You go to work, do your job and go home. That should be all your employer expects out of you, right? It seems like companies are expecting more and more out of their employers all the time. Many people find themselves working more hours or being expected to be on call via cell phone or email almost 24 hours a day. We do more work to make up for the work that had been done by our co-workers before they were laid off, not because the company had no other choice but because the company simply wanted to increase their profits.
Of course this just scratches the surface. We now live in a system seemingly based on the idea that the average person is just a resource to be used up and then discarded. When you are hired, or maybe rented is a better term these days, who do you go through? The human resources department. In economics resources are defined as the total means available to a company for increasing production or profit, including plant, labor, and raw material; assets. If you drive a truck for work you are looked at in the same way as your truck. Work on a computer? Run a cash register? Do you pack boxes in a warehouse? The company you work for thinks of you in the same way it thinks of that computer, the cash register, and the boxes. Once the computer is no longer of use to the company they might sell it to someone else. Maybe they can lower their costs by recycling damaged boxes, well guess what, they have also figured out a way to make money on you even after you are gone... dead and gone.
Deadpeasantinsurance.com documents the practice of businesses purchasing life insurance on their employees that pays out to the company when they die. If you click on the link above you can see a list of well known companies known to or suspected of buying life insurance on their employees. When the employee dies the insurance policy doesn't pay out to the employee's family, it pays out to the employer. From what I understand the employer can still collect on a policy even if the employee doesn't work for the company any longer, even if the employee was fired by the employer. I don't think I will be patronizing any of the companies on this list and the companies I no longer deal with will be receiving emails letting them know exactly why. I can't cause them any real damage with a personal boycott but maybe my emails will alert an employee to just what kind of company they are working for. We need to make it clear that we will no longer be happy just surviving while the companies we work for and our friends and family members work for grow and prosper and this is one easy way to get the ball rolling. The time has come to recognize the value of people in this country once again. We have to recognize that no one should be able to feast if it causes others to starve. There are many more of us than there are CEOs and Wall Street Bankers and our nations and its laws should work for all of us and not just a lucky few. Surely some of you agree.
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ReplyDeleteSorry I can't spell this morning.
ReplyDeleteHOLY CRAP! What in the world? Are the policies part of overall liability insurances so that if the employee dies at work, the company can pay up if they are sued? Makes sense for some of the more dangerous jobs - i.e. the power companies, LP (manufacturing), etc.
Oh and I don't blame Disney...you can't replace Tink! :)
no, these policies are written so that the company can make a profit off the death of the employee or ex-employee no matter where they die or when they die or how they die. In Michael Moore's film "Capitalism, a Love Story" Moore documents the story of a Wal-Mart employee who had left the company to be a stay at home mom and who died from complications from the asthma she had suffered from for years. Wal-Mart made tens of thousands of dollars from her death. Moore also documented the case of a man who worked for Amergy Bank. The man died of brain cancer and Amergy Bank made millions from the life insurance policy they took out on him without his knowledge or consent.
ReplyDeleteThis is an investment scheme, another source of revenue for the companies who take out the policies and has nothing to do with them trying to protect themselves from wrongful death or liability law suits. You see businesses exist only to make a profit, their moral barometer has nothing to do with right or wrong, only with profitable or not as in capitalism right and wrong directly equate with increasing and decreasing profits for the stockholders and owners. Capitalism demands that a class of poor people be maintained and exploited and the richer the upper class becomes the more poor people they need to maintain their lifestyles.
We have been brainwashed into thinking that wealth trickles down when in fact wealth only trickles up. All of the wealth in this country has been generated by the labor and the consumption of the poor who then receive the least benefit of the wealth they create if they receive any benefit at all. We have created a myth of the the self made man when in reality this person doesn't exist. Our best hope is the total destruction of the capitalist system. Don't confuse democracy and freedom with capitalism, did you get to vote to make Haliburton responsible for all of the things they have done in the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you get to vote on who becomes the CEO's of big companies like CitiBank and General Motors? The bailout of wall street was highly unpopular with the voters of this country but it passed anyway because wall street demanded it. We have to get rid of capitalism to regain our democracy and the only way to do this is to stand up for ourselves against the companies that try to keep us subservient to them. This means we have to change what, where, and how we buy things. We have to change how we relate to our employers, as individuals and as groups. We have to change how we vote. This country didn't just elect Obama, it elected him and the people he chose to appoint for his cabinet, some of whom previously had worked for the very industries they are now in charge of regulating. This must be stopped and we must demand that it be stopped. The company you work for doesn't do anything because it is a good company, it does what it does because it feels it is the best way to maximize profits. If that means you receive some benefit from its actions then good, if not, well the company doesn't really care. Slavery wasn't outlawed in the US, we just altered the rules slightly and renamed the owners.