Newspapers / Amco News (High Point, … / Jan. 1, 1969, edition 1 / Page 3
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Our Will To Work Is Americans Greatest Asset The industriousness of a people and the will to do good work is the greatest economic asset any nation can have. It is a simple fact that nothing can be distributed until it has been produc ed. A family receiving $5, 000 a year in relief money instead of earning $5, 000 a year subtracts $10, 000 from the income value of the working popu lation. If you multiply this by one mil lion families, you subtract $10 billion. Jobs in America are going begging right now. The volume of lineage for help-wanted advertising in August 1968 was about twice as much as the 1957-59 average. Every employer has experienced the situation where an employee or a potential employee has deliberately chosen to refuse employment. Employees make "arrangements" to be laid off so they can draw unem ployment relief. One hotel told a re porter that, "dishwashers are so hard to find, we might wind up using paper plates." Apprentice jobs go begging because low starting wages are not at tractive to those on unemployment re lief in spite of the fact that, after train ing, the income would be much higher. It would be easy to furnish tens of thousands of pages of examples of the fact that an enormous number of Ameri cans are voluntarily idle. They have come to believe that the working popu lation owes them a living. They feel no shame in accepting money taken from the pay checks of others. Another problem related to this one is the unwillingness of millions of employed persons to accept responsi bility and do a conscientious job. This is particularly true of many in direct contact with customers, such as sales men and service men. Their work is frequently careless and indifferent. In some cases, their attitude is down right surly. This is so widespread that the U. S. Chamber of Commerce is urging business to "examine care fully the underlying cause of a rising tide of customer complaints. " The causes are easy to find. The solution is discouragingly difficult. How do you motivate people to do good work? The two traditional methods are reward and punishment. Unfortunately, the tax collector takes more and more of the rewards; and unemployment, relief, civil rights, the Labor Board, unions, and all sorts of non-meritjob security and promotion programs tend to wash away both the punishment and the reward methods. Too many em ployees are being sold on the idea that they no longer need to please either their employer or the customer in order to hold or to advance in a job. The only other method we know is an effective appeal to personal pride and self-respect. Laziness and poor workmanship were once considered forms of sin. Today, in the minds of a frighteningly large number of people, conscientious work is only for the "squares. " Even company publications stress employee recreation--rather than work achievement or customer satisfac tion. If Americans continue to lose their will to work, they will lose America's greatest asset. Americans will never be as prosperous or happy as they would have been if these qualities had not been lost. We can each help by making our own place of employment one where only good work is acceptable. We can help by encouraging better understand ing of the truth that nothing can be dis tributed until it has been produced and, particularly, the understanding that these "something for nothing" programs are a double drain upon the public wel fare. --(From an article by the Ameri can Economic Foundation.) -3-
Amco News (High Point, N.C.)
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Jan. 1, 1969, edition 1
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