In response to comments on my Boycott EMI post …

The whole issue has moved beyond nuance for me. To me, layoffs for the sake of profit margin … as opposed to bottom line survival … are inherently evil.

One of the companies I used to work for lays people off every time there’s a downturn. Then when things pick up they hire new people. The new people, not having earned raises and being under newer, leaner health plans and such, are cheaper than the ones that got dumped. A few years ago, the trend was that you could make more by switching companies — starting salaries were climbing faster than raises for existing personnel. That paradigm is dead.

And downsizing is done on every whim. The shareholders like to see the herd getting thinned, and that appearance is sometimes the only apparent motivation for the purge. It’s as if every time I opened a window or turned on the heat in my home, 12 people hit the streets, clutching cardboard boxes and trying through the panic to remember where they parked.

I want — and I know it’s silly — a national grassroots mandate telling companies that people care about people, and the worker is not an expendable company resource. We are not office supplies.