http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8583012.stm



Again, management is clearly the problem. Little more on this rather scant article, though.

Yes poor management Though why start now? I would wait till after the election. All that will happen is that the right to strike will be banned. The public do not support such action especially during a recession. Better to work to rule.

The public also being workers, some of whom will be affected by similar kinds moves against them during the recession. At some point, we have to wake up to the fact that if you work for a wage, your rights as an employee are being very carefully eroded.

I do agree - the right to strike will be looked at carefully, especially by a more right wing thinking party.

Cameron will certainly want to be seen to be like Thatcher and to take on the unions.

at my wife's place of work (every little helps) they have just gone through with enforced contractual change for the 3rd time in a year and at my place of work they are getting ready for contractual change sometime in the next fews months

management doing the company bidding regardless of the affect on a persons working/private/family life …

edit
forgot to add
management the lowest form of legalised scum on the planet …

The incidents that make me die (laughing) are where the employers (particularly HMG) try to unilaterally change contracts or deny employees pay or other benefits that they are contractually entitled to. This, understandably, pisses them off and they strike.

The management (or HMG) then try to play the "recession" card and the public lap it up, moaning about how times are hard for all and they should just accept it. I bet they'd be the first to complain if their pay was slashed without their agreement.

Presumably since we're now in an age where employers can unilaterally alter contracts, employees can raise their own pay when times are good again?

I think that it is the self delusion of many that think that these things will never happen to them. In the same way that people will vote for tax cuts for the rich because they think that it will be them to benefit next. It is only a matter of time before they are affected and have their contracts changed. These rights have been fought for over centuries and many are happy to give them up at a moments notice.

I don't know about you guys, but when I am not happy with my employer I go and work for somebody else. Is this concept not familiar in this country? Or is Britain turning into France where they just strike all the time and do f..k all day?

Agreed, but many would find that there is a problem moving to a new employer, with the country in recession. People simply are not willing to take risks. Though longer term this could mean that many employees will have absolutely no loyalty to their current employer, so see a surge in resignations once the economy recovers.

How about 2.6 million unemployed?

What about them? What are you trying to say?

Also add in those forced into part time working or on short time working.

The tired out capitalist argument. This assumes that there are jobs to go to in your particular sector. It also assumes the those actually doing the work are somehow feckless and not to be trusted.

Take the instance of someone who has worked for a company for a long time - he has skills, and is a hard worker. Suddenly, the company management decides to “modernise”. Our friend here is suddenly in the zone - he could be made redundant. He could find his work hours extended, and his pay frozen or even cut. You have to multiply this by a much bigger number - this is not one person being victimised.

So - a few scenarios:
1 - he’s out on his ear, along with a lot of other people. There is a small number of available jobs, and a huge number of peple applying for them. There may not even BE any jobs. Take Longbridge when MG went bust, for example. Lots of suddenly unemployed workers who know how to assemble cars are tipped out into an area where there are no other such jobs.

2 - he’s kept his job, but he’s now under a new contract which he had to sign or be fired which means he’s got longer hours, but he won’t see a pay increase. He may even find that those longer working hours affect his personal safety.

In both scenarios, the worker is worse off - for no fault of his own. He’s either on the dole, having to retrain (at his expense, I hasten to add) because there is no work for his skill set or he’ll have to move to another area, again at great expense. If he has a family, this is a real bugger. He could be working longer hours, for the same pay (or even less).

I fail to see how this is good, “modern” or even fair. Is he allowed to protest? Is he allowed to question his employer’s decisions? After all, it’s his and his work mates’ productivity that keeps the company going. If workers are not allowed to complain and protest about serious changes that will affect their lives, then we are entering a slave-driven society.

At least the French have the guts to stand up and say “no”. Good for them.

Anyone any idea about what point you can argue that a change of contract amounts to constructive dismissal?

I don't think some people live in the same world as me. Some of you live in the world where having a job and an annual payrise is a god given right.

Take the BA who are on strike over pay as they don't like two-year freeze of their salaries. How can somebody in their right mind ask for a freaking payrise when they work for an airline the middle of the biggest recession in a living memory? Do they not understand that in a recession people fly less so airline has to drop prices of tickets and cut number of flights? How then can airline pay more to their staff? Are all people working for BA retarded? Why on earth should you get a payrise every single year with complete disregard of market conditions? Where do they think the money for payrises is gonna come from, some secret stash under CEO's desk?

If you believe you deserve a payrise (or better conditions, holidays, more recognition or whatever) and your employer is not gonna give you one go elsewhere. And if you can't find what you are looking for elsewhere that means you are asking too much and you should be happy with what you have. Demand and supply set the price of labour just as they do for the most of good and services.

In eastern block in communist era everybody had a job, there was full employment all the time. If you didn't have a job there would be one created JUST FOR YOU. And if you didn't like that job they would give you another one. And a person who couldn't keep a job would go to JAIL for being a parasite of a society. So people had jobs doing all kinds of useless things, producing goods and service that nobody needed. Do you know what kind of damaged that did their economies? Just look at the standard of living in Eastern and Western Europe in 1990 when Eastern Europe economically crumbled. They basically run out of money to support their economic experiment any longer...