Conference 7.286::digital

    Who is Remelee?
    What country is their headquarters in?
    What do they make/sell?
    Who are their customers?
    How many employees?
    
    I think this list is comparing some pretty diverse companies already - a
    package delivery service vs. workstation software?
    
    /Charlotte

RE: .0

>    I left the authors name intact (since I never asked permission to place
>    it in the notesfile ..), I hope he/she doesn't mind. 

I strongly suggest that you go back and get the author's permission.  It is
a blatant violation of the corporate policies concerning notes conferences
to post a mail message in a notes conference without the original author's
permission.

--PSW

    
    ok so what are Digitas current philoshophies?
    
    Well, ever since we adopted our new 'automotive industry attitude':
    
    >employees are a dime a dozen- where else are they gonna get a job??
    
    >money is not a motivating factor. Just tell em how lucky they have it
     here and how they COULD be unemployed
    
    >make the stockholders happy at ALL costs
    
    >If there are enough managers around, the 'workers' won't get away with
     anything
    
    >rewards????????? let them eat cake
    
    >stock options???????? why don't they MAKE too much money already?
    
    >cost of living?? they don't NEED another VCR
    
    >how much training could they need? They have a manual, don't they?
    
    >triangle?? How bout a straight line....or maybe a broken line would
     be more accurate
    
    >new layoff policy: "we've given em 10 good years already..what ELSE do
     they want???"
    
    >manufacturing policy: "if we can make it cheaper anyplace else--can
     em"
    
    Sorry if I'm EXTRA cynical today.....guess it just builds up sometimes
    and you gotta just let it go!
    

    We have lost sight of an important part of the formula for success:
    Take care of your people. Especially your good people. If you do things
    that create low morale, then success will become an order of magnitude
    harder to attain.

    CUSTOMER satisfaction is important, but cannot be achieved on the long
    term without EMPLOYEE satisfaction.

    STOCKHOLDER return is important, but cannot be achieved on the long
    term without EMPLOYEE return.

    The EMPLOYEE knows what it takes to be successful in his  piece of the
    business, and will DO it, if you give them the opportunity, and allow
    them to feel good about it. They will break their backs for their
    employer, if they feel their interests are important to their employer.
    But the employee will NOT go the extra mile  to get it done right  on
    his/her own initiative, if they feel that their interests are not
    important to their employer.

    Because of this, I think the key to both CUSTOMER SATISFACTION and
    STOCKHOLDER RETURN is EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION. Happy employees will make
    it happen, by overcoming almost any obstacles. At best, unhappy
    employees will only do what it takes to keep their job and get by. At
    worst, they will sabatoge the business in subtle ways. Of course, there 
    are exceptions to this, but I believe it applies as a general rule.

    Unfortunately, Digital has done things and failed to do things over the
    last few years that have resulted in severely damaged employee morale.
    I think this has damaged our ability to be successful, and will
    continue to do so for a while.

    re: .6  -  This comment on Employee satisfaction SAYS IT ALL. It is the
    hub  of the wheel! Well said!

    
    I haven't read the base note yet, but .6 is pointing to a
    very fundamental thing.  W. Edwards Deming would agree with
    you 100% and, in fact, regularly chews out top management
    of companies he works with for not listening to and in
    numerous other ways looking out for employees.
    
    In the long run, the employees, are the ONLY asset that you
    better protect or risk ruin.  You can recover from the loss
    of just about anything else.
    
    Steve
    

    Got news for'ya - 'they can't get jobs elsewhere' is a fallacy -
    CUSTOMERS - will hire a DECcie in a second... if he/she is technical...
    
    Furthermore, ex-DECcies have learned how to 'make DEC jump' when
    needed... I've experienced this with former employees.

    
    Re: .6
    
    Welcome back Rich. You're absolutely right about empolyee morale and
    attitudes. As they go so goes the company.  FLUSH.....
    
    Please don't get me wrong. I still think DEC as a company is still viable 
    but there has just been too many mistakes made and now it's being taken 
    out on the poor, lowly grunt. Hopefully we will see a turnaround in the 
    not too distant future.
    
    Frank

    re: .11
    
    YES, YES, I agree.
    
