Death to the Executives! Not here (I don't think)

When I worked at Genuity, where we went through a spate of regular lay-off rounds before finally sliding into bankruptcy, they used to rev up the security forces on pink slip day.

It made sense.

People can be volatile - and we'd seen occasionally threats posted against executive management on public forums on the 'Net.

Earlier, at a much smaller company, we had to let go a person who was pretty seriously unhinged. I don't know whether I dreamed this, or whether the person had actually told me that she owned a gun, but I remember talking with her manager and the president about my concerns for their safety on the day they were planning on giving her the news. Fortunately, she went quietly - but I was frightened about what she might do.

Well, the worst has happened in India, where a CEO was attacked - and bludgeoned to death - by a mob of laid-off employees. (This was reported in the UK Times Online.)

Lalit Kishore Choudhary, 47, the head of the Indian operations of Graziano Transmissioni, a manufacturer of car parts that has its headquarters in Italy, died of severe head wounds on Monday after being attacked by scores of laid-off employees, police said. The incident, in Greater Noida, followed a long-running dispute between the factory’s management and workers demanding better pay and permanent contracts.

This is not an "only in India" post. We have plenty of examples over here of unhinged employees laying in wait for their bosses, then going postal. While these are always "lone gunman" incidents, we're not that far removed labor protests during which workers got killed. which happened in 1930 in Michigan when four laid off Ford workers were killed.

There are ample examples of urban riots, in which some incident - Simi Valley police acquittal in the Rodney King case - triggers a mob reaction that result in destruction (lots) and death (a little).

And ample examples of political protests (think Viet Nam War) that resulted in riotous behavior.

Not to mention post-victory sports celebrations in which generally drunker hordes of generally young people mill around until someone hurls a bottle and the next thing you know some innocently by-standing college kid is killed by some supposedly non-lethal police weapon.

But it did get me to ask if myself if I could imagine conditions here in which mobs of workers stormed the gates and went after the executives.

We've seen massive lay-offs. Seemingly instantaneous, no-warning plant shutterings. Company collapses. Pension wipeouts. And way too many examples of let-them-eat-cake-ism on the part of the senior execs who've presided over those massive lay-offs, plant shutterings, company collapses, and pension wipeouts.

So why haven't we seen a couple of hundred workers hanging outside corporate HQ until something triggers something, the gates are stormed, and next thing you know the CEO's head is on a pike?

I guess it's because we have:

• Safety nets: Thin and hole-filled as they may be, there are - for the most part - safety nets. Many laid off workers can collect on unemployment benefits. They can get bags of groceries at food pantries. They can use the emergency ward for their doctor's office. Trust me, I do know (at least second hand) that some people who lose their jobs end up homeless and completely destitute. Most don't. That may not be the case in India.
• Other opportunities out there: So far - knock on fiber-optics and plastic trash imported from China - when the office or plant door closes, another door opens. It may be the door to underemployment as a Wal-Mart greeter, but most people who lose a job find another one.
•  Pretty darned good institutions:  Call me crazy to write this at a time when a lot of our financial industry is proving to be will-of-the-wisp and subject to the sudden actions of the panicked (mob rule by trading accounts and withdrawal slips?), but our legal, banking, and (even) our political institutions have proved remarkably resilient at getting us through some pretty tough times.
• A thing called hope:  No, I'm not harkening back to Bill Clinton, I'm talking about the class (and geographic)  mobility that's been present more or less throughout our history. Most people think of themselves as middle class, with a stake in the game. That's because we are, more or less, middle class with a stake in the game. And most of us feel that, with a little luck and some hard work, we - or our kids - can claw their way a few more rungs up the ladder.

We'll see what the next couple of years bring. Our short term thinking, and the often greedy, sometimes shoddy behavior that results from that thinking, is starting to catch up with us. I'm betting we'll pull out the current tailspin, and maybe even (gasp!) end up better off in the long run: less soul-killing, non-essential, planet-jeopardizing crap - and less debt to pay for the crap.

But I don't see mobs in the street any time soon. But if we lose some combination of the above, all bets are off.