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The DHSS can make you go for interviews/jobs. You can, of course, refuse, and then have your benefits stopped.

.. Arbeit macht frei and all that

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/business/your-boss-doesnt-see-what-the-problem-is-2012100844078?utm_campaign=10102012&fb_action_ids=4830715132466&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

 reds8n wrote:


The DHSS can make you go for interviews/jobs. You can, of course, refuse, and then have your benefits stopped.

I've been on the dole on more than one occasion and I can assure you that it never works out quite like that. It's shockingly easy to stay on the dole if you want to. How else do so many smackheads manage to stay on it?

.. Arbeit macht frei and all that

Oh, come the feth on.

 Albatross wrote:

 reds8n wrote:


The DHSS can make you go for interviews/jobs. You can, of course, refuse, and then have your benefits stopped.

I've been on the dole on more than one occasion and I can assure you that it never works out quite like that. It's shockingly easy to stay on the dole if you want to. How else do so many smackheads manage to stay on it?

Actually these days it works a hell of a lot like that, jobcentre staff have targets for the amount of people they are supposed to sanction. Half a million sanctions were handed out last year.

Reds8n has an apt name, because he is a screaming red, like Red Ed or Red Balls.

The fact he even made the claim that "the DHSS make you go for interviews!" as if that actually achieves anything shows how out of touch he is, just like the labour party enmasse.

Simple answer, tens of thousands of people are career welfare recipients. I read somewhere last year that over 250,000 have been receiving unemployment for over ten years, but I shall have to search for the story.. I also personally know about ten (my Dad and all of his mates)

I come from Middlesbrough, they have turned it into a fething art form.

Regards the topic, I know for a fact it makes more sense when you actually know the ins and outs of the situation. I shall play Devils advocate and argue that it may be an excellent idea.

For example, I would gladly accept more money for less benefits in my current job, and all of my workmates with integrity would as well, in fact, we have been talking about it for years, the sick lame and lazy get mollycoddled and all the work gets pushed onto everyone else, they can't fire the lazy, so they give them no work and make everyone else do it for them. George obviously listens to feedback.

Anyway, I digress... Its the public sector so its a different situation.... we already know the British public sector is a joke. Nobody gets fired ever, nobody does their jobs properly, teachers get "moved" schools if they feth the kids, binmen won't empty bins, firemen are scared of fire, nurses don't nurse and policemen wont police. "I didn't join the police force to have to deal with criminals!" etc etc etc

Short answer, workers have far too many fething rights, and as someone with pride and integrity, I would have my bosses hand off if he offered me extra cash for less benefits. For example I won't take a sick day unless i'm literally dying on my feet, so why wouldn't I happily give up sick pay in exchange for more cash/shares or what have you?

Plus, I don't worry about rights securing my job either, because I don't care if my boss can fire me easier, he won't, because I'm fething excellent at my job. I'm harder working, more punctual, faster, stronger, and better looking the fether stood next to me.

Before you all dismiss it out of hand, ask yourself this.. if you have been in the same job for a few years, and never took a day off sick, wouldnt you rather have more cash than "sick days" you never use?

Wouldn't you rather have a better hourly rate, than more rights to stop yourself being fired, even though you have never been late, and never been given a verbal warning?

You are both jumping all over what seems to me, to be an entirely logical idea. Namely, the blokes who do their jobs well, and turn up when they are supposed to, and dressed how they are supposed to be, get no benefit at all from sick pay being available, or from making it harder to fire them. They don't go sick, and they don't do anything that would make their bosses want to fire them? The only people who benefit from all that gak are the lazy good for nothing fethers, who abuse the system, and suck the life out of all the good employees around them. They are fething morale hoovers.

Its pretty simple when you come right down to it isn't it?

 Albatross wrote:
You don't have to buy them under this scheme, they just give them to you.

Of course, since the proposal doesn't seem to require employers to offer ownership compensation in exchange for the forfeiture of workers' rights in new employment contracts, I suspect this is basically an attempt to mask a policy which makes "workers' rights" voluntary per the discretion of the employer.

Also, and this may just be an issue with the article, it isn't clear if the compensation limit of 50,000 GBP is per employee, or a total regarding compensation offered to all employees.

 dogma wrote:
[qI suspect this is basically an attempt to mask a policy which makes "workers' rights" voluntary per the discretion of the employer.

As I said though, is it so bad?

I dont know about the US, but its almost impossible to fire people here. I think that is seriously fethed up. My mate just got smashed at a tribunal for firing a useless fething slapper with the work ethic of a house brick.

As I said above, Ill save you reading the whole thing.

The blokes who do their jobs well, and turn up when they are supposed to, dressed how they are supposed to be, get no benefit at all from sick pay being available, or from making it harder to fire them. They don't go sick, and they don't do anything that would make their bosses want to fire them! The only people who benefit from all that gak are the lazy good for nothing fethers, who abuse the system, and suck the life out of all the good employees around them.

Doesn't that make sense to you? You work right mate? If you had to pick up the slack constantly for some good for nothing fether all the time, wouldn't you WANT to see the fether fired?!

