FORUMS > The Sin Bin > Zero hours contracts |
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40515_1330766741.jpg Don't worry about avoiding temptation.
As you grow older, it will avoid you!
- Winston Churchill:d7dc4b20b2c2dd7b76ac6eac29d5604e_40515.jpg |
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| Quote: JerryChicken "Great memories, there's nothing quite like taking a new pencil out of the box for the first time, better still if its one of those pencils that are just sticks of wood with no sharpened end yet, better even still if you have one of those old pencil sharpeners that clamp to a desk and mechanically grip the pencil while you turn a handle to sharpen it - the points you get on those are lethal
One of the problems with pencils is that the lead can break inside the pencil if it falls on a hard floor. This means that when sharpened the point can keep breaking away. Eagle invented and patented a method of bonding the lead to the wood so that the lead could flex and not break on impact (chemi-sealed) This meant although more expensive to buy the Eagle pencil lasted much longer and was in fact better and cheaper in the long run.
To demonstrate and prove this to unbelieving teachers we used to bash an Eagle pencil on the desk and then throw it on the floor with gusto before slitting open the pencil to show the unbroken lead inside.
I remember one NUT Easter conference (at Blackpool or perhaps the Isle of Man) when we had a stand in the exhibition hall where teachers could updated their knowledge of books and educational equipment. Our stand was on the first floor balcony and a colleague was in full flow demonstrating a "chemi-sealed" pencil to a group of teachers and was a little more enthusiastic than usual as he threw the pencil onto the hardwood floor where it bounced on its end and flew into the air and over the balcony railings. It continued its fall landing at the feet of a snooty publisher on a book stand below. It may have been the Oxford University Press, Macmillan or similar.
It should be pointed out at this stage that the sales personel of these publishers were a snooty lot that considered getting their hands dirty by actually selling was beneath them and they always looked down their noses at those of us from the educational equipment companies that didn't have such hang ups. Any way this 'book rep' was so annoyed that his peace and quite had been disturbed that he chose to throw the offending pencil back. It sailed up from the ground floor and back over the railings to land at the feet of my colleague who cooly continued his pitch, picking up the pencil cutting it open to show the proof to the astonished and open mouthed teachers.
Throughout the rest of the weekend we had groups of teachers coming onto our stand for an encore.
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2051.jpg The older I get, the better I was
Advice is what we seek when we already know the answer - but wish we didn't
I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full-frontal lobotomy
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kirkstaller wrote: "All DNA shows is that we have a common creator."
cod'ead wrote: "I have just snotted weissbier all over my keyboard & screen"
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"No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin." - Aneurin Bevan:2051.jpg |
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| Has the well-deserved backlash started?
rlHovis workers vote to strike over zero-hours contractsrl
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26.jpg Last league derby at Central Park 5/9/1999: Wigan 28 St. Helens 20
Last league derby at Knowsley Road 2/4/2010: St. Helens 10 Wigan 18:26.jpg |
Moderator
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| Quote: Sal Paradise "Germany is not here, the culture is very different to compare is like comparing apples to oranges, yes they are fruit but that is as far as meaningful comparison goes. Why not compare Germany to China? it simply cannot be done with any sense of gravitas. What works in one country is not necessarily transferrable to another.'"
No you can't compare Germany to China. Or the UK to China. To suggest you can't compare the UK to Germany is ridiculous. In terms of trading and employment legislation, economic development and culture we have far more in common than we have differences. The fact there [iare[/i differences in the way employment works over there despite the similarities is the very thing that needs to be understood and and learned from but it is certainly not meaningless to make such comparisons.
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1408_1377158863.jpg [url=http://tinyurl.com/xmaschoccy:3awnsnxa][img:3awnsnxa]http://imgur.com/dR3Vl.gif[/img:3awnsnxa][/url:3awnsnxa]
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| Quote: Sal Paradise "Germany is not here, the culture is very different .'"
Not really. In fact we have way more in common with Germany than most other European countries.
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2051.jpg The older I get, the better I was
Advice is what we seek when we already know the answer - but wish we didn't
I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full-frontal lobotomy
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kirkstaller wrote: "All DNA shows is that we have a common creator."
cod'ead wrote: "I have just snotted weissbier all over my keyboard & screen"
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"No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin." - Aneurin Bevan:2051.jpg |
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| Quote: Big Graeme "Not really. In fact we have way more in common with Germany than most other European countries.'"
Apart from management philosophy & practice.
