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(More customer reviews)When GE's massive downsizing took place in Pittsfield, MA, I was a frustrrated local official trying to find out what was going on. GE officials furnished little information. Eventually it was thought the GE must have done it to simply stay competitive in the new global economy. Thomas O'Boyle furnishes the answer. The layoffs and plant closings were Jack Welch's idea of a corporate revolution. He was at the cutting edge of a major business philosophy which discarded post-WW II corporate paternalism in favor of downsizing chic. Layoffs and plant closings, formerly the last options of businesses in trouble, became fashionable fiist options in the pursuit of higher profits. Welch, according to O'Boyle, created a work place of purposeful job insecurity. The profit outcome mattered more than people. GE managers had to hit a home run to be number one in profits or they were out.This quest to be number one, wrote O'Boyle, was a major reason for GE, as one of the Pentagon's 100 largest defense contractors, to become the leading corporate criminal in cheating the government to show larger profits.GE could have remained in my city and stayed competitive in comsumer electronic products, but the profits would not have been high enough for Welch's quest to be number one. My city is a long way from recovering from the economic blow of losing about 9, 000 GE jobs.I take serious issue with such revewiers as NY Times, Roger Lowenstein that O;Boyle is wrong and that , "America has reaped a huge dividend (from the layoffs and plant closings): the added goods and services that GE's former workers contribute in other lines of work" Mr. Lwenstein should come to my city to see how wrong he is. Unfortunately GE's corporate practices are now the standard for business in this country. And so long as GE's and other stockholders are happy with their returns on a surging stock market these corporate practices will continue. However, O'Boyle has shown the bad effects of this corporate practice and one has to hope that hope that eventually some corporate leaders, and there are some according to O'Boyle, who will begin to realize they have a duty to their workers and the community and not only stockholders. O'Boyle raises the interesting question of who will follow Welch soon as the new CEO at GE and more importantly what will be his management style.GE does not have to be number one in profits. It can and should show the way in leading us back to a corporate world of responsibiltiy for its workers and the communities it does business in. I hope the next GE leader takes O'Boyle's book seriously and tries to remedy the bad employee and communtiy practices of Welch
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