Hightower Lowdown

It’s time for another
Gooberhead Award, presented
periodically to someone
in the news whose
mouth is running 100 miles
an hour . . . but whose brain
is not quite in gear.
This month’s prize goes
to management consultant
Bruce Tulgan, who penned
a happy piece in the New
York Times explaining that
downsizing is good for you!
Goodness knows, there is
plenty of downsizing taking
place for Tulgan to cheer
about. From high-tech to
low-tech, corporations are
merrily tossing thousands of
workers out the door. In
January alone, Whirlpool
spun 6,000 workers out of
its system, Sara Lee cooked
7,000 employees, J.C.
Penney closed 50 stores
and shipped out untold thousands
of workers, Lucent
Technologies zapped
16,000, and DaimlerChrysler
rolled out 26,000 workers.
Mr. Tulgan assures us,
however, that we should not
lose a wink of sleep over
any of this, for job cuts are
an excellent way to keep
Wall Street booming. The
new global economy, he’s
thrilled to tell us, has
“demolished job security forever,
” and the labor market
has “transformed itself” from
being static to being fluid.
What a Goober. The labor
market did not transform
itself, rather it was transformed
by greedhead CEOs
and their Washington puppets.
As for labor-market fluidity,
all that means for workers
is “Adios, chump.”