There are moves afoot to end the protected status of deadwood, in that employers are to be allowed to sack freeloaders without giving any reason.
I agree that letting the lazy buggers claim compensation when they're sacked for not doing what they're paid to do is silly. In a contract, you get paid to do something and if you're not doing it, the employer should be allowed to tell you to get lost.
Those who are self-employed are aware of this already. If someone contracts me to do a job and I don't deliver, they don't actually need to sack me. They can just refuse to give me any more contracts. It is in my interest to deliver within the stated time frame even if the results are not what the employer wanted to see. Those who appreciate my honesty will be keen to employ me again. Those who want me to fudge things to fit their agenda, I don't want to deal with again.
If I wasn't honest, I'd be rich, but then I'd have to do a post here on myself.
So okay, fair enough, employers should be able to sack wasters who aren't doing what they're paid for. This new idea goes too far the other way. Why give no reason? If the reason is that the employee is not fulfilling their contract, surely that's a valid reason to dump them?
If you don't need a reason, then at times of belt-tightening, employees will snipe and squeal that someone isn't working even if they are. It will be 'If I don't get him sacked, then it might be me' time. The Deadwood Posse will hunt down those the workforce don't like whether they are productive or not. If a business has five employees, the boss is likely to know who is the facebook-tapping clockwatcher, but if it has hundreds, the boss will be dependent on reports. Dependent on squealers.
Commenters in the Mail include those who want this applied to smokers first. What gives it away as an ASH astroturf is that everyone believes that every smoker in every business takes ten minutes every hour for a smoke break, like a bunch of clones. Smokers are the lazy ones, while the antismokers spending work time on the Mail website to complain how they have no spare time because the smokers aren't pulling their weight are the productive ones.
Should I ever be in a position to employ people, one of the interview questions will ask about their attitudes towards smoking. If they are antismokers they don't get the job. I am not paying people to spend time online whining about how much they have to do. I'd rather they took a smoke break and came back to do some real work.
If I have 60 samples to deal with, smoke breaks are at 15, 30 and 45. Not timed. When you have to do exactly the same thing 60 times it is essential to take breaks and it is important to know when they'll be. Those samples have to be done on the day they arrive so anything that pushes you into working faster is good. If there were two of us, breaks would be at 30 and at the end. The work would be done.
If I ever had to sack someone I would consider it good manners to give a reason. Even if that reason was no more than 'The business has no money', there should be a reason. The idea of tapping someone on the shoulder and saying 'You. Out' with no explanation sounds a bit too Victorian for my tastes.
The old way, whereby the useless could claim a wad of cash when sacked for being useless, was no good. This new way, when anyone can be sacked on a whim for no reason, is no good either. The ideal lies somewhere between.
What is really surprising is that, given the events of recent days, Cameron thinks this is a good idea. Has the man no connection with reality at all?
17 comments:
christ, another rollocking reel of right-wing cant. i thought you were fucking off to carve pumpkins or something?
anywise, since most vacancies nowadays are filled by nepotism or the mob, i doubt whether there'll be too many arguments.
and thank gawd we don't need to convene a tribunal to give cameron the old heave-ho - he's already past his poll-by date. nevertheless, divvy dave's still in with a shout, but as a sweetener he'll first have to decriminalize cannabis, tv-license-dodging, and tax-evasion...
...mind-you, a repeal of the fox-hunting ban would keep the pack of meddling twits out of mischief for at least a couple of years.
sack of shite.
02:35
survive to the next election? not if he goes near that dirty little danish tart again...and don't think i didn't catch him letching over her skinny scandinavian legs and trying to sneak a shifty look up her skirt...wait 'til the podgy over-sexed prick gets back...he'll be lucky to make the next prime minister's questions...because he's got a few hard one's coming from me first, boy.
I wonder if this new legislation would apply to the civil service, or local government jobs?
No, probably not...
"...anywise, since most vacancies nowadays are filled by nepotism or the mob.."
They are?
Damn. Just wrote a piece in agreement and Google wiped it out at the signing in stage. Should have copied it first. Ho hum.
