"Forget Them vs Us Attitude"

The following is an editorial from today's Gisborne Herald. The importance of Iain Gillies' message cannot be over-stated, but it doesn't appear in print nearly often enough. This should be COMPULSORY reading in school.

Employers and workers need to be on same wavelength
by Iain Gillies
Tuesday, 24 January, 2006

What is an employer? An employer is the person who gives us a chance to hold our head up high in society by earning our living.

An employer is also the person who gives us a chance to earn a fair wage, to show what we can do, and respond to an increasingly competitive environment.

At this time of the year we have many youngsters starting out on their careers. We wish them well and hope they fulfil their ambitions.

We have one bit of advice for them . . . disregard any suggestion that the workplace is a Them v Us world, with the workers on one side and the employers on the other.

Maybe that applied in the distant past but in today’s economic climate we’re all in the same leaky boat.

Perhaps that sounds a bit pessimistic because the country has plenty of successful businesses.

For a company to be viable it must produce a profit. This profit goes into many things, including plant maintenance, plant replacement, meeting rising costs and, most import of all, company growth.

Growth means more work and more jobs. The employer benefits from having the initiative to set up the business in the first place.

The employee benefits from having the initiative to acquire the skills necessary to do the work. And those looking for work benefit from the increased number of jobs available.

But weigh the business down with costs growing at a faster rate than the company’s ability to produce, sell and make a profit and the growth stops. The whole process can actually move into reverse.

The company, in order to keep from going to the wall, scrimps on plant maintenance, is less inclined to replace ageing plant and starts to cut back on the number of workers employed.

Let’s face it . . . people are in business for profit. If there is no profit, there is no business, no jobs, and no income tax for the state to distribute to the needy.

This is a basic economic fact and one ignored by too many people these days. So let’s cast aside that anachronistic Them v Us attitude and work together to make New Zealand a force to be reckoned with in the world.