29 June 2016
Will Weyerhaeuser’s closures remove “golden handcuffs” from workers?
Flathead Beacon business columnist Mark Riffey thinks that might be the case for some of the Weyerhaeuser mill workers who are losing their jobs. Trying to put a positive gloss on the situation, and to encourage positive thinking, Riffey, neither an uncaring man nor an unprincipled defender of corporate evil, writes:
If you’re targeted for layoff, I’ll bet you have skills, experience and knowledge that you’ve taken for granted for years. They’ve become second nature to you. I could wake you up at 2:00 am and ask you something related to whatever you do or know and without having to think about it, you’d rattle off great advice about how to deal with it, fix it and/or do it.
This is an opportunity to take control, even though you probably don’t feel you have much of that right now. You might have a dream that was always delayed by the “golden handcuffs” of a long-term job. Can you pursue it now?
There is no better time than now to start your own business. There is no better motivation than to create some control over your family’s economic future. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be yours.
No, it won’t be easy. And in most cases, it won’t be possible. Cashing in one’s retirement benefits to underwrite an ill-considered business that will go bust in two years should not be encouraged, directly or indirectly. Responding to Riffey, I left this comment at the Beacon:
A 60-year-old high school dropout whose well paying mill job disappears probably doesn’t think of his new found freedom to seek work as a release from golden handcuffs. He may not have skills or knowledge he can use to replace his lost income. And he probably doesn’t appreciate the honor of being chosen to sacrifice his standard of living so that the corporation’s owners can prosper. Will he panic (become hysterical)? Probably not. But he may become very angry, not just at the corporation and its apologists, but angry at the whole world, for his future has just become a lot darker, poorer, and less hopeful.
Riffey’s column is not an apology for Weyerhaeuser or Plum Creek. He’s fully aware that changes were coming no matter what reassurances Weyerhaeuser offered (emphasis in the original):
It’s unrealistic, if not wishful thinking to believe that a company says that “closure of (your local) facilities isn’t planned” after buying out a massive competitor.
Columbia Falls knew better. We understand companies have to say those things. The officers have a responsibility to protect the company. That includes not inciting panic, drama or worse by telling staff in that area that “closures are possible but we don’t anticipate closing anything here”.
In this situation, a company’s thought process has to include something like “If we tell them what’s planned (or what we think will happen), people will leave (including some we want to stay), and those who stay will be distracted (or worse). The speculation will negatively impact the attitude and performance of the CFalls team.”
But is Riffey right that corporate officers have a responsibility to lie to the public — “The officers have a responsibility to protect the company. That includes not inciting panic, drama or worse by telling staff in that area that… — ‘closures are possible’” — to protect the company?
And is he right that telling the truth would incite “panic, drama or worse?”
Panic is hysteria, a level of fear that is not commensurate with an objective measure of the risk at hand. It’s the operative mechanism in terrorism. Suppose that when Weyerhaeuser bought Plum Creek, it had leveled with the public and said: “Our mill capacity exceeds our supply of sawlogs and peelers. We’re going to downsize to protect our profitability. That means we will close some facilities and reduce the size of our workforce.”
Why would Weyerhaeuser’s being honest about its intentions have surprised anyone, let alone have triggered a panic? Or “drama” (whatever the hell that means), or “worse” (also unspecified)?
People are better at assessing risk than their leaders like to admit. What their leaders really fear is not panic: it’s anger. When authorities, corporate, nonprofit, civil, or military, justify lies as necessary to prevent panic, what they’re really trying to avoid is accepting responsibility for their mistakes and to escape the wrath of those injured by their misbehavior.
What Riffey seems to consider an acceptable prevarication in the service of corporate profits strikes me as hardly distinguishable from a criminal conspiracy to conceal from the government and people facts necessary to protect the integrity of the economic and political system upon which Weyerhaeuser’s profitability depends. Therefore, Weyerhaeuser — and every other corporate entity — has a fiduciary responsibility to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, whether or not it is under oath. We should panic, in the figurative sense, not when the truth is told, but when it is concealed.