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How seriously do you take "Uprising"?

SE7EN STAR

By SE7EN STAR
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haze015 Escapee

haze015

Posted
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Actually, you can be released if you're ill for extended periods of time. It comes under the attendance section of the employment contract. As long as the correct disciplinary procedures are followed there's nothing stopping someone being sacked for hardly ever being in work.

 

I thought those were clauses for people continually having days off despite not being seriously ill, whereas serious illness is a different matter.

 

Then again, my last job didn't have any rules on being pissed at work and a poorly thought through uniform which meant there wasn't one.

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CarrieB Escapee

CarrieB

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I'd imagine there's more to that story than what you mentioned. No company can force a member of staff to come in if they've been signed off as unfit to work by a doctor, they may choose not to pay that person while they are ill, but they can't sack them.

 

Seems like another example where people need to learn about the law yet again. ;) There's no guarantee managers for any company do either.

 

And there has been boycotts of Tesco, this year, residents of Stokes Croft managed to have plans to build a Tesco in the area overturned.

 

 

Well I'm unsure of that account because I don't know the whole background and it was a while ago but I think it was a junior manager who was threatening, and not after long term sickness.

 

However I do know of instances where a manager has turned up an hour after someone has reported sick to check up on them, that person not being someone who takes a lot of sickness and of a manager parking outside someone's house to check they are not taking too long a lunchbreak, again a consciencious person. I also know that the general way that some managers speak to people working for them can be using a bullying tone. They are obviously not very good managers but the point is that it can be the company ethos of applying pressure to get results that can cause that type of thing to happen. I also know of someone who was a manager accused of bullying in an organisation that put a lot of pressure on people to reach targets, who committed suicide.

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haze015 Escapee

haze015

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Well I'm unsure of that account because I don't know the whole background and it was a while ago but I think it was a junior manager who was threatening, and not after long term sickness.

 

However I do know of instances where a manager has turned up an hour after someone has reported sick to check up on them, that person not being someone who takes a lot of sickness and of a manager parking outside someone's house to check they are not taking too long a lunchbreak, again a consciencious person. I also know that the general way that some managers speak to people working for them can be using a bullying tone. They are obviously not very good managers but the point is that it can be the company ethos of applying pressure to get results that can cause that type of thing to happen. I also know of someone who was a manager accused of bullying in an organisation that put a lot of pressure on people to reach targets, who committed suicide.

 

I don't really understand where you're going with this.

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CarrieB Escapee

CarrieB

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I don't really understand where you're going with this.

 

I think what I am saying is that if the ethos is one that respects economic progress over humanity, then where are we going? It's kind of spite of the thing that it is meant to support. Humanity is everything. If a system is producing increased suffering overall, there's no point in supporting the system.

 

I did say that much more logically but I lost it.

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haze015 Escapee

haze015

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I think what I am saying is that if the ethos is one that respects economic progress over humanity, then where are we going? It's kind of spite of the thing that it is meant to support. Humanity is everything. If a system is producing increased suffering overall, there's no point in supporting the system.

 

I did say that much more logically but I lost it.

 

The only people who actively support it are the ones who profit from it. Problem is, there's no alternative which allows for the flaws in humanity, we are by nature greedy & selfish.

 

But talking about management in business as being evidence of a flawed economic system is going way too far and you're missing out a great deal of factors going on.

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spark_ Escapee

spark_

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The government are already controlling the market. They do it by providing an environment which supports private industry, encouraging public companies to contract out to private companies. They have even installed ridiculous pseudo-market conditions into public services like the health service which didn't work. I know the Third Way may have had people's interests at heart but it didn't work. Predominantly the government should be representing the issues of the people over and above business. PR would be a start. More control of constitutional processes another.

 

More vagueness. More idealisms without actual practical solutions to the problems of capitalism.

 

I haven't the expertise to propose a full solution but I know there are countries that function differently in Europe with a lot more emphasis on social provision and yet they are not falling apart.

 

Well... I don't know about that. The current protests in France, the collapse of the Greek, Irish and Icelandic economies, and the dire concerns of Italy, Spain and Portugal say that not all is not that well. In any case it is the same fundamental system - private ownership, private production.

 

There have also been alternative ways of doing things in the past with social policies that support such things as full employment, and nationalisation of industry and respect that trade unions are needed.

 

Definitely not. A terrible idea that only leads to more bloat than required. Why? Because then there is no competition, and do you really think the government is immune to the same issues in management? Because it isn't. Trade unions - I agree that they need to exist, but you don't want to give them too much power or you get ludicrous situation of the US auto industry where the unions literally benefit'd themselves out of a job - made so many demands on their employers that they quite simply ran out of money. Clearly you don't want to go too far the other way a la Howard and his disastrous attempts to "reform" workplace laws, but the point stands.

