Circuit City is laying off 3400 workers it believes are over paid. Then they will rehire for the same positions and pay less. They expect to have plenty of applicants. Some may even know something about electronics!
What does it mean?
It wasn’t exactly the “shot heard ’round the world” but it signals publicly what everyone has long known in their “gut”… that the days when you could “start at the bottom and work to the top” are long dead.
But even worse is the cynical revelation that while that noble aspiration was ingrained in a generation or more of American workers, today’s employers simply manipulate it to their own ends – wagering that their workers still believe the myth themselves and will keep on slaving away, hoping for a “raise” that will never come.
It was one thing to keep slaving away for a raise that would never come.
Now the raises that did come are being taken away because there is no real reward for loyalty.
These employees who are “paid too much” got that way because their bosses at Circuit City approved their pay levels… but that was yesterday.
If the pay cuts were starting at the top and inflicted evenly that would be one thing. That would signal that Circult City had some class, but these are people being fired for the crime of “earning too much”, felonious “showing up for work” and nobody at the top is having to be accountable for their failures in creating the messed up system.
Here’s what the best companies do to remedy situations like this…
Got Plan B?
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