Its an emotive subject because people instantly side with "the workers" over "the evil land baron/employer" but at the end of the day (I don't own my own company by the way!) there is a happy medium, and in the UK, we have gone far beyond fair rights for workers, how about fair rights for employers, and the employees that have to put up with working alongside arseholes?!

 mattyrm wrote:

Before you all dismiss it out of hand, ask yourself this.. if you have been in the same job for a few years, and never took a day off sick, wouldnt you rather have more cash than "sick days" you never use?

In the United States many employers offer bonuses for unused sick days, which is a good policy given that sick days are essentially mandatory in any salary based contract because everyone gets sick eventually.

With hourly pay it doesn't really matter except as a means of outlining how many absences will be tolerated, because if someone isn't at work they aren't being paid.

 dogma wrote:

 Albatross wrote:
You don't have to buy them under this scheme, they just give them to you.

Of course, since the proposal doesn't seem to require employers to offer ownership compensation in exchange for the forfeiture of workers' rights in new employment contracts, I suspect this is basically an attempt to mask a policy which makes "workers' rights" voluntary per the discretion of the employer.

The Chancellor said in his speech that they would give up their employment rights in exchange for new rights of ownership. I guess we'll find out what that means when more detail emerges.

Also, and this may just be an issue with the article, it isn't clear if the compensation limit of 50,000 GBP is per employee, or a total regarding compensation offered to all employees.

I think it's per employee.

 mattyrm wrote:
Reds8n has an apt name, because he is a screaming red, like Red Ed or Red Balls.

The fact he even made the claim that "the DHSS make you go for interviews!" as if that actually achieves anything shows how out of touch he is, just like the labour party enmasse.

Simple answer, tens of thousands of people are career welfare recipients. I read somewhere last year that over 250,000 have been receiving unemployment for over ten years, but I shall have to search for the story.. I also personally know about ten (my Dad and all of his mates)

I come from Middlesbrough, they have turned it into a fething art form.

Regards the topic, I know for a fact it makes more sense when you actually know the ins and outs of the situation. I shall play Devils advocate and argue that it may be an excellent idea.

For example, I would gladly accept more money for less benefits in my current job, and all of my workmates with integrity would as well, in fact, we have been talking about it for years, the sick lame and lazy get mollycoddled and all the work gets pushed onto everyone else, they can't fire the lazy, so they give them no work and make everyone else do it for them. George obviously listens to feedback.

Anyway, I digress... Its the public sector so its a different situation.... we already know the British public sector is a joke. Nobody gets fired ever, nobody does their jobs properly, teachers get "moved" schools if they feth the kids, binmen won't empty bins, firemen are scared of fire, nurses don't nurse and policemen wont police. "I didn't join the police force to have to deal with criminals!" etc etc etc

Short answer, workers have far too many fething rights, and as someone with pride and integrity, I would have my bosses hand off if he offered me extra cash for less benefits. For example I won't take a sick day unless i'm literally dying on my feet, so why wouldn't I happily give up sick pay in exchange for more cash/shares or what have you?

Plus, I don't worry about rights securing my job either, because I don't care if my boss can fire me easier, he won't, because I'm fething excellent at my job. I'm harder working, more punctual, faster, stronger, and better looking the fether stood next to me.

Before you all dismiss it out of hand, ask yourself this.. if you have been in the same job for a few years, and never took a day off sick, wouldnt you rather have more cash than "sick days" you never use?

Wouldn't you rather have a better hourly rate, than more rights to stop yourself being fired, even though you have never been late, and never been given a verbal warning?

You are both jumping all over what seems to me, to be an entirely logical idea. Namely, the blokes who do their jobs well, and turn up when they are supposed to, and dressed how they are supposed to be, get no benefit at all from sick pay being available, or from making it harder to fire them. They don't go sick, and they don't do anything that would make their bosses want to fire them? The only people who benefit from all that gak are the lazy good for nothing fethers, who abuse the system, and suck the life out of all the good employees around them. They are fething morale hoovers.

Its pretty simple when you come right down to it isn't it?

Clearly you have been lucky and never had a bullying boss, or someone who just decided that they wanted you out because they didn't like the look of you, or because you were ill, or just didn't like the way you worked. Made your life hell because you have a disability or because they felt like it. I'm sorry, but the world just dose not work that way. Clearly you have been lucky not to ever have a serious illness. Sick days are not some magic holiday you gain or lose. You shouldn't be taking any, but when you need them better they are there, unless you have some way to wave a wand and avoid being in a car accident or having your appendix out. How do you know you won't get a new boss that would fire you on the spot for no reason? You should stop reading the daily fail and think for a second. How do you know your boss won't fire you?

Clearly you have never worked in the public sector either. I did 5 years working in the local council. feth that! I did twice the work for half the pay I get now. Most people working in the public sector are horrifically under funded and fighting against zero budget to do there job, total lack of leadership, as all the top care about is not losing political points, so change things on the whim of news papers.

Strange you make no mention of the armed forces who moan when someone shoots at them, or expect the whole country to cry when one of them dies in a warzone.

I'm sorry, but this idea that "everyone is lazy but me" and "well if you do your job well you'll have no problem" is completely divorced from reality. Along with the idea that the public sector is somehow unable to do there job. You bring up things basied on a few reports in sensationalist news papers. How about Group 4 at the olympics, or banks failing? Dose that mean everyone in the private sector can't do there job? Or poor customer service at PC world?

 mattyrm wrote:

but its almost impossible to fire people here.

