Socialize the losses of migration
"Europe fears a bank crisis," wrote HN in its lead headline yesterday. "Companies need 140,000 people," wrote HN above the fold today. It doesn't take an MBA to realize that if there's a bank crisis, Czech companies won't need all those workers. Yet Pres. Jaroslav Hanák of the Confederation of Industry stood on his soapbox yesterday and prodded the government to speed up the approval process for low-skilled Ukrainian workers. PM Bohuslav Sobotka, looking for votes, nodded in approval. Has anyone at the cabinet office or the Confederation of Industry done a cost-benefit analysis of what these Ukrainian workers will end up running the Czech taxpayer if they are hired and then let go because of a bank crisis? How many will stay in the CR at taxpayer expense? It doesn't take an MBA to realize that what Hanák is trying to do is to privatize the profits of European migration and to socialize the losses. This is the new Corporate Social Responsibility.
Glossary of difficult words
above the fold - the upper half of the front page of a newspaper, where an important news story or photograph is often located;soapbox - a box or crate used as a makeshift stand by a public speaker; used with reference to a situation in which someone expresses strong opinions about a particular subject;
to prod (someone to do something) - to stimulate or persuade (someone who is reluctant or slow) to do something;
Corporate Social Responsibility - a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model for monitoring and ensuring that a business complies with the spirit of the law, ethical standards and national or international norms.