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The Rural Voice, 1989-03, Page 12G 1 RATES FOR 35 TRUST COMPANIES iI 3 yrs. monthly Bsyshore Trust J1.3O% 1-2 yrs. ann. 1 ome Savings & Loan 3 yrs. RSP or GIC Bayshore Trust NO FEES OR CHARGES AEC INVESTMENTS GODERICH 1-800-265-5503 Btuewatter OFFICE EQUIPMENT LTD. 65 HAMILTON ST. GODERICH • olhietti • TOSHIBA • commodore Plain Paper Copiers Word Processing Systems Facsimile Electronic Typewriters and Calculators Computer Systems and Supplies Computer & Typewriter Ribbons Stationery Supplies 524-9863 524-4905 1-800-265-1722 Fax No. (519) 524-4812 FARM TIRES Good selection of Duals Large stock of light, heavy truck & farm tires 23° R1 Willits Tire Service Lucknow 519-528-2103 10 THE RURAL VOiCE DOES LEAN BUSINESS MEAN MEAN BUSINESS? "Lean and mean" is the business watchword of the 1980s, but as someone who has worked in a lean and mean company for the past few years, I don't know how much more I can take. Lean and mean is supposed to describe a new era when all the fat is taken off companies, leaving only the muscle. Farmers, of course, have been lean and mean for years, and they know that being lean and mean isn't particularly fun. While there is some truth to the theory of leaner companies, in most cases I think it's just an excuse to do what big business wanted to do all the time: get bigger and make more money. The recent merger mania in Canada, for instance, has been done in the name of making leaner, more efficient companies to compete in the cut-throat world of global economics. This is opposed to the reason given for the mergers of a few years ago, which was just to make more money. To the people at the bottom of the scale, people like you and me, leaner usually means meaner. It means longer hours for less pay. It means having to try to put black ink at the bottom of the page while you take in less on everything you make. Meanwhile, what do the people at the head of these lean and mean con- glomerates do? I recently read a copy of Bronfman Dynasty by Peter C. Newman and came across a descrip- tion of the executive offices of the Seagram building in New York: "The executive offices are panelled in English oak, and visitors waiting to see Edgar (Bronfman) find themselves sitting in the original Barcelona leather chairs Mies van der Rohe designed for the Berlin Building exposition in 1931. On the fourth floor there's a wine museum, kept at a constant 65 degrees Fahrenheit, where executives, seated around three medieval wooden tables, can sip samples of Bern- kaster Doktor 1904, Mumm's Cordon Rouge 1928, Chateau Leoville Barton 1924, and other priceless vintages." Granted, this description was written before lean and mean arrived in the 1980s, but I'll bet if the Sea- gram offices have been redecorated, it hasn't been with furniture from a government surplus office supplier. The truth is, this lean and mean business only applies to people who can't manipulate things to have their cake and eat it too. Lean and mean doesn't mean that Lee Iaccocca takes less in salary; it means he moves more jobs south over the Mexican border. While there is much talk about efficiency, I don't think old-fashioned efficiency has much to do with the real world. The efficiency of larger opera- tions has more to do with power than making things cheaper. It has to do with being able to tell the bank what to do rather than have the bank tell you (had Dome Petroleum been a fam- ily farm, would it have hung around for so many years?). It has to do with being in a position where when you speak, government officials listen. True efficiency comes from those scrambling to make a living. Farmers are efficient because they know that all but the most efficient are going to be broke. Third World labourers are efficient because they're so glad to have any job they'll work for less a day than North American workers get in an hour (maybe even less than our workers get on their coffee break). Our big companies aren't really lean and mean, they're just fat enough that people are afraid to be sat on by them and so they get their own way. They have so much power that smaller businessmen (including farmers) have to stay skinny to stay alive.0 Keith Roulston, a newspaper publisher and playwright who lives near Blyth, is the originator and past publisher of The Rural Voice.