dont know whats going on,19 made redundent,& now agency men at work,pentalver cannock seem not too care much for their staff at all
Same all over I suppose.An engineering firm round here has just made a good percentage of long serving shop floor workers redundant,and paid out £££s in redundancy pay.They are now ‘suggesting’ that they sign on with an agency and will be re-employed on a temporary basis only.At least one was only a matter of weeks from retirement anyway. 
Cheaper to pay for agency as and when you need them than pay an employee when there’s no work.
The sad thing is that those complaining about firms doing this are the very same people who complain about stuff being too expensive to buy. If you want cheap stuff costs need to be cut somewhere and wage bills are a large percentage of costs for most companies.
Conor:
Cheaper to pay for agency as and when you need them than pay an employee when there’s no work.The sad thing is that those complaining about firms doing this are the very same people who complain about stuff being too expensive to buy. If you want cheap stuff costs need to be cut somewhere and wage bills are a large percentage of costs for most companies.
If you cut wage bills then there’s not enough money to spend in the economy at all which means that you can’t sell stuff at any price.So it just sits on the shelf until the receiver comes in to shut the firm down.That’s almost the point where UK PLC is at now.As Henry Ford said underpaid or redundant workers don’t buy cars.
It’s hardly overpriced transportation that pushes up the price of goods & services. Services costs such as provided by goods drivers like us are on the wane. 
Raw material costs, be they Food, Minerals, or Metals are on the up and up, supported by commodity speculation from the investment banks using the QE money that was supposed to be loaned to small businesses, rather than taken to the damned casino and being put on black! They get it right, markets soar, our pay gets cut, they get a huge bonus. They get it wrong, government cuts public services to build up the bailout fund, bails them out, they get their bonus, other firms push us for a pay cut anyway, and they end up keeping us either on the dole or on supressed pay, and the cycle starts again! 
I, for one would like to see a total banking collapse in this country. Once “debt” has no value, anyone paying cash money thrives, anyone trying to fool the system with fancy debt instruments like “restructuring” gets busted straight away.
(Debt restructuring usually means things like Bank to Boss “Sack half your workforce, and we’ll extend your overdraft. Don’t sack them, and we’ll pull the rug on you!”. I think the entire country of Greece is there right now… Instead of allowing the Greek establishment to go under, they’re (Eurobanks Greek Banks, Euro Government, Greek Government) are putting the entire country on the lower-paid dole instead! How’s that going to lead to any kind of “recovery”? 
It would be better to say to all banks involved. “Sorry bud, Greece is broke like Russia in the Yeltsin years. You’ve lost your shirts”! 
Greece then moves to a cash market to recover (banks have all gone), sells stacks of med properties at a discount, gets the rich to pay their taxes, and within a decade becomes a fancy new wealthy country - same as Russia did from sales of Oil and Gas in the early noughties and the same that Iceland is doing as we speak. No one is talking much about Iceland in the news are they? - Just getting on with it they are, no more ■■■■■■■■ from the banks involved there! 
Meanwhile we’ve got just today some yank geezer running the British Barclays and getting a fat bonus yet again - for ripping most of us off with overpriced credit card interest…
If this coming Easter isn’t a fantastic new boom far beyond any expectations then this country will be on it’s knees before the Olympics start - make no mistake! 
There isn’t a sniff of even part time hours around here at present - and I speak as a resident of the so-called “Prosperous South” with a clean 20 year licence prepared to work any shifts going… Single odd shifts given out at the last minute (sick and snow cover?) are all that’s about, and you don’t sign off for “Might have 8 hours work for you across this next week” do you? 
How many of you guys would like to see a proper “supply and demand” driven cash market for goods & services?
It would effectively force reputable firms to conquer what is currently the “■■■■■” market in terms of reach, but in playing fair would quickly force the fools and crooks out of business. Drivers at the same time would only need to select who they work for carefully to eventually find themselves with a decent employer. 
isn"t it the case if a person is let go via redundancy the actual job is "gone"and no one can be employed to do said “gone” job?
digicardrebel:
isn"t it the case if a person is let go via redundancy the actual job is "gone"and no one can be employed to do said “gone” job?
Yes but if there is a “sudden” increase in workload■■? All of these things are planned and all are done for cost reasons.
The days of loyalty to an employee are long gone now, you are just a number and that’s it - if you want loyalty get a dog!
I totally agree with winseer your spot on mate
I understand that if Fred Bloggs works for RoadRun Ltd running a wagon say, back and forth between London & York monday-friday and they lay him off,
Mr Agency CANNOT be put on that run - because it’s not supposed to exist anymore! If you make someone redundant and the job still exists, then you’ve actually dismissed that person with an out-of-court compensation package for which you could not negotiate. Someone tell me this is as illegal as I think it is…? 
Mr Agency CAN be put on a run from London-Leeds, where they get some other guy to run it from Leeds to York. 
