That's the fare-thee-well some 1,700 CP Rail employees got this week, with a further 3,500 put on notice that this would be their last Christmas with the company.
The self-proclaimed "new sheriff in town" is showing the workers what he's made of. Hunter Harrison is no bleeding heart sentimentalist. He's been brought in to turn around CPR's "spoiled, bad, horrible culture." What better way to impress upon the workers that times have changed than to announce massive lay-offs three weeks before Christmas.
The media love this stuff. The fawning over Harrison and his boss, "activist shareholder" Bill Ackman has been nothing short of revolting.
Story after story portrays the duo as heroic knights who have ridden to the rescue of a struggling CPR in the nick of time. What rubbish!
CPR was consistently profitable before the "activist investor" began accumulating his 14% position in the company. Ackman then began to agitate for a change in management, which he won in a proxy battle earlier this year.
Out with the old, in with the new, and thanks for the memories, you 1,700 we don't need on the payroll anymore.
This is yet another sad example to underline the point that any notion of a "social contract" is dead in today's corporate climate. You don't fire those 1,700 employees because the company is struggling, but simply because you can, knowing that the news is going to further goose the share price, which in the end is all that Harrison and Ackman are concerned about.
It's the same logic that allows Caterpillar to close a profitable operation in London because workers in Indiana have been sufficiently beaten down to do the same jobs for less. It's unnecessary from a business point of view.
The long term interests of the workers, their communities, and even the company can all be sacrificed to the short-term greed of these corporate rapists.
And their shills in the media do nothing but applaud.
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