Posted by Greater Sudbury Northern Life
This recession that is changing so much is developing its own language.
Even news media, which are rarely at a loss for words, are running out of ways to describe it.
They started by reporting mundanely employers are reducing, cutting, eliminating, laying off, chopping, even slashing jobs and employees losing them or becoming unemployed or jobless.
The repetition got monotonous, so they moved quickly to talk of companies retrenching, handing out pink slips, shedding, downsizing, streamlining, trimming, slimming and cutting fat.
None has suggested a company is doing a Jenny Craig or calling in Weight Watchers, but these cannot be far off.
Employees now are being axed, which sounds brutal, or less gruesomely “let go,” as if they had hammered on the factory gates to be let out and their employers reluctantly opened them, which usually is far from the case, but sounds more palatable.
A car manufacturer was said to be “taking production down a notch” at a plant in Alliston, which sounds minor and well under control, but it cut its work force in half until demand increases.
When the once trendy clothing manufacturer, Cotton Ginny Inc., had to close some stores, a newspaper said it was “frayed” by the recession, an apt metaphor this writer would like to have thought of, and a mining company in Sudbury planned to “shutter” a mine.
Companies that fire workers often come up with explanations that avoid discussing the reasons and are as suspect as claiming “my grandmother had a baby yesterday and I couldn’t come to work.”
A carpet manufacturing company that will close its plant in Belleville explained this was “part of a global restructuring effort that will strengthen our long-term viability,” which means it hopes to carry on elsewhere, and brings no cheer to the 90 local employees who lost jobs.
An employer that provides auto windshields and sunroofs explained closing a plant in Cambridge will enable it “to align its remaining plants’ capacity to meet demand,” which is another way of saying goodbye Cambridge.
An auto parts supplier in Niagara Falls said it was “liquidating its assets in an effort to develop a viable North American strategy.”
An aluminum producer said its major cuts in production and jobs are “part of a broad-based plan to reduce costs.”
The telephone service provider, Telus Corp., laid off 100 workers and said this “will help move resources out of declining areas of our business to those which help us ensure our ongoing success.”
The high-tech equipment maker and former stock market darling, Nortel Networks Corp., which has been declining for years, will cut still more staff and explained this will slow the rate it uses up its cash reserves.
But it was revealed to have been spending $1 million a month leasing corporate jets until recently, despite the many criticisms of business executives’ high flying, and postponed its annual meeting at which shareholders might have asked awkward questions about this and other issues.
Employers often make little effort to soften blows. An exception was a mining company in Sudbury that at least said it recognized its firings “will affect our employees, their families, our unions and other key stakeholders and our first priority is to ensure displaced employees are treated fairly and with respect.”
Some media companies have not looked compassionate, even though they demand compassion from others. A free daily newspaper read mainly on public transit and owned by the Toronto Star, which publishes an editorial a week praising small business as the backbone of the economy, fired its paid writing staff and replaced them with unpaid interns, but described this as merely “a small adjustment.”
The Rogers Communications TV-radio-magazines-cable conglomerate sacked an undisclosed number of employees three weeks before Christmas, and the same day the entrepreneur who assembled it, Ted Rogers, died.
The tributes from Prime Minister Stephen Harper down praised him as “one of the greatest Canadians” and not much thought was spared for those who lost jobs.
Eric Dowd is a veteran member of the Queen’s Park press gallery
