..for some vague promises in the future. I.e. the latest Tory mental idea allegedly to create new jobs.

Latest idea is that employees sign away their redundancy and unfair dismissal rights in return for part ownership in the company, all in the name of making it easier for employers to hire more staff. Now I’m pretty anti union at the best of times but I agreed with every word from the union (GMB I think) spokesman this morning. In my experience those at the very top who have renumeration tied to company performance also have the best protection when it comes to leaving, now they want everyone else to give up that protection in return for potentially worthless shares.

I can see that companies would actually insist that any new employees take this route and pressure existing ones to switch.

I do hope the LibDems come to their senses and stop this happening – it’s a disaster for workers rights (in the broadest sense).

this has to be the shit idea to top all shit ideas. I’m apolitical but this makes me want to jump up and down on Gideon’s head.

renumeration

remuneration.

I think that the real beneficaries will be those that nobody (in the press) has mentioned so far, owner-managers of very small SME’s.

And then it’ll be reported how we are avoiding tax again.

The CIPD points out that the way to have committed, engaged employees is to have great leadership in the company, not to offer the employees shares instead of rights…

To insist that employees (new or existing) sign away their employment rights must surely contravene European law, but if the Conservatives can suggest seceeding from the Human Rights Act when it gets in the way of their plans who can say what might be next?

It indicates how desperate and bankrupt of ideas they are…..

This was an idea put forward by a venture Capitalist. Why does the media and punters jump on this. It’d never get through.

It indicates how desperate and bankrupt of ideas they are…..

That’s twice in one morning I’ve found myself having to agree with people I wouldn’t normally…. 😥

I ******* hate the Tories, why can’t we have a right wing party that is policy rather than greed / self interest driven (and before you all start right wing policies don’t have to be based on having your own snout in the trough).

Edit: Hora you’re right, but to have even publically suggested this was mental and wrong.

It sounds unnecessary to me. The Tories, with full support from the LibDems, have extended the period in which someone can be unfairly dismissed to two years (despite the UK already having among the worse employment protection in the western industrialised world) so any employer can simply sack someone after 1 year 11 months and 3 weeks and replace them with someone else. Traditional Tory policy of maintaining high levels of unemployment guarantees a ready supply of available labour.

I’m also struggling to see any benefit to anyone, with the exception of a firm that wants to get rid of experienced staff (and the aformentioned owner/manager scenario) – and that really is a firm on its way out anyway.

And while I agree that all firms will demand that new employees sign-up, so why not just change employment law anyway, and be done with?

hora – Member

This was an idea put forward by a venture Capitalist. Why does the media and punters jump on this. It’d never get through.

According to the Daily Telegraph it has the backing of Chancellor of the Exchequer :

George Osborne: ‘trade in your rights for company shares’

I assume the Daily Telegraph has jumped on it because it’s true.

wwaswas – Member
I can see that companies would actually insist that any new employees take this route and pressure existing ones to switch.

^^this

2 interviewees

one whos willing to waive their rights, one who isnt, who gets the job?

I also loved the way he said

“We’re not going to get through this as a country if we set one group against another, if we divide, denounce and demonise.”

then went on to announce a further 10bn in cuts from welfare and spent the rest of his speech slagging off the unemployed

It sounds unnecessary to me. The Tories, with full support from the LibDems, have extended the period in which someone can be unfairly dismissed to two years (despite the UK already having among the worse employment protection in the western industrialised world) so any employer can simply sack someone after 1 year 11 months and 3 weeks and replace them with someone else.

And when you look at the change in employment patterns and length of service, this already means that a hell of a lot of people are now going to spend much of their working lives with very little protection.

I think a return to the work house system would be a good idea. We could have mill owners in top hats and workers gald of a job with no rights living in poverty. The kids wouldn’t have shoes and half of them would die before they hit 5.

The Tory party is ace – they only work in the interests of ~0.5% of the population but manage to get ~40% of that same poulation voting for them.

Bearing in mind that most start ups / small companies aren’t listed and don’t have tradable shares, it seems like total nonsense or rather just an excuse to erode employment rights.

How anyone who isn’t a millionaire could have voted for this shower of sh!t and their LibDem lapdogs is quite beyond me.

Gave them up years ago when I went self-employed.

I can see that companies would actually insist that any new employees take this route and pressure existing ones to switch.

As I understand it will only apply to new staff – existing ones won’t be given the option.
Probably more likely to be a wheeze to give pseudo business partners a tax free share option.

There are big companies, like EMI, that can people just before they pass their two year mark, and loads of small companies as well.

At least this might stop that…

it would be nice if it was optional, at least then you could make a judgement taking into account the stability of the company, the length of time you expect to work for them, whether you expect to get pregnant or want flexible working, the current and expected value of the shares, whether you need the money, the risk of being given the boot, etc.

is this just a callous ploy of the Tories to take advantage of greedy ‘what’s in it for me’ Britain? is there no way that we can vote against this legislation? when’s the next general election?

Worth noting that some circumstances are automatically unfair dismissal regardless of if you have the two years service or not ie discrimination.

won’t this just create more court cases where lawyers act for people claiming breaches of human rights rather than going to tribunal for unfair dismissal?

It’s an odd basket of things:

[list][*]unfair dismissal – idiotic. how is that beneficial to anything other than companies wanting to fire people. Currently employers have to at least cook something reasonable but can fire people anyway.[/*]
[*]redundancy – idiotic. Again, only helps the employer[/*]
[*]right to request flexible working – you have a right to request it which the company can reject on reasonable grounds.[/*]
[*]time off for training – surely beneficial to the company (if not, it’s more a hobby than training) so why?[/*][/list]

Given I assume that employers from unlisted companies will give shares that are only able to be cashed in on a sale (with listed companies, it could be interesting to see how they can give away free shares too) or someone else wanting to roll-up shares, the chances are they’ll have bad-leaver clauses to prevent too many being owned by non-employees.

