Thanks to WFH and 3M not caring about anyone's performance but only how to cut more costs (ad nauseum), I've had some time to research into the comparison between today's corporate world and the 1990s, when "rightsizing" became the craze in corporate America thanks to a bunch of MBAs in NYC trying to micromanage successful 100 year old companies to squeeze out another penny or two for dividends.
In the 1990s, layoffs were used to goose the stock price. And wall street rewarded the CEOs by giving them a 5 percent or so price bump the day it was announced. Kodak did this so often, as did Dupont (other than the hapless souls jettisoned to imation in 1996, 3M largely avoided layoff fever) - mind the share price reverted to the mean (or worse) after months went by, but it was a proven sugar buzz to placate share flappers who had no long term interest in your company's stock.
The difference then vs now is that many of the leaders back then actually spent many years cutting their teeth in production lines and knew the importance of maintaining and investing in the equipment. People were expendable but equipment needed to be maintained to keep horsing out the pounds. Also, in many manufacturing companies, there wasn't any significant increase in injuries or fatalities. Quality may have suffered but the people weren't injured by ill maintained equipment.
So the 90s correlation was this: more layoffs, more short-term bumps in stock price, but safety performance was maintained.
Fast forward to today. 3M has had at least 7 layoffs in the last 5 years. Share price, unlike the 90s, has actually gotten worse. Injuries and fatalities are up. Why? Because today's "leaders" are like tireman, who went from coffee to tires to deciding where to cut manufacturing costs (his last real world experience was in the 1990s at ICI, he dabbled in supply chain after that but wouldn't know a pump from a control valve).
3M is living (and sadly dying) to the new world order: more layoffs, lower stock price, more injuries and fatalities. Wash, rinse, repeat.
What to do next: I see no way a company this big can turn it around. The only hope is for someone to get spun off into a smaller company, and by a stroke of luck a McKnight quality leader rises from the ashes to save at least part of what was 3M.
The "investigation" into the tragic PdC death will probably blame the people at the site (a favorite tactic at Dupont), and never the lack of maintenance or automation and never ever leadership from corporate HQ.
As the guy from Hill Street Blues use to say: be careful out there!