Thats just not true. It is entirely possible to fire someone if done the correct way. The problem is too many people think the correct way is like Alan Sugar. People get sacked all of the time.

 mattyrm wrote:

I dont know about the US, but its almost impossible to fire people here. I think that is seriously fethed up. My mate just got smashed at a tribunal for firing a useless fething slapper with the work ethic of a house brick.

That's unfortunate, but I don't think the solution is giving employers permission to deny workers their rights, rather I think the solution is to consider what is wrong with the present way workers' right work.

As Sebster said, no employer is going to give stock compensation to a guy flipping burgers or digging ditches.

 mattyrm wrote:

Doesn't that make sense to you? You work right mate? If you had to pick up the slack constantly for some good for nothing fether all the time, wouldn't you WANT to see the fether fired?!

That depends, I'm a bit sensitive to this subject at the moment given I just got over a viral infection that put me the hospital for 2 days. Thankfully the deadline for my data assessments isn't until Monday*, and the other company I contract for is run by a close college friend.

*I can't really say anything specific, but working as an independent contractor (basically no employment protection) is something of nightmare at times; even if you're highly educated and theoretically less dispensable.

 mattyrm wrote:
Reds8n has an apt name, because he is a screaming red, like Red Ed or Red Balls.

The fact he even made the claim that "the DHSS make you go for interviews!" as if that actually achieves anything shows how out of touch he is, just like the labour party enmasse.

Simple answer, tens of thousands of people are career welfare recipients. I read somewhere last year that over 250,000 have been receiving unemployment for over ten years, but I shall have to search for the story.. I also personally know about ten (my Dad and all of his mates)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobseeker's_Allowance

Sanctioning
In certain cases, a claimant's Jobseeker's Allowance may be stopped. A person choosing to remain out of employment should a vacancy be available is obliged to give a "good reason" for the choice, or else their monies are to be with-held,[29] also:
Not being available for or actively seeking work, or not signing the Jobseeker's Agreement: if a claimant does not declare on the Jobseeker's Agreement that they are available for and actively seeking work, and sign the Agreement, the benefit will be suspended until the claimant completes and signs the agreement. Once the agreement has been signed, a Decision Maker will decide how much of the claim should be backdated, if any.
Missing a Restart interview: the claim will be terminated unpaid, back benefit entitlement will be lost, and the claimant will need to make a new claim.
Voluntarily leaving work, or refusing a notified vacancy: temporary reduction or stoppage of benefit payment, known as a sanction. The sanction may be up to 26 weeks, and the length will be decided by an adjudicator. A notified vacancy is a job vacancy which the claimant has found out about from Job Centre Plus, who keep records of all the jobs their clients request information about.
Refusing to attend compulsory scheme, or failing to comply with Direction: sanction of two weeks for the first instance, and four weeks for second and subsequent instances.
The suitability of person for a particular type of employment; the person's individual skill group or particular intelligences are outside of the contractual focus, acceptance of the contractual obligation of having the goal of securing employment irrespective of suitability, is the criteria for receipt of financial support.[29]

It's not a gun point demand, but , as I said, you can and do lose money if you don't go to interviews, send off for jobs etc etc

Regards the topic, I know for a fact it makes more sense when you actually know the ins and outs of the situation. I shall play Devils advocate and argue that it may be an excellent idea.

For example, I would gladly accept more money for less benefits in my current job, and all of my workmates with integrity would as well, in fact, we have been talking about it for years, the sick lame and lazy get mollycoddled and all the work gets pushed onto everyone else, they can't fire the lazy, so they give them no work and make everyone else do it for them. George obviously listens to feedback.

You clearly don't as the scheme doesn't offer you any more money. So what you're talking about is irrelevant.

Do at least try and keep up.


Listens to feedback eh ? .. hmm... from the FT yesterday

"
The International Monetary Fund has moved a step closer to withdrawing its support for the UK’s economic strategy, advising the government to redraw its fiscal tightening plan if growth disappoints in the coming quarters."

"
The IMF said in its Fiscal Monitor report, published on Tuesday, that Britain should relax its fiscal consolidation strategy, aimed at cancelling the UK’s structural deficit by 2017, if the economy remained weak.

The remarks will pile pressure on George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, to switch to a “plan B” to boost the UK’s ailing economy, which has contracted over each of the past three quarters."


To be fair, maybe he does listen, After all the closest he got to talking about actual economic growth was " “making the fundamental, deep-rooted changes needed so our country can grow and compete and prosper.” So perhaps he knows he's not doing very well.

Before you all dismiss it out of hand, ask yourself this.. if you have been in the same job for a few years, and never took a day off sick, wouldnt you rather have more cash than "sick days" you never use?

Wouldn't you rather have a better hourly rate, than more rights to stop yourself being fired, even though you have never been late, and never been given a verbal warning?

None of this is on offer or being discussed. As it stands companies can, and do offer incentives for things like good attendance, bonuses for hitting targets and so on. So what's being discussed doesn't affect this at all.

And, of course, like any form of insurance -- which is what sick pay after all -- you'll be glad of it when you need it.