Some of those clauses I’ve seen have been just insane, with any deviation from full-time employment in your current role losing the shares. This means resigning, being made redundant or going part-time could trigger the clauses and you lose the shares so I assume firing or making redundant would have the same effect. As much as I applaud the idea of a government supported worker-owner share scheme type thing, this is the worst possible way of doing it.

was going to auction mine to highest bidder, starting off at £million…..I promise to never work for you again…..

Dodgy employment practices have been going on for years. What the government should be doing is stopping the use of “self employed” workers doing exactly the same job as permanent employees for half the money.

The Agency Worker’s Directive is pointless and unenforceable while existing unions are forbidden from taking any action to prevent this.

Particularly prevalent now in the airline industry, where the pilot of your next holiday flight may well be paying the company to have a go on one of their planes with little more than 100 hours total flight time.

It’s just another back of the envelope policy cooked up in desperation. I fully expect another u-turn when the civil servants and the opposition start pointing out the ridiculous impracticalities and complexity involved in doing it.

The labour party and Ed Miliband are right. The hallmark of this government is incompetency, and this is just another example.

self employed= whip your own back…. its just a tax scam, allied with no rights– casual labour , the lump, all benefit the bosses….

What the government should be doing is stopping the use of “self employed” workers doing exactly the same job as permanent employees for half the money.

Again, it’s not quite that simple. I’m one of those ‘self-employed’ types that you speak of. Yes, I’m paid more than permanent colleagues doing the same job, but I do not have the employment rights that they have and do not have any security of tenure – I can be got rid of at weeks notice. I earn more, but my ‘risks’ are greater.

self employed= whip your own back…. its just a tax scam, allied with no rights– casual labour , the lump, all benefit the bosses….

Really? I’m not sure you fully understand the concept of self employment.

Again, it’s not quite that simple. I’m one of those ‘self-employed’ types that you speak of. Yes, I’m paid more than permanent colleagues doing the same job, but I do not have the employment rights that they have and do not have any security of tenure – I can be got rid of at weeks notice. I earn more, but my ‘risks’ are greater.

I think they were arguing the opposite where a company forces people to go self-employed and pays them less.

Ah, righty-o. I’ll be quiet then.

IHN – but at the same time the company avoids paying NI and pension contributions. About time this is seen as tax evasion on their part.

There must be some good drugs in Tory HQ at the mo – I mean it’s not like UK workers are over-protected (see any redundancy/offshoring/outsourcing deal from the last 20 years)

How about keep your employment rights and get a stake in the company? It works for John Lewis, co-ops etc.

The best bit of his speech for me was the section about the mansion tax. He said:

Nor am I going to introduce a new tax on people’s homes.

It would be sold as a Mansion Tax.

But once the tax inspector had his foot in the door you’d soon find most homes in the country labelled a “mansion”.

Homes people have worked hard to afford and already paid taxes on.

It’s not a Mansion Tax it’s a Homes Tax and this Party of home ownership will have no truck with it.

Hang on, you run the treasury, you’re the tax man!

Wow. Knee jerks everywhere.
Just one litle thing. No one is forced to do anything yet. How about re opening this thread in 5 years when we can now what happens not just guess?

You think it’s better we discuss it when it’s too late?

That’s some smart thinking!

Wow. Knee jerks everywhere.
Just one litle thing. No one is forced to do anything yet. How about re opening this thread in 5 years when we can now what happens not just guess?

You think that the jury is out on whether it would be a bad thing to remove employment protection for employees, and to suggest otherwise is a “knee jerk” reaction ?

Well why stop there ? ……. let’s scrap the NHS and see how we’ve got on after 5 years ? Perhaps we can reduce the school leaving age to 12 ? Or cut the number of police by half ?

The possibilities are quite endless. And until we’ve tried them no one should object with silly knee jerk reactions.

🙄

Interesting……..

Speaking from personal experience, I can say 100% there is definitely a place for employee share schemes to reward the hardest and most committed workers. Not sure about the whole “trading in rights” thing yet, but as it’s the British media reporting it, I will await proof rather than take their word for it. We all know how inflammatory reporting is at the moment, as they battle to fight falling circulation numbers with outrageous emotionally charged headlines.

To give you some insight – as part of my first performance review I was given some shares in the company as well as renegotiating my commission and bonus structure. As a sales manager, I have spent the last 10+ years of my life working to get the job done, rather than thinking of my “rights” so to speak. Not out of being forced to by any employer, but because that’s the mindset of someone in my profession. So the “trading in” bit isn’t really of a concern to me IF it proves to be true.

Not long ago, we were bought my a major multinational and share values have quadrupled. Those of us with share options have varying “lock in” periods, mine is 4 years from issue, but right now, that stands me as £19k up already and the values are protected. I’ve got no intention of leaving, and by working hard & smart I have positioned myself as pretty indispensible to the overall organisation.

So for me, this new scheme would just be a formalisation of something that works very well already. I imagine for a lot of others who share a similar drive, it would also be welcomed.

All depends how you view things. I believe that just as much as an employer has obligations to the employee, so too does the employee have an obligation to the employer to give 100% at all times. Maybe this scheme would do something to foster more thinking like that if they had a financial interest in the success of the organisation they worked for?

Knee jerk reaction!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I set out my credentials in my original post and even I think this idea is totally bankrupt, basic workers rights are the bedrock of a successful business, not losing your livelihood on someone’s whim is pretty basic in my book.

Andyrm you are awesome.