    	       MOTIVATED PEOPLE ===> create ===> SUCCESS 
    
    

	... East will be like on the other side of the table??  :>)

    I was just thinking that we,at DEC,are probably one of the select few
    who can actually gripe and discuss our company's layoff policies in a
    company owned forum.
    
    Ken

    	re .9
    
    	UNIONS!  Pure bunk.  Unionized shops have layoffs too.
    
    	If we were unionized at this time, the packages wouldn't
    	be nearly as generous as those being offered today.
    
    	Besides, unionizing DEC would have dragged it under years ago.
    
    	Joe Oppelt

re: .15,
    
>    	UNIONS!  Pure bunk.  Unionized shops have layoffs too.

	Yep...

>    	If we were unionized at this time, the packages wouldn't
>    	be nearly as generous as those being offered today.

	Right again, but the difference would be that the lay-off would
	be a real lay-off (where you are guaranteed to be hired back if
	and when business picks up again and you aren't already working).

	This is *not* a lay-off!  This is what's known in the real world
	ala Data General, Prime, Wang, etc. as a "RIF" (Reduction In Force).
	The difference is that DEC never plans to hire any of the victims
	back (in fact, special steps are taken to make sure they can't
	return before a certain amount of time has expired).

	Another thing, Union lay-offs are based solely on Seniority;
	the more the seniority, the less chance of being laid off.
	Firings for performance reasons are handled totally separately
	from lay-offs in a Union shop.
    
>    	Besides, unionizing DEC would have dragged it under years ago.

	That remains to be seen.

				    -davo

re: .16

>	Right again, but the difference would be that the lay-off would
>	be a real lay-off (where you are guaranteed to be hired back if
>	and when business picks up again and you aren't already working).

	The Big point here is IF AND WHEN business picks up you may be 
	rehired if you are not working somewhere else. I don't know about 
	anybody else, I really believe that DEC's turnaround is going to 
	take quite awhile. And most people don't have the resources to
	withstand an extended time of being layed off with a large 
	reduction in income.

	Unions were a very good idea when there was a lot employee abuse
	by employers. But with very few exceptions those days are long
	gone, thank goodness.


>	Another thing, Union lay-offs are based solely on Seniority;
>	the more the seniority, the less chance of being laid off.
    
	Why should seniority be the sole basis for determining who stays
	and who goes. It's true that how long a person has been with a
	company should be a consideration on whether the company should be 
	loyal to him/her, but it should not be the only determining factor.
	If performance is never considered, this truly is a travesty of
	truth, justice and the American way. :-)

>	Firings for performance reasons are handled totally separately
>	from lay-offs in a Union shop.

	It takes an act of congress to get fired from a union shop,
	just like here. You're right this is a RIF. But it's not a 
	mass firing. Although there has been a large discrepancy in 
	packages, every one of them has been a heck of a lot better than 
	a "pink slip and an additional 2 weeks pay" in your paycheck. 

>>    	Besides, unionizing DEC would have dragged it under years ago.
>
>	That remains to be seen.
>
>				    -davo

	This is something I hope never occurs in my professional lifetime.

	(Dismount soapbox)

	Frank 
    

     It seems to be a popular idea currently that unions had a place in the
    bad old days, but are now quite an anachronism.
    
    Given the screaming and yelling American business is doing about a bill
    requiring UNPAID maternity leave, how long would it take, in the
    absence of effective collective bargaining, for the bad old days to
    come back?
    
    -dave

>    Given the screaming and yelling American business is doing about a bill
>    requiring UNPAID maternity leave, how long would it take, in the
>    absence of effective collective bargaining, for the bad old days to
>    come back?
    
    With any luck, Eternity.
    
      John

    Having worked in both unionized and non-unionized environments, I can
    tell you that the issue is not whether a particular business or indus-
    try requires collective bargaining, but rather the quality of the peo-
    ple in management and in the labor force that drives whether collective
    bargaining is useful or frightful.
    
    Digital has an active avoid unionization program in place.  Much of it
    works to negate the need for unionization and eliminates the benefits
    which unionization can sometimes bring to a company.  Don't be fooled,
    some companies are very happy to have cooperative union partners to
    take the heat when layoffs and termination become necessary.
    
