Clay Davis
Member
CHEEZMO;46478715 said:
bloody hell.
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UK PoliGAF thread of tell me about the rabbits again, Dave.
- Thread starter Chinner
- Start date
bloody hell.
CyclopsRock
Member
I really don't understand the significance of that article. Is it political?
Visualante2
Member
Tragic story.
Also further to that 1 in 5 jobs created simply being job seekers, a further 1 in 5 are found to be not paid or underpaid. I fear post truth politics is becoming more the norm.
Also further to that 1 in 5 jobs created simply being job seekers, a further 1 in 5 are found to be not paid or underpaid. I fear post truth politics is becoming more the norm.
Tea and Toast
Member
and now...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21047652
Not that I've been in one for the last 10 years.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21047652
Not that I've been in one for the last 10 years.
bloody hell.
Bloody hell what? Why is his van warmer than his house which I presume will have a proper bed and stuff?
I got a great haul at Blockbuster 2 weeks back.
The Dark Knight Rises
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy
Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Fischer (spelling?))
Max Payne 3 - Xbox 360
£30.
CyclopsRock
Member
Plus he has an oil heater. He said he spends £120 a month on heating. I'd probably sleep in a van too if my method of heating involved burning £20 notes. Fortunately I have a more efficient means of heating my flat. I don't really understand the point of a) the phone call or b) its being posted here other than 'oil heating is awful and uneconomic'.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Yup, who uses oil heaters in this day and age?!?
Even electric fan heaters are more efficient.
Even electric fan heaters are more efficient.
Subliminal
Member
what a fucking dildo, just buy an electric blanket. I'm a student. we never run the heating, and my room is almost always ~0.
Of course Cameron's trying to "repatriate" powers back from Brussels. How else can the Tories ensure we work longer hours, have fewer holidays, have less job security and fewer restrictions on how Big Business can screw us over when the Big Bad EU has the audacity to actually look out for the English people's welfare.
Providing real utility to the average English person wasn't what the Tory party signed up for in the 70s, no sir!
Providing real utility to the average English person wasn't what the Tory party signed up for in the 70s, no sir!
JonathanEx
Member
Or, the hairdryer under the duvet.
CyclopsRock
Member
Ho ho ho.
Well if that's what he really wanted, he could just leave the EU tomorrow. But he's not.
How much of that stuff (and whether it's all positive is incredibly dubious - the inability for British firms to sack people is horribly damaging to businesses, which in turn is damaging for their employees and potential employees - businesses need people in order to function. If they want to get rid of someone, it's because they aren't doing well, or the role's no longer needed. The government forcing people to stay employed in those conditions is damaging, and I have first hand experience of not only how bad that can be, but how badly it impacts the hiring process insomuch as it stifles it a lot. PS the company I worked for last year went through a huge round of redundancies.) is appropriate to be decided at a supranational level anyway, though? It has nothing to do with cooperation of international trade/commerce ease (unlike, say, regulating a specific type of electrical fitting or track gauge or whatever). Even if it were enforcing exactly what I wanted, I'd question exactly why we were devolving this power to the EU - it's not something that benefits from the voices of those not living here.
CyclopsRock
Member
CHEEZMO;46520737 said:
The kind of low-skill, low-experience work you're talking about have the kind of employers with such high staff turnover that they don't need to sack people in order to shift staff from paid to unpaid - they simply stop hiring. Whilst the issue of unpaid labour is a problem (especially when leveraged via government policy as per workfare), if you think making it hard for companies to sack people is a solution, I think you need to try experiencing the business side of a hiring process a bit more.
You cant see how uniform employment laws (etc.) are conducive if not required to enable an economic area to function effectively?
Incontinentia Buttocks
Banned
Is it that difficult to fire workers anyway? My dad owns his own business and while it's not necessarily as straightforward as 'You're fired!', it's not that difficult as long as you follow correct procedure. It's easy to manage someone out of the door by giving them clear (reasonable) objectives and if they keep failing to meet them, it's goodbye time.
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
You got a good point there. It isn't all that damn difficult. It's just that ultra-cautious HR people in the larger companies tend to settle for expensive compromise agreements rather than stiffing it out when threatened with wrongful dismissal claims.
Cosmonaut X
Member
Procedure is key.
A couple of years back, the legal firm I work for were concerned about the performance of one of our solicitors. Among other things they (covertly, and without warning) monitored his internet use, then ambushed him at a meeting with this and concerns about his workload etc.