This means however employing 2 people to do the former one person’s job. I can’t work out how they’d make this pay, except for the differential in wages. Eg. 2 agencies @£6.50 per hour is still cheaper than 1 full timer @ £14per hour on overtime. (Agency over-fee cancels out the employer’s NI contributions not paid for agency…)
I expected the overtime to dry up in this downturn - not loads of firms skimming the very edges of the law to try and get out of paying a decent wage!
Winseer:
I understand that if Fred Bloggs works for RoadRun Ltd running a wagon say, back and forth between London & York monday-friday and they lay him off,
Mr Agency CANNOT be put on that run - because it’s not supposed to exist anymore! If you make someone redundant and the job still exists, then you’ve actually dismissed that person with an out-of-court compensation package for which you could not negotiate. Someone tell me this is as illegal as I think it is…?Mr Agency CAN be put on a run from London-Leeds, where they get some other guy to run it from Leeds to York.
Subbing out the firm’s labour requirement from direct labour to agency is no different to any other type of sub contract arrangement.I don’t think there’s any law out there that says that Fred Bloggs can’t go and take up a job working for an agency,or any other type of sub contractor,which just might mean that he ends up working doing the same job for his ex employers either.Local councils have been doing virtually the same thing for years.It’s the employee’s status as an employee of the company to do whatever the job happens to be,not the status of the job he does,that redundancy law covers.
They can’t make a person’s employed status to do a job redundant and then employ someone else under that same employed status intead but they can sub his employment and/or the job out in which case that job is effectively redundant for that employee but there’s nothing stopping him from working for the new sub contractor.
Hello all, don’t know if it’s legal but I know something similar happened at ASDA Washington ADC back in 2005. I had worked there from 2002 when ASDA decided they wanted to change the Ts&Cs of the workforce. The union had a vote and turned it down. Within 30 mins the company had posted the redundancy notice and 90 days later 120 drivers were finished, as well as 130 warehouse staff. Fast forward 3 months and a letter arrives from ASDA asking me if I would like to attend an interview as a driver, subject to passing a driving assessment mind. I threw it in the bin. I went back last September with an agency and talked to some lads that had been going in for them for over 5 years, one started within a month of the redundancies.
I think they get away with it by saying they had restructured the operation, they started covering 22 local stores only instead of the 130 countrywide stores and not doing backhauls. Trouble is they are so big they get away with it and the union, GMB, did bugger all.
Slackbladder:
and the union, GMB, did bugger all.
I don’t agree!
They all had nice pay rises and extra paid into their pension funds, isn’t that what unions do these days?
The rules regarding employment are a joke…there is a way around all of them if you look hard enough…Sad but true…
Winseer:
I understand that if Fred Bloggs works for RoadRun Ltd running a wagon say, back and forth between London & York monday-friday and they lay him off,
Mr Agency CANNOT be put on that run - because it’s not supposed to exist anymore! If you make someone redundant and the job still exists, then you’ve actually dismissed that person with an out-of-court compensation package for which you could not negotiate. Someone tell me this is as illegal as I think it is…?
Of course its legal, as its unlikely that on Fred Bloggs’ contract under ‘duties’ it says “driving back and forth from London to York, Monday to Friday”. It will say “driving”.
There is no way to prove the agency bloke is ‘doing his job’.
So how come the objection to the T&C changes then?
If you’re onto a good thing, surely everyone will just be keeping their head down, and getting on with it.
From what I read on GMB noticeboards, it seems that GMB do “bugger all” a lot!
I had an argument with a union rep once over the idea that if the firm wants to restructure, then the union should negotiate the very best deals it can in exchange for the downward changes to T&C. Got shouted down.
The alternative - “registered disagreement” and other feet of clay policy just meant we had the changes IMPOSED anyway, but without the upside of some kind of “buy out”.
For example, the firm offered us all a lump sum of about £1500 to change from weekly to monthly pay. Union said “no”.
Monthly pay was still imposed, but then we didn’t get the £1500 because the union had blocked the move!
The moral of the story here is that if you’re going to get shafted regardless, you might as well trouser as much as possible in the process! It was even one of the reasons I took voluntary redundancy when I did.
(Voluntary got a multiplier, imposed redundancies later would get government minimum!)
hammer:
Winseer:
I understand that if Fred Bloggs works for RoadRun Ltd running a wagon say, back and forth between London & York monday-friday and they lay him off,
Mr Agency CANNOT be put on that run - because it’s not supposed to exist anymore! If you make someone redundant and the job still exists, then you’ve actually dismissed that person with an out-of-court compensation package for which you could not negotiate. Someone tell me this is as illegal as I think it is…?Of course its legal, as its unlikely that on Fred Bloggs’ contract under ‘duties’ it says “driving back and forth from London to York, Monday to Friday”. It will say “driving”.
There is no way to prove the agency bloke is ‘doing his job’.
