This article is about currently bankrupt Briggs&Stratton, but some interesting parallels to SLB; greedy execs, squeezing hourly pay, growth solely through acquisition.
Thoughts???
https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2020/09/28/briggs-strattons-demise-greed-mismanagement-blaming-others/
B&S is like every other company that doesn't want to pay average Americans a livable wage. If Americans had either a livable wage or manageable expenses (ahem... HEALTHCARE) they may not feel the need to unionize for higher wages. And if American consumers could learn to value longer lasting and higher priced quality over cheap Chinese-made quantity, they might keep more money in the long run. I don't think this is necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison between B&S and SLB, but there are some parallels with respect to executive greed and nickel-and-diming hourly folks. The pain is definitely not evenly spread throughout the ranks. Management and executive bonuses always end up being preserved, yet field bonuses, allowances, and even base hourly rate for hourly positions have slowly been walked back over the past 5 or 6 years. The company has also slowly shifted a greater portion of medical insurance costs over to employees. When that cost is going up 7 to 10% a year, but base wages are stagnant (or even rolled back depending on the segment) it erodes the possibility of hourly workers to make ends meet.
Briggs and Stratton has been moving production to Mexico, China, Brazil, and Europe for decades to get away from the unproductive, selfish, and unfair union labor. When unions refuse to let companies terminate the bad workers to replace them with good union workers then the company has no choice but to outsource to other countries. Unions caused all of this by protecting bad workers.