 

I think the idea of taxing the banks or huge company profits to fill the deficit is better than taking away people's benefits and services. A lot has to do with ideology.

 

No, it has to do with practicality. You are under the mistaken illusion that everyone is fundamentally idealistic and that they "pick" an ideology and then hold remorselessly to it. If something works, I'll take it no matter what it's called.

 

The main reason you have to swallow the bitter pill that is golden parachutes is because you have to, as a country, protect your best and brightest. Or your best and brightest will not stay, they will leave - they are pragmatists and are not tied by ideological or patriotic bounds. And the country that does pick them up will do much, much better for it.

 

As for the taxing the banks idea...

 

You need to actually start thinking about the practical consequences of what you suggest, and not just what "feels good".

 

You have a lot of faith in the power of consumers. Yes, change can happen through consumers boycotting or publically rubbishing the brand etc, and that has happened on a small scale, with firms like Nike changing practices by using suppliers that don't use child labour, but that can't be done by an individual consumer, it has to be orchestrated.

 

Small scale? Lancia disagrees.

 

And of course it has to be orchestrated. That's what the media is for. Media is a profit-driven business too, especially in this tabloid-infested era. One of the very few good things about the modern media cycle is that issues such as dodgy products are picked up and ran very effectively. Why? Because people find such things interesting, hence they buy the paper, hence the company makes money and makes more profit.

 

Awareness has to be raised etc, and even then people won't necessarily support with their actions what they support in theory because it's too challenging. It's a huge expectation that the buying practices of individual consumers alone can make a big difference and rather idealistic.

 

It happens quite often in practice. I've given two examples already, purely off the top of my head.

 

One example of a company who I've heard bully their employees is Tesco by threatening someone suffering from cancer with job loss unless she returned to work immediately. These things filtrate down because people are under pressure from the top to reach profit targets.

 

Was it in her contract?

 

Now how are we going to go about making large numbers of people boycott Tesco?

 

Quite simple. The media.

 

At least it needs a huge amount of work, and most people haven't got time for that. Nipping into Tesco to get something nice to eat to cheer themselves up after another pressured day at work is a far more likely reaction.

 

Then frankly if they continue to complain about this that makes them hypocrites. You can't have it both ways, object to a company and then continue to support them in the only way that is meaningful. It's just wrong.

 

You must know what bullying is. People having a go and putting you down because you haven't managed to achieve something they asked you to do, even though you have been working flat out and the demands on you are frankly ridiculous.

 

Such as?

 

The pressure starts at the top and is dispersed through the hierarchy. And I think you are living in a dreamworld if you think that the majority of private companies have whistle blowing policies. Whistle blowing to who?

 

The government does have systems in place, such as the ombudsman. There are no lack of agencies capable of handling these things. And if their practices are truly out of line, there's no shortage of lawyers eager to put on the pads for you.

 

You also can't avoid a company you are actually working for. Not buying their product will have little effect because lots of other people are, and the media aren't necessarily going to know the type of practices that go on in companies.

 

Well if you don't tell them, they won't.

 

If they do, what will happen, an occasional documentary? It's not enough. Not to mention that the media have an interest in retaining things as they are.

 

Ah yes, the conspiracy argument. A useful crutch.

 

The facts are, it hasn't always been like this and we are not just consumers, we are workers and citizens as well and unless there is balance and social welfare is taken into account as well as the welfare of workers, rather than prioritising the ideology of economic growth above all other, we end up with a society where only the powerful do well. To say we should just put up with it because it's the only way it can be, is a rather defeatest attitude don't you think?

 

No, it's not the only way it can be. It's the best way that it can be. There are alternatives, such as anarchist systems, collectivist-communist systems (which eventually or rather quickly deveolve into) and totalitarian systems. Take your pick.

 

And I don't think you quite understand what economic growth is.

 

There is never going to be a perfect solution, but what we need is more balance. What we have now is far from ideal. I think a real democracy would be a good first step. And a wider debate that gives more prominence to alternative ideologies.

 

And replace it with something worse?

 

And please know that direct democracy in lieu of what we have currently, which is more of a republic-style, representative democracy, is a singularly bad idea. At best it causes the government to fall into a solely populist mindset in which whether a decision is right or not is completely irrelevant. At worst - and this is the most predictable outcome - it leads to JS Mill's tyranny of the majority, and probably a dictatorship by popular assent.

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Dee3Dee Escapee

Dee3Dee

Posted
Posted
:rolleyes: I think he explain meaning of 'they' this way. Something wrong with it ?

 

First of all, the glasses came about after the gig in Oslo where some girls gave Matt his first pair of glasses.

 

Second, in some interview during BDO this year, Matt said that he had been accused of doing the illuminati sign as part of his cheesy rock moves. He probably does it more for the lulz than anything else.

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