Sorry, that is in fact EXACTLY what I’m used to seeing. Maybe I’ve been spoit for job description over the years…
I knew exactly what I was doing each day, weeks in advance. In my mind, any other system just fills employees with insecurities, and doesn’t make them or the firm any extra profit to boot! “Ad-hoc” for full time staff has got to be the biggest ■■■■ ever! 
If your job was “Run to Rumbelows and bring back some electrical gear monday-friday” then your job is redundant the day rumbelows fell over, and the duty within the job no longer exists.
Perhaps a firm will side-shift you into a run to a new firm in a similar line of business & place. Perhaps not.
Employing someone else to do the same job after making a Full Timer redundant however seems against the spirit of the law in every way - The job being that particular duty rather than the employment as “driver”.
Winseer:
Sorry, that is in fact EXACTLY what I’m used to seeing. Maybe I’ve been spoit for job description over the years…
I knew exactly what I was doing each day, weeks in advance. In my mind, any other system just fills employees with insecurities, and doesn’t make them or the firm any extra profit to boot! “Ad-hoc” for full time staff has got to be the biggest ■■■■ ever!
I reckon that you are one of the very, very few who have exactly what they are going to be doing for weeks in advance and actually have it written into their contract. What kind of work do you do that you know where you’re gonna be and it it actually written into your contract?
I can’t imagine this would apply to many drivers though as most of them do different runs each day, at different times and very often in different vehicles. When I worked for someone else (on tippers) my duties were “driving HGV’s” or words to that effect.
Winseer:
So how come the objection to the T&C changes then?If you’re onto a good thing, surely everyone will just be keeping their head down, and getting on with it.
From what I read on GMB noticeboards, it seems that GMB do “bugger all” a lot!
I had an argument with a union rep once over the idea that if the firm wants to restructure, then the union should negotiate the very best deals it can in exchange for the downward changes to T&C. Got shouted down.
The alternative - “registered disagreement” and other feet of clay policy just meant we had the changes IMPOSED anyway, but without the upside of some kind of “buy out”.For example, the firm offered us all a lump sum of about £1500 to change from weekly to monthly pay. Union said “no”.
Monthly pay was still imposed, but then we didn’t get the £1500 because the union had blocked the move!The moral of the story here is that if you’re going to get shafted regardless, you might as well trouser as much as possible in the process! It was even one of the reasons I took voluntary redundancy when I did.
(Voluntary got a multiplier, imposed redundancies later would get government minimum!)
The (correct) line of thinking within the union leadership would probably have been doing what they’re there to do in defending conditions and making them better not flogging them for a few bob on a continuing basis.
The only way that employees have ever stopped downward changes being imposed on them and made conditions better not worse was by fighting for it.The problem is now no one wants to stick together and workers don’t know which side of the fence that they are on such as in supporting Tory government policies and anti union ideas like outlawing secondary action so the attitude of the leadership is lead the horse to water and hopefully one day it might wake up and start drinking but if it doesn’t then tough you’re on you’re own sort it out yourselves.
In the case that you’ve described,and if the attitude amongst the majority of the members was the same,then the best thing that the union leadership could have done was to withdraw it’s representation at that employers and cancel the workforce’s membership.Then you could just accept whatever the management had to offer anyway on a seperate basis.
Under present conditions and attitudes to unions,amongst many workers,those workers really aren’t worth all the effort of trying to represent and trying to unite into a credible force that could/would make an employer think twice about making cuts in conditions.Which is one of the reasons why the economy is where it is now because wage levels aren’t sufficient to keep the economy afloat.
Winseer:
hammer:
Winseer:
I understand that if Fred Bloggs works for RoadRun Ltd running a wagon say, back and forth between London & York monday-friday and they lay him off,
Mr Agency CANNOT be put on that run - because it’s not supposed to exist anymore! If you make someone redundant and the job still exists, then you’ve actually dismissed that person with an out-of-court compensation package for which you could not negotiate. Someone tell me this is as illegal as I think it is…?Of course its legal, as its unlikely that on Fred Bloggs’ contract under ‘duties’ it says “driving back and forth from London to York, Monday to Friday”. It will say “driving”.
There is no way to prove the agency bloke is ‘doing his job’.
Sorry, that is in fact EXACTLY what I’m used to seeing. Maybe I’ve been spoit for job description over the years…
I knew exactly what I was doing each day, weeks in advance. In my mind, any other system just fills employees with insecurities, and doesn’t make them or the firm any extra profit to boot! “Ad-hoc” for full time staff has got to be the biggest ■■■■ ever!
In that case every driver,or the unions that reperesent them,would be asking for every driver doing trunking for example,to be emloyed only on the basis of a set run to and from a designated destination to be written into the job description in the contract of employment .
Although even that wouldn’t make the slightest difference if the guvnor decided to sub the run out to a sub contractor or the drivers’ employment status to an agency instead of in house.