    Much of what has been accomplished in the U.S. Automotive Industry
    could not have been done without active union participation.  Quality
    is "Job 1" at Ford would have failed in the absence of a union dedi-
    cated to making it happen.  Many assume that an employer can get his
    people to do what he wants absent a union to oppose him.  Well if the
    employer want to negotiate with every individual the exact terms of
    his/her employment that might be possible.  It also might be possible
    if you can hire/fire anyone at will when they don't do what you say.
    
    If any of you think it works that way when an employer is not union-
    ized, I hope you are not in a position to try this fantasy at Digital.
    Government regulations about breach of implied contract, discrimination
    both age and sex, and numerous other labor laws make it very difficult
    or very expensive to act that irresponsibly towards employees.
    
    Believe it or not, there are responsible unions which consider the
    needs of the industry which employs their members, just as there are
    responsible companies which realize that their employees are their
    greatest asset.  Both can be undone by a selfish few who take advantage
    of every short term opportunity to enrich themselves, whether the
    individual is a manager or a union official should not be the focus,
    the behavior is what destroys the jobs and livelyhood of the employees.
    
    I do not believe Digital needs or would be well served by a union.
    
    But it is not because I think unionism is bad or backward thinking
    or somehow morally inappropriate.  I think we had already codified
    in the Orangebook most of the terms of our employment.  I believe
    the Open Door Policy provides a means to redress grievance and the
    courts will look at these to prevent the most grievous abuses.  The
    value added that a union can give in moving people forward to new
    technology or programs for productivity improvement are occuring
    without unions as programs of employee empowerment take hold thruout
    Digital.  If management falls to far behind the needs of its most
    important resource, they can be reminded that options exists to
    push them further along the curve.  But like in many things the
    threat to unionize, is much more effective a tool than the reality.
    
    Those who want more employee empowerment would probably find them-
    selves extremely stymied by those who with a union to protect them
    would slow change.  Threathening to withhold your efforts is often
    effective, at least until someone takes you at your word, then you
    must act or back down.  Faced with the total consequences, most
    threats are never acted upon because the pain is not one sided, it
    often cost the person making the threat more than the person being
    threathened.
    
    Do I believe Digital would be destroyed by unionization?  No!  But
    I severely doubt it would be helped out of its current troubles and
    would certainly be diverted from the activities it must undertake to
    restore profitability!  The wrong response could sufficiently damage
    Digital to put it under, but it would not have been the unionization
    that directly caused the failure.  Without a doubt, the stock market
    would react negatively, and so would many customers.  Whether such a
    response is warranted or not, it would occur.  So I strongly urge the
    union organizers among us to hold back any plans for an assault on DEC
    at least until it returns to profitability.
    
    			Paul Neveu - Attendee of Harvard Business School
                                     Employee Labor Relations Program
    
    
    

>           <<< Note 1442.16 by TOOK::DMCLURE "ULTRIX on the brain" >>>
>...
>	Right again, but the difference would be that the lay-off would
>	be a real lay-off (where you are guaranteed to be hired back if
>	and when business picks up again and you aren't already working).
>...
>	Another thing, Union lay-offs are based solely on Seniority;
>	the more the seniority, the less chance of being laid off.

These statements would apply if the collective bargaining agreement said so,
but it's not guaranteed that that would be the case.  (It might be a good bet,
but not a guarantee.)
In a skills-balance layoff (one intended to thin, say, manufacturing
while software engineering is still hiring), one can't guarantee hire-back
even if business prospects do improve.  The skills mix requirements may 
have changed irrevocably.  Retraining or skills upgrade may or may not work.

Again, seniority is only one element in the mix.
I'd like to hear of examples of how seniority and skills have traded off
against one another in skills-balancing layoffs.

- tom]

    Seniority should be one of the major cosiderations for determining who
    stays and who goes because, theoretically, the nonperformers have been
    dealt with through the appropriate corrective action procedures.
    (Athough I don't think these procedures are followed)  
    
    
    
    Mike

    
    Seniority should have a minor positive effect, but the major
    consideration should be performance. If we use seniority as a major
    consideration, we pick up all the negative effects that tenure has had
    on the teaching profession.
    
