Management Loyalty
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his is the story of the dilemma of divided loyalties of Maria Martinez. Martinez – her family name which she took after her bum husband ran off five years ago -- has been employed by Acme Manufacturing for more than10 years. She has always been a model employee: shows up early, leaves late, never uses all of her sick days; and has an unbroken string of positive performance reviews.
Acme is a diversified manufacturing company, which has adapted to changing business trends by flexibility. It is the largest employer remaining in a once-thriving mining town in the Appalachians. Acme has been here for more than 50 years, and is the backbone of the community, employing more than 500 in this rural county. This plant is Acme’s smallest and oldest of more than a dozen throughout the U.S. and Mexico
Martinez is practically a poster child for Acme’s progressive, promote-from-within policies. She started work as a teenager on an assembly line, took night courses to gain secretarial skills, obtained a clerks job in Human Resources, and received regular promotions in the Community Relations Department – a small group in HR. Less than a year ago, she was promoted to assistant to the director of Community Relations, a responsible position she has filled admirably.
Martinez is the single mother with three children, from 5 – 10, one of whom has chronic Asthma requiring extensive medication and medical treatment. Her recent promotion allowed her to get out of debt, and, for the first time in her life, she has begun to build her savings with an eye towards college for her children.
Martinez is able to hold down her job partially because her sister, who shares a duplex with her, takes care of her children. Her sister’s husband is a long-time Acme employee, also benefiting from the Acme internal promotion policy and doing very well with the company. Martinez’ brother, married for just more than a year with their first child due soon, is also an Acme employee and lives in the same neighborhood. Both her brother-in-law and brother recently were offered lower-level jobs out of the county, but the Acme director of Human Resources offered them promotions to say – this is standard Acme practice.
Life is looking good for the families.
However, Acme Manufacturing has not met income projections for three quarters, and has to reduce operating costs. The Appalachian plant must be re-tooled for higher efficiency, have some of their operations shifted to the Mexico plants which would reduce employment by as much as 50 percent, or close entirely.
Either of the later would devastate this rural county.
As assistant to the director of Community Relations, Martinez is part of the confidential meeting with corporate managers where these options are discussed – not for the first time, the company management, including the director of H has known this was coming for six months. The meeting opened with the corporate VP reminding all participants that everything discussed at this meeting is confidential and if anyone could not agree to that provision, they were invited to leave. It never occurred to Martinez to leave – she was afraid it would endanger her new job. The corporate VP made it clear that the company is in a vulnerable financial situation and any premature disclosure, community backlash or significant negative publicity will make it more difficult for the company to maintain any of its Appalachia operation – a clear threat to attempt to preempt union troubles.
There is no final decision made yet, but re-tooling an inefficient plant while the company is in financial trouble is clearly not in the cards. Will they cut back? Will they close? If they close, how long will it take and how good a severance/retraining package will they provide for their employees?
Department of Communication, Seton Hall University