Every time they need to hit a number, they cut people. It's their only move.
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Layoffs are supposed to be about organizational needs and business priorities—not about targeting innocent employees or people who are genuinely trying to grow and contribute.
At Cigna/Evernorth, the layoffs were presented as “AI-driven job cuts,” but from my perspective, the reality felt very different. It seemed that some management positions and individuals who were not contributing meaningfully were protected, while employees who were actually working hard, delivering results, and looking for opportunities to grow were let go.
Unfortunately, this creates a culture where being obedient to management can sometimes seem more valuable than actual performance and contribution. People who stay in management’s good graces may get rewarded and promoted, while those who challenge the status quo or focus on meaningful work can become vulnerable.
It is deeply disappointing to see this kind of work culture, especially within the Evernorth organization.
@wr I agree with most of what you said. However, a lot of the problems ARE the government‘s fault. They have the power to fix, or at least improve, much of this but they don’t. There is no question they are totally owned by CEOs, tech bros, billionaires, and foreign oligarchs more so now than ever.
In a way you can’t blame these elites for taking advantage of weak, corrupt elected officials and a broken system. But there is no excuse for the government totally refusing to address universal healthcare, strengthening workers’ rights, ensuring our food, water and air is safe, protecting consumers from scams, punishing corporate criminals, investing in American infrastructure, etc. Choosing instead to spend massive amounts of money on stupid wars and tax breaks for millionaires, running crypto scams on Americans and allowing tech CEOs to take away our privacy and rights is just insane.
@wq I actually agree and I am a Republican and an Military Veteran.
The way things are going from an economic standpoint, And with me being pushed out of my cushy office job with one of the large health insurance corporations, after over a decade of loyal employment, just so my job could go to a cheaper non-American citizen worker, I think maybe, if I could, I would gladly move to one of these three countries, if it was not for my family and friends here. I love America but when we cannot take care of our own citizens first, then there is a real problem.
I don’t think it is our government’s fault; I blame it on al these greedy C-Suite Executives.
@eg OK, how about three. Denmark, Norway, and Finland.
These countries have a strong welfare-state model (often called democratic socialism or social democracy). They provide security and high living standards for everyone. This includes universal healthcare, free college and trade school education, strong social safety nets, strong worker protections, much better work-life balance, and low crime rates.
I lived in Denmark for 2 years and it was great. Yes, the taxes are higher but you get MUCH more value from your taxes in ways that improve your life. It’s totally worth it.
And for all the endless claims about American “freedom” these countries rank higher than the U.S. on global freedom and democracy rankings. You should get out of your bubble.
@es You are inly proving my point as to what is wrong with these elitist for-profit large corporation mentality as well as the problem with the generation of young people in America today. As soon as a country forgets and lacks the appreciation of folks willing to out their body and life on the line in defending their country, eventually people will not want to enlist in the military and just count how many years of freedom America will have. You really need to change your thinking because it is incredibly flawed. I may stop by the VA later today and show them these posts and give them the URL and tell them anyone can post. If I do decide to do that, better believe me you will get an ear full. I doubt this site has the capacity to have that many persons posting all at once.
If the “veteran” makes a flawed argument, it is my patriotic duty to set them straight.
There’s nothing about enlisting in the military that bestows a person with some great knowledge. Most military jobs are just as mundane as working for Cigna, and they pay much less. But I’ll concede the benefits are better with exception of the VA.
@en For one, I never said anything about being dependent on the government. I said we meed unions. Unions are not funded by the government, unlike this place. Two, I did serve in the military for almost a decade snd during that time during wartime. GI bill, is different depending on the timeframe you are in and it is not a blanket coverage for entire time. For me, my GI Bill covered almost first two years of a community college (with me also working a work study program) before I transferred into a University.
I agree with all of the Republican positions but I confess when it cones to the middle class workforce, we Republicans can do much better.
Did you serve your country in the military or are you some entitled little weasel brat that likes to offend military veterans?
You never were a republican if you think the government can solve your problems. However, the government can certainly make them worse. That’s the historic trend anyway.
Besides the fact that you’re likely lying about serving in the military (the GI bill covers military member education costs).
