Wednesday, November 27, 2019

US Corporate Culture 1950


By 1950, the modern appliances introduced in 1900 had been developed and the skilled jobs created the middle class.

US companies provided manufactured goods to foreign consumers after 1945.  By 1950, war-torn countries had rebuilt their manufacturing plants and were recovering from World War II.

In the 1950s, US corporations ran like the Army and required corporate loyalty. Labor Unions were sabotaging the companies they fed on and management was authoritarian.

In the 1960s we shifted management to make unions unnecessary. Companies moved their manufacturing plants to Right to Work States. Non-Union Companies made sure their wages were higher than their union counterparts and union membership began to decline.

In the 1960s, the US labor force recognized that they were likely to work in different companies and different industries and that Pension Plans would need to be replaced by a more portable system.

It was clear that companies would off-shore manufacturing based on cost. Companies would avoid moving operations to unstable or dangerous countries that lacked the rule of law or were prone to Communist revolutions. Assembly operations that were lower skilled and labor intensive were destined to move to low wage countries. Shoe and clothing manufacturing were being off-shored in the 1960s. 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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