Euthanasia is one of those always-hot topics that arises when somebody like Philip Nitschke leaps into the public arena to tell us all how inhumane we are.
Anyway, this whole whale thing got me thinking. Sydney has been in thrall over the past few days over the little-humpback-lost, Colin (turns out he is a she) who lost contact with its mother and ended up in Sydney's Pittwater. All terribly sad, this poor, pathetic figure nuzzling up against yachts thinking they might be Mum. Heart-breaking. Should have been left to die quietly, frankly, but the media weren't going to allow that.
So, the circus got interesting when NSW Parks and Wildlife decided that they were to euthanase the animal. Some idiot, possibly for a joke, called himself a whale-whisperer and was filmed by news crews whistling and beeping over the whale while it 'told him' it could swim as far as Brisbane. And got Jack Thompson along to lend some cred. Ooookay. Lordy, how could they, shrieked the Gaia-crew, you can't kill a living thing just because it might be suffering. The rent-a-crowd yelled and sallied forth about the inhumanity of the whole idea.
Right. So, if you're a human who might be suffering, society is expected to allow, nay, encourage, euthanasia. Kill the suffering human, it's the only way. Don't think, just do it! But if it's a whale, oh, no, not allowed.
Hypocrites.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Telstra Out To Screw Workers
Oh, look...
I always say that if a company treats its workers with contempt, how must they treat their customers? But this isn't a 'why is Telstra service so bad?' rant, it's more fundamental than that.
The people who run Telstra are just as much to blame as the people who own Telstra. Not every Australian, like it used to be, but the madding crowd who surged to buy Telstra shares, to separate it from a creaking, but fair-minded bureaucracy. Telstra used to have the public service mentality, as well it should. It owned a national utility, and, it must be said, a national treasure. It is now driven by 'shareholder value', that one-sided throw-away tag meaning 'we'll make and take every cent we can get.' Just look at their mobile data plans and you should see what I mean.
What has replaced the creaky old mentality is the sort of pugnacious brand of arrogance only a bleating, politicising American executive like Sol Trujillo can manage, with his merry band of grumpy old men behind him. As the article states, Telstra are about to embark on what is likely to be an expensive anti-union campaign with the goal of saving $50m over three years. That's $16.6m per year. Or, as it turns out, what it costs the shareholder to have the pleasure of Sol Trujillo's company and the seven other execs who are paid $46.6m (thats their salaries). So add on the expensive lunches, business class everywhere, large offices, mobile bills, the cellular tower placed near their homes to ensure good reception, the limos, the this, the that, the fact-finding tours - well, there's an easy $50m per year.
Presumably, after making this saving, there will be some back-patting and extra bonuses for those who achieved the cost-cutting. How will this help shareholder value? Not one iota, because it's a break-even proposition. And in a $2bn-plus yearly profit, a drop in the ocean. What's 16m from 2bn in percentage terms? 0.008%. So no massive dividend returns, then, for the idiots who own Telstra shares and complain about their pricing.
So, how do Telstra treat their workers? With comtempt. Their shareholders? With contempt, feeding them the sort of low-level sophistry of which Mao Zedong would be proud. Their customers? Join the dots. Sad thing is, Optus are just as bad.
I always say that if a company treats its workers with contempt, how must they treat their customers? But this isn't a 'why is Telstra service so bad?' rant, it's more fundamental than that.
The people who run Telstra are just as much to blame as the people who own Telstra. Not every Australian, like it used to be, but the madding crowd who surged to buy Telstra shares, to separate it from a creaking, but fair-minded bureaucracy. Telstra used to have the public service mentality, as well it should. It owned a national utility, and, it must be said, a national treasure. It is now driven by 'shareholder value', that one-sided throw-away tag meaning 'we'll make and take every cent we can get.' Just look at their mobile data plans and you should see what I mean.
What has replaced the creaky old mentality is the sort of pugnacious brand of arrogance only a bleating, politicising American executive like Sol Trujillo can manage, with his merry band of grumpy old men behind him. As the article states, Telstra are about to embark on what is likely to be an expensive anti-union campaign with the goal of saving $50m over three years. That's $16.6m per year. Or, as it turns out, what it costs the shareholder to have the pleasure of Sol Trujillo's company and the seven other execs who are paid $46.6m (thats their salaries). So add on the expensive lunches, business class everywhere, large offices, mobile bills, the cellular tower placed near their homes to ensure good reception, the limos, the this, the that, the fact-finding tours - well, there's an easy $50m per year.
Presumably, after making this saving, there will be some back-patting and extra bonuses for those who achieved the cost-cutting. How will this help shareholder value? Not one iota, because it's a break-even proposition. And in a $2bn-plus yearly profit, a drop in the ocean. What's 16m from 2bn in percentage terms? 0.008%. So no massive dividend returns, then, for the idiots who own Telstra shares and complain about their pricing.
So, how do Telstra treat their workers? With comtempt. Their shareholders? With contempt, feeding them the sort of low-level sophistry of which Mao Zedong would be proud. Their customers? Join the dots. Sad thing is, Optus are just as bad.
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