Off Topic Politics Thread

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I mentioned on here recently, about British Gas employees staging strikes in their fight against being “fired and rehired on worse contracts”. Much of the MSM hasn’t deemed it worthy of mentioning, plus it has been overshadowed by the events in America and the ongoing Covid crisis. But people need to start paying attention, because this could be happening to them in the not too distant future.

The new contracts would include:-
Working an extra 156 hours per year, for no extra pay. Think about that alone!
Working unlimited weekends. Impact on family time.
Working unlimited late shifts. Impact on family time.
Reduced annual holiday. On top of wanting them to work an extra 4 weeks unpaid.
A 3 year pay freeze. Brexit is pushing costs up, so unacceptable.
Allow their contracts to be rewritten with just 28 days notice and with zero negotiations.

2 years ago, in an effort to help their employer, the workers agreed to having their pensions reduced, and this attack on their workers rights is the workers reward.

Centrica, who own British Gas, had pre-tax profits of £901 million in 2019. Clearly not enough for the greedy bastards.
For the first 6 months of 2020, the Home Heating side of their business rose by 27%, so clearly they are doing well enough to have zero justification for abusing their employees rights.
 
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St Badger said:
I mentioned on here recently, about British Gas employees staging strikes in their fight against being “fired and rehired on worse contracts”. Much of the MSM hasn’t deemed it worthy of mentioning, plus it has been overshadowed by the events in America and the ongoing Covid crisis. But people need to start paying attention, because this could be happening to them in the not too distant future.

The new contracts would include:-
Working an extra 156 hours per year, for no extra pay. Think about that alone!
Working unlimited weekends. Impact on family time.
Working unlimited late shifts. Impact on family time.
Reduced annual holiday. On top of wanting them to work an extra 4 weeks unpaid.
A 3 year pay freeze. Brexit is pushing costs up, so unacceptable.
Allow their contracts to be rewritten with just 28 days notice and with zero negotiations.

2 years ago, in an effort to help their employer, the workers agreed to having their pensions reduced, and this attack on their workers rights is the workers reward.

Centrica, who own British Gas, had pre-tax profits of £901 million in 2019. Clearly not enough for the greedy bastards.
For the first 6 months of 2020, the Home Heating side of their business rose by 27%, so clearly they are doing well enough to have zero justification for abusing their employees rights.
Click to expand...

Sadly, under this government and, having managed to con the U.K. voter into Brexit, this is unlikely to be the last time we see workers rights being trampled for increased profit and more money to shareholders.
I’d recommend to anyone working to join a union now if you’re not in one. Even if you are a hardened Tory voter (more fool you) join a union because they are the only people who will fight fir your rights.
As my old man used to say (and he was not a hard left supporter but more of a moderate socialist - I’m following in his footsteps) “If the Tories had their way, there’d be no unions and we’d still have children up chimneys ....”
I fear that we’re heading that way sadly .....
 
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davecg69 said:
Sadly, under this government and, having managed to con the U.K. voter into Brexit, this is unlikely to be the last time we see workers rights being trampled for increased profit and more money to shareholders.
I’d recommend to anyone working to join a union now if you’re not in one. Even if you are a hardened Tory voter (more fool you) join a union because they are the only people who will fight fir your rights.
As my old man used to say (and he was not a hard left supporter but more of a moderate socialist - I’m following in his footsteps) “If the Tories had their way, there’d be no unions and we’d still have children up chimneys ....”
I fear that we’re heading that way sadly .....
Click to expand...

In my experience Tory voters tend not to join unions, yet are more than happy to accept any benefits gained through a unions negotiations or actions.
Just one benefit of being in a union is, in many cases, free legal advice in many areas which, given the way that Legal Aid has been vastly reduced, could be worth the membership fees alone.
 
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And the Good Law Project uncovers another scam, with costs being redacted.
What is there to hide?


Good Law Project


Hi Badger

Of the million laptops Government ordered for remote learning during lockdown, more than three quarters have come from Computacenter. The total value of the contracts awarded to Computacenter is at least £198 million. Its founder, Sir Philip Hulme, has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party in recent years and Mr Hulme’s wife has also donated £100,000 as recently as the 2019 Election.

And now it transpires that some of the laptops supplied do not meet the minimum standards set out in the DfE specification and many contain malware.