It completely poisoned the working relationship between the senior partners and this solicitor, and after a lot of back and forth - which included talk of constructive dismissal - they settled on a compromise agreement that let him leave immediately with - IIRC - three months full pay.
I'm not sure if the firm could have stood its ground and been successful in the face of any claim from the solicitor, but the way they absolutely botched any kind of management of their concerns about his work, and about his internet use (there was no policy in place re: internet access, and I believe the covert monitoring was improper without notice that the firm would be monitoring employee access) weakened their position considerably.
Incontinentia Buttocks
Banned
That was really my point. If you have adequate policies and procedures in place, getting rid isn't a problem as long as you apply and/or follow them correctly.
Thank fuck my workplace doesn't have an internet policy, otherwise I'd be buggered.
Cosmonaut X
Member
For a firm of solicitors, my employers seem very weak on employment law.
I'm getting ready to challenge them re: our annual bonus. In the seven years with the firm, I've received a bonus each year, as have - to the best of my knowledge - all other staff members. The bonus has always been said to be tied to the firm's performance, so the amount is dependent on how well the firm has done. In our leanest year, I received a pretty small bonus, but it was expected. Typically I receive a reasonable bonus in the low three figures. This year I received nothing, but it appears that most, if not all, other staff received theirs.
I've had no concerns raised with me about my work, and while the language in my 2004 contract (the only one I've seen and signed, despite them revising it a few years back) says that bonus payments are made at "the absolute discretion of the firm" I don't believe that would hold up. The only thing that occurs to me is that I had negotiated part-time hours with them last year when my daughter was born, and I refused to increase them this year when asked, and the lack of bonus is a punishment for that. No other issues have been raised that I'm aware of.
Anyway, sorry for venting!
CyclopsRock
Member
No, not at all. Why does it matter if I worked 35 hours a week (like in France), 38 (like is most of the rest of Europe) or however much I want, like in the UK? Why does it matter if a guy in Amsterdam has the same, more, or less holiday than me? That he's easier or harder to fire?
Well it is pretty hard and potentially expensive (as tribunals don't cost a thing and there's literally no reason not to go to one unless you were caught thieving or something.) But more importantly, it's like most legislation - it's not so much the process, it's the compliance. You don't have to just do a process, you need to be able to prove in a court of law that you've done the procedure. Would you know how to prove that you've gone through all the relevant procedure, in a court, against another lawyer? So you likely need to hire a solicitor to ensure you are complying with legislation and that you can't be done in a tribunal - because to "lose" at a tribunal you don't need to actually be guilty, you just need to not be able to prove that you're innocent (ie unless you can prove you did follow the correct procedure, you will lose, even if you actually did). Not only this, but like I said, unless they take you to a tribunal after they were sacked for wanking on the CEO's son during take-your-child-to-work-day, all the expenses at the actual tribunal come from the companies pockets. So you can be looking at tens and tens of thousands in legal fees just to get rid of someone, even when you're totally justified in doing so.
Incontinentia Buttocks
Banned
I'm not sure I live in the same world as you, where anybody fired for something other than gross misconduct takes their ex-employer to a tribunal. Where I work, the procedures are quite clearcut, you have a supervision with your manager about once a month or so where any problems are noted down, you're given objectives in line with your role etc etc. The times that my employer has paid out are when they clearly haven't been followed.
Oh come on, you can't be serious.
It's a single market, single economic area. Conceptually it can only operate effectively - and beneficially for all citizens - if there is no race to the bottom.
CyclopsRock
Member
Can you explain why you think that is the case? Why it's important that I have the same holiday allowance as someone in France, or the same working hours as someone in Poland? And why it isn't important that it's the same as the US or Australia?
CyclopsRock
Member
The point isn't whether people do or don't - that they *can* is enough to ensure all companies have their procedures overseen by compliance lawyers to ensure they abide by the law to the letter. You talk as if those procedures were just made up by some dingbat in HR.
CyclopsRock
Member
CHEEZMO™;46563758 said:
I think the article confuses a lot of issues into one big one for the sake of ease. Testing if disabled people are fit for work (after which some of them die, which is not surprising because they are all presumably not in tip-top health) is a different issue to pressuring them to do work that isn't suitable. People too ill to work currently being put into a group "to start preparing for an eventual return to work" is a different issue to individuals being given bad advice (as per the nappy issue - assuming it is bad advice. I have no idea. I assume the products available for adults with incontinence are there for some reason). The coalition being blamed for the deaths of people that commit suicide due to a lack of funds pivots entirely on the legitimacy of the justification of that person's claim (ie no one would feel sorry for a person that committed suicide because the government wouldn't buy them a Ferrari) so offering no insight into that situation leaves the reader none-the-wiser.
