Circuit City to cut nearly 3,500 jobs

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Circuit City Stores Inc. said today it plans to cut costs by laying off about 3,400 store workers and hiring lower-paid employees to replace them, and by trimming about 130 corporate jobs.

Its shares rose 3 percent in morning trading.

Circuit City, the nation's No. 2 consumer electronics retailer behind Best Buy Co. Inc., the store workers being laid off were earning "well above the market-based salary range for their role." They will be replaced with employees who will be paid at the current market range, the company said in a news release.

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Well, clearly, this makes good business sense. Sort of. I mean, their stock shot up three points in only a few hours. On the other hand, you've just got to wonder what this does to employees' psyches. It's fair to assume that the reason these workers "were earning 'well above the market-based salary range'" is because they'd paid their dues, staying with Circuit City for enough years to get raises and whatnot. Firing them sends a clear corporate message: we don't give a shit about your loyalty and hard work; fuck off. And that message isn't simply to Circuit City workers. The stock surge shows that the entire corporate world thinks this way. They don't give a damn at all about how hard you work, or how many years you've put into the company. Higher wages and a better future are just out of the question.

How long is it going to take until Americans start to realize that if businesses don't give a shit about their employees, that workers shouldn't give a shit about their employers? That is, you're a fool if you don't take your boss for everything you can get, because you can be damned sure he's trying to do the same thing to you.

Somehow these wage-based firings don't seem like such a good idea in the long run.

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