Agreed, and if their judgement proves to be skewed their value to their employer has just decreased ;).
I think you misunderstood me when I said there may be personal reasons for de-valuing an employee. What I had meant was that an employers' changing perceptions may be due to intangibles like personality,....or...grooming... or just a suddenly developing distaste for the employee.....Something that has nothing to do with job performance. The judgement that I was referring to that might be skewed was the employer's,....and would that be fair to an employee if his value was based on a personal issue, instead of a professional one? This is presuming, of course, that the employee in question has completed training,....probationary periods,....in other words,...had worked for a certain amount of time,.....once again, presuming his valuation was satisfactory to his employer.
I disagree on both counts. One, I don't believe seniority is the better option. If I don't have dispatchers or terminal managers making decisions in the best interest of the company then I have the wrong people in those positions. Last thing I want is good leaders with their hands tied. Only you determine whether you get to continue feeding your family. If they starve, it's on you, not your employer.
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I think the seniority issue is an equalizer in the workplace. Without seniority, human nature would prevail,.....and, once again,...without a limiting factor like seniority,...then the intangibles like personalities come into play,.....and decisions would be made based on emotive choices, instead of economic ones. At the turn of the century, in H.C.Frick's non-Union steel mills, it was common, every pay day, for mill workers to...."tip"....their foremen....a dollar,...bottle of whisky,...offer to do a chore around the foreman's house...........to insure that they get a ..."good"....job the next week. Considering the fact that some of the jobs,....like working in the lime-pits,......literally shortened your life-span,....your...."tip".....might be a life-or-death choice. Would you say that those mill workers were able to retain their dignity as Americans,...and as human beings,...knowing they were diverting food from their families, and giving it to their foreman? You did say we were sticking to the rules and laws of this nation,....both OSHA and the EEOC were created long, long after Mr. Frick had passed on.........Unless you are hiring candidates for sainthood as dispatchers and terminal managers,...it would be hard to remove the Darwinian nature of employee valuation from people who had autocratic control over the workforce. As I said, Seniority isn't perfect,...that would require a perfect employer, with a perfect screening process,....but Seniority does offset any decisions made based on non-economic factors. Seniority allows the rank-and-file a modicum of dignity,........and actually promotes morale.
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