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Post by Patrick on Apr 6, 2009 11:04:21 GMT
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Post by trubble on Apr 6, 2009 11:07:09 GMT
Simple. Just extend flexible conditions to all workers regardless.
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Post by Patrick on Apr 6, 2009 11:08:16 GMT
Trubble For PM
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Post by trubble on Apr 6, 2009 11:08:30 GMT
Perhaps the eco-friendly type might like to admit they are scroungers. It's the next generation who will be working for your pension.
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Post by trubble on Apr 6, 2009 11:08:51 GMT
lol You might want to alter that now.  |
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Post by Patrick on Apr 6, 2009 11:10:46 GMT
Hang on, what's this? "Meanwhile, all expectant mothers who seek health advice from a doctor or midwife can now apply for a one-off, tax-free payment of £190."I thought we were in a recession!  |
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Post by Patrick on Apr 6, 2009 11:14:39 GMT
Perhaps the eco-friendly type might like to admit they are scroungers. It's the next generation who will be working for your pension. Ah! but the eco-friendly non parenting type who has to pick up the pieces left behind by the parent running off 'cos little Jack has fallen down the hill again will not only be working those extra hours to pay for their own pension - but also subsidising the pension of the one who's not at work, attending to their children! Possibly.  Although without children to pay for they will have a bit extra to top up their pension scheme at least! |
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Post by motorist on Apr 6, 2009 13:27:09 GMT
Empress sounds better  |
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Post by Patrick on Apr 6, 2009 14:45:32 GMT
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Post by housesparrow on Apr 6, 2009 16:57:00 GMT
There's nothing to stop anyone asking for flexible working - it is just that for carers, an employer has to see if he can. On the radio just now it was said that 92 % of employers do grant the requests. What I's like to know is whether this is done by requiring other employees to work longer hours or the unpopular shifts, or whether they can refuse the request if there are no willing volunteers.
Many years ago, long before the act, I worked for a small company in a job with an annual salary - no overtime paid. One department was expected to work late one evening a week - in essence a 9 am to 9 pm shift. When one had a baby, the boss just assumed that the rest of the team would accept the need for her to go home at 7pm - despite the fact that her husband was a lecturer and at home to do this job. It caused a great deal of bad feeling , not least because it took the rest of the team longer to finish the work and they got home even later.
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Post by everso on Apr 6, 2009 17:41:08 GMT
I'm pleased that it is possible for women to go back to work when they have children, but, in much the same way as I would object to covering for a colleague who nips out for a smoke, I would object to being required to work longer hours to cover for someone who goes absent in a flexible working arrangement.
It's up to the employer to organise things. Isn't it the case, though, that by law if a company is very small this flexible working arrangement wouldn't apply? Not sure though.
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Post by housesparrow on Apr 6, 2009 18:47:21 GMT
An employer doesn't have to agree to a flexible working request if s/he can demonstrate it would not be practical.
The example they gave on the radio was of a bakery, which has to have all ist baking staff in at 6 am so would have good reason not to allow a request for a late start to fit in with school . I'm not sure if "our other staff don't want to change their shifts/work longer hours" would be sufficient.
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Post by Flatypus on Apr 6, 2009 19:23:17 GMT
This is the problem. Flexible hours sounds fine until you look into it. You can have semi-flexible with a core time or you can ignore hours and work from home as long as the job gets done. Then again there are plenty of jobs that have to be done on a call-out basis and particular staff can say when they are available (though many jobs like that are self-employed). But these are not the jobs that most people (and especially young single mothers) are likely to be doing.
Those are the menial jobs, the shopwork, the call centres, the low-level temp secretaries, the whatever anyone does because they're stuck with having to do something but would never choose it as career. All these are easily replaceable positions and if you don't like it, you just try to prove any kind of discrimination got you to leave! These are people who probably can't even spell discrimination! Nor is it entirely unjust: these jobs do need to be done and it's hard to see how a lot of them can be done in any other way. Not true for all of course.
