Working conditions so poor...

Carl31

I can imagine in certain sectors sickness is a bigger problem than others, mainly due to the type of employee, and type of work

I imagine retail is one. My wife works in healthcare and it’s a big problem there too, they try and impose things to reduce sickness

The strikes an out thing is probably after years of abuse from staff of their policies

Conrad

Graham_Devon wrote: »

However, these conditions are now becoming more commonplace in the UK.

So lets have prices rises all round to fund better pay and conditions then.


I find those that protest much about capitalism are also those that greedily seek out best value and bemoan 'rip-off Britain'. Their mind seemingly incapable of spotting the link between value hunting and workers pay and conditions.

Fella

Graham_Devon wrote: »

it's worth pointing out that Sports Direct operates a strike system, whereby calling in sick (regardless of reason) means you'll face a strike on your record. Any worker who received 6 strikes in 6 months will have their job terminated.

Expect to see more & more of that kind of thing as the "living" wage is introduced/increased. Employers aren't going to simply pay people more, they will want more for it and impose tougher conditions.

lisyloo

That people are afraid of calling in sick and go to work ill.

All the self-employed people I know will go to work unless they are on their death bed. I personally don't think that's a good thing.

I did start to do the same after I was marked down for sickness in a redundancy round. I started to go in even if I was unproductive or lying in a darkened room. I don't believe that was good either.

So the pressure applies to anyone who would lose pay, scared of redundancy, scared of loss of performance - that's a lot of people.

Graham_Devon

Interestingly, some of the most successful companies in (I think it was!) Sweden have opted for 6 hour work days. Some of them allow you to do your 6 hours as and when you like.

It's believed this is far more productive and allows a greater work / social balance. Their pay has been increased too, to match their 8 hour days, as the companies believe they are actually getting more out of them in a 6 hour focused shift than an 8 hour shift.

It's proven highly successful so far. The workers are also free to take a break (up to 40 mins total) whenever they like. So if they feel like going out for 20 mins 1 hour into their 6 hours, so be it.

These companies appear to believe that allowing workers to have more responsibility for themselves is worth far more than having rigourous conditions and sanctions imposed on them.

chris_m

Graham_Devon wrote: »

it's worth pointing out that Sports Direct operates a strike system, whereby calling in sick (regardless of reason) means you'll face a strike on your record. Any worker who received 6 strikes in 6 months will have their job terminated.

It's also worth pointing out that inaccurate quoting does not help to support any argument.
The article states that "the agency" operates the strike system, not SportsDirect.

Graham_Devon

chris_m wrote: »

It's also worth pointing out that inaccurate quoting does not help to support any argument.
The article states that "the agency" operates the strike system, not SportsDirect.

I'm pretty sure the agency will be working under Sports Directs guidance on these matters.

Sports direct will be able to dictate whether the strike system is in place or not, and it's terms too.

The agency works for Sports Direct - not the other way around.

Conrad

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Interestingly, some of the most successful companies in (I think it was!) Sweden have opted for 6 hour work days. Some of them allow you to do your 6 hours as and when you like.

It's believed this is far more productive and allows a greater work / social balance. Their pay has been increased too, to match their 8 hour days, as the companies believe they are actually getting more out of them in a 6 hour focused shift than an 8 hour shift.

It's proven highly successful so far. The workers are also free to take a break (up to 40 mins total) whenever they like. So if they feel like going out for 20 mins 1 hour into their 6 hours, so be it.

These companies appear to believe that allowing workers to have more responsibility for themselves is worth far more than having rigourous conditions and sanctions imposed on them.

Nothing new, I went on management courses about this 2 decades ago. Silicon Valley has done this stuff for decades. The point is though that this does not work in all settings.


Imagine the following MSE thread title;


"Angry, waited all day for my washing machine engineer to arrive only to be told he's decided to knock off early / take an extended break" (now that he's 'autonomous' and 'empowered' by his firm to work as he wishes).




Or this one Graham;


Went to pick up car in for repair and told them I would be there at 3.15, however I had to wait 40 mins as the mechanic took a 40 min ad-hoc break, can I complain?




How about;


Nail biting wait for mortgage offer, vendor threatening to withdraw, only to be told glibly that the case underwriter has taken the rest of the day off. Can I get compensation?

Graham_Devon

Come on conrad, stop being so negative. Clearly it wouldn't work in all scenario's and no one ever suggested it would.

But it works in many scenarios, and the point was more than treating workers in the manner which some companies do doesn't seem to be all that productive.

martinsurrey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_in_the_United_Kingdom

In the UK in the 20 years before privatisation there were 51 rail fatalities and 1,872 rail injuries

In the 20 years after there were 32 fatalities and 1,195 injusries, DESPITE the number of passengers doubling over the same period.



so following the same logic, privatisation has saved thousands of peoples injuries, with double the passengers we would expect double the injuries (3,800) but we only got 1,195 or just over 25% of expected. Yay for Privatisation!

Now I know my maths is a bit fag packet, but its just to demonstrate that statistics can be twisted to prove anything!