By Rival Pong
JOTR Labor Writer
Finally, a solution to the worker productivity problem.
If only Henry Ford had known this trick.
There would have been no slow-downs, no work-to-rule, no strikes and indeed no contracts between management and labor.
It would have trimmed the sails of labor unions.
In fact, this solution would preclude the very concept of a union, since it would at last recognize the primacy of management and the utter degradation, humiliation and complete descent of labor to a bottomless pit of powerlessness.
The solution, so brilliantly and audaciously executed by a Wayne County Circuit judge in Detroit?
If they can’t keep up with the pace you the boss have arbitrarily set, toss ’em in the slammer!
Give ’em some time to think about who is in command here.
Now, some readers may be a bit skeptical of a labor writer so blatantly taking the side of capital.
Come on!
News organizations are owned by capitalists, don’t you know?
If I were to write my labor reports in a balanced way, pretending to see some merit in labor’s point of view, showing the tiniest sympathy to workers, why, I would be a crass and loathsome hypocrite.
This is a news organization. Ergo, I write for the bosses.
‘Nuff said.
Now, back to Presiding Wayne County Circuit Judge Timothy Kenny, one employer with the guts to cut through all the hypocrisy and pretence and use the power he possesses.
It is, after all, a limited power.
Even a judge can’t go all the way and terminate a recalcitrant worker with extreme prejudice.
Leave that to your henchmen.
Harry Bennett may be dead, but you get the idea.
A whisper here, a nod there.
Jail may be too good for some work-to-rule knotheads.
Yessir, that court reporter a little slow finishing a transcript?
Thirty days in jail!
For good measure, plant a one-sided story in a trusted newspaper.
Won’t get the work done, of course.
May indeed seem arbitrary and capricious.
Some may say it’s a raw abuse of power.
Others may decry it as sheer stupidity, done out out of anger and spite rather than motivated by a will to help.
Why not show some compassion, the bleeding hearts will cry.
Why not counsel the slow court reporter?
If she has family problems, why not lend a helping hand?
Why take the extreme step of jailing her and calling your newspaper lackeys?
Hey, hey — stop right there!
What’s wrong with stupidity?
What’s terrible about spite and anger?
What’s bad about being a lackey?
I have no problem with being a management stooge — I get paid the same.
The point is to make a point, not be nice.
Who’s the boss?
The judge, that’s who.
By extension, Judge Kenny has lent a hand to managers and business owners everywhere.
He has lighted the way to a better method of handling disrespect, disobedience and recalcitrance.
It is, to be sure, a single step.
Modest, moderate and far from radical.
It sends a message to workers everywhere.
You will get no sympathy in the courts.
Yes, indeed, today it’s the courthouse.
Tomorrow, it will be the factory, the office, wherever workers congregate and fail to work at a speed that pleases those in control.
For my own taste, jailing the laborites is a bit too modest, a tad overly moderate.
If 30 days won’t wake her up, I say, off with her head!