Did someone/something force you to take on a student loan, or did you sign of your own free will?
The cost of college certainly su-ks, but you can thank our benevolent government for setting this runaway education inflation in motion with the massive expansion of federally backed student lending, particularly the shift toward effectively making very large amounts of federal credit available for college.
More federal lending > students can pay higher prices → colleges face less price resistance > tuition can rise > borrowing limits/availability expand further.
The bottom line for all you neosocialists is this:
Market-based economies built around private property, voluntary exchange, entrepreneurship, investment, and profit incentives have coincided with the largest reduction in extreme poverty in human history.
The numbers are extraordinary. In 1820, estimates suggest roughly 75–90% of humanity lived in extreme poverty, depending on the reconstruction and poverty threshold. Today, using modern World Bank measures, it’s under 10% globally.
Market capitalism, combined with technological progress and functioning institutions, has been the most powerful economic framework yet demonstrated for producing widespread increases in material living standards and reducing extreme poverty.
And here’s the cool part; capitalism doesn’t primarily eliminate poverty by redistributing an existing pile of wealth. Its distinctive strength is its ability to create vastly more wealth per person through productivity, specialization, innovation, and capital accumulation. That’s the economic engine under the hood.
@eg Dude, I happen to be a Republican and consider myself a capitalist and a proud American that served my country in the military. But when I went a University for 4 years and studied hard to get a difficult major to get a degree in. Then, took me 10+ years to pay off student loan debt because companies are to cheap to recognize and appreciate talent. Then, after working in my chosen career path field for over 20 years but only in the last 5 years seeing a slight substantial increase in pay that was even close to the monetary worth of my degree field. And because of the constant fears of potential layoffs, and some experienced, throughout my career, I was never able to purchase a home, nor ever remarried, and never had enough socked away for retirement. Now still living in a small apartment, with hardly any savings and only a small 401k, which I an trying hard not to delve into.
Point is, from a very experiential and personal perspective, capitalism, at least the way these new CEO’s have turned it into, has not been working out so well for me.
So, either we need to get capitalism back the way it was say in Reagan’s day, or it will be very hard for me to keep speaking well as to what these grubby, greedy 20 million dollar spoiled Ivy League bratty CEO’s have turned capitalism into what it has become today.
@eb I'm glad we agree 100% on how unions pushed private businesses and the federal government for these changes. You are confusing who signed the laws with who pushed for the laws.
If you think employers did this out of the goodness of their hearts you are really a cuck for these large corporations.
I’ve said this on another post. It just gonna keep collecting this fat paycheck by doing the barest of minimums until I’m told to ride off into the sunset. That’s my way of sticking it to them
If capitalism would work the way it should, then I would not be making this statement below but unfortunately capitalism is not working for the middle class and, therefore, must be said.
We need unions across the board in all workplaces more than ever. And we need to bring back regular retirement pensions and we need to halt all H-1B Visas and need to do away with all offshoring.
Saying “unions gave us the 40-hour workweek” oversimplifies the history.
American labor organizations pushed for shorter working hours for decades. The labor movement initially fought for the eight-hour day, with major campaigns going back into the 1800s. Those campaigns absolutely helped make shorter hours a mainstream political and economic demand.
But the 40-hour week also developed through employer decisions, productivity gains, state laws, and eventually federal legislation. Henry Ford famously adopted a five-day, 40-hour week for many Ford workers in 1926, well before the federal mandate. Ford wasn’t doing it because the UAW forced him to. The UAW wasn’t even founded until 1935. Ford believed shorter hours could improve productivity and help create consumers with enough leisure to buy things.
The decisive federal step was the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 under FDR. It initially established a 44-hour threshold for covered workers, which declined to 40 hours in 1940. Work beyond that threshold generally required time-and-a-half overtime pay. Importantly, the law doesn’t prohibit working more than 40 hours. It makes overtime more expensive for covered nonexempt employees.
Child Labor
Same basic story: unions were important, but “unions ended child labor” is too simplistic.
American labor organizations fought child labor because it was dangerous and exploitative, and also because cheap child labor competed with adult workers. Unions supported restrictions and helped build political pressure for reform.
