Shouldn't we ask whether it's morally defensible for a top executive to accept tens of millions in pay while he is destroying the lives of his workers?

As janitors and community supporters continue their hunger strike outside of Cisco Systems corporate headquarters in San Jose, Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy has written a thought-provoking column about the corporate strategy of treating layoffs as 'par-for-the-course' events that are the cost of doing business in this downtrodden economy.

Cassidy points to the disparity between the blasé attitude the tone of conversations surrounding layoffs have taken on and the real-life devastation that large-scale layoffs cause for people, families, and communities. (One example of this 'detached' attitude that springs to mind is Bank of America ex-chairman Ken Lewis, whose response when asked about the job cuts BofA delivered to nearly 35,000 of its employees in April showed little care for his employees.)

"I understand that at times, in the interest of survival or reinvention, companies must pare down or realign their work forces. I know that this is one of the worst economies since the Great Depression...

But that doesn't mean we can ignore the way massive job losses, including from profitable companies with extravagantly paid executives, are choking the life out of our economy and our communities. People who don't work don't buy things or keep current on their mortgages. Stores close. Homes go vacant. Neighborhoods and commercial districts shrivel up.

Cassidy also rightly points to the hypocrisy of corporate executives such as Cisco's multimillionaire CEO John Chambers, who appears to be one of many high-powered executives not reported to have considered making cuts to their high-dollar salaries and compensation packages a regular business practice in lean times.

The important principle these fasting janitors are sacrificing so much to make: a company that has $34 billion in cash assets and paid its CEO $18.8 million last year shouldn't just stand by while $12-an-hour workers are let go by the contractor Cisco hired to work on its campus. The question "what choice did we have?" from a chief executive in the face of shattering company layoffs shouldn't be rhetorical, says Cassidy. This question, he says, "should be put to business leaders by the press and politicians. We should all be talking about it. Isn't there another way?"

Justice for Cisco Janitors has estimated that it would cost just a month and half of Cisco CEO Chambers' salary, or a little more than $1 million, to bring back all of the 70+ laid-off janitors of SEIU Local 1877 to work for the rest of this year. Please stand with these janitors--who are currently in Day 6 of their hunger strike--as they demand justice for the janitors at Cisco Systems and stand up to all the corporations who are deaf to the kitchen-table concerns of middle class Americans.

Click here to send a letter to Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers or visit http://seiuaction.org/campaign/justiceatcisco