It seems like it's a lot easier to clump the whole issue together to avoid having to discus the very real issue of how you reform a benefits system that does at times discourage work (including amongst the disabled). The problem is that the legitimate questions - is Atos doing a good job, is it putting people under too much stress and pressure, is it fair to treat a person with a specific disability that doesn't hinder them from getting 95% of jobs the same as a person that's totally fit but uneducated to the point that they couldn't apply for far less than that? These are all interesting and important questions, but they get buried under a torrent of "look at all these sick people wot died" and "this person is sick and they got told to wear a nappy!" That someone died x months after being told they're fit for work says nothing as to whether they are fit to go to work. Illness is not a linear process from diagnoses to death. Should people with terminal illnesses be given benefits even if they're entirely capable of working? It's almost a philosophical question, but one that gets ignored under a tumult of emotive guff.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
I think you need to take a step back from your unequivocal support of your chosen party and just take in the fucking consequences on real human lives a little. I mean christ. This really happened, it wasn't fabricated. Clearly this body was pushing far too hard, mercilessly so. Heaven forbid this ever happened to someone in your immediate life and you'd have to step down for but a moment from that ivory tower of disconnected party-line defence work.
Nobodys saying that its a wash and benefit scroungers should be left alone, just that it should be done far better and without such insane pressures on the weakest and less able of society.
That you cant even understand the nappy comment was unacceptable just paints you as some unfeeling cartoonish cyborg lizardman. Come on man: empathy. You need some of it.
CyclopsRock
Member
But what's it got to do with the politics of it? Some nutter at Atos said something wrong - isn't it much like when a racist policeman beats up a black kid, or a jobcentre employee gives someone the wrong information about what they need to do to get their benefits, or a car parking attendent tells you that you can't photograph them? The individual cases should be looked at but they say nothing as to the procedure as a whole, unless you can prove that such instances are inherent to the system. This is PoliGaf, not the Independent's RSS feed - what are we meant to be discussing?
travisbickle
Member
lol. 1 watt of electricity equals 1 watt of energy output, no matter which of them you use.
The reason his energy bill is so high is because energy prices have been rising like crazy, and energy companies are taking the piss with tariffs that would make a loan shark blush.
I thought you'd know this, David Cameron was trying to rush through an energy bill a couple of months ago with these points?
CyclopsRock
Member
He uses an oil central heating system. Since there is no such thing as "oil mains", you have to buy it by the 500 litres and store it in a huge tank in your house. You can get gas stored like this, too (for if you live somewhere mental without gas mains) and it, too, is crazy expensive. Whilst I daresay energy prices going up have no helped, "the reason his energy bill is so high" is not because energy prices have been rising, it's because he's using the least efficient method of heating an entire house that there is. I mean, he flat out said it cost him £120 a month to heat his house. My flat uses the also-inefficient card system for our mains gas and it's about £80 a month in the winter at most, and that's for four of us.
Edit: Whilst a watt of electricity might mean a watt of energy output, that doesn't mean that a) all that energy is in the form of heat or b) that all that energy is distributed equally effectively. You seem to be suggesting that all methods are heating are uniformly efficient.
JAckpot said:
um, I wasn't doubting that. I was saying that having newspaper articles mixing up a load of different issues just confuses the matter, and slotting in an instance of them telling someone to wear a nappy does little to help understanding of the issue.
The vast majority of employers are SME's. Sometimes, not all, the rules can be a hindrance when it comes employing new staff for low turnover business. I certainly don't run anymore staff than I absolutely have to because of all the legal considerations.
zomgbbqftw
Banned
Sure, but not all the energy output will be usable heat. Gas central heating is the most efficient way of heating a home. My parent's gas bill for their largish home is around £500 per year and that includes a very big gas hob for cooking and hot water for showers.
Oil heating is the single most inefficient way of heating a home. The government should have a subsidy for installing gas central heating in older homes instead of just increasing the heating allowance every year.
StealthGoblin
Banned
Thought this was an imaginative solution to the heating problem, proposed by a six year old I teach.
'Why doesn't the government buy every old person a onesie?'
Primark onesies FOR EVEERRRYONE.
'Why doesn't the government buy every old person a onesie?'
Primark onesies FOR EVEERRRYONE.
