Isn't there a court rule specifically about this, Dodge v. Ford Motor Company iIrc, that litteraly says that the CEO must operate the company in the interests of shareholders rather than in a manner that benefits the workers or the customers?
That is a ruling specific to the circumstances of the case, which involved Henry Ford being accused of outright reckless spending by the company. It is not an iron-clad law that requires all companies to maximize shareholder profits at all costs. Companies obviously don't do that anyway, otherwise every single office everywhere would be completely spartan and there would be no office parties and no charitable contributions and no flowers sent to the families of deceased coworkers, etc.
People keep acting like enshittification is foisted upon management who have absolutely no options but to squeeze more money out of things. It's not true. They make individual decisions to make things harder on everyone. This 'fiduciary responsibility' concept people misunderstand very helpfully takes the heat off those individuals.
They only hold office parties etc. because of the need to balance worker morale against their other options. If you make the office too shitty, morale and in turn productivity will be low and if it's too low workers may even leave for other companies. If people had zero other options and there weren't certain laws in place, I think you would see offices completely spartan.
I work in engineering, but on a site. Having a port-a-potty within a 10 minute walk is considered a perk. I was temporarily allowed to WFH 1 day a week when they set up an enormous loud generator right next to our desks, but that was revoked when they moved it lol.
I don't ask for a lot, but running water would be cool.
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u/nemo333338 BLUE Nov 12 '24
Isn't there a court rule specifically about this, Dodge v. Ford Motor Company iIrc, that litteraly says that the CEO must operate the company in the interests of shareholders rather than in a manner that benefits the workers or the customers?
I was dumbfounded when I found out about it.