The obvious problem is that the only time the company will (one would hope) want to fire you -- seeing as you're such an paragorn of the workforce --is when it’s doing badly. So at that point it’s fair to presume the shares you’ve been given are near enough worthless. Which will create a triple whammy: no job, no compensation and shares worth the sweet side of FA.. Why should any any sensible employee going to opt for the scheme in that case?

Also in small growing companies -- ie the ones this is supposed to help -- even if they have shares owners do not want the ownership spread around because if that happens selling is very, very much harder to achieve and is much more costly to arrange as the number of people needing to agree rises too fast to manage. That’s why if such companies do issue shares they (usually) have shareholder agreements that require that if someone leaves they have to sell their shares to the company involved. Usually that is on what is called ‘bad leaver’ terms – which means you get a rubbish pay out. So, back to square one again: lose your job and get a poor payout (at best).

You are both jumping all over what seems to me, to be an entirely logical idea. Namely, the blokes who do their jobs well, and turn up when they are supposed to, and dressed how they are supposed to be, get no benefit at all from sick pay being available, or from making it harder to fire them. They don't go sick, and they don't do anything that would make their bosses want to fire them? The only people who benefit from all that gak are the lazy good for nothing fethers, who abuse the system, and suck the life out of all the good employees around them. They are fething morale hoovers.

Its pretty simple when you come right down to it isn't it?

Those people get promoted. Which gives them more money etc etc

And, once again, the situation you're waxing so lyrically about is nothing at all to do with Osborne's proposal.

Electroo wrote:

Clearly you have been lucky and never had a bullying boss, or someone who just decided that they wanted you out because they didn't like the look of you, or because you were ill, or just didn't like the way you worked. Made your life hell because you have a disability or because they felt like it. I'm sorry, but the world just dose not work that way. Clearly you have been lucky not to ever have a serious illness. Sick days are not some magic holiday you gain or lose. You shouldn't be taking any, but when you need them better they are there, unless you have some way to wave a wand and avoid being in a car accident or having your appendix out. How do you know you won't get a new boss that would fire you on the spot for no reason? You should stop reading the daily fail and think for a second. How do you know your boss won't fire you?

Im sure it CAN happen, but life has taught me that if someone hates you there is generally a reason. Thats logical right? I hate plenty of people, always for a reason though. I also know plenty of public sector workers, some are great, some are dicks. Funny thing their bosses hate them, funny thing they always tell me the bosses hate them for "no reason"

Electroo wrote:
Clearly you have never worked in the public sector either. I did 5 years working in the local council. feth that! I did twice the work for half the pay I get now. Most people working in the public sector are horrifically under funded and fighting against zero budget to do there job, total lack of leadership, as all the top care about is not losing political points, so change things on the whim of news papers.

I have, half of my workmates suck.

Electroo wrote:
Strange you make no mention of the armed forces who moan when someone shoots at them, or expect the whole country to cry when one of them dies in a warzone.

I made no mention of them because it is utterly irrelevant. You have hardly any rights in the armed forces! You either like it, or you feth off and get another job. As they constantly say, "This ain't a democracy soldier!"

Regards the last half of that troll bait sentence, how can "the armed forces" moan when someone shoots them? We don't have conscription, if you don't like getting shot, you are free to leave, thus your statement makes no sense at all. Now, maybe some people might cry, plenty of them no doubt do if it isn't in their job description. I mean, I guess an RAF chick who works intel wouldn't like getting shot, I never heard a combat soldier moan about it though... you also don't t expect anyone to cry for you except your wife! As I said, its not a conscript army, so you don't get to moan and you don't expect anything from our fat, relatively happy public.

I neither want, nor expect the sympathy of a stranger.

Electroo wrote:
I'm sorry, but this idea that "everyone is lazy but me" and "well if you do your job well you'll have no problem" is completely divorced from reality. Along with the idea that the public sector is somehow unable to do there job. You bring up things based on a few reports in sensationalist news papers. How about Group 4 at the olympics, or banks failing? Dose that mean everyone in the private sector can't do there job? Or poor customer service at PC world?

Its not based of sensationalism at all. Its based off the obvious and well known fact that the once noble idea of a Union has been hijacked by a mafia like organization, and Len McCClusky and his mates now think that the Public Sector is there to serve itself and them, and not the public.

Clearly you aren't half as well read as you think you are, everything I wrote is grounded in fact, and the main source of my news is slightly left of centre BBC. I don't even read the Daily Fail!

Here is a personal favourite about those wonderful hard working teachers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10464617

Only 18 UK teachers have been struck off for incompetence in the past 40 years, the BBC's Panorama has learned.
This is despite estimates that up to 17,000 teachers are not up to the job.
b]Some bad teachers are moved between schools, rather than having their competency challenged, it has emerged.

I've just worked 2 years in Pennsylvania, USA. The state is one of several here that has an instant fire policy. Your boss wakes up in a bad mood and doesn't like the colour of your shirt? You're fired. You support a team s/he doesn't like? Fired. It makes for a fearful workforce and it really, really doesn't alter the ability of the hard working to be hard working or the gakky working to be gakky. It's still, from what I witnessed, utterly random and often unfair.

