YES, IT WAS LABOR DAY AGAIN. Amazing how quickly it arrived this year. Last week, the next president of the United States came out swinging for the little guy, the worker.
I’ve always believed that your staff can make or break you. No venture can grow, and remain a one man band. It’s simply not possible. One person cannot be the marketing guru, the finance chief, the human resources department, perform all the work, and still provide a vision for advancement.
I’ve hired a number of people from a distinct ethnic background. I’ve had the same problem with all of them. They were unrelated by family, geography or work history. It’s not even a major problem, it’s a cultural issue. They don’t like confrontation, in any form. They want to keep a happy face on everything and that façade cost me a lot of money and a lot of time.
I don’t believe that any one of them intentionally set out to do damage to me or the company. As an employer I have to know what is going on. I want to hear about the problems, more than an endless parade of “everything’s fine.” It’s not easy for employees to hear that. They get scared for their jobs, they are afraid that they’ll make me angry.
Which is ironic, because I am not an angry person generally. What does make me angry is precisely what they are doing. Hiding the truth from me, and then letting it become a major problem.
I have fired people for many reasons, but by far the most common is not incompetence, or thievery, but simple inability to confront a situation. The head in the sand mentality works well somewhere, but I don’t know where.
As an employer, I’m under attack a lot these days. The government wants me to provide more benefits to my employees, insurance companies want me to do it cheaper, quicker and with better quality, my employees want more money and better benefits, and no one wants to look at my needs.
The world sees employers in a love/hate fashion.On the one hand they are crucial to the system, they are the source of income for most people. They are the providers for the many.
On the other hand, many people see employers as the source of the world’s sorrows, and wonder why we need them. They fail to see the crucial role that an employer plays in the circle of life. These people want to have goods provided for them and have vacation time. They want health insurance for all, but don’t see why people should have to work low paying, unskilled jobs like being an orderly.
Labor Day is about profit. It is profit for the worker and for the employer. If an employer cannot make a profit, he will soon be out of business, and then no jobs. The interests of the employee are linked, in a life and death struggle with the employer in this way.
This is a hard concept for many people. They want to limit the profits that a company can earn. They say it is immoral for a company to make vast amounts of money at the expense of the lives and labor of others. I disagree.
Our employees depend on the checks we write them being negotiable at the bank. The money must be there when they need it. I carry the responsibility of making sure that employees are paid, so that they in turn can pay their nanny, to provide care for their children.
There are those who would say that the level of profits should be reduced so that more people could have our services. That if more people had our services it would be better for society. Maybe. But these people are not the ones who invested the money, who worked late nights at the copy center getting the presentations ready for the sales-men, who make the company profitable.
I’ve always found it curious that those who most condemn employers, have never actually been one. The people who champion the rights of the worker the loudest, and bemoan the profits of the employer the most, have never actually had it all on the line. They have not spent sleepless nights wondering how they were going to make payroll.
It is important to remember, and honor, labor this coming weekend. But let’s remember that the boss is also part of the equation. You can’t have one with the other, and they both make society operate. CEO’s have been getting a lot of abuse these days. Sometimes they deserved it. But no good CEO would forget that their employees are the lifeblood of the company.
DAVID PISARRA is a family law attorney focusing on father’s rights and men’s Issues in the Santa Monica firm of Pisarra & Grist. He or (310) 664- 9969.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 2, 2008. Read the original PDF.