Comment by ColonelSanders | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ColonelSanders | Hacker News Reader

Idea:

Whenever there are furloughs or layoff, any payouts or profits for the C-Suite and managers that are higher the average employee, is put into an annuity for the laid off employees.

So if a CEO makes 30,000,000, and the average worker is paid 125,000. A 29,875,000 fund will be made to deposit a monthly check into the bank of the fired employees. This includes any profits made from selling stocks.

To avoid loopholes and ensure enforcement, CEO's waive personal financial privacy, giving regulators full access into international finance accounts and to withdraw from those account debt due to workers. The lookback/forward time can be tweaked to go up to 36 months to ensure it's not worked around.

This will retain employees - while simultaneously keep businesses operating profitably.

Additionally, if there are any dividends by the company, any employees who worked a certain time (even if fired) are entitled to payout, since they're part of the collective. This shows appreciation for the employees which boosts performance - they know a successful quarter will have their success kept - not given only to investors.

Even if the scale of the difference divided by the number of employees were enough to be useful (it's not), all this would do is incentivize executives to run inefficient businesses into the ground.

> all this would do is incentivize executives to run inefficient businesses into the ground.

What incentive would an executive have to run a business into the ground?

It's a business - the motive to gain profit and ambition won't leave because profit is shared.

Regardless - my point is - what's wrong with being generous to workers? Why not share a bit of that with people who work so the motivation and incentives are spread out?

Why don't we try some ideas, test some regulations and see how they work, so we know what incentivizes and what doesn't?

Have an administrative body view it on a case by case basis and come up with a novel payment plan, in a case where a CEO gets a golden parachute and employees are left unemployed, that payment would be suspended and apportioned fairly. Maybe it will even go back to investors.

For a look a generous labor systems in powerful economies, I'd like to bring up Germany: http://www.siegwart-law.com/Sgal-en/lawyer-german-employment...

> What incentive would an executive have to run a business into the ground

The one given above: laying off workers to make the business competitive results in having your salary clawed back for three years. Staying inefficient and getting out-competed does not.

> laying off workers to make the business competitive results in having your salary clawed back for three years.

If the company goes out of business due to inefficiency - then the market will supply another one that can treat workers and investors well.

And maybe it should be clawback against all assets and profits earned in the CEO's lifetime. That will give them motivation to pay off the spurned employees the fired, then start earning more for themselves.

Since this is all about free markets and scale, we need to have optimistic forecasts. There's a credit against the CEO to pay off the employees due to management failing, but the CEO can always try again in the future to pay off their newly accrued debt by making better decisions for investors and employees.

Imagine - if all management decisions were binded 50% to the welfare of the employee and 50% to profit? Bound by the law? Or face strict liability, financial penalties and possibly criminal charges for causing jeopardy to the workers? That's absolute genius.

It's all about how we define competition. What if competition is redefined to imply responsibility and obligation to caretake for workers, and every business on Earth is subject to it? What's wrong with that?

How ya figure? Unless you're thinking something like intentionally driving the company into bankruptcy which will be a self-regulating problem.

No one will hire a CEO who swan dives a company on a regular basis.

A "business" is a value generating construct. Either in raw profit potential, or in that it keeps work being done. Not seeing the counter-incentive.

It’s easy to come up with ways that other people should spend their money.

If the CEO has a bunch of shares and their value crashes, do the employees need to pay up to offset the CEO's loss? After all, they are a part of the collective.

I'm not saying CEO's and management shouldn't have their traditional responsibilities.

What's wrong with a windfall to make sure employees are protected. If a layoff is needed, clearly the CEO's leadership had issues - so something needs to done proportionally as severance.

A large change in the lives of employees needs a large annuity fund for the laid off workers. The company can file a loan and pay it out over the next few years. Which will improve the credit score of the company.

Here's another idea, for the sake of a thought experiment: the CEO may need to be fired for not assuring rising salaries and benefits for the workforce. A two-tiered performance system. Employees share voting rights along with the board, and it's by statute so all businesses must comply with it.

Why not consider factoring in laborer's collective time and personal life circumstances as human beings into the equation?

> Why not consider factoring in ... human beings into the equation?

You'd get much further in your arguments if you didn't often insinuate that others are vicious for not agreeing with you. You'd be hard pressed to find the leader who doesn't care or pretend to care about the human beings in the equation. If you choose not to believe them, OK, but it's extremely easy to dismiss someone who says "don't be evil" when you don't believe yourself to be evil.

I don't see it that way.

I only gave ideas. My first word was, "Idea". And even for the ideas I gave, the replies were vague and didn't cite examples of why the hypothetical was a no go.

If I were to guess, the thought experiment was so different - it brought unease.

Which in itself is valuable to me. People are willing to accept extreme unfairness - even if it is harmful to people (layoffs) - if they can ease their anxiety and socially conform.

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