Matty, you should have moved to the states and 'lived the dream' in a country that has done away with many of the workers rights to protection you seem to despise as 'weak'. The rights of the working man and woman should be cherished and held onto in the UK, the alternative is living your working life in apprehension of the dullard who line manages you having an argument with his girlfriend and coming into work in a bad mood.

Also, you seem to believe that you are very capable of surviving the harshest of employee environs, what if you came to work for my company and they fired your ass for 'selfishness', 'not being part of the corporate family', 'not supporting your team-mates' and 'being a hard-head'. You see, in the box store I was working in, there were many who were lazy, many who were selfish and dodged tasks, they got away with it by being mates with a manager or having a certain knowledge set which noone else was bothered to learn and they survived there, there were equally hard workers who were constantly striving and taking on the work, some ragequit due to pressure of carrying departments or were fired for losing their tempers with their gakky bosses and speaking out of turn. The place I worked was a posterchild for the Peter Principle, with a couple of exceptions, the gak really did rise to the top.

Because, in this wonderful land of pure capitalist work ideal, gakky bosses are gakky bosses still, there is not market meritocracy you seem to think should exist, just far less to protect you from the inept and spiteful.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I've just worked 2 years in Pennsylvania, USA. The state is one of several here that has an instant fire policy. Your boss wakes up in a bad mood and doesn't like the colour of your shirt? You're fired. You support a team s/he doesn't like? Fired. It makes for a fearful workforce and it really, really doesn't alter the ability of the hard working to be hard working or the gakky working to be gakky. It's still, from what I witnessed, utterly random and often unfair.

Matty, you should have moved to the states and 'lived the dream' in a country that has done away with many of the workers rights to protection you seem to despise as 'weak'. The rights of the working man and woman should be cherished and held onto in the UK, the alternative is living your working life in apprehension of the dullard who line manages you having an argument with his girlfriend and coming into work in a bad mood.

Also, you seem to believe that you are very capable of surviving the harshest of employee environs, what if you came to work for my company and they fired your ass for 'selfishness', 'not being part of the corporate family', 'not supporting your team-mates' and 'being a hard-head'. You see, in the box store I was working in, there were many who were lazy, many who were selfish and dodged tasks, they got away with it by being mates with a manager or having a certain knowledge set which noone else was bothered to learn and they survived there, there were equally hard workers who were constantly striving and taking on the work, some ragequit due to pressure of carrying departments or were fired for losing their tempers with their gakky bosses and speaking out of turn. The place I worked was a posterchild for the Peter Principle, with a couple of exceptions, the gak really did rise to the top.

Because, in this wonderful land of pure capitalist work ideal, gakky bosses are gakky bosses still, there is not market meritocracy you seem to think should exist, just far less to protect you from the inept and spiteful.

As you must surely know by now, I'm not exactly a hardcore "pure" capitalist, how can a working class lad raised by a lone Father be that way?! I don't own a company, I'm simply playing devils advocate and pointing out what is obvious, that workers have heaps of rights, and some of the evidence (17 teachers sacked in 40 years?!) is overwhelming for it. Is it that different in the private sector?

Clearly I don't think workers should have no rights at all, its morally wrong for a boss to be able to throw his weight about willy nilly. But as always, political arguments on the internet go from one extreme to the other.

I suppose ultimately the point I was making was that the full extent of this possible legislation has not been released, and I'm sure the people running the country know more about their jobs than blokes on dakka dakka. It seems ridiculously to instantly rip the piss out of Osbourne and make out how everyone in here is a political mastermind, when at the end of the day, there is a case to be made, that the Unions wield too much clout, and people that should clearly have been sacked, more often than not aren't.

In some cases, maybe you would prefer shares or a stake in your company over certain other rights, until more information becomes available, I hardly think that's an absurd thing to say.

I don't just want good environments for employees, I want good rights for employers as well. That doesn't make me a greedy banker or a land baron!

Fairs fair surely?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Also, you seem to believe that you are very capable of surviving the harshest of employee environs, what if you came to work for my company and they fired your ass for 'selfishness', 'not being part of the corporate family', 'not supporting your team-mates' and 'being a hard-head'. You see, in the box store I was working in, there were many who were lazy, many who were selfish and dodged tasks, they got away with it by being mates with a manager or having a certain knowledge set which noone else was bothered to learn and they survived there, there were equally hard workers who were constantly striving and taking on the work, some ragequit due to pressure of carrying departments or were fired for losing their tempers with their gakky bosses and speaking out of turn. The place I worked was a posterchild for the Peter Principle, with a couple of exceptions, the gak really did rise to the top.

The bolded bit is where I actually laughed. The guys with specialized skills that nobody else possessed had more slack than the drooling masses? Ya don't say!

Because, in this wonderful land of pure capitalist work ideal, gakky bosses are gakky bosses still, there is not market meritocracy you seem to think should exist, just far less to protect you from the inept and spiteful.

Disagree. My experiences invalidate your experiences.

This government have already doubled the time period before you actually have the majority of workers rights and it has been clear since the election that their plan all along was to erode workers rights until there are few left.

It will not stabilise the economy to have everyone living in fear of their job, quite the opposite.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sourclams wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Because, in this wonderful land of pure capitalist work ideal, gakky bosses are gakky bosses still, there is not market meritocracy you seem to think should exist, just far less to protect you from the inept and spiteful.