Pity we couldn't use CallmeDave's reforms to sack those in Wastemonster! They should be held accountable too, not just the little people. Unfortunately, any reforms will be used against the poor peasants who are already hard pressed, while the real wasters coast it as usual.
The best defence against being sacked is the presence of lots of alternative jobs. Only then (ie a true free market) would just being able to sack on a whim be ok.
The state has fucked the other jobs option. Sacking on a whim when alternative jobs are hard to come by stinks. Tory shite will love it but ordinary people, not wasters, many have whom have worked hard and long, will suffer.
it's best, in the first place, not to put your livelihood in the two hands of the state and state-funding employers - between them they'll almost certainly drop you in it. the employment tribunals were bent, biased and operated on an expensive adversarial (as opposed to inquisitorial) model, and, like normal courts, were thus largely inaccessible to those who could not afford, or acquire, legal representation - in theory the employment tribunals could have provided a simple inexpensive means for settling disputes, but they became an elaborate edifice of the establishment. in general, the claimants who managed to screw an employer for a few quid, only succeeded because the employer was manifestly way more corrrupt than the employee himself - local authorities were top of the bill in this respect. citizens are now going to be forced to take labour relations into their own hands - should be interesting.
05:44
if you take the public sector which accounts for a large proportion of the national workforce, membership of a union, or affiliation to an appropriately influential political party can prove be a key factor in gaining employment thesedays. it's a one-drone dictatorship, didn't ya know? at interview you simply have to go into encrypted drivel-mode emitting an ultrasonic signal on a reserved cia wavelength, and you're in. i've been trying to perfect my technique for years, but just never seem to get the knack. i know this is all true because i can never get a job.
apparently old holborn has been got-at and has joined the anti-capitalist camp - i always knew he was wrong-un, the conniving commie cunt.
13:33
sorry typo
12:52
citizens are now going to be forced to take labour relations into their own hands - should be interesting.
...which could mean unfair dismissal cases flooding into the civil courts - or the criminal courts if workers see fit to twat their bosses in lieu of compensation...
...all of which, in a nutshell, is going to cost the tax-payer a bloody bundle. what a 5-star 24-carat pea-brained conservative plonker our prime minster really is.
Not sure what the jobfather or sexy sam are trying to say, but I usually do agree with much of what you have to say, LI (even if you are an ardent smoker - AND with the condign support from my big bro - bastard!).
However, in this case I am inclined to agree with everything you are saying; the fear of retribution for the sacking of a poor worker would make any employer reluctant to take on workers; however, with NO controls in place to curb the more unscrupulous employers, it does give carte blanche for the back-stabbers rife in most offices.
RSP
"They can just refuse to give me any more contracts."
They can do worse than that - they can refuse to pay you. And worse, not recommend you to any potential customers and give you a bad reputation within the trade.
Terminating a contract of employment without giving a reason is just bad manners. A good employer will not terminate any employee 'on a whim', but it is not the job of government to teach employers to be 'good'.
Any employer who finds good employees should cherish them. Any employee who finds a good employer should do likewise. Good employers and good employees do cherish each other. A good employee sacked by a bad employer 'on a whim' is better off out.
@ RSP 28 October 2011 20:05
Is that you, little bro? If so, I forgot to say Happy Birthday.
DP
w/v slumpon
And I you - so I got my own back (a rarity in its right)!
15:33
great thinking, mr delbois, i will issue immediate proposals to scrap the whole justice system - that should definitely save a few quid.
30m break (smokes or not) every 4 hours LI, that's our company policy.
Of course anyone with the title "Manager" on their little fucking plastic badge can have a fag every couple of hours for maybe 5-7 mins or just walk out the customer entrance at the back and so not tracked on the door entry systems.
I'm a drone so have put in 4 hours to get my smokes and tea...
Just to clarify, I look forward to my smoke breaks, and wouldn't grass any other erm "colleague" smoker up for their short excursions outside, no matter how much I fucking detest them.
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