Unions and stuff

A friend of ours (well, of Vic's, I don't have any friends) is getting laid off in a month.  She's basically the "new guy", and they're getting rid of a level of supervisors, so everybody's moving down, and getting lower pay grades and salaries and suchlike.  At first this didn't sound so bad, but I've been thinking about it, it's ret stupid.  If you want to get rid of the supervisors, you should get rid of the supervisors - the way this has gone down you've pissed on everybody from the supervisors on down.  The supervisors have basically been demoted, and nothing says "attaboy" quite like a demotion and a pay cut.  The poor bastards who were thinking that they're almost supervisors have just been pushed back that number of people, so they're feeling like they'll never get ahead.  I'm sure some senior people are now having to be... um... less senior.  So, rather than lose some supervisors, you've lost new people who you need to be ready to replace all those boomers who are soon to be retiring, and given your workers' morale a healthy kick in the nads at the same time.  It's OK, I'm sure the management can say "hey, they should be happy they still have jobs".