Disagree. My experiences invalidate your experiences.

Experience doesn't work like that.

 dæl wrote:
This government have already doubled the time period before you actually have the majority of workers rights

What's so bad about that? I know you hate the Tories because of some sort of misguided class warfare, but really, what's so bad about a little motivation?

If I hire a guy, and he turns out to be a total douche, I want to be able to fire the fether, and I want my boss to be able to fire a fether like that who is working alongside me! I don't want him to rock up, act like a good grafter for some paltry period of time, and then suddenly he is lazy, rude, late and slovenly and I'm stuck with him on my shoulder.

There is definitely a happy medium at work, I'm not some fat cat who wants to rape his employees, I'm a working class stiff! But gak workers piss off good workers. I'm not just saying I want a little fear because Im an employer, I want some because I'm an employee who doesn't like working alongside unprofessional arseholes.

A little fear is fine. A fearless employee is like a fearless little chav who knows he is below the legal age of prosecution... he might look cute at first, but next thing you know he is through your grannies kitchen window, has her VCR under one arm, and he is coiling one out on her bedroom floor.

 mattyrm wrote:
[
As you must surely know by now, I'm not exactly a hardcore "pure" capitalist, how can a working class lad raised by a lone Father be that way?! I don't own a company, I'm simply playing devils advocate and pointing out what is obvious, that workers have heaps of rights, and some of the evidence (17 teachers sacked in 40 years?!) is overwhelming for it. Is it that different in the private sector?

Clearly I don't think workers should have no rights at all, its morally wrong for a boss to be able to throw his weight about willy nilly. But as always, political arguments on the internet go from one extreme to the other.

I don't just want good environments for employees, I want good rights for employers as well. That doesn't make me a greedy banker or a land baron!

Fairs fair surely?

The Unions haven't been a potent political force for years, Thatcher broke the back of the Union Block and, as is the way of things, the pendulum swung too far the other way.

Employers have a good environment in the UK. In my last job before leaving for the States, I worked for an insurance company, the director stood up as the 08 storm broke and said 'no redundancies here!' to much cheering, I then watched them wipe out almost half the staff in the building, through firing over petty things, breaking people's will by giving them 'new responsibilities', taking people apart in Performance Reviews by giving them impossible tasks and basically anything else they could dream up in their wicked minds. They came for us specialists last in the year, a few got lucky and were gotten rid off in poor ways, the company was forced to pay out on a few lawsuits, it was drops in the ocean to our firm and they were only slightly less happy about shelling out a few thousand over settling out of court. I was very lucky, when they came for me, they knew I was moving to America, so I was low priority, even so, eventually they tired of waiting for the visa to process and decided to rid themselves of me as well. As complaint coordiator they'd saved millions from me, I'd talked a major airline into keeping it's business with the firm, among others, keeping several million a year with them in that company's premiums alone. Didn't matter, they wanted my role, along with all the other specialists, out and cleared as they were cutting the firm right back to the basic processors of claims and the senior management (they never did attack their own, despite condensing the departments to half, I guess it's like kingslaying, it would have set an uncomfortable precedence...).
They sent Internal Audit after me, didn't work, after 2 months painful back and forth, they had to accept Internal Audit's findings of green across the board, first time a department ever had that. Audit had been sent from the central offices and weren't part of our offices, they were fair and told me after they'd fought my management's attempts to warp their report to the European Directors.
They put me through Performance Improvement Plans, foolish, they'd already sent Audit who'd given them a glowing report, my monthly reports were also presented every month to the Directors of European Business, they loved my work so how could they attack me on my work? Instead they were forced to resort to utterly silly sounding things, like wrong footwear in the office (I would put sneakers on if I didn't have a meeting, more comfortable) or swearing at my desk. I had to keep on my toes, make sure I corresponded with the management in email, document everything, watch what I said to anyone, but I was able to build a big folder of correspondence and was ready to take them on, it was a highly stressful time and I'm lucky I had some friends in the business who helped me. I was also blessed with a fairly inept direct line manager who I was able to counter, as he was under pressure from his master to get me gone.
Eventually they came to me with an offer, take a payment of several month's pay or be sent back to work in a minor position in a claims team, as they thought they had a trump move, the Internal Audit report was 'so good that we just don't need your position any more, you've done all you were asked to do and more!'... I could have fought them, through ACAS, I had some consultation and my complaint, that they were demoting me, was entirely valid. I could have taken them to court and likely won or had them settle out of court for a decent amount. They were counting on me not wanting to fight them or not having the will to do so. I accepted their offer, after some negotiation for amount, simply because I had received word from the American Embassy and my visa was near completion. I would not have time to fight them, I took half a year's pay and left the country two months later.

The 'moral' of my tale is this, corporations have everything at their disposal to rid themselves of unproductive or poor employees, any time they like, in the UK. They had difficulty getting rid of me because I was neither and also because I was prepared to stick in their craw. If the employees in the UK lose more of their rights, if they become more easily gotten rid of, then employers can act as they want and people will again become commodities, as they were in the days of the cotton mills, or as they have been becoming here in the States.

Discussion aside mate, thats a gak tale, I'm sorry to hear of your epic feth about.