CyclopsRock
Member
My dad recently had new radiators put into a part of his house too, and it's incredible the difference just those made. It's in what used to be my old bedroom when I lived there years back, and it used to be utterly freezing even with the heating on full blast. The new radiator is slightly larger, but the extra heat in the room vastly outweighs its increase in size - it's just better is radiating the heating in the water out into the room. There are so many facets of efficiency - including other stuff like insulation, double glazing (which my flat doesn't have, and it's a ballache because it gets freezing if you ever have the blinds open - like I do now! - and we can't change it because it's a listed building or some old guff - so to START with the least efficient method (ie oil) is always going to cause pain.
Wrestlemania
Banned
On the topic of energy efficiency, what are people's thoughts on the Green Deal?
That bolded shit is why I won't show my WP adviser any of my artwork - he'll just use it as an excuse to force me into freelancing, take me off benefits, leave me homeless, just to massage his weekly quota. I suppose I could do street portraits for food, but I'd rather it not come to that, thanks.
Speaking of homelessness - I've got the fucking Bedroom Tax (sponsored by the Daily Mail and the Daily Express) looming over me, threatening to take £14 a week out of my £64 a week JSA towards the rent, all because I inherited the tenancy to my nan's old two-bedroom flat, where I've lived since 1985, and live there on my own. So my choices are to a) find a flatmate to give the other bedroom to, b) move to a one-bedroom flat/studio/bedsit/caravan/broom cupboard/cardboard box*, or c) get £28 taken out of my meager 1%-rising fortnightly benefits and try to live in even more crippling poverty, just so Cam & Clegg can have their precious "balanced budget". I don't think that's fair, really, but hell - what do I know? I'm just a dirty poor, after all, not the frigging Chancellor.
Seriously, this is the one thing I'm most worried about in my life. I wish I could get away with avoiding taxes like all those corporation-people I keep hearing about, like Mr. Starbucks and Mrs. Amazon, then I might actually be able to live <
See? If this guy, who has a paying job, can't afford his heating bills, then what chance have I got?CHEEZMO;46478715 said:
Really now, has he never heard of hot water bottles?
Oh, and just to compound the gloom even further: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21078155
Also:
Triple-dip incoming, courtesy of our Friendly Neighbourhood Coalition!
Seriously, fuck my life.
Well, if they are expecting consumer led recovery they need to stop talking people back into recession then don't they.
Of all the factors that effect the economy consumer confidence is the one the media do hold sway over, there are still many people in employment on the same money they were on that don't spend because they are gripped in fear.
Energy companies are paying for it, which means we are paying for it, which means it's a stealth tax to pay for the massive carbon commitment that we got signed up to.
Annoyingly, those on benefits have had the bulk of the handouts for the past few years, and only now are private homes getting access to it.
If you've bought a new home in the past 8 years your much higher energy bills will be paying for everyone else who hasn't because your house will not qualify for any grants.
Incontinentia Buttocks
Banned
The media does bear some responsibility but many people have undoubtedly seen people made redundant in their workplace, which would obviously also account for some of the fear.
CyclopsRock
Member
How do you afford the rent now? Rental assistance? I'd try and get a flatmate if I were you. Its more sociable, and obviously another source of income (assuming you can sublet). I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect someone wholly dependent on the state to not live in a 2 bedroom flat on their own, even if it has been your home your entire life.
And for what it is worth, short of having a balanced budget, last year we borrowed more money than almost any year, ever. The cuts so far have been small compared to what we are to expect. But last year we spent about the same on debt interest as we did on schools. We shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking there is some easy way out of this.
What would you have them do? That's a genuine question by the way, I'm curious as to your thoughts about what the government can do to avoid a recession.
Incontinentia Buttocks
Banned
As a council or housing association tenant you're not allowed to sub let as in many cases you can sub let a room for more than your rent.
CyclopsRock
Member
Ah OK, wasn't aware it was a council flat. How does that work WRT flatmates then? It does seem fair that someone else get to live there who otherwise may be going without.
Incontinentia Buttocks
Banned
I'm assuming (as he says he inherited the tenancy from his Nan) that it's council.
QuicheFontaine
Member
You're fooling yourself if you think the EU is looking out for English people's welfare. That statement actually made me laugh.
The repatriation of powers to the UK is hugely popular because the EU has overstepped both its mandate and purpose by a country mile. The EU is a corrupt gravy-train and the idea of a "pooling of sovereignty" (foisted upon unwitting and unfortunate countries that thought they'd just signed up to the Euro) is poisonous; it's undemocratic and a move away from self-determination and direct governance.
Delusibeta
Banned
Well, for a start abandon austerity and start spending like crazy, as governments are supposed to do in a recession.