Oh and levels of union membership
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1136_1263489772.jpg Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice.
Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.:d7dc4b20b2c2dd7b76ac6eac29d5604e_1136.jpg |
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| Quote: Sal Paradise "... Fairer society - yet more clap trap - socialism has been proved to be unworkable...'"
Quote: Sal Paradise "... My view is simply this - you have to allow things to take a certain course, those talented individuals have to encouraged to express themselves to the maximum. Some will earn incredible amounts of money but hopefully that money will filter down. These individuals are the wealth generators, the employers of people, the innovators, essential to any thriving state. There has to be financial justifications for people to want to get on an move up the ladder, these justifications have to be significant enough to drive individuals to want to attain them...
Your idea that all companies should pay sufficient so that no benefits are required is lame, companies would simply employ less staff or increase prices. They have an obligation to the shareholders to deliver a return on the monies invested - capitalism!! why would any investor be bothered if they couldn't get a return - they are not making charitable donations. So why not increase the minimum wage but remove employers NI? Probably because the latter more the adequately covers the former?
How do get a fairer society - the only way is if the financially surplus people are prepared to give to the financially deficit people and there in lies your problem - theories are great until you put the human into them. Why is capitalism the only real game in town? because it is the closest system to the natural instincts of the human. The harder he/she hunts the greater chance of accumulating food. I come back to my very first point you simply do not understand the reality of political theory.'"
Quote: Sal Paradise "Germany is not here, the culture is very different to compare is like comparing apples to oranges, yes they are fruit but that is as far as meaningful comparison goes. Why not compare Germany to China? it simply cannot be done with any sense of gravitas. What works in one country is not necessarily transferrable to another.'"
After you have gone to great lengths talking about political theory (not limiting your arguments to the UK) and how things you disagree with CANNOT work and how socialism has been proven NOT to work in other countries (other countries with other cultures, I might point out), I then point at one of the countries where social democracy does work and, in that instance, has provided the strongest economy in continental Europe ... and the best you can come up with is that it's a different culture?
Sorry Sal, but if you are going to use other countries as examples to try to show how the extreme version of something won't work, you cannot then dismiss those employing the more moderate version where it does.
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Games/PDT_003.gif :Games/PDT_003.gif |
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| Quote: Mintball "Damn those conversations for not sticking to an absolutely specific subject.
Just losing interest, 'tis all.
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| I was speaking to a former colleague on Saturday night who informed me that one leading contract research organisation, that performs scientific studies for all the major pharmaceutical companies, is now employing PhD qualified Chemists on zero hour contracts. These people will not be on good money either when they do work. The job market for Chemistry graduates has got worse since I finished University in the early 90s. Graduate salaries for Chemists have not risen massively despite the alleged demand for scientists. I have seen positions advertised for graduate Chemists with salaries that are barely higher than the minimum wage.
My main reason for staying on to do a PhD was the lack of jobs at the time. At least I wasn't burdened with a massive debt after six years of study. Successive governments have encouraged young people to obtain a University Education in order to obtain a career with good prospects. In actual fact all that many have to look forward to is a massive debt hanging over them while they slave away in a low paid job where their qualifications have very little worth or relevance.
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2051.jpg The older I get, the better I was
Advice is what we seek when we already know the answer - but wish we didn't
I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full-frontal lobotomy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
kirkstaller wrote: "All DNA shows is that we have a common creator."
cod'ead wrote: "I have just snotted weissbier all over my keyboard & screen"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin." - Aneurin Bevan:2051.jpg |
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| There is a simple way to circumvent zero hours contracts: introduce an aggregated annual hours contract. That should cover the vast majority of all "real" jobs and take account of any seasonal demands. Employers would have the flexibility of labour and employees would have the safety-net of knowing what they'd be earning each week/month.
It would of course require managing, maybe that's where the UK and US fall short?
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10025.jpg For contributions, remittances, payments, and all other matters of any responsibility, please refer to someone else.
“The British people love a good hero and a good hate”
Lord Northcliffe:10025.jpg |
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Quote: cod'ead "It does seem rather strange that the most productive period most of the western world enjoyed was during the 1960s, when labour was highy regulated and unionised and income taxes were high. Kinda gives a lie to the oft trotted out mantra that success only follows deregulated labour markets and lower taxes'"
This is a fine example of mistaking a symptom with a cause. After WWII there was the baby boom, and the social, cultural and technological trends that came on the back of the industrialisation and reconstruction legacies of the war. That unions and other sectional interests that drove regulation were able to capture power on the back of those conditions is an entirely different matter to actually creating them. And those conditions couldn't last forever as the stagflation era of 1970s showed. And whilst the West enjoyed the post-WWII boom the "developing" world was relatively rather less developed and lacked the same conditions for growth, so when those countries adopted their own statist policies like high regulation barriers, protectionism and import substitution industrialisation the result was a short lived burst of very high growth rates (from a very low absolute base) followed by long periods of stagnation until they started to liberalise and catch-up.
