Slave drivers
- Thread starter Mike2007
- Start date
about as much as a kidney punch comes under lawful picketting
Well that answers the question doesn't it!
Personally I think that both sides (unions and government) could have done things differently and our economy now would be stronger for it. We would still have a car industry for one...
But hindsight is always 20:20, isn't it!
Back to the original point, even those in industries not directly affected by credit and reduced consumer spending are feeling belts tighten. A lot of it is down to that old sound-bite, the "feel good factor". People are being a LOT more careful and future-focussed on their own money plus their company's money.
I think some companies are using this time to trim out the fat and do the dirty job of making redundancies with a nice easy excuse.
I've noticed that the IT industry (which many friends work in) is doing just that. It used to be money for old rope in most cases, and you could send out 3 engineers at time and a half when one engineer at standard rate would have done. But, companies run on information transfer and every second counts. Imagine how much it costs Play.com in lost revenue if their website is down for an hour!
So there was a lot of "bums on seats" factored into IT company costs. The companies are now trying to drive their costs down to ride out the storm and make themselves more attractive to customers.
In the last couple of months half my mates who work in IT have been laid off and another reckons he's got a 30% chance of being employed 3 months from now. He's a full-on net-admin-software-engineer-os-hacking geek, not a cable monkey or ten-a-penny call centre operative. So it's not like he can be replaced by anyone off the street. He knows his stuff and works hard.
But hindsight is always 20:20, isn't it!
Back to the original point, even those in industries not directly affected by credit and reduced consumer spending are feeling belts tighten. A lot of it is down to that old sound-bite, the "feel good factor". People are being a LOT more careful and future-focussed on their own money plus their company's money.
I think some companies are using this time to trim out the fat and do the dirty job of making redundancies with a nice easy excuse.
I've noticed that the IT industry (which many friends work in) is doing just that. It used to be money for old rope in most cases, and you could send out 3 engineers at time and a half when one engineer at standard rate would have done. But, companies run on information transfer and every second counts. Imagine how much it costs Play.com in lost revenue if their website is down for an hour!
So there was a lot of "bums on seats" factored into IT company costs. The companies are now trying to drive their costs down to ride out the storm and make themselves more attractive to customers.
In the last couple of months half my mates who work in IT have been laid off and another reckons he's got a 30% chance of being employed 3 months from now. He's a full-on net-admin-software-engineer-os-hacking geek, not a cable monkey or ten-a-penny call centre operative. So it's not like he can be replaced by anyone off the street. He knows his stuff and works hard.
Good post Donk and it highlights because of lack of hindsight how companies can listen to know nothing accountants and strip the company of those that actually do the revenue generating work leaving the useless decision making tw*ts behind.
I don't know about you guys, but my company seem to be piling up the work load on everybody now the credit problems have started! The schedules are totally impossible to achieve and are just insane!
Whats more, everyone is so terrified to say anything as I might mean the big elbow for them!
But as my mum would have said...."You've still got a job"
Maybe they are trying to be more competetive to survive in these tough times.
An ex miner siding with the rozzers?!!?!? i'm deeply shocked
think youll find he's telling it how it really was, rather than just a one sided view over 20 years on
One person cant "tell it how it really was" unless they were in every place at the same time, I've heard several different versions of what went on and it doesnt bear well for the pigs i'm afraid.
On a seperate note i myself have experience of the over zealous and underhanded tactics of the boys in blue from when i went on strike at the Beeb and that opened my eyes to the many ways that lies are put out in the papers to discredit the striker in the public viewpoint. Maggie Thatcher hated the unions and without the overpaid police force that she rewarded so heavily she wouldnt have mangaed to get her way in destroying them.
