WOW--An employer that puts employees ahead of profits

[wellstone dem]

I'm buying Marvin Windows if I ever buy windows. A letter to the editor by Susan Marvin a co-owner of Marvin Windows.

"....

In today's global economy, we've lost sight of what jobs mean to workers, companies and their communities. Economists and politicians discuss jobs in the abstract, as numbers. They measure the unemployment rate; they track jobs lost and gained; they project when the slow crawl to recovery might yield a few tenths of a percent in employment gains.

But look behind those numbers and you'll find the real lives of workers and communities -- and the profound effects of lost jobs.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford University's graduate business school, has made a powerful case against job cuts. Citing decades of research, Pfeffer lays out a host of ills associated with layoffs, including lower worker productivity, lower company profits, damaged employee morale, loss of institutional knowledge, and increased rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, mental-health problems and other health issues.

As third-generation leaders of a family business, my three brothers and I believe we'd do more long-term damage by cutting jobs than by toughing out a lean year or two. With more than a dozen fourth-generation family members preparing for leadership roles, we'd risk leaving them a permanently weakened company.

...." http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/89806967.html?page=3&c=y

[Syrinx]

1. she gives almost exclusively to Republicans

http://newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=MN&last=marvin&first=susan

[wellstone dem]

4. I was afraid of that, but

she is talking like she cares about both her employees and her business, something I rarely hear anymore, let alone see written in the largest newspaper in a state.

[Hello_Kitty]

8. Maybe anti-abortion? eom

[Warpy]

2. Studies of companies in the 80s and 90s that laid off workers

sometimes just to goose the stock prices so upper management could cash in, found that companies that laid off workers did much more poorly in the long run than struggling companies who kept as much of their staff working through lean times did.

If you want to milk a company dry, lay off your workforce.

[Lasher]

7. Sometimes that is the goal, milking the company dry.

Then it's bonuses all around for senior execs, and golden parachutes away to land in the lap of opulence for the rest of their lives. We need serious controls to prevent this kinda thing but I won't see that in my lifetime.

[MajorChode]

3. Southwest Airlines hasn't had a layoff in decades

[Brickbat]

5. Marvin is good to its employees.

It's dangerous to be a company town, but Marvin generally does good by its employees. Until the last couple of years, they've gotten bonuses at the end of every year; it's always an interesting end-of-year story to find out how much it is. The latest ones averaged about $14k, IIRC.

Marvin puts out a good product. And Warroad has a helluva high-school hockey team.

[high density]

6. More businesses need to realize...

that if they want to sell things in the USA, they need to give people in the USA good paying jobs that can facilitate this consumption. Dividends and a high share price can't generate that.