesses can help every community to develop its own solutions that work for that community.