At least you got a half years salary and then fethed off to the States eh?

 sourclams wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
Also, you seem to believe that you are very capable of surviving the harshest of employee environs, what if you came to work for my company and they fired your ass for 'selfishness', 'not being part of the corporate family', 'not supporting your team-mates' and 'being a hard-head'. You see, in the box store I was working in, there were many who were lazy, many who were selfish and dodged tasks, they got away with it by being mates with a manager or having a certain knowledge set which noone else was bothered to learn and they survived there, there were equally hard workers who were constantly striving and taking on the work, some ragequit due to pressure of carrying departments or were fired for losing their tempers with their gakky bosses and speaking out of turn. The place I worked was a posterchild for the Peter Principle, with a couple of exceptions, the gak really did rise to the top.

The bolded bit is where I actually laughed. The guys with specialized skills that nobody else possessed had more slack than the drooling masses? Ya don't say!

The particular case I was thinking off was a woman who was a department manager like me, she'd been there 17 years, she knew a lot of fairly useless reports, knew how to re-key a lock and several other particularly finicky and minor things so the mystique was that, because she'd been there longer than the managers, was untouchable.

She was also a heavy drinker, would often call off on Saturday mornings 'sick' along with taking huge breaks in the mornings she did come in to sit in the staffroom shoving coffee down her throat to be able to stand up, was moody due to her alcohol, didn't 'get' the new computer systems or programs we were bringing in and failed to train her team to the extent that we lost several really good employees due to them having to work for her. She also smelled of booze and was occasionally rude to customers due to having a 'late night' the night before. She indeed knew things that the senior management did not, she didn't share them and the managers were too lazy to learn them, those things protected her. She was unworthy of that protection and everyone knew it.



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 mattyrm wrote:
Discussion aside mate, thats a gak tale, I'm sorry to hear of your epic feth about.

At least you got a half years salary and then fethed off to the States eh?

True enough, lots of things played in my favour in the end, them knowing I was leaving was one of them. They initially offered me 3 month's pay at those negotiations and I fought them up to half a year.

Interestingly I recently got in contact with the financial director of that airline and we had a long chat. He'll be taking their business away from my old employer, as their quality of service and accuracy has dropped greatly due to them not having anyone left that knows what they're talking about.

Karma's a bitch.

 mattyrm wrote:
Reds8n has an apt name, because he is a screaming red, like Red Ed or Red Balls.
Anyway, I digress... Its the public sector so its a different situation.... we already know the British public sector is a joke. Nobody gets fired ever, nobody does their jobs properly, teachers get "moved" schools if they feth the kids, binmen won't empty bins, firemen are scared of fire, nurses don't nurse and policemen wont police. "I didn't join the police force to have to deal with criminals!" etc etc etc

Firstly the labour party is right wing, there are no significant left wing parties in UK politics (the lib dems have damned themselves to the right and aren't exactly significant anyway). Secondly your 'arguments' about the public sector sound very much like the kind of gak found in such august publications as the Daily Express.

 mattyrm wrote:

 dæl wrote:
This government have already doubled the time period before you actually have the majority of workers rights

What's so bad about that? I know you hate the Tories because of some sort of misguided class warfare, but really, what's so bad about a little motivation?

If I hire a guy, and he turns out to be a total douche, I want to be able to fire the fether, and I want my boss to be able to fire a fether like that who is working alongside me! I don't want him to rock up, act like a good grafter for some paltry period of time, and then suddenly he is lazy, rude, late and slovenly and I'm stuck with him on my shoulder.

You should have a pretty good idea how decent a worker someone is after a year, doubling the period to two years was simply a way to further erode the rights of workers for the benefit of employers.

As a manager who has been trained by the qualified legal consultants of a major international corporation in how to fire staff, I can tell you it is very easy as long as there is a real cause to fire them for.

You just follow the legal process of verbal warning, written warning, etc. and make sure things are properly documented.

It is also easy to get rid of people you don't like. You just make them redundant and give them a good payoff, so they will go away quietly.

It is not so easy to get rid of people without cause, cheaply.


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The head of Sainsbury's has declared against this idea, BTW.

As one of the most successful business leaders in the UK, and a member of the government's advisory panel on business issues, his opinion might be considered worthy of note.

Incidentally, this policy is basically just a ham-fisted attempt to introduce the recommendations of the Beecroft Report, the pdf of which can be found here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/employment-matters/docs/r/12-825-report-on-employment-law-beecroft.pdf

I for one think they should have just implemented the report without any of this fannying around. The Left are more than willing to jump on any coalition policy (particularly Tory ones - they even jumped on Free Schools! Ludicrous.) without giving them slightly silly-sounding one like this.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
As a manager who has been trained by the qualified legal consultants of a major international corporation in how to fire staff, I can tell you it is very easy as long as there is a real cause to fire them for.

You just follow the legal process of verbal warning, written warning, etc. and make sure things are properly documented.

It is also easy to get rid of people you don't like. You just make them redundant and give them a good payoff, so they will go away quietly.

It is not so easy to get rid of people without cause, cheaply.


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The head of Sainsbury's has declared against this idea, BTW.

As one of the most successful business leaders in the UK, and a member of the government's advisory panel on business issues, his opinion might be considered worthy of note.