    Bill Kilgore (hired 12-Mar-73)
    

>    Seniority should be one of the major cosiderations for determining who
>    stays and who goes because, theoretically, the nonperformers have been
>    dealt with through the appropriate corrective action procedures.
>>>>>>    (Athough I don't think these procedures are followed)  
    
    
	No kiddin' !  You can't get fired for not doing your job here.
	You can get fired for winking at a member of the opposite
	sex, telling an off-color or ethnic joke, etc., but
	come in, warm a chair, sleep on the job....  no problem -- this
	is Digital Employment Corp !

	As for union shops....here's what life is like in a unionized
	computer programming shop:

	Someone I know worked for a company that had a unionized shop
	in the Northeast, and was non-union in the South.

	This person worked in the southern office as a programmer.
	She had occasion to travel to the Northeast office for a
	couple of days.  There, she found that programmers couldn't
	touch the keyboard.  The programmers entered programs onto
	coding forms and submitted them to the union group that keyed
	in the code.

	She asked where the restroom was, and was told that they
	were locked, except for lunchtime ( noon ), 10 ( morning 15 min.
	break ) and 3 ( afternoon break ).  

	She went down to the 1st floor deli and came back with a 
	soft drink.  This was met with looks of horror.  One got
	soft drinks at BREAKTIME !  She nearly caused a union incident.

	When it came time to run the program, a form (signed by a manager),
	was submitted to the clerks that entered jobs into the queues.

	Needless to say, I would have ZERO tolerance for this stuff, and
	I suggest that most of DEC's current employees might, as well.

	I think it's interesting that the fellow supporting the
	general concept of unions mentions the US auto industry.  A
	dinosaur if I've ever seen one.....

	Steve H

    re 1442.24 by CSC32::S_HALL 
    
>I think it's interesting that the fellow supporting the
>general concept of unions mentions the US auto industry.  A
>dinosaur if I've ever seen one.....
    
    Right in one!
    
    I was born and grew up in Flint, Michigan, the biggest concentration of
    GM manufacturing.  GM management and the UAW/CIO had a very nice
    arrangement for many years.  The union demanded benefits unrelated to
    productivity, management made a pretense of bargaining, and passed on
    the increased cost to the customers.  While management was also very
    ineffective in understanding the market for compact, economical
    vehicles, its weakness with the union was a critical part of its
    suicide before Japanese competition.  No GM manager would accept an
    automobile made on Mondays or Fridays due to the high
    absenteeism-induced use of novices those days.  Really smart managers
    followed their cars down the production line to personally supervise
    the workers.  Nobody in GM believed any of the hype about quality then,
    and I still don't!
    
    Bottom line, for me, is that union shops, besides being horrible to
    work in, are not cost effective, and they aren't conducive to quality
    customer service.
    
    fwiw,
    
    Dick
    

    re: .25: ``Bottom line, for me, is that union shops, besides being
    horrible to work in, are not cost effective, and they aren't conducive
    to quality customer service.''
    
    Of course, that's not what unions are for.  The purpose of a labor union
    is to prevent management from exploiting labor by presenting a united
    front to management.  It isn't to provide a nice place to work, be cost
    effective, or provide quality service.  These are things that the
    company loses when management acts in such a way that employees feel
    they must band together for their own protection.
    
    My father ran a medium-sized company in San Francisco from 1955 to
    1972.  He never liked the unions he had to deal with, and that attitude
    has rubbed off on me.
        John Sauter

    I worked in a nuclear plant that was unionized as far as technicians
    and engineers that were non-union.  The standard joke was, how many
    engineers does it take to screw down an electrical terminal?  Two.
    One to screw down the terminal and one to look out for techs. 
    Sometimes we used three so that two could keep watch.  We were not
    allowed to touch or use tools, although we were to instruct and direct
    the techs that used the equipment.  We all carried Swiss army knives.
    