So it's not clear at all to me how greater statism in the UK would recreate the conditions of the post-WWII boom.
And back on the subject of zero hours contracts, I find this piece provides a well rounded view from someone who knows what they are talking about: flipchartfairytales.wordpress.co ... be-banned/
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Quote: cod'ead "It does seem rather strange that the most productive period most of the western world enjoyed was during the 1960s, when labour was highy regulated and unionised and income taxes were high. Kinda gives a lie to the oft trotted out mantra that success only follows deregulated labour markets and lower taxes'"
This is a fine example of mistaking a symptom with a cause. After WWII there was the baby boom, and the social, cultural and technological trends that came on the back of the industrialisation and reconstruction legacies of the war. That unions and other sectional interests that drove regulation were able to capture power on the back of those conditions is an entirely different matter to actually creating them. And those conditions couldn't last forever as the stagflation era of 1970s showed. And whilst the West enjoyed the post-WWII boom the "developing" world was relatively rather less developed and lacked the same conditions for growth, so when those countries adopted their own statist policies like high regulation barriers, protectionism and import substitution industrialisation the result was a short lived burst of very high growth rates (from a very low absolute base) followed by long periods of stagnation until they started to liberalise and catch-up.
So it's not clear at all to me how greater statism in the UK would recreate the conditions of the post-WWII boom.
And back on the subject of zero hours contracts, I find this piece provides a well rounded view from someone who knows what they are talking about: flipchartfairytales.wordpress.co ... be-banned/
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icons077e_files/5454-3678dentheman-msnicons.jpg Your job is to say to yourself on a job interview does the hiring manager likes me or not. If you aren't a particular manager's cup of tea, you haven't failed -- you've dodged a bullet.:icons077e_files/5454-3678dentheman-msnicons.jpg |
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| Quote: El Barbudo "After you have gone to great lengths talking about political theory (not limiting your arguments to the UK) and how things you disagree with CANNOT work and how socialism has been proven NOT to work in other countries (other countries with other cultures, I might point out), I then point at one of the countries where social democracy does work and, in that instance, has provided the strongest economy in continental Europe ... and the best you can come up with is that it's a different culture?
Sorry Sal, but if you are going to use other countries as examples to try to show how the extreme version of something won't work, you cannot then dismiss those employing the more moderate version where it does.'"
Germany is effectively no different to here the wealth is generated by private companies - it has a different relationship with unions than we do here. Essentially the people making the decisions around wealth generation are the directors of private sector companies i.e. Capitalism or have I got that wrong? are there great swathes of public sector manufacturing, mining, banking and service providers in Germany? Germany is a federal state of course it will have different nuances to here - the fact still remains that wealth generation doesn't originate with the state.
Show me a truly socialist state where the average standard of living even approaches here?
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1136_1263489772.jpg Freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice.
Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.:d7dc4b20b2c2dd7b76ac6eac29d5604e_1136.jpg |
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| Quote: Sal Paradise "Germany is effectively no different to here the wealth is generated by private companies - it has a different relationship with unions than we do here...'"
Agreed.
Quote: Sal Paradise " Essentially the people making the decisions around wealth generation are the directors of private sector companies i.e. Capitalism or have I got that wrong?'"
Slightly, yes.
Unions and employers work together.
Factories and companies are legally obliged to have works councils.
It's not simply "the management" telling "the workers" that it's my way or the highway.
Quote: Sal Paradise " are there great swathes of public sector manufacturing, mining, banking and service providers in Germany?'"
Not that I know of.
We weren't talking about nationalisation, we were talking about a fairer society, your response was "Fairer society - more claptrap".
Quote: Sal Paradise " ...Germany is a federal state of course it will have different nuances to here.. '"
Yes it is, a federal state is a great system IMHO (the Allies imposed it on Germany after WWII as being a fair system ... but it's not for us, oh no).
But because we are not a federal state shouldn't be a barrier to us being a fairer state.
Quote: Sal Paradise " ... - the fact still remains that wealth generation doesn't originate with the state...'"
