In times of trouble, is HR your friend?

Over the past few years, my employer has imposed a few rounds of layoffs. During the run-up, we were encouraged to visit with our human resources department if we wanted to inquire about taking a package. We were assured absolute, air-tight, witness-protection-program secrecy if we chose to do so. Who needs our bosses knowing we're entertaining an exit?

Quite a few of my colleagues did visit with HR. Then a funny thing happened. A few of them found that some management types dropped by to nonchalantly express their appreciation of the staffer's work.

Now, you have to understand my workplace culture to truly comprehend how completely weird that is. Where I work, bosses do not randomly drop in to tell you you're fab. My colleagues suspected an HR leak to management. I don't think they were being paranoid.

I bring this up because we're squarely in recessionary times again, with more American workers sure to be hit with layoffs and offers of early retirement. In these times of trouble, is HR your friend? Or can you ever trust a department that, after all, reports to the same master?