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Flint, Michigan, the birthplace of General Motors and the United Auto Workers Union (UAW), is facing the devastating affects of the closing of 11 General Motors plants which results in approximately 30, 000 + jobs lost. The people of Flint made up the largest majority of workers for GM and they enjoyed much prosperity and publicity at the hands of their wealthy employers. General Motors chairman, Roger Smith, claims that this [closing of the plants] is something it has to do to stay competitive in the auto industry. The plan is for General Motors to close the 11 plants in Flint and to relocate to Mexico where they will build new foreign factories and can pay the workers a lower wage. Michael Moore, the Flint resident / journalist telling us this story, emphasizes that GM will tell the Union theyre broke and then agree to give back the money from wage cuts, but instead, will use it to build foreign factories, cut more jobs, and take over other companies. These other companies include Hughes Aircraft, on which General Motors spent $ 5 billion purchasing after the beginning of plant closings in Flint in the late 1970 s.
With the closing of these plants, Flint residents are seeing the majority of better paying jobs being replaced with low-wage service sector employment that cannot support their lifestyles. 2 ] I do not agree with the way General Motors handled the closing of their plants in Flint with respect to the workers laid off and the affects on the community of Flint. General Motors had to recognize the fact that the cutting of 30, 000 jobs of loyal Flint workers who relied on their job for security would be devastating. In the community of Flint, where the population was a bit more than 100, 000 people, they were cutting 1 / 3 of the population off from a job where the other 2 / 3 included the elderly and children that needed to be supported and who could not work. One man alone had been laid off 5 times [too many] and landed himself in a mental health center due to the affects of the stress.
Many people had no choice but to move or be evicted like many of the others. Houses were left dilapidated and the rat population grew past the human population as Flint cut back garbage collection due to budget restraints. Being the wealthy corporation that it is, General Motors could have offered some diverse job training or job searching seminars for their employees. Tom K. , the spokesman for General Motors, even recognized that there is nothing out there for [the workers] to depend upon for the future. Tom K. represents the ignorance of GM when he says that this is not a plant closing, it is the loss of one product line when he speaks of the lay-offs with Michael Moore.
At the least, GM could have offered some kind of support, monetarily or otherwise, for the residents of Flint as Roger Smith seems to have forgotten that he said GM, who stresses teamwork, owes its industrial leadership to its workers and that [he] thinks [their] employees have a new emphasis on job security and [GM] wants to help them with that. 3 ] I do not believe the company was justified in proceeding with the plant closings after it became informed of the effects on the workers and their environment. From the information provided, GM set out to exploit one set of workers by eliminating their jobs without any support or compensation, other than a flower handed to them on their way out the door, in order to exploit another set of workers in their newly built factories by paying them less. From the beginning, GMs goals were skewed and should have been halted when a whole community started deteriorating when their major employment provider began to lay off employees. GM said they would go bankrupt if they did not proceed with the plant closings but they somehow dug up extra money to fund the Star Theatre in Flint to keep the morale up, to create Auto World (a $ 100 million amusement park), to buy Hughes Aircraft for $ 5 billion, and to give Roger Smith a $ 2 million dollar raise. Flint became the unemployment capital of the world and gained the highest crime rate in America. Money Magazine dubbed Flint the worst place to live while its residents donated blood for money as half of them were on welfare.
Yet GM continued to ignore the problem it had created. 4 ] If a state, province, or city is willing to offer a company a substantial tax break in order to urge them to locate their business in that place I do believe the company owes the community something in return if they accept the incentive. A company does have an obligation to its shareholders but it also has an obligation to find a way to support and provide security for the community it is employing while making a profit to benefit its shareholders. That is, it is expected to do what is honest, compassionate and fair. Like Smith says, a corporation owes its industrial leadership to its workers. It is not ethically justified for a small dominant group of shareholders (compared to the larger inferior group of employees) to benefit more from the work of others than the workers themselves. 5 ] GM, the workers, and its municipal government should have paid the costs of helping the dismissed workers. GM, as already determined, has the money and an obligation to Flint to put forth support to help their workers find new jobs and acquire new skills.
Since GM has chosen to not give their workers what they want they at least have to treat them fairly by recognizing their contribution to their company by helping them to find work if they can no longer provide it. The workers must also take responsibility for their situation and be active in this search for employment with the help from GM and Flints government, which allowed GM to operate there in the first place. Flint obviously had some capital to spend on its community as it devoted much time and money in providing celebrity appearances to boost morale and building new tourist attractions such as Water Street Pavilion and the new Hyatt Regency to create their new tourist sector. It even built a new jail for its increasing criminal community. These were obvious attempts to get Flint back on its feet, unfortunately, they were not thought out properly as they all provided nothing more than a temporary identity for the failing community of Flint. 6 ] I believe that the CEOs of the larger corporations are generally overpaid. The money they make turns their jobs into a treasure hunt.
They no longer have a journey to enjoy unless it ends in a paycheck. This large sum of money that is available to the CEOs of the large and profitable corporations tends to push ethics to the side when decisions are being made which involve the earnings of the company. I believe they are entitled to compensation for hard work, as long as it isnt made too easy with a dollar figure in place, as the position of CEO is generally difficult to attain and keep with anything less than an energetic undertaking and unremitting innovation. Although, in order for this pay to be fair it must reflect the hard work of the individual not just the available assets of the company.
Also, to be honest, this pay must also reflect honesty and fairness in the individual who must be making decisions for the most good with the least harm to their employees, customers, shareholders, society, and the environment. Overall, it is hard to please all of these people at once, but if it is done only then does any person deserve such a large compensation. Otherwise, a CEO is no different than any person looking to win the lottery, except for having guaranteed luck. 7 ] I do not believe it is honest, fair, or respectful for a CEO or any other person to receive a bonus when a company is downsizing. If a company is profitable, and all employees are equally compensated for the level of their contribution then they can receive a bonus. It makes no sense for anyone to receive a bonus when a company is laying off other employees or closing down parts of their business in order to save costs. There is a double standard present in the fact that most CEOs receive bonuses despite the companys financial state just because they have made a difficult decision that obviously does not personally affect them as greatly as it affects others.
It presents a concern for how people judge rights and dignity. A person struggling to provide for their family has to make difficult decisions every day; so why do they not get a bonus every time they decide to take a second or third job or to not eat in order for the rest of the family to have more? A CEO finds difficult decisions easy to make only because they are not generally sacrificing their needs they are choosing to sacrifice others. These decisions should not be compensated. 8 ] There are many options a local government has to offer their people when lay-offs and activity setbacks occur in their jurisdiction. The most sensible one would be implementing job training programs and job search programs to teach people the skills to learn to support themselves and find other work. If they were to introduce a new business sector, such as Flint did with tourism, they would have to include the communities interest and needs in order for it to work.
As we saw with Flint, the tourist sector did not take hold because of the lack of tourists to serve and also the lack of training and relatedness for this type of job compared to their assembly line work. Therefore, they should avoid introducing unrelated work or work where there is no foreseeable future benefit. As stated in a previous question, many communities offer companies substantial tax cuts in order to draw their operations there. If available, the local government could use job-training programs to prepare their residents for this company and help job placement within the corporation. Finally, if able to, they may also introduce a tax break or increase tax returns for a set period of time while people get themselves back on their feet and to stimulate spending into the already operating businesses by lowering prices. Works Cited Roger and Me.
Videotape. Dir. Michael Moore. Narr.
Michael Moore. Warner Home Video, 1989. 91 min.
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Research essay sample on Analyzing Government Tax Cuts For General Motors
