[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Kjesse

A successful organization will shed a certain percentage of employees, every year. Some employees simply do not produce. They do not have a right to a job, they must produce value. As you know, in a union situation even the weak are sometimes protected, but that is not always the case (the Canada Post union in particular is feeding upon itself these days).

In a union all members are protected equally, layoffs would be applied based on seniority. I’d be interested to hear your take on how the postal workers union is “feeding” upon itself.

This is an example of Shaw not firing the low performers, but rather opening the offer to everyone. They're not even unionized. Its quite fair. It might not be a good move for Shaw as the top performers might consider the company is failing, and jump ship to better opportunities, leaving the low performers behind. The counter to that is, Shaw is restructuring because they're losing cable subscribers and with this they will emerge stronger and more profitable, and the remaining employees will be part of future success.

They will be part of the future success until the company decides to restructure again. Which if this current move(based on it not being a matter of getting rid of low performers) isn’t based on creating a more efficient workplace, could be sooner than later.

Refer to whichever posters you want, the base fact is Shaw is responding to market conditions, and doing so very fairly to their employees. In a workforce of many thousand there will always be need to hire even if you are firing at the same time. There is no obligation to transition a low performing employee and nor should there be. If the company needs a specific type of talent they can advertise and hire for it, and existing employees have all the right to apply. Most companies of size including Shaw often allow internal applications in addition to external ones.

I actually don’t disagree with most of what you are saying, my point was that these types of things do happen and often times it is a matter of reducing costs by replacing existing higher paid employees with new lower paid employees who will overall provide cost savings in the long run despite the hiring and training costs. It makes financial sense for larger corporations, I don’t debate that, my point is that the posters who previously acted as if I was completely off base when I made this point before should probably reconsider their position.