But let's make an effort to think about it using our brain and not another part of the body. If the opposing team thinks that executives could kidnapp the workers of their company (at least it is what we think they think), they are definitely off-topic. Indeed, bossnapping is a weapon for the so-called"weak side". Bosses have far more pernicious ways to deal with their employees. They can force them to work on days off and threaten them with firing, they can harass them psychologically as well as sexualy. It is a bit as if the tallest kid in the playgroung threatened the smallest one to tell the teacher he has been bullying him. That is pretty stupid, isn't it? Well that is what the opposing team suggests...
We are glad the opposing team feel sympathetic to the desperate workers. But preventing them from bossnapping, is a bit like taking away a soldier's gun in the middle of a battlefield. You feel sympathetic to him, you understand his misery but you leave him with his bare hands to fight against an ennemy carrying heavy weapons. That is clearly hypocretical.
The opposing team should stop sticking its head into the sand like a helpless ostrich: the balance of power between management and workers is heavily biased in favour of the formers. That may be sad, but that is true. There is no easy way out of this situation.
For too long, the workers have been misled by the executives. For too long, they have consented to seeing their purchasing power slowly fall. For too long, they have been the victims of gradual degradation of their condition. Because so is the harsh law of the market -- we usually accept it because its efficiency has been proved more than once.
However, there are some extreme cases that need to be addressed accordingly. What should the workers do when they are told that their factory, or their offices, are going to be closed down to free up money, money that will be used to pay dividends to the stockholders? What should they do when they are faced with disloyal bosses, who could provide them with a decent severance package, but are unwilling to do so, because their own bonuses will depend on how much money they can deprive the ex-workers of?
The world, the real world -- where debates read like debates -- is not as black-or-white as the opposing team tells us. In the real world, some bosses are scums. Some workers are dickheads, sure. But bosses, because of their position of power over the workers, have a social responsability. Some live up to this expectations (for instance, Laffarge pays for the HIV-treatment of its workers in South Africa), but some fail.
And there comes bossnapping. The most convincing way for the workers to get what the boss could give, but did not want to, unless asked convincingly. Thanks to bossnapping, those who could eventually did. Those who couldn't had a refreshing experience. And sure, it is not legal. Just as being on strike was not legal some generations ago. But it is a powerful tool to put the management of a company in front of its responsabilities. We would use it.
Future employers, beware.
And fellow debaters, vote for us !
Laurent and JBH
No comments:
Post a Comment