where business hold all the cards and the "loyalist" peons in HR are kissing the butts of upper management so they can keep THEIR jobs.
I am happy and proud to say this is not the case everywhere. I know an HR Admin who refused to place everybody in the company on salary because she recognized the move for what it was and also realized it to be illegal. Of course she soon "retired" because companies don't want honest people working for them, they want trolls and ogres that will do as they are told. As I have grown older I have come to see the American capitalist system for what it is in most cases - vulture capitalism; a system bent on squeezing employees for everything they can get while they hide behind phony excuses of "hard times". All hard times means is instead of netting $1M an exec might have to settle for a paltry $950K. So the long and short of it is - play their game. Take them for all you can get and don't even consider loyalty. They don't care, why should you?