With the nomination of Mitt Romney, a dark side of American capitalism was brought to light. It has been going on for decades, but each victim was seen in isolation, not as part of a Wall Street strategy to crush workers and harvest the rewards for the ruling class. Now with the Hostess situation in the news, the strategy is getting more attention. How can American workers fight back against this Wall Street assault?
What have we learned? The strategy works because when vampire capitalist investors buy control of a company, the first thing they do is "increase efficiency" which is Wall Street talk for crush workers. Whether it is cutting wages and benefits or offshoring jobs, the result is the same. Money is taken out of workers' pockets and put into Wall Street's.
It's easier in a weak economy, but the strategy is the same weak or strong. Workers make concessions because they want to save their jobs and think the company is acting in good faith. We now know otherwise. The real goal is to get workers to dig their own grave.
After "efficiencies" are gained, Wall Street bids up the company's stock price so it can pile on debt, lavishly compensate the executives, and pay generous management fees. Once maximum value has been extracted, but before the company goes over the cliff, the investors sell out, pocket the profits and move on to their next victim.
Would it be possible to stop the game if workers refuse to play at round one? If workers know the whole game plan would they be able to refuse to play? If there were a way to support workers through a strike when the first round of cuts are demanded would that increase the odds of being able to fight back? What happens if there are no "efficiencies" gained, no one to keep the company profitable, no one to train the Chinese workers?
The longer workers wait to fight back, the weaker their position. Fighting back after the debt, compensation, and fees have already been incurred is too late. Maybe the only way to keep the value of a company from being harvested is to destroy the crop preemptively.