Look at the history. It starts with not giving a damn about any kind of family life because for the most part the entire family is working in the same factory at a time when slavery is commonplace. Their conditions are little different and those of house-servants possibly worse because less secure. Then children get a break and because of that women get a break to look after them. Ultimately, around last mid-century it becomes an ideal that all but the very poorest woman can expect to be free to look after home and children while the man continues to be excluded as he has ever since the replacement of peasant cottage industry by mass manufacture.
After a while, a lot of the work becomes clerical and administrative and better educated women move in. They have fewer children and often expect to go part-time later on. As their presence leads to more spending money instead of shorter hours for men so that one parent or the other would be free to take responsibility at home (and to do more work there for themselves instead of buying ready-made) and both sides shared equally, so employment becomes as much a necessity for women as for men with children, and most lose their choice. They have to fit their life to structures which never accounted for their staff to have any commitments except to themselves.
Unions did many things to ameliorate conditions but not to take family commitment into account. Feminists (mostly young and intending professional work and and childcare, if children at all) actively worked against taking family commitement into account: they declared it sexist to do so, on the grounds that it might prevent women from getting work. It did not occur to them that they were thereby rendering it equally impossible for employers to do anything to help such women, or that they could be condemning women to over-reach themselves and take two careers on because they felt they must or be failures (as well as impoverished failures!). Of course this suited traditional demanding Thatcherite industries down to the ground: 'feminism' became a de facto tool of conservative industrial exploitation.
So now, far too late, comes the need to try and make 'industry' responsive to its employees. It's hard to see how or why it will bother. It certainly hasn't shown any similar responsiveness to them as 'consumers' or banks given a damn how they gambled moneys entrusted to them.
In other words, this has been a long story and to summarise it:
You can't get there from here. The whole system is designed for a totally different purpose (and that includes most 'Socialist' alternatives). It needs an entirely different system, one that will put people and their personal life first as both employer and provider, one that goes beyond traditional Sociliasm's concern for The Working Man to respond to every aspect of life as servant instead of as exploiter. There was indeed a time when such a push for equality of value between activities thought traditional between the sexes was on the alternative menu - but it proved a bit too alternative for vested interests.
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Post by Flatypus on Apr 6, 2009 20:10:07 GMT
As a matter of fact, I found this on a hell-job stories site. There is far less freedom in the Land of the Free
I am a woman. I worked on Wall Street where the C.E.O. (a man) convened a meeting to explore "Women's Issues on Wall Street." Successful women from the firm were invited along to share their opinions.
One woman, "Diane," said she thought mothers shouldn't take maternity leave, and that women just had to work harder and longer than men to get ahead.
The C.E.O. appointed Diane as "Head of Women's Issues." Diane's boss was forced out and she became co-Head of our department, meaning that I reported to her. At 35, I had been trying to get pregnant for years, and, as everyone in the group knew, was using fertility drugs. Happily, I became pregnant with triplets.
I was a very good producer for the department, but Diane was not happy about my news. She suggested, "as a friend," that I abort one or two of my children so I could "better manage my career."
After giving birth to three beautiful children, and taking my full maternity leave; I found a new job on Wall Street. With three babies, I did not want to fight that fight. Diane continues to move ever-higher on Wall Street
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Post by gIant on Apr 6, 2009 20:31:02 GMT
I am afraid I feel quite strongly about this. I am female and I am in a relationship but I do not want kids. I have worked full time in various jobs for the last 20 years. I feel too much emphasis is placed on what parents should have. Just because I am not maternal and do not have any desire to have children, I am automatically penalised against other women because of this. With all the tax and other benefits that parents get, do they not have enough! Surely if a parent wants flexible working they can negotiate with their employer without this having to be made compulsory by the government. It is also true that families on the whole use more energy, produce more rubbish etc, so by not having children we are doing less damage to the enviroment. It is true that everyone works too long hours and more consideration should be given to the work life balance in general. This should not be something that is reserved for parents. |
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Post by housesparrow on Apr 7, 2009 11:14:36 GMT
A good post gIant and I certainly agree with your last point. When my father had a serious stroke my employers were very good about letting me work a shorter week so I could visit him and my mother regularly . They lived the other side of the country so I couldn't fit it into a normal week. Under the new laws I would not have been entitled to this consideration because I would not have been classed as a carer. The demands of fellow employees who were parents would have come before mine. Had I been denied my short week because of another person's choice to have children, I would have felt resentful!
