This is the way of big business
Interesting read and based on my experience working for large corporations, not surprising.
Back in the late 80's working for Weyerhaeuser in Oregon, I listened to a conversation between two higher level managers, one with the Timber Lands division and one with Lumber division. Topic was the cost of logs being sold from the Timber side to the Lumber side. Lumber side was hurting financially and was asking for a better price on logs from the Timber side. Answer was "no, if you don't want to pay the price we can sell them elsewhere".
I was new in the business world and this made no sense to me as I was thinking you both work for the same company. What I figured out is that Weyerhaeuser could make more overall profit by having one business unit make lots of money at the expense of another losing money. Impact to employees was that profit sharing was paid on financial performance and since the Lumber side was losing money, no profit sharing paid to employees even though the company had very strong earnings. Weyerhaeuser could write off the loss on the lumber side resulting in better overall profit.
Next job was with Raytheon in Oregon and then Idaho. Unknown at the time and we figured it out too late, Raytheon was pumping up the commercial side of their business so they could sell it off to focus only on their defense business. They shut down the Oregon operation that built rock crushers and related rock/gravel handling equipment and moved it to Iowa because the State of Iowa was offering huge incentives for manufacturing in the 'Rust Belt'.
Between the financial incentives and consolidation of manufacturing sites (the Idaho site was closed less than 18 months after I started working there) Raytheon was able to consolidate their commercial businesses and sold them off. The company that bought the business group that included the operations I worked for, ended up suing Raytheon for 'cooking the books' on the finances. Raytheon paid out $900 million to settle that.
Worked for USWest/Qwest (telecommunications), CEO and several executives are now felons for their book cooking on revenue to try and drive up stock prices. Company stock value, that was the cornerstone for most employee's 401(k) investments, went from $55 a share down to $1.78 a share in two years. Lots of people delayed retirement and many who had retired had to go back to work because their 401(k)s were almost broke.
Last corporation I worked for, an international semiconductor manufacturer, pits one manufacturing site against another in comparison of costs, quality and on time delivery with the undertone of 'do better or we will move your product line to another location'. The resulting impact to employees is management passing the buck to them saying you are not doing enough, need to work harder and be more efficient doing more with less. Results in high turnover, low morale and even worse performance of the facility which drive the circle of more pressure from corporate to do better.
Bottom line on all of this is companies figure out how to make money for either the executives, high level managers and share holders or if a private entity like Cerberus, money for the original investors. Employees are just a tool to be used as a way to make money and local communities who offer tax incentives are often losers in the long run.
