Dallas Cothrum’s editorial in the April 14, 2024, Dallas Morning News begins by stating:

There is a crisis in our country that threatens our place as the shining beacon on a hill. America is losing its work ethic and probably the only ones who care are people still reading the newspaper. Many employees are no longer grateful for the opportunity to work, believing it’s the responsibility of the employers to satisfy their needs. Teamwork is a threatened species.

Oh, the ungrateful employee. What a crock. Instead of blaming workers, Cothrum might have spent his time considering the causes.

There is an ethical agreement between employer and employee. Both are supposed to behave honestly and respectfully. That has hardly been the history of labor relations. For example,

The Industrial Revolution produced mass production and factories where children worked long hours in unsafe conditions. It produced the robber barons who cheated their way to fame and fortune on the backs of workers. The workers banded together to form labor unions. The magnates whined to the government which sent in troops to disburse the strikers.

The bottom line is all that the bosses cared about in the 1800’s. That singular goal remains in place today as MBAs run major companies with the same ruthlessness that the robber barons would be proud of.

Corporations are exporting jobs to Asia and Latin America. Why? To take advantage of the low labor costs and unsupervised working conditions.

The contract between labor and management is broken even in academia. When the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) closed its DEI program under orders from the former Republic now the State of Texas, it promised that no one would lose their jobs.  Several months after the initial announcement, the school fired the staff.

Mergers seem to come with layoffs like peanut butter and jelly. No wonder workers don’t trust management. Why should they?

It is a statistical fact that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. It was that way 60 years ago when I began my career and it is true today. It even holds for any group effort aka teamwork. Remember the 8th Grade Science Project where you did “all” the work and your four classmates did very little?

While teamwork is lauded, competition is fostered. High performers are kept by managers who don’t want to lose their “ace” who has helped the boss garner bonuses and promotions. How many top performers have heard, “Your chance will come soon.” Right. After you win the lottery.

What is the reward for these great contributors? They are assigned to train new employees, given them more work to do, and help teach and do their new bosses’ jobs.

The gap between executives and workers continues to widen. A local airline boasts millionaires in its executive suite while failing to update five-year-old labor agreements with pilots and flight attendants.

Cothrum also says that “37% of nonworkers identified family caregiving as the primary reason they are not working.” That’s not a bad thing. Caring for an aged parent or young child is more important than getting a bonus or promotion. Many parents stay home or work from home to educate their children. Moms and dads undertake homeschooling, not because it is easy, but because it is critical in helping their kids learn. Public schools are plagued with overcrowded classrooms, untrained teachers, bullying, and shootings. Students at a Dallas high school refused to return to class because a student had brought a gun to school and shot a classmate. Teachers are leaving the classroom because of little or no support from administrations, frenzied school boards, and state-regulated content and books.

Cothrum and I agree on several points. There must be a “clear relationship between effort and reward” and “employees must be compensated appropriately in both dollars and recognition.” The solution to these issues is clearly in the hands of management and their failure to solve the problem already points to indifference and ignorance.