elf resistance

Alternatives to downsizing strategies : Books and Articles

This book looks at the conditions in which staff cuts take place . It results from an investigation among several companies on which her thesis is based . The book was first published in January 1999 . No reference is made to the situation at Elf Aquitaine .

 

"Croître : un impératif pour l'Entreprise" (Growth, an essential factor for company prosperity) Dwight Gertz, Joao Baptista
Village Mondial, Paris, 1996, 210 pages, 138 FF

This book proposes to put an end to staff cutting strategies and suggests ways in which a company can revive growth and profits . The authors begin by questioning the validity of the main methods of rationalisation applied to American firms during the 1980’s and which generally result in massive job cuts . Whether by means of straight-forward downsizing, by reengineering, by "rightsizing" or any other managerial concept in fashion, the end result is always the same: an "anorexic" company decimated on the pretext of improving economic performance . Yet, these strategies remain "risky" and many studies are cited which prove it . Thus, only 45% of companies which have undergone "rationalisation" have improved their operating results . Worse, two thirds of the companies having implemented this type of plan have gone on to implement at least two further downsizing operations .

Based on all this, Dwight Gertz and Joao Baptista give a full description of the methods used to revive growth .

"La Duperie des Fonds de Pension. Au nom des entreprises?"
(The fallacy of pension funds. In the name of Companies?)

The large French companies which have vast funds at their disposal do not need specifically French pension funds for their development . Whatever the nationality of a company, the predatory behaviour is the same: the sacrifice of jobs and long term growth in the name of immediate profits .

. . .

In this new scheme of things, the size of the company and the number of jobs become just another variable . With the paradox that employees, victims of the ever-increasing insecurity resulting from rampant capitalism are at the same time shareholders of the pension fund portfolios . These employee-shareholders are thus dual losers . As employees they bear the consequences of the "flexibility" demanded by the frantic pursuit of immediate profits . As investors they are the first to be affected by the risks linked to the instability of the financial markets .