Actually, I think it helped the firm because they were trying to make staff cuts anyway.
I wanted to do a job share in my last job for health reasons. I would have been the ideal job sharer for anyone with children because I would have been quite happy to work all school holidays and weekends in return for time off in termtime. The only qualified person who applied was a retired police officer, and the firm didn't want him - so I left.
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Post by everso on Apr 7, 2009 14:12:02 GMT
I am afraid I feel quite strongly about this. I am female and I am in a relationship but I do not want kids. I have worked full time in various jobs for the last 20 years. I feel too much emphasis is placed on what parents should have. Just because I am not maternal and do not have any desire to have children, I am automatically penalised against other women because of this. With all the tax and other benefits that parents get, do they not have enough! Surely if a parent wants flexible working they can negotiate with their employer without this having to be made compulsory by the government. It is also true that families on the whole use more energy, produce more rubbish etc, so by not having children we are doing less damage to the enviroment.It is true that everyone works too long hours and more consideration should be given to the work life balance in general. This should not be something that is reserved for parents. I'm sure you're not suggesting it is a GOOD thing if everyone were to decide never to have children. It's essential for the future that some people have children and, as such, they should be given help financially. The way some people talk, having children is made to sound like an indulgence. These little people are tomorrow's doctors, police, firefighters etc., as well as tomorrow's tax payers. It's interesting that on this board we all have a great love for animals but children are not exactly popular. Thing is, in tomorrow's world, animals, for all their cuteness, won''t be the ones looking after us, fighting crime, putting out fires - or paying tax. |
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Post by Patrick on Apr 7, 2009 14:33:56 GMT
I'm sure you're not suggesting it is a GOOD thing if everyone were to decide never to have children. It's essential for the future that some people have children and, as such, they should be given help financially. The way some people talk, having children is made to sound like an indulgence. These little people are tomorrow's doctors, police, firefighters etc., as well as tomorrow's tax payers. It's interesting that on this board we all have a great love for animals but children are not exactly popular. Thing is, in tomorrow's world, animals, for all their cuteness, won''t be the ones looking after us, fighting crime, putting out fires - or paying tax. |
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Post by everso on Apr 7, 2009 14:50:10 GMT
I'm sure you're not suggesting it is a GOOD thing if everyone were to decide never to have children. It's essential for the future that some people have children and, as such, they should be given help financially. The way some people talk, having children is made to sound like an indulgence. These little people are tomorrow's doctors, police, firefighters etc., as well as tomorrow's tax payers. It's interesting that on this board we all have a great love for animals but children are not exactly popular. Thing is, in tomorrow's world, animals, for all their cuteness, won''t be the ones looking after us, fighting crime, putting out fires - or paying tax. You obviously know I'm correct and have been Googling like billy-o to find this!!!! Tom cats capable of putting out chip pan fires Yeah, like any cat would give a toss if a human were leaning out of a window with flames licking round his/her behind. All they'd be worried about would be where their next meal was coming from. I know. I had a cat for 17 years. I loved her dearly. She regularly scratched and bit the hand that fed her. You sure this wasn't Reuter's April Fool's Day joke? |
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Post by Patrick on Apr 7, 2009 15:59:54 GMT
You obviously know I'm correct and have been Googling like billy-o to find this!!!! Tom cats capable of putting out chip pan fires Yeah, like any cat would give a toss if a human were leaning out of a window with flames licking round his/her behind. All they'd be worried about would be where their next meal was coming from. I know. I had a cat for 17 years. I loved her dearly. She regularly scratched and bit the hand that fed her. You sure this wasn't Reuter's April Fool's Day joke? All my own work actually!  |
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