UK employment culture

[Mr $quandaŁot]

Looking at all these threads here at LB and also from a personal point of view, UK employment culture is awful at best.

We urgently need much tougher legislation. To start with, any notice period should not favour employers ie your contract can be terminated at anytime but you are required to give a week's notice, common with employment agemncies but would be illegal in many European countries where no discrepancy may exist.

From my personal experience, many problems are caused by middlemen, in this case recruitment agencies. Why so many companies use them now that it's so easy to put a direct ad on reed, jobsite, secsinthecity etc is a mystery. Many recruiters do exactly what recruiting managers and HR persons could easily do themselves - google candidates.

I was once sacked from a temp booking for putting a wrong image on a PowerPoint slide purely because the mark-up was unclear. The agency (Crone Corkill) lied to me, saying that the client decided they didn't need a temp after all. I digged a bit deeper and found out the real reason.

A more serious offence is almost forcing contractors to opt out of the EEA 2003 regulations. I never do. If they don't like I tell them that I will report them if the contract is cancelled for me protecting my legal rights.

I am looking to leave the UK later in the year as I've lost my faith in this island's employment culture.

[jon1965]

Re: UK employment culture

If you are working as a contractor then yes it is much easier to get rid of you. There are however certain rules in place that mean summary dismissal can only be done for gross misconduct or within ( I think) the first 3 weeks . Certainly my last job was the other way, they had to give me 12 weeks because I had such long service but I only had to give a month,

Please don't get me wrong, employment laws are a joke now with the change on unfair dismissal moving to 2 years from 1 . I am not sure where you are thinking of leaving for but it is not all rosy everywhere else. America has lax employment rights , other countries have awful social rights ( I won't be going to Uganda or Iran anytime soon ).

You are right though, this country stinks politically unless you are rich

[Mr $quandaŁot]

Re: UK employment culture

Finland.

Know the language. Would consider Germany too but don't know enough German.

In many ways, like other Nordic countries, Finland is over-taxed and over-regulated but employees are well protected and higher education is mostly free. I've applied for a course over there. On my prospective course, you can study in English or Finnish and I'm able to do both.

If all fails, unemployment benefit is about 160 euros a week plus housing allowance. TV licence and local taxes are only payable if you are in employment. All available if you intend to move there permanently.

Don't really want to use the benefits system anymore than here, but it's a relief to know it will be accessible if needed.

On another note, I like America but only as a holiday destination.

[bluebottle]

Re: UK employment culture

By George Osborne and Cabbage Patch Doll Cameron thought they were so clever when they watered down employment rights in order to placate the City of London. However, in their haste, they failed to take account of the European Convention on Human Rights, especially the Articles and Protocols relating to justice and employment. Human Rights Conventions are International Law and supersede a country's domestic laws to the extent that a country's domestic laws must be compatible with the Convention Rights. Any legal provisions that are not compatible are open to challenge and any public authority that performs any act which is incompatible with Convention rights is acting unlawfully. The public schoolboys who think they run this country have stitched up their friends in the City like kippers because Human Rights law has far-reaching effects and penetrates far deeper than any other legislation.

[Mr $quandaŁot]

Re: UK employment culture

What concerns me is increasing inequality and the government's inability to acknowledge that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a former member of the Conservative Party so hardly a left loonie. However, history tends to repeat itself. You only have to ask why the Russian revolution happened in the first place?

I'm not expecting a communist revolution but a nasty social unrest which would leave the 2011 riots look like a walk in the park is very likely unless Cameron and others realise that they are asking for it!

As it happens, I'm no longer a Tory voter...

[bluebottle]

Re: UK employment culture

What concerns me is increasing inequality and the government's inability to acknowledge that.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a former member of the Conservative Party so hardly a left loonie. However, history tends to repeat itself. You only have to ask why the Russian revolution happened in the first place?

I'm not expecting a communist revolution but a nasty social unrest which would leave the 2011 riots look like a walk in the park is very likely unless Cameron and others realise that they are asking for it!

As it happens, I'm no longer a Tory voter...