But several other forces were crucial. Progressive reformers, journalists and photographers, religious organizations, women’s groups, state governments, compulsory-schooling laws, rising family incomes, and technological changes all contributed to the decline.
And child labor was already declining substantially before the major federal law arrived.
The federal turning point was the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which established nationwide restrictions on many forms of child labor, along with minimum-wage and overtime provisions. Earlier federal attempts in 1916 and 1919 had been struck down by the Supreme Court.
Federal Employees
Federal-sector unions operate very differently from private-sector unions. Under federal law, federal employee unions generally cannot bargain over wages or benefits, because those are largely determined by Congress and federal personnel law. They bargain primarily over working conditions, procedures, scheduling, disciplinary processes, and similar matters.
And importantly, federal employees are prohibited from striking. That’s been federal law for decades. The famous example is PATCO in 1981, when air-traffic controllers went on strike. President Reagan fired more than 11,000 who refused orders to return to work.
Disingenuous arguments are disingenuous.
Stay on topic. We’re specifically discussing keeping American jobs in America.
Please tell me how unionizing achieves this, and give just one success story.
@bh Worked out great for people like the 40 hour workweek. Worked out great for children who weren’t forced to work. Worked out great for federal
employees.
Weird you don’t think these things matter anymore.
This person thinks unionizing will SAVE American jobs.😂
How’d that work out for the steelworkers?
For rubber workers?
For autoworkers?
@b2 all good valid points - I forgot to mention another major negative is corporations buying their own stock to boost up the price.
This was illegal but became legal around 1982 - this has a hidden purpose is to boost the share price so we pay massive bonus stock packages to the CEO as part of Brian and David’s hard work selling out the work force to driver that 16% revenue promise year after year coming from 80% layoffs and 10% new business
If a Corp has the cash and funds to buy back the stock why would they want to artificially manipulate the share price vs. sending those funds to really invest it back into the company on new products or pay employees a fair wage.
Let’s be honest the 2.5 Merit increase has not kept up with reality prices have more than doubled in the past five years
At that rate we would need a 20% increase each year to not fall behind.
Corp America is not what it used to be sad
@b1 I actually think that offshoring needs to be taxed and hiring citizens needs to be incentivized with tax cuts. And I would say it needs to be carefully structured so that another loophole isn't created. All the taxes collected by offshoring/outsourcing/sending to GCC would be used to fund domestic unemployment and education scholarships to make us competitive at home.
Another option would be to force offshoring/outsourcing to be paid commensurate with domestic wages, rendering the use of it moot and only for very special and hard to find cases of intellectual need (ie: the original intention of the H1B visa).
What I don't understand about these corporations is how they think its a good thing to destroy their local economy to the point that nobody can even afford to buy their products and services in the first place. Not only that, they are destroying the local municipalities and even FICA with less tax revenue to fund their operations.
Taken to the full end of it, they will have no choice but to lay themselves off to optimize expense because they will be overpaid and bloated compared to their offshored counterpart that the board/shareholders could hire instead, no?
I also read that offshoring is a tax write off for corporations so of course they want to offshore as much as possible since building a million dollar HIH campus lowers their tax bill they can’t resist
I think the only thing that can save the US white collar workers in the next 5-10 years is unionize all corporations and make them guarantee not to offshore or use AI to replace workers
A business's primary responsibility is to its shareholders.
That's unpopular, but that's the fact.
@OP It's to pump up the stock. And it's not working.
The sad part is that even if the company turns a profit, they consider a failure if it’s not higher than the previous year because of promises made to the shareholders. So just remember that every time the company cuts people to improve profits, it’s only because of wildly outlandish promises to shareholders, not the company ACTUALLY failing
Its about what's easier for them. Faced with this equation:
[Revenue] - [Expense] = [Profit]
They realize that controlling the second term is easier than the first. In fact, "management" is mostly about controlling the second term. Controlling the first term would actually require them to be more than just "managers" and actually be entrepreneurial and investigative into the actual markets they are in and what the customers want on the ground floor. That work is too hard and beneath them, so they sit back and just trim [Expense] until they get a golden parachute.
This is across all major corps and they all behave identically.