I quit my last job partially because they kept on about xmas bonuses if the company did well, nah fucko, just pay me better. Don’t offer me shrodingers bonus.
If it is a net benefit for employees.
I can’t see anywhere that says it explicitly or I’m blindSo, in Japan, this has a couple of functions, but one major one. By keeping salaries low and offering bonuses, employees can basically be only compensated the bare minimum in the case they (a) are no longer wanted (since firing is very hard here), (b) not performing as well as expected for whatever reason, or © the company did particularly poorly.
As mentioned, it ties into one of the levers they have to pull for under-performing or bad-fit employees they might want to get rid of in a country where workers have a fair bit of rights on that front.
On the other, it does make some applications/calculations a little weird as some home loans etc. have repayments that expect those bonus payments (either a higher amount twice-yearly or two extra payments per year). Most companies in Japan pay monthly (and most of those on the 25th or closest preceding business day).
Im always up for base salary being higher than having more bonuses , makes work lot less stresfull
Corporations shouldn’t be allowed to make a profit.
Any excess profit should be distributed to the employees equally.
The idea that a corporation should only benefit like 3 people at the top is a relatively new beleif
Companies can make a lot of money + pay shareholders without ever declaring profits. Look at Amazon for a case of weird accounting.
More generally, I also disagree with this idea because the incentives to become an employer would be decreased and ultimately it’s the business owners who are taking risks.
What if instead of zero profits, all employees are paid in part via some amount of ownership stake in any company?
My issue with the “we take all the risk, tho!” argument is that I’m never even allowed to take the risk, too. For example, my current company is small, compensation has grown disappointing after we were acquired by VC, and there is no pathway for me to begin purchasing any kind of ownership stake. We’re just the labor, despite all of us having been here longer than the new owner, in many cases having been here to build the thing the new owners bought.
So it must be pretty damn attractive, actually, for those at the top to continually offer that to one another, while withholding it from anyone below executive leadership. I’m pretty tired of hearing it as a justification when those “taking all the risk” end up doing so goddamn well, and the rest of us are locked out of it in the first place. It’s just abusive language we’ve all internalized.
Edit to add: ya know, it was probably easier to swallow and originated in the prior eras, where a steady paycheck was a safe and stable way to go through life. These days being an underpaid wage slave is far riskier than being any kind of investor. I don’t think “all the risk” is even meaningful or remotely accurate anymore.
The idea that a corporation should only benefit like 3 people at the top is a relatively new beleif
So the caricatures of ultra wealthy factory owners from the 19th century were just visionary fantasy?
Yes 1.5 lifetimes ago is not a long time
Are the employees also funding the next project out of their own pockets?
The money companies use to fund projects comes from the value of employees’ labor. It would be unusual, at least in the US, for an owner/CEO to be funding company projects out of their own pocket. The company’s money comes from the employees’ efforts.
It would be unusual, at least in the US, for an owner/CEO to be funding company projects out of their own pocket
??? Bruh what. Of course many owners have to fund projects themselves. You’re thinking only of huge stock traded corpos, but there’s a lot more businesses than those lmao.
The company’s money comes from the employees’ efforts.
Yes, and the employee receives a monthly monetary compensation that was previously agreed on. The employee has 0 risk involved - if the company goes bankrupt, the employee just looks for a new job. The owner of said company might face life-long debt.
I’m gladly willing to criticize CEO pay and the stock market in general because those things are fucked up, but this tankie clowning “MIMIMI MEANS OF PRODUCTION” is so fucking cringe. Businesses are more than that, and pretending otherwise is stupid at best and dishonest at worst.
Even with small businesses, the owner’s personal funds and the company’s funds are supposed to be separate. You can get in big trouble for treating them as interchangeable. If the “company” is just you, it’s probably fine, but once you’re big enough to be employing other people, it’s a bad practice. I’ve seen friends face legal trouble because of it. And I don’t see anything tankie about acknowledging that, once you start employing other people, those people are part of the company. The value and utility of the company come from them as much as from the owner–or more, in many cases. That’s literally why a company would want to employ multiple people.
the owner’s personal funds and the company’s funds are supposed to be separate
True for larger companies, not true for smaller start-ups without large funding backing them - at least not in most european countries I’ve been to.
And even for larger private companies - it’s still the owners money. He can take money from the company at any time or just outright liquidate it.
The value and utility of the company come from them as much as from the owner–or more, in many cases. That’s literally why a company would want to employ multiple people.
True, but the actual question is, could the individual employee produce the same output without the companies resources? For most people, this would be a no, because if they could, they’d all be freelancers and make three times the money they make as employee - that’s what happens in IT.
A dude operating a machine for 8 hours a day is not entitled to the profit he makes since he could not do said work without the machine.