I didn't say it did. (I wouldn't say it should either).
I pointed at a country with the sort of benefits that you say won't work in a successful economy.
By the way, the state does have a procurement policy of buying from companies that are judged to be looking good for the national economy ... the TUC here in the UK recommended this and the tories were going to adopt it but I've heard no more about it since.
Quote: Sal Paradise " ... Show me a truly socialist state where the average standard of living even approaches here?'"
I don't know what your definition of "truly socialist" would be, although I suspect you might mean Marxist Communist, miles away from what I'm talking about.
Germany has built a fairer state on social democratic principles, resulting in all the benefits I listed in my earlier posts PLUS a strong economy.
As a social democrat myself, I see the best system as being one that utilises the market and capital but maintains restraint on the excesses of capitalism and ensures that the economy is for the benefit of the people rather than the other way round ... like Germany so far, in fact.
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1977_1349889235.jpg "You are working for Satan." [i:2886spie]Kirkstaller[/i:2886spie]
"Dare to know!" [i:2886spie]Immanuel Kant[/i:2886spie]
"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive" [i:2886spie]Elbert Hubbard[/i:2886spie]
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." [i:2886spie]Oscar Wilde[/i:2886spie]
[url=http://thevoluptuousmanifesto.blogspot.co.uk:2886spie][color=#4000FF:2886spie]The Voluptuous Manifesto[/color:2886spie][/url:2886spie] – thoughts on all sorts of stuff.:d7dc4b20b2c2dd7b76ac6eac29d5604e_1977.jpg |
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| Quote: cod'ead "There is a simple way to circumvent zero hours contracts
I'm hoping, in the not too distant future, to be able to research a piece on how the local economy works in Collioure, where we've been holidaying for a few years. You see the same people - of all ages - doing the same jobs. Yet there must be an off-season' period, so how does it work, both for those individuals and for the wider local economy.
Not least since the wider area used to be the poorest in France, but is shrugging that off quite seriously.
One interesting point though: the local mayor is a member of the socialist party and is locally considered to have done a massive amount to boost the town's tourist appeal - not least by very judicious use of planning rules. Planning rules have kept the chains out and kept building low rise and complimentary to the old village. Collioure rules the roost of the local villages in terms of holidaymakers - not least because it has retained real charm in a way other places have not, yet is growing econonomically in other ways too (increased wine producetion by a local cooperative, of wines that are now getting much greater recognition, for instance).
It would be an interesting case study.
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实事求是!: |
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| Quote: dr_feelgood "
My main reason for staying on to do a PhD was the lack of jobs at the time. At least I wasn't burdened with a massive debt after six years of study. Successive governments have encouraged young people to obtain a University Education in order to obtain a career with good prospects. In actual fact all that many have to look forward to is a massive debt hanging over them while they slave away in a low paid job where their qualifications have very little worth or relevance.'"
That's the main reason I didn't go to university. When I was at school 7 years ago and before that growing up towards the end of my tenure we had university rammed down our throats. Everyone had to go to uni. But all I saw was debt. I looked at myself and thought, you're not very academically gifted so all it's going to be is some average degree at an average university which has no direct route into a tangible career and will do little to further my situation in life when I leave. Sure there partying and getting drunk, but i could do that while earning a full time wage. If i had gone to Uni i would be in a similiar situation as I am now except with debt. In fact probably worse as i would have less emplyment experience and i'd be looking for a job at a time when the market was in a downward spiral. I think thousands of young people have been duped into going to uni.
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'when my life is over, the thing which will have given me greatest pride is that I was first to plunge into the sea, swimming freely underwater without any connection to the terrestrial world'
Yves Le Prieur, the real inventor of the aqualung: |
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| Quote: FlexWheeler "That's the main reason I didn't go to university. When I was at school 7 years ago and before that growing up towards the end of my tenure we had university rammed down our throats. Everyone had to go to uni. But all I saw was debt. I looked at myself and thought, you're not very academically gifted so all it's going to be is some average degree at an average university which has no direct route into a tangible career and will do little to further my situation in life when I leave. Sure there partying and getting drunk, but i could do that while earning a full time wage. If i had gone to Uni i would be in a similiar situation as I am now except with debt. In fact probably worse as i would have less emplyment experience and i'd be looking for a job at a time when the market was in a downward spiral. I think thousands of young people have been duped into going to uni.'"
It keeps them occupied for the next three (or longer) years, hopefully until things improve on the job's front.
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