Workers now have to pay price of bosses' incompetence
Friday 18 January 2013
Printable
EmailThe collapse of HMV and Blockbuster yet again shows the historic inability of the so-called "captains of British industry" to think beyond their next self-awarded bonuses.
BBC Radio 4 reported on Tuesday that the CEO of HMV expressed "relief" in 2004 that HMV had not invested in digital online selling, even though the so-called Moore's Law clearly predicted long before that advancing computing capacity would inevitably lead to downloads of music, film and TV, dominating the market by the 2010s.
A HMV employee also described how HMV managers wasted money on ill-thought-through sidelines of branded food and clothing rather than meeting the challenges facing their core business.
Likewise economic analysts have pointed out that Blockbuster had a window of opportunity five years ago to adapt to the changing world, but didn't.
As always, workers take the hit for the bosses' incompetence.
Instead of planning ahead, consulting with unions to retrain and redeploy workers to meet these changes, yet again the British capitalist class chooses to drive industries to the wall, carpet-bagging as they go, then leave employees thrown out of work to the tender mercies of the liquidators and the DSS.
John Timberlake
London E14
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