Employment Environment
Summary of CFC position regarding the most productive Employer/Employee relationship for the good of the Arkansas citizenry:
In General–Problems Defined:
An individual’s relationship with an employer has become more distant and adversarial over the past decades.
Entitlement mentality of the individual and the constraint of regulation has created an environment that causes the employer to adopt uniform processes and responses that do not, and cannot, make the individual actions of the employee the focus of growth and prosperity but rather lumps all into a group for an average relationship. This fosters mediocrity at all levels, including the individual.
Discrimination, abuse, and disparity are too often the first things considered from all perspectives. These perceptions are further enhanced by the response of business taking the safe and generic path to relationships with employees and correspondingly, the employee is enabled, and even encouraged to assume a wrong has been committed if they are not successful or continued as a productive part of the business relationship.
There are obvious differences in people that cannot be measured by any imposed system, and we should move to a relationship whereby the judgment of an employer/employee transaction is deemed reasonable if the people remain, in general, willingly employed. An employer will generally fail on their own within a free capitalist system if they consistently cause good people to be subjected to discrimination, danger, or abusive environments.
A–The two extreme general perception groups for the business to individual relationship are outlined as follows:
1.Business Focus Extreme:
Business is big, rich, socially blind, and mindlessly focused for profits.
The goal is to make as much money as possible for the owners.
Employees are a necessary evil who must be paid a little as possible.
Employees are used as interchangeable parts and are of minor importance as individuals.
Safety is a cost to be minimized.
Management will and does take advantage of an individual any time it can.
Jobs are a take it or leave it proposition
2.Employee Focus Extreme:
Jobs are an entitlement.
What, where, when, and how employment should be regulated by a third party
Employees are to be treated the same rather than equally (same pay for same job description.)
To be fired is a negotiated transaction wherein the reason for the separation is an equal responsibility.
Seniority plays a primary or large roll in job retention and compensation.
Government should monitor in detail, and punish any potential safety or discrimination infractions.
Burden should be on business to prove there is absolutely no abuse, discrimination, or danger encountered at all times.
B—An ideal and productive business environment, most beneficial to all sides, would consider the following as positive principals:
It is in the interest of business to create an environment where individuals not only wish to work, but can advance to their potential in that work.
It is the individual’s duty to advance when given opportunity, not the other way.
A job filled is a mutually beneficial arrangement that should be terminate-able by either party at any time if not beneficial.
Employees should be paid the higher of their general market rate or a value that will enhance the company viability and retain the employee services.
Safety is good for business. Injury is not only a cost to both parties, but an indicator of the poor value/job of the management.
Retaining employees is good for business. Retaining unproductive people is harmful for the company and all individuals within it. There are many factors that go into the decision to terminate an employee, it is unproductive to business and the ultimate benefits to the employee to be forced to consider the “larger group/description” an individual may be assigned/belong to when assessing an individual’s job value.
Neither party is obligated to the other except by formal written contracts.
Risk and reward should always be allowed to be an incentive when humans enter into financial relationships.
The same description or opportunity does not insure the same results.
Some are worth more compensation than others; some will accept less than others. This is an individual agreement between an individual and a business not directly relevant to any other or different arrangement.
Pay is an individual negotiation before the fact.
Continuing the relationship after the fact is an option for either party.
Equal pay for equal work is impossible to achieve in both the sense of value created by each and the effect of intangible activity on the rest of the people.
There are too many factors to equate one individual to another.
This should allow each individual to negotiate their best deal with the employer regardless of what deal any other individual may have.
Incentives exist for both parties to reach an acceptable private arrangement.
Therefore it is the intention of CFC to promote the return to and further establish true free market principles and move business in Arkansas toward the more general “public regulation by affirmative employee/consumer/community action” in place of the current “collective, government administration of penalty/requirement/and directed incentives.”