    I am not against unions.  I am for worker representation.  My
    experiences there turned me against the union leadership in that area.
    I had a lot of good friends in the union.  Most of them had their heads
    on straight and tried to do the right thing.  There were exceptions.
    There was also a secretary that, through many tears, told me about how
    the union leaders were threatening their jobs if they confronted
    management with their concerns.  Instead, they were guilty of sexual
    bias within the union leadership, squelching all negotiations on behalf
    of the secretaries and telling the secretaries to keep quiet.
    
    I saw abuses of salary and pay issues.  Sending three men to do one
    man's job so that when the one got hurt one could stay with him while
    the other drove back to get help.  This instead of using radios.
    
    I saw shop folks figuring out how to file grievances to get extra money
    when there was no reason to file such grievances.  This had to do with
    techs that had to work with me around the clock one evening to chase
    ground loops.  The guys in the control room called the people who lined
    up techs.  About a week later they decided to file grievance but even
    then had not decided who should have been called in.  The only thing
    sure was that it would not be any of the techs they had called in.
    This I overheard while riding with them in the elevator.  
    
    One of the union leaders came by to visit the troops.  Put boxes of
    donuts around marked "Union only".  Slapped backs of his buddies.  Wore
    a gold chain and other expensive jewelry.  Was well tanned to the point
    of having lots of wrinkles even though he was pretty young.  Telling
    the guys about his vacation in Florida.
    
    Many of the techs had second homes.  I knew one engineer who was a
    tech, went to school and got an EE degree, came back and was forced to
    take a significant cut in pay.  Engineer salaries were frozen and one
    of the justifications was so that tech salaries could be increased. 
    And, no, they wouldn't let him go back to being a tech.  The company
    regarded Engineers as managers and specified that you had to have a
    degree to have the job so that the job could be kept from union
    control.  If you didn't have a degree, you could go for a higher-paying
    union job.  But, if you had the degree there was no going back.  Oh,
    yeah.  They encouraged all EEs to get a Master's degree in Nuclear
    Engineering.  Slight increase in pay.  And, who would hire you if you
    left the company?
    
    I asked one of my union buddies that was outside the system about this.
    He shook his head and assured me that the problems were local to the
    unions at the plant.  These unions and abuses were well known to unions
    outside the plant.
    
    I think the problem is not with the smaller unions working closely with
    the public.  I think it is more prevalent when unions dominate large
    corporations after the needs of preferred workers have been taken care of
    and the goose is still alive.
    
    Steve

	See note# 1448 for more on the subject of unions...

				   -davo

    Since the unionization of the automotive industry has been brought up. 
    I wonder if the auto makers that have plants in the good ol' southern 
    state of Tennessee (Saturn, Nissan Trucks, etc.) have unionized employees 
    or not. And if so, are there any differences than in Detroit or wherever.

    Food for thought.

    f.m.

    
    RE: .29
    
    	Yes there are unions at the Tennessee shops. The difference is that
    the workers in Tennessee agreed to an open mind and to work with
    changes in manufacturing process and the unions in the closed plants
    refused to believe that what worked in the 1950's wouldn't produce a
    competitive product.
    

    Care to bet how many of the union-bashers here have ever worked on an
    assembly line, much less on an automobile assembly line?  Those who
    haven't would do well to think a minute about why unions form, why they
    persist, and if the reasons for the two are the same.  I'm delighted to
    see that some replies in this thread are thoughtful.
    
    Unions are far from perfect, but IMO at many companies the alternative
    is worse.  [This has strayed pretty far from the Digital Way of
    Working.]
    
    Wes
    who spend an interesting few summer vacations

    
    Re: unions in Tennessee
    
    I don't know now but several years back on one of the news
    shows there was a story about the UAW efforts to get into
    some of the then new Japanese plants in the U.S.  One of them
    was a Nissan plant; I forget where it was perhaps it was the
    one in Smyrna, Tennessee.
    
    Anyway the majority of the workers had worked before for the
    Big Three in Detroit.  They were steadfastly refusing to let
    the UAW in and had recently (at the time) voted overwhelmly
    against it.  Several of them were interviewed and the gist of
    their views was that the Japanese management were treating them
    just fine and the UAW could not possibly get them anything they
    weren't already getting *without* (and this was their real hot
    button) having to pay big bucks in union dues.
    
    fwiw,
    Steve