It’s been just over a week since a federal judge blocked the Obama administration’s change to overtime rules, preventing more than 4 million workers from becoming eligible for overtime at the very last minute. It’s a raw deal for American workers—just in time for Christmas shopping—but small potatoes compared with what the Trump administration has in store, as the trailer for Greg McLean’s film The Belko Experiment—which seems to be based on a true story from about a year from now—makes clear.
Starring John Gallagher Jr., Melonie Diaz, John C. McGinley, and perpetual villain Tony Goldwyn, the film, written by James Gunn, tells the story of an innovative job creator who develops an Amazon-style employee review program to identify top performers and clear out dead weight. Essentially a “rank and yank” system on steroids, the Belko Corporation takes stock of its workforce by sealing workers’ offices off from the world and ordering the employees to kill each other before corporate brass does it for them. Though there are some whiners at the beginning—see Who Moved My Cheese? for details—eventually the employees “lean in” to the company’s new culture of empowered innovation and start hacking each other to bits for their bosses’ amusement.
It’s a powerful case study of the ways a completely deregulated war of each against all can unleash the power of the marketplace, helping surviving employees develop new core competencies while cutting payroll costs and increasing shareholder value. And if your relationship with your employer doesn’t feel like The Belko Experiment yet, just wait until Trump gets his hands on the Department of Labor.
