Nobody likes a strike. Well, almost nobody. Sometimes in the entertainment industry when movies are flopping and the audience stays away in droves from the new television season, a strike is a good way to reduce overhead. All under the guise of labor difficulties. Let them stay out there, is the general executive sentiment toward striking employees.
Perhaps it is true in other industry sectors as well. But, overall, a strike is a nasty event where most of the time no one really wins. If you are the striking force, you lose work, abuse your shoe leather and by the time it is all over, the compensation may not outweigh the initial wage. Not all the time, but sometimes.
On the other hand, if you are the company, then you face production delays, order cancellations, bad press, and an inability to meet you commitment to orders and shipping. If you make a serious investment in the product and you can’t meet deliveries, you are losing money everyday you can’t get your goods from your place to their place.
It’s lousy. Witness the Boeing Strike. Not only is Boeing hurting but so are its suppliers and the labor force who are employed by its suppliers. They are not striking but they are also losing work. In all, there are as many of 5,700 different companies that are affected by the Boeing strike.
Who wins? Who loses? I’ll leave those answers to someone else. But it is fair to note that some say timing is everything. In the case of a strike, if there is timing at all then it’s bad timing. And with this terrible economy, bad timing couldn’t be much worse.
