Here is a notion we should get rid of:
the notion that our employer should take care of us.
The idea may be very old; perhaps as old as kings and their servants.
Even there, one might question how well kings cared for their serfs.
In our own history, prime examples of how the idea used to work
can be found in the automotive industry, or in steel mills.
Jobs were often life-long, if the work did not kill you.
Sometimes the company even owned the town and the houses
its employees lived in. As unions gained strength, employers
established pension programs, the unions bargained for job security
and, later, for health care programs partially of fully funded
by the employer. Fathers schemed to get their kids jobs
at the steel mill, or at the automotive plant, because it was for life.
There were even death benefits, and paid funeral expenses.
The steel mills closed. The clothing mills closed.
The automobile companies went bankrupt.
The basis for the economy shifted from manufacturing
to service, and to new economies such as information technologies.
When the steel mills closed, Gary, Indiana's skies lost
their orange color and the young people moved away.
When the automobile companies began to face bankruptcies,
plants were closed, long-term employees were laid off,
the oldest ones first in order to avoid pension obligations.
The cost of providing health care became an enormous burden.
Gary, Indiana is the result. Detroit, Michigan is the result.
Emergency room family care is the result. Unemployment
payments began, and ended almost as soon as they started.
We need to give up the notion that our employers should take care of us.
They cannot. Most employers have enough problems just trying
to cope with the changing nature of the economy. The competition
is worldwide. End of job security, health care, and of company pensions!
Maybe you are OK if you are a tenured professor in a good university.
Maybe you are OK working for an oil company (for a while yet).
What this means is that we need to rethink how we provide employment,
how we educate for a dynamic and perhaps shaky economy, how we
provide health care, pensions, social security, and education.
Health care and retirement support, for instance, ought to be
a social responsibility. Everybody who can be educated needs a good school.
Everybody should have health care, not just because it is simply decency,
but because without it we spend insane amounts of money to patch the system.
The sources of income to do this have to be a societal responsibility,
not just benefits wrestled from the largest, most successful employers.
It does not mean that oil companies will not support health care for the nation:
it means that they, and everybody else should pay a sensible and reasonable
amount to support health care for everybody.
When there are seismic shifts in the economy, it is not a problem
just for the automobile companies, or the woolen mills. It means
that we have to adjust how we are doing things; how we pay for them.
There is no magic, paternalistic, invisible hand governing things.
It takes hard work, hard thinking, real changes, and most of all,
ridding ourselves of some notions that never were a good idea.
Employer paternalism, for instance.
the notion that our employer should take care of us.
The idea may be very old; perhaps as old as kings and their servants.
Even there, one might question how well kings cared for their serfs.
In our own history, prime examples of how the idea used to work
can be found in the automotive industry, or in steel mills.
Jobs were often life-long, if the work did not kill you.
Sometimes the company even owned the town and the houses
its employees lived in. As unions gained strength, employers
established pension programs, the unions bargained for job security
and, later, for health care programs partially of fully funded
by the employer. Fathers schemed to get their kids jobs
at the steel mill, or at the automotive plant, because it was for life.
There were even death benefits, and paid funeral expenses.
The steel mills closed. The clothing mills closed.
The automobile companies went bankrupt.
The basis for the economy shifted from manufacturing
to service, and to new economies such as information technologies.
When the steel mills closed, Gary, Indiana's skies lost
their orange color and the young people moved away.
When the automobile companies began to face bankruptcies,
plants were closed, long-term employees were laid off,
the oldest ones first in order to avoid pension obligations.
The cost of providing health care became an enormous burden.
Gary, Indiana is the result. Detroit, Michigan is the result.
Emergency room family care is the result. Unemployment
payments began, and ended almost as soon as they started.
We need to give up the notion that our employers should take care of us.
They cannot. Most employers have enough problems just trying
to cope with the changing nature of the economy. The competition
is worldwide. End of job security, health care, and of company pensions!
Maybe you are OK if you are a tenured professor in a good university.
Maybe you are OK working for an oil company (for a while yet).
What this means is that we need to rethink how we provide employment,
how we educate for a dynamic and perhaps shaky economy, how we
provide health care, pensions, social security, and education.
Health care and retirement support, for instance, ought to be
a social responsibility. Everybody who can be educated needs a good school.
Everybody should have health care, not just because it is simply decency,
but because without it we spend insane amounts of money to patch the system.
The sources of income to do this have to be a societal responsibility,
not just benefits wrestled from the largest, most successful employers.
It does not mean that oil companies will not support health care for the nation:
it means that they, and everybody else should pay a sensible and reasonable
amount to support health care for everybody.
When there are seismic shifts in the economy, it is not a problem
just for the automobile companies, or the woolen mills. It means
that we have to adjust how we are doing things; how we pay for them.
There is no magic, paternalistic, invisible hand governing things.
It takes hard work, hard thinking, real changes, and most of all,
ridding ourselves of some notions that never were a good idea.
Employer paternalism, for instance.
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