{"id":538,"date":"2002-02-06T21:14:21","date_gmt":"2002-02-06T21:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.department99.com\/bobamter\/?p=538"},"modified":"2012-08-29T18:51:32","modified_gmt":"2012-08-29T18:51:32","slug":"managing-the-firestone-debacle-vs-%e2%80%9cbest-companies-to-work-for%e2%80%9d-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/?p=538","title":{"rendered":"Managing & The Firestone Debacle vs. \u201cBest Companies to Work For\u201d Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wall Street Journal’s<\/a><\/em> January 10, 2002 article\u00a0“Hidden Cost of Labor Strife”<\/a><\/em> describes how incorrectly reducing labor costs results in higher operating costs.<\/p>\n

A Fortune<\/a> magazine article cites examples of correctly reducing costs in difficult times and have employees support your decisions, be sympathetic and helpful.<\/p>\n

At Emerson Electric Co., we never had employees be sympathetic and helpful when we sought wage cuts, job rule changes or downsizing.\u00a0 However we never encountered labor strife and rarely a strike. \u00a0Although Chuck Knight was an angry, confrontational CEO with his officers, he was very reasonable and fair with lower level salaried and hourly employees.<\/p>\n

As a result, we never offered harsh and unreasonable terms in any negotiation.\u00a0 We were trained to manage with a union including candid, frequent communication.\u00a0 We stopped trying to decertify unions essentially because of the poor return on investment.\u00a0 If the union chose to strike, we had built a strike hedge and organized non-union employees to staff the plant.\u00a0 We never lost a strike.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal article is based on the findings of two Princeton University professors. Firestone Tire offered harsh, one-sided rule changes, wage cuts with new 12-hour shifts in an effort to reduce its Decatur, IL costs.\u00a0 They defeated the strike.\u00a0 Workers were forced to return to work and accept the new terms.\u00a0 As a result, this plant produced the bulk of the defective tires that resulted in 40 deaths.<\/p>\n

The Fortune article cites the reasons companies are rated\u00a0\u201cBest to Work For\u201d<\/em>:<\/p>\n

(1) Employees are treated with dignity and respect.<\/p>\n

(2) The CEO is personable and uses \u201crandom walk\u201d<\/em><\/strong> to talk to employees informally.\u00a0 Employees said they want to see the CEO, touch him and talk to him.<\/p>\n

(3) Knowing what is going on in the company and how it is doing.\u00a0 The reasons for decisions.\u00a0 Communicating the why for a downsizing and the alternatives.<\/p>\n

(4) In bad times management and employees are treated the same.<\/p>\n

(5) All of which leads to \u201ctrust\u201d<\/em><\/strong> of management, an important factor.<\/p>\n

(6) Money or salary was not a prime factor.<\/p>\n

Interestingly terminated employees in a downsizing within these Best to Work for Companies were often understanding and productive while working their last day on the job.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly companies considered by employees to be the\u00a0\u201cBest To Work For\u201d<\/em> companies tend to be best performers.<\/p>\n

See Fortune\u2019s February 4, 2002 magazine article\u00a0“100 Best Companies to Work For”<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The The Wall Street Journal’s January 10, 2002 article “Hidden Cost of Labor Strife” describes how incorrectly reducing labor costs results in higher operating costs.<\/p>\n

A Fortune magazine article cites examples of correctly reducing costs in difficult times and have employees support your decisions, be sympathetic and helpful.<\/p>\n

At Emerson Electric, we never had employees be sympathetic and helpful when we sought wage cuts, job rule changes or downsizing.\u00a0 However we never encountered labor strife and rarely a strike.\u00a0 Chuck Knight was an angry, confrontational CEO with his officers.\u00a0 But he was very reasonable and fair with lower level salaried and hourly employees.<\/p>\n

As a result, we never offered harsh and unreasonable terms in any negotiation.\u00a0 We were trained to manage with a union including candid, frequent communication.\u00a0 We stopped trying to decertify unions essentially because of the poor return on investment.\u00a0 If the union chose to strike, we had built a strike hedge and organized non-union employees to staff the plant.\u00a0 We never lost a strike.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal article is based on the findings of two Princeton University professors. Firestone Tire offered harsh, one-sided rule changes, wage cuts with new 12-hour shifts in an effort to reduce its Decatur, IL costs.\u00a0 They defeated the strike.\u00a0 Workers were forced to return to work and accept the new terms.\u00a0 As a result, this plant produced the bulk of the defective tires that resulted in 40 deaths.<\/p>\n

The Fortune article cites the reasons companies are rated \u201cBest to Work For\u201d: (1) Employees are treated with dignity and respect, (2) The CEO is personable and uses \u201crandom walk\u201d<\/em><\/strong> to talk to employees informally.\u00a0 Employees said they want to see the CEO, touch him and talk to him, (3) Knowing what is going on in the company and how it is doing.\u00a0 The reasons for decisions.\u00a0 Communicating the why for a downsizing and the alternatives. (4) In bad times management and employees are treated the same. (5) All of which leads to \u201ctrust\u201d<\/em><\/strong> of management, an important factor. (6) Money or salary was not a prime factor.<\/p>\n

Interestingly terminated employees in a downsizing within these Best to Work for Companies were often understanding and productive while working their last day on the job.<\/p>\n

Companies considered by employees to be the \u201cBest To Work For\u201d companies tend to be best performers.<\/p>\n

See Fortune\u2019s February 4, 2002 magazine article “100 Best Companies to Work For”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The Wall Street Journal’s January 10, 2002 article\u00a0“Hidden Cost of Labor Strife” describes how incorrectly reducing labor costs results in higher operating costs. A Fortune magazine article cites examples of correctly reducing costs in difficult times and have employees support your decisions, be sympathetic and helpful. At Emerson Electric Co., we never had employees be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,44,36,20,14,16],"tags":[237,95,93,94],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-companies-to-work-for","category-blog","category-books","category-business-failure","category-ceos","category-manufacturing","tag-best-companies-to-work-for","tag-labor","tag-managing","tag-union-and-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":981,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions\/981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bobamter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}