Example of Speech III 4/c ? LCDR Krautler English 2111, 3rd pd.

Speech #3 November 12, 2010 Downsizing and Boxer Shorts I am here today to talk about my father, sitting on the couch in his boxer shorts. Being in full realization that this might be a scary prospect for most of you, let me clarify the direction of my speech today. I am going to be talking about economic downsizing, the very thing that kept my father jobless and worried for eight months on the couch. No, not economic downsizing in terms of growth charts and corporate earnings statements, but rather where downsizing hits the hardest: in homes and lives of the thousands who are laid off each year. Why, you may ask, are such masses of people being discarded at a moments notice. The popular claim of major companies such as Eastman Kodak, Xerox, and the Ford Motor Company has been that downsizing is a necessary tool to recover from economic troubles. According to Alan Downs, author of the expose on layoffs entitled Corporate Executions, these corporations have an average CEO salary of some five million dollars. In light of these numbers, I can only hope that I one day have the same economic troubles. My argument is that companies should not downsize, because it utilizes the average worker as a pawn to bring profit to an elite few, fostering a lost sense of security to employees and at the same time causing internal family conflict by introducing phenomenal amounts of financial and emotion stress. Today I will talk about this argument, that companies should not downsize, using these main points: that workers are hurt by downsizing, that employee-employer trust is hurt by downsizing, and that downsizing actually hurts companies. First, workers are hurt by downsizing. Despite the claim that they are employeecentered, companies disregard the barrage of repercussions that follow economic downsizing. Companies continually sugarcoat their corporate execution with unemployment benefits. Unemployment benefits has got to be the most blatant oxymoron I have ever heard. These financial stresses have a direct effect not only on the person who was fired, but also an effect on that persons family. According to Alan Downs, the two chief causes of marital discord, which lead ultimately to divorce, are economic stresses and financial disparity. Watching your parents fight every night and belabor every economic decision is almost as disturbing as the vivid picture of my father on the couch in his boxer shorts. Trust in each other preserved my parents marriage, but others are not so lucky. I bring this up because business dealings and negotiations revolve around trust. This is my second main point. Downsizing hurts employer-employee trust. This trust of a business deal evolves from the amount of time that a worker has been in a company and how long individual corporations have done business with each other. It makes no sense that one of the main aspects of economic downsizing is the laying off of elderly workers who have put years, sometimes numerous decades, into a corporation. Irving S. Shapiro, Chairman and CEO of the du Pont Corporation had this to say about the laying off of older workers. If an employer has a choice of someone three years out of business school or someone age fifty, which will they select? Im afraid the job goes to the younger person. In our Coast Guard community, a community based

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on confidence, commitment, and character, rather than discard our eldest members, we hold them in the highest levels of esteem and formally recognize their experience and leadership by increased rank in our chain of command. Admiral, rather than ex-employee, is the name we give to those who have devoted their lives to their service. I am not here to lie to you folks today. Corporations and the business world in general serve one end: making money, plain and simple, just money. However, this reality does not enable corporations to trample whomever they please in order to reach their goals. Furthermore, many companies have found that refusing to downsize has been their biggest asset. This is my third main point. According to Business Week magazine, executives that have abandoned downsizing policies have found that maintaining a consistent work force, even during daunting economic situations, Breeds fierce loyalty, higher productivity, and the innovation needed to enable them to snap back once the economy recovers. Still many corporate executive have refused to budge from the stolid business practices and make this productive change. I have talked to you today about why companies should not downsize, making the points that downsizing hurts workers, destroys the trust that is necessary in business, and actually hurts companies. It is too easy to drop the hammer of unemployment when you dont have to see your father moping around in his boxers. I know it wasnt easy for me. For one, I greatly admire my father and to see him reduced to a state of depression was hard to take, additionally, it was my father, in his boxers, and well, enough said. On a serious note, throwing marriages and families into turmoil due to economic downsizing is no less than a slap in the face of the American ideal of prosperity and respect for workers. A corporate earnings chart may fluctuate with time and circumstance, but the dignity and respect that must be commanded by our working population must never waver. Thank you for your time.