Working conditions so poor...

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

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.

if it is so obvious and so profitable, why is everyone doing it?
surely if even you know about how successful it is, then other leaders of industry will too

wotsthat

Graham_Devon wrote: »

But thhere are clearly others that have concerned enough people for it to be investigated.

Serious allegations/ insinuations have been made - of course it needs to be investigated.

Your confirmation bias is so strong that if/ when allegations of wrongdoing are considered unfounded you'll say that's evidence of the weakness of employment law anyway.

It's Sports Direct - they must be doing something wrong.

Graham_Devon

wotsthat wrote: »

Serious allegations/ insinuations have been made - of course it needs to be investigated.

Your confirmation bias is so strong that if/ when allegations of wrongdoing are considered unfounded you'll say that's evidence of the weakness of employment law anyway.

It's Sports Direct - they must be doing something wrong.

Will I? Thanks for letting me know.

I haven't even watched the programme yet (it's on tonight). I will be though and will judge from that.

Fella

I believe Mike Ashley applies the 6 strikes rule to the Newcastle manager position too.

Although its been a long time since there were 6 strikes there.

I'm here all week.

Mistermeaner

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.

Great idea - that will work in all service industries, especially retail. Could also role it out to hospitals etc. Maybe they can use Twitter to let customers know if/when anyone turns up so they will know when they're open.

Generali

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I actually said it's one of the results of capitalism.

Not the result as you have concluded.

It's not a precondition of capitalism to treat your staff badly.

As the workers live in a free capitalist society they can find work elsewhere. Under a cronyism system they may well find themselves indentured to their employer, under communism again the workers may well find themselves not allowed to look for work elsewhere as they are required to work at a particular place.

Graham_Devon

Watching the programme, it appears that the key for these agencies is to employ foreign born people, often with language barriers. The vast majority are eastern european and many seem to need interpreters.

Some of the stories are plain absurd. One persons job (not entire job, before I'm picked up) is to go around the warehouse collecting urine bottles. These are bottles of discarded urine as people are only allowed to visit the toilets while on designated break times. This appears to apply to females too, regardless of their hygenic requirements.

The language barrier appears to make things very difficult. One person believed she was given the go ahead to go and get a drink of water as she was feeling ill. However, she was given a strike for taking time off the floor to get that drink.

The agencies appear to target and invite these people to the country with a promise of a job.

Sports Direct and the agencies appear to disagree with any of the stories given by those interviewed. However, it's patently clear in the programme that the warehouses are well guarded.

With regard to the ambulances, a Health and Safety consultant who "travels the world and advises large business" suggests the ambulance data on Sports Direct is like something you'd see from a third world country - not the UK.

The secondary problem with hiring people who cannot speak English is they cannot read warnings. The amount of warehouse injuries which are required to be reported by law have doubled in the last year alone.

Mistermeaner

Still nothing to do with capitalism.

Perhaps a boycott of lonsdale is in order, but what sportswear would then be acceptable in greggs/Ladbrokes at lunchtime on a Tuesday?

wotsthat

From what Graham is saying, I didn't watch it, it seems the ambulance situation is just something used as a hook with a talking head telling people the numbers aren't random.

It doesn't sound like a great place to work though (I think we knew that). I've been in plenty of factories where the staff are predominantly foreign and, usually, there's plenty of signage in Polish etc. with a native Polish speaker delivering training too.

Where I have some sympathy with Sports Direct is the toilet situation. It's the bane of every company trying to run a line. On boring production lines staff will go to toilet for something to do, they get back and someone else will go etc. and this routine starts about 10 minutes after they start. You can end up with a line needing 6 people running with 5 and trying to make up for the extra person makes it even less efficient.

People, literally, take the !!!! and I've seen toilet policies introduced although not a strike system. Productivity rises quickly and, in my example, there was a positive feedback loop because line bonuses go up. People still need to go and are allowed - no one lives in fear so much they wet themselves or use empty pop bottles. It sounds as if they don't have enough toilets in the warehouse or problem staff at Sports Direct - if you're driving a picking trolley around you should really be passing a toilet every now and again and should be able to pop in.

its a good job lorry drivers can go a couple of hours without going to the toilet or else nothing would get delivered.

As with most things like this policies intended to combat the lazy impact the hard working

Tromking

All part of Cameron's "global race" (to the bottom?) with China and the rest. We'd better get used to it.