Have a read through the attached and it will become very clear very quickly why things are going wrong and why Cabbage Patch Doll is behaving the way he is. To be honest, the British people are far too perceptive and intelligent to fall for Cabbage Patch Doll's rhetoric and the propaganda being pumped out by the mainstream media. You're more likely to get accurate reporting from alternative media. The people will not take to the streets and riot as Cabbage Patch Doll hopes they will. He is more likely to see his discredited and corrupt government brought down by legal means than violence. It will only take a handful of carefully selected human rights cases to completely stuff the Tories and the City of London who thought privatising public services would enable them to do whatever they wanted. Not so, I'm afraid. Commercial entities fulfilling public functions are subject to compliance with human rights law and non-compliance is unlawful. A judgement applies to all breaches prior to the date of judgement. The European Convention on Human Rights was signed in 1953 and has applied since then. The incorporation of it into UK domestic law was a condition of the UK's membership of the EU. The UK has been adjudged to be guilty of human rights violations and been forced to change the law prior to the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998.

[jon1965]

Re: UK employment culture

Bluebottle
I have to disagree with you many of the british public are really that stupid. They do fall for propaganda. They also fall for the blame game and blame it all on immigrants. The fact that the UK border agency is a waste of space is ignored.
I am not worried about a communist revolution although I think there are definite positive lessons to be had from communism , my fear is a right wing Nazi style takeover.
This weekend I visited Schindlers factory in Krakow. The first half of the exhibition almost made the actions of the Nazis seem reasonable. I say almost , and the other parts of the exhibition gave a very different picture.

[bluebottle]

Re: UK employment culture

Bluebottle
I have to disagree with you many of the british public are really that stupid. They do fall for propaganda. They also fall for the blame game and blame it all on immigrants. The fact that the UK border agency is a waste of space is ignored.
I am not worried about a communist revolution although I think there are definite positive lessons to be had from communism , my fear is a right wing Nazi style takeover.
This weekend I visited Schindlers factory in Krakow. The first half of the exhibition almost made the actions of the Nazis seem reasonable. I say almost , and the other parts of the exhibition gave a very different picture.

You would be surprised how viewing figures for mainstream television news and circulation figures for tabloid newspapers are falling. The fact is, more and more people are turning to alternative media to find out what is actually happening in the world. If Cabbage Patch Doll succeeds, you are more likely to find a fascist takeover rather than a communist one and it will make the Nazis look reasonable. I have been monitoring the situation with others for sometime now and Cabbage Patch Doll is lurching from managing to pull the wool over people's eyes to having increasing difficulty keeping the lid on the corruption and fraud that is becoming clearly evident where public funds are concerned and people losing their homes through fraud.

[jon1965]

Re: UK employment culture

I have known for a long time that printed news is in rapid decline. The reason that the industry say is that people are a) using online media and b) are now time poor so do not have the time to read a paper.

With respect you sound a little like a conspiracy theorist , you know...fraud here , evidence here , corruption here but we only have your word for it . Carry on like that and I will be calling you Apple

[wales01man]

Re: UK employment culture

With the Greatest respect to Bluebottle Jon1965 might be right but we have to remember the media written or broadcast spins every bit of info ,like the editing of a reality TV show news can be made to tell us different stories truth or not.
We are all entitled to our views if that is to mistrust everyone so be it the best debates are between people with totally opposite views but each are respectful of the other I have an open mind on most things except in some cases I stick with my first thoughts .

[Mr $quandaŁot]

Re: UK employment culture

Further, a significant part of the problem is a large number of working people being dependent on state benefits, such as housing benefit and tax credits.

It is estimated that a London living wage is around Ł8.80 / hour. Minimum wage is now Ł6.31 / hour.

Take Starbucks, for example. I would assume that most of their ordinary staff are on a minimum wage or just above. Their salaries are then subsequently topped up by the state. Starbucks is well-known for paying hardly any corporate tax.

Many companies that avoid paying their fair share of corporate tax often say that they create jobs. Most of those jobs pay a minimum wage, on which it is impossible to live.

The MoneyWeek magazine has been calling for a significant minimum wage increase.

I recently had a conversation with a local Coffee Republic franchisee about the subject. His prediction was that many businesses would simply close down should they be required to pay the London living wage.

Are things that simple? If people had more money in their pockets they would be able to spend more. Surely, some of the costs would be passed on to consumers but then the tax credit, housing benefit etc bills would decrease.

It is clear that the current system can't go on forever. The government is working hard to blame the unemployed, calling them scroungers by some politicians and media, but rather conveniently forgetting to mention what proportion of the welfare bill is going to working people on low paid jobs.