[The Lazy B]

It looks like Boeing is going to be laying off another few thousand. Here is an article about companies that don't lay people off. What do you think? Could Boeing pull it off without a layoff, or is their industry too different? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=679&ncid=742&e=1&u=/usatoday/20021121/cm_usatoday/4641350

[MCaver]

Whether Microsoft is good or evil is up for debate, but one thing I will give them credit for is that they don't lay people off. In fact, they have launched an initiative to hire several thousand people over the next year. Talking to the full time employees there, they've never heard of people getting laid off, even when things get rough. Now if I can only get on full time there.

[Bman]

Microsoft never has laid off... well that comment reminds me of the permabulls who thought the stock market could never drop as much as '73-74. Microsoft is young. The industry has gone through an awesome growth spurt, and has a ways to go. But we've already gotten to the stage when the new, great operating system produces yawns from the masses. Or when the latest additions to Word just don't increase productivity very much... the law of diminishing margarine of reburned toast. Some day, Microsoft will have to backtrack like the Japanese who said they'd never lay off.

[catwoman]

Ewwww, sounds like someone's got a chip on their shoulder!

[Quark]

Layoffs are simply part of the life cycle of a business. I worked at Texas Instruments during the big bridge-to-retirement years and layoff years of the 1980s. The outlays in money for re-training laid off workers, bridging retirement and re-structuring (called "flattening the organization," - trimming off a whole layer of middle-management workers) was a huge expense, but necessary for the future of the company. Sure, many folks were laid off, but it was better than the whole company folding and no one being employed as a result. I don't mean to be flippant about someone's misfortune, and I agree that many layoffs can be avoided with better management practice, but the concept of a layoff is simply part of business. Any company who doesn't have a plan re "what if," isn't thinking ahead.

[Dante]

Microsoft has historically relied very heavily on contractors/temps. They hire them when they need them and get rid of them when they don't. When a project dissapears, the Project Managers and programmers get reassigned and the contractors get terminated. Been there, done that. BTW I'm not complaining. I knew I was legally a temp. On the other hand, the people who hired me and my leads and colleagues assured me the project would go on for years because the company needed the product to support another product. They were wrong and MS cancelled the project a few months after they hired me . . . Layoffs are just one alternative. Others are reducing everyone's hours ("sharing the pain"--I think Lincoln Electric and some other companies do this) and furlough programs (although these are geared more toward seasonal technical work). For example, washington has a furlough program that permits employees to work 4 days a week and draw 20% of their unemployment benefit (i.e. e unemployed one day a week). This helps employers reduce payroll and helps employees make ends meet until busy season comes around again.

[Allison]

Microsoft, like a lot of 21st Century employers, has this scam down pat. Not only do they not show layoffs, more importantly they use 'permatemps' as a vital part of their workforce, and avoid providing these workers with the benefits of full-time permanent employment. Since these workers have thus far resisted efforts to unionize, they lack any of the benefits of collective bargaining, including the above denial of benefits, and just cause for dismissal, allowing their employer to be that much more capricious about layoffs and termination. Their choice, though I personally think a lot of them have resisted organizing because they fear being laid off. Though it is illegal to terminate employment due to participation in an organizing drive, it is a common practice, and it's very hard to prove. Using temps to fill your workforce the way MS does is a legal, though somewhat reprehensible, labor practice.

[MCaver]

I fail to see what's reprehensible about it, and certainly don't consider my contract position there to be a "scam". I knew exactly what the terms were going in -- I'm an employee of the contracting agency instead of Microsoft, there are some company functions and meetings I can't attend, etc -- but I make a salary pretty comparable to market even after the agency takes their cut, and I get good benefits through the agency that are comparable to what Microsoft employees have. Microsoft gets the chance to try me out for a year at a greater cost (what they pay the agency for me is more than they would pay for me directly, including benefits) and I get to improve my skillset and get the inside shot at fulltime positions. It works out for both of us and I don't see anything wrong with it. Yes, they can terminate me when they wish, but that can happen with fulltime employees as well from what I've seen, for any reason whatsoever. Anyone thinking otherwise is fooling themselves. As far as unionizing goes, I'm doing just fine by myself and don't need a union getting in my way. I have a very good chance of getting a fulltime position that looks to be coming open soon in my group, and if that doesn't work out I have another 12 month contract in 100 days, which would give me another year to beef up my skills and apply for fulltime positions from the inside. Contractors tried collective bargoning before, which is the reason I have to wait 100 days between contracts. I'll go it alone, thanks.