Sainsbury's are pretty pro-union though. During my induction day, we had a union rep hand around application forms to every single new employee. IIRC about 80% of the staff in that store were union members.

Large businesses on the whole are not clamering for a reduction in worker rights anyway. What's killing the recovery is the reduction of aggregate demand due to spending cuts by the government (and, to a lesser extent, personal credit being repaid). Of course, despite this being a deliberate government policy, they never publicly acknowledge this. Despite it being more or less the only thing they've done since they came into office, not a single cabinet member has actually said "The economy is stagnating because of our spending cuts".

 Testify wrote:


Large businesses on the whole are not clamering for a reduction in worker rights anyway. What's killing the recovery is the reduction of aggregate demand due to spending cuts by the government (and, to a lesser extent, personal credit being repaid). Of course, despite this being a deliberate government policy, they never publicly acknowledge this. Despite it being more or less the only thing they've done since they came into office, not a single cabinet member has actually said "The economy is stagnating because of our spending cuts".

They aren't saying that because it isn't true. Sorry. It just isn't. The Labour Party would like that to be true, because they like simple answers, the simplest of all being 'throw more money at them'. It's all they know how to do - when all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking nail-shaped. The problems we are experiencing are not simply due to the Coalition reducing the deficit by 25%. That's a left-wing fantasy. It's far more complicated than that.

 Albatross wrote:

 Testify wrote:


Large businesses on the whole are not clamering for a reduction in worker rights anyway. What's killing the recovery is the reduction of aggregate demand due to spending cuts by the government (and, to a lesser extent, personal credit being repaid). Of course, despite this being a deliberate government policy, they never publicly acknowledge this. Despite it being more or less the only thing they've done since they came into office, not a single cabinet member has actually said "The economy is stagnating because of our spending cuts".

They aren't saying that because it isn't true. Sorry. It just isn't. The Labour Party would like that to be true, because they like simple answers, the simplest of all being 'throw more money at them'. It's all they know how to do - when all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking nail-shaped. The problems we are experiencing are not simply due to the Coalition reducing the deficit by 25%. That's a left-wing fantasy. It's far more complicated than that.

So you don't think that the British economy is stagnating due to a lack in demand?

To rephrase the question - what does reducing government spending do if not increase demand?

 Testify wrote:

 Albatross wrote:

 Testify wrote:


Large businesses on the whole are not clamering for a reduction in worker rights anyway. What's killing the recovery is the reduction of aggregate demand due to spending cuts by the government (and, to a lesser extent, personal credit being repaid). Of course, despite this being a deliberate government policy, they never publicly acknowledge this. Despite it being more or less the only thing they've done since they came into office, not a single cabinet member has actually said "The economy is stagnating because of our spending cuts".

They aren't saying that because it isn't true. Sorry. It just isn't. The Labour Party would like that to be true, because they like simple answers, the simplest of all being 'throw more money at them'. It's all they know how to do - when all you have is a hammer, everything starts looking nail-shaped. The problems we are experiencing are not simply due to the Coalition reducing the deficit by 25%. That's a left-wing fantasy. It's far more complicated than that.

So you don't think that the British economy is stagnating due to a lack in demand?

Aha, I didn't say that. I said that demand isn't just depressed because of a reduction in government spending.

To rephrase the question - what does reducing government spending do if not reduce demand?

Fixed?

Spoken like a true lefty! And that isn't rephrasing the question, it's asking a new one. Which is fine, of course. In the current climate, reducing government spending helps to put a brake on our creditors and investors declining confidence, keeping rates low.

 Albatross wrote:

Aha, I didn't say that. I said that demand isn't just depressed because of a reduction in government spending.

If the government is spending less money, that is a reduction in demand. A £50bn cut in spending means that money is not being spent on goods, services and wages.

Fixed?

Yeah typo, my bad.

 Albatross wrote:

Spoken like a true lefty! And that isn't rephrasing the question, it's asking a new one. Which is fine, of course. In the current climate, reducing government spending helps to put a brake on our creditors and investors declining confidence, keeping rates low.

Right. But the concequence of that is a reduction in demand and tens (hundreds?) of thousands of job losses.

The government has made a choice between low interests rates and economic growth. They have chosen low interest rates, but more irritatingly refuse to acknoledge that they have done so, born out of an ideological desire to cut spending.

Current interest rates are what, 1.5%? Keynesian economics says that is easily low enough to support further borrowing to stimulate economic growth. Furthermore, with inflation running at 4/5%, that means our debt is going down by 2/2.5% a year. Something to keep in mind.

mattyrm wrote:You are both jumping all over what seems to me, to be an entirely logical idea. Namely, the blokes who do their jobs well, and turn up when they are supposed to, and dressed how they are supposed to be, get no benefit at all from sick pay being available, or from making it harder to fire them. They don't go sick, and they don't do anything that would make their bosses want to fire them? The only people who benefit from all that gak are the lazy good for nothing fethers, who abuse the system, and suck the life out of all the good employees around them. They are fething morale hoovers.

Its pretty simple when you come right down to it isn't it?

It is simple: if you can fire someone for no reason, then you should fire them if they refuse to work for half the pay. And it doesn't matter how hard a worker you are, because there are always two people willing to work half as hard as you for a third of the pay.

And then everyone gets to return to serfdom.