In the first recorded labor skirmish at RCA, workers tried to break through the turnover system. In the spring of 1977 the employees publicly condemned the company's policy of forcing workers to resign when they reached the age of twenty-five or accumulated five years on the job. The "mass demonstration," however, was quickly and efficiently defused and defeated. RCA's systematic manipulation of turnover clearly indicated that it preferred to absorb the substantial costs of rehiring and retraining personnel rather than allow wages to rise to market levels or allow workers to acquire inefficient habits and "dangerous" levels of commitment to their jobs.