[MCaver]

[Alan Bauer]

I appreciate MCaver's in depth chatting about his experience at Microsoft. Over the years I worked with many temps while I worked at Microsoft. Each one of them knew very clear what their role was going in, and each one knew what they should and should not expect. It was hard for me to watch the court mess a few years back listening to the temps who whined so much about not getting their piece of the almighty pie that they watched the employees around them receiving. But....where were they in taking the risks associated with going on full time there? I know I can not speak for all temps, but in my 11 years at the company the groups I worked in, and others I was close to, offered full time positions to well over 50 temps upon completion of their contracts. How many took the offer? One. Why go full time and have to work with the extra responsibilities that came with it...extra hours, and in many cases much less pay. Yup....temps were making >$10 hour more than I was very often for the first 5 years I worked there to cover the costs. They weren't in there on weekends. They had that tradeoff for not being able to participate in the stock options and benefits because many of them choose to do so. All these others chose to renew contracts instead and just keep working "like a full timer anyhow". They are invaulable resources to a company like any high tech company. Projects have vast headcount need variations over the relatively short 2 yr cycle of most products, and it would cost a company a fortune to do it without their help. Contracting firms are great in my minds, and I even worked as a contractor for the first 2 years after leaving Microsoft...and reeped the rewards of taking less responsibility and being able to work 32 hour weeks. I'm just someone who really feels strongly in assuming your own responsibility for things in life, from backcountry risk taking to the job market. I tire of people who scream "no fair" when they don't get what others have in the job world almost the same as I tire of people in the backcountry whine for help when they won't take care of themselves. I wish everyone out there the best of luck in fulfilling their desires in the working world. I've lived at both ends of the spectrum...I grew up on a huge Oregon farm and assumed I'd be a poor farmer my whole life until the money was gone. Instead, luck played my way because I worked very hard at changing direction in college and got a job at equally as lucky of a company as I did...and Microsoft proved to be the greatest job I could have ever had, even with all of the sacrifices I had to make along the way.

[U. Nguyen]

Unions for professions like programming and engineering are goofy if ya ask me. The job market is fairly fluid and people jump around a lot. The folks who need unions in these professions are, in my humble opinion, not very good employees.

[Dante]

[mb]

ah unions... microsoft is a weird case, my solution to the whining contractors (we got more pay but no stock options) is simple: let's say they were paid $20k more over some period of time than a full time person, but the full time person got options which are worth $100k. I say that the settlement should have been "pay $20k cash and we'll sell you the options". End of story--they could have invested that $20k themselves and made a similar amount, now that the risk has been eliminated they want the reward. And the 100 day and other rules also spring from tax consequences, a perma-temp isn't really sometihng you're supposed to be able to do. Anyway, back to unions. I'm from a city (Philadelphia) which is being torn apart by them. They're a great idea in theory, but once they get started they tend to mass power and become corrupt. In Philadelphia many unions aren't much different than organized crime; the roofers are the most notorious. If you climb up on your own roof, you have a chance of having your ladder taken down while you're up there. Not to mention the owner of a neighborhood roofing company who finally made his shop a union shop after his bones were broken a few too many times. And how does this affect the economy in whole? Beyond the obvious reasons, no company in their right mind would want to hold a convention in the beautiful new convention center there. Why? Because for any simple task they need to hire four different people from four different unions, schedule, and pay them all. It'll take all day and a lot of money to do something one person could do in 15 minutes. It's called greed. Instead of just preventing abuse and getting a fair share of pay from their bargaing power, they want it all, and in the end nobody gets anything. How does this relate to Boeing? Dunno. Someone with more experience there should comment.

[Steve]

Frankly I wish Boeing would be like DiMicco. An $18,000,000 salary for one executive would go a loooong way to keep people employed, but hire and fire has been the Lazy B's strategy for 40+ years. I am a member of SPEEA and I view unions (to a certain point) as a necessary evil because of the propensity of management to screw the peons to enrich themselves. Where I have a big problem is when unions try to screw those who don't want to enrich the union leaders.

[The Busy B]

A corporate goal of steadier employment I think would be preferable to binge and purge. I think we would see less bubble economics and of course a more conservative use of yours and my 401k dollars. This requires the discipline of longer term corporate planning strategy.