A school in Bradford which received 90 Geobook 1E laptops via the Computacenter booking system this week found they had been handed devices infected with a malware virus. A letter from the school’s deputy head states: "Upon unboxing and preparing them it was discovered that a number of the laptops are infected with a self-propagating network worm (Gamarue.I). The network worm looks like it contacts Russian servers when active."

An online forum used by school IT experts suggests this is far from an isolated incident - numerous schools have reported the virus to the DfE. Reports suggest laptops have arrived with no sound driver installed, causing access issues for pupils.

And, from what we can see, it appears that the price they’ve charged for some of their devices is almost twice what it should be. The DfE has redacted key pricing documentation from the published contracts, so we are unable to provide a definitive cost per laptop or tablet. However we do know that in September and October last year, the DfE placed three contracts valued at £39.7m with Computacenter. The deal required Computacenter to supply 192,400 devices. This equates to an average cost of £206 per device. But experts have told us they would expect the basic laptops to cost the taxpayer closer to the region of £100 per device. An education IT expert who wanted to remain anonymous told us: “When it comes to the GeoBook, we had seen similar laptops on sale via China for less than £100.”

The Government is yet to publish the contract award for the additional 300,000 laptops it announced 4 days after we launched our latest legal challenge. So we don’t know who the contract has been handed to - or at what cost to the taxpayer. But on the basis of their track record, you’ll forgive us if we aren’t optimistic about what will come to light.

The COVID-19 goldrush continues for those fortunate enough to have links to the Conservative Party. Sadly this time it’s the most vulnerable families picking up the pieces, and fighting for the most basic provisions to continue their child’s education.

Thank you,

Jolyon Maugham QC
Director of Good Law Project

Good Law Project is able to carry out its work thanks to donations from thousands of people. If you are in a position to do so, you can make a donation here:

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No evidence, yet, to support this but what a kick in the bollocks for Johnson if true.

Joe Biden wants 'UK to rejoin EU' as Boris Johnson handed Brexit trade deal blow with US
JOE BIDEN wants to reverse Brexit and has the long-term aim of ensuring the UK rejoins the European Union, a foreign policy expert has said.
 
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St Badger said:
No evidence, yet, to support this but what a kick in the bollocks for Johnson if true.

Joe Biden wants 'UK to rejoin EU' as Boris Johnson handed Brexit trade deal blow with US
JOE BIDEN wants to reverse Brexit and has the long-term aim of ensuring the UK rejoins the European Union, a foreign policy expert has said.
Click to expand...

Oh please please please sir - could I be the one to kick him in the nuts?
 
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St Badger said:
I mentioned on here recently, about British Gas employees staging strikes in their fight against being “fired and rehired on worse contracts”. Much of the MSM hasn’t deemed it worthy of mentioning, plus it has been overshadowed by the events in America and the ongoing Covid crisis. But people need to start paying attention, because this could be happening to them in the not too distant future.

The new contracts would include:-
Working an extra 156 hours per year, for no extra pay. Think about that alone!
Working unlimited weekends. Impact on family time.
Working unlimited late shifts. Impact on family time.
Reduced annual holiday. On top of wanting them to work an extra 4 weeks unpaid.
A 3 year pay freeze. Brexit is pushing costs up, so unacceptable.
Allow their contracts to be rewritten with just 28 days notice and with zero negotiations.

2 years ago, in an effort to help their employer, the workers agreed to having their pensions reduced, and this attack on their workers rights is the workers reward.

Centrica, who own British Gas, had pre-tax profits of £901 million in 2019. Clearly not enough for the greedy bastards.
For the first 6 months of 2020, the Home Heating side of their business rose by 27%, so clearly they are doing well enough to have zero justification for abusing their employees rights.
Click to expand...

That seems totally unbelievable!!!!! Has the company actually camouflaged this offfer in clever writing? As you have said, totally unacceptable. ;What does the PM, Johnson, say about this injustice?
 
The Ides of March said:
That seems totally unbelievable!!!!! Has the company actually camouflaged this offfer in clever writing? As you have said, totally unacceptable. ;What does the PM, Johnson, say about this injustice?
Click to expand...

I don’t think any of this has been hidden in “clever writing”, it is just opportunism.
The CEO has been seen gloating that the media were ignoring the strike action, as a result of the recent events in the USA and the growing Covid death rate in the UK filling up the media.

What Johnson thinks could be revealed when Labour use “Opposition Day” in the Commons to discuss it, and force a vote on stopping workers rights from being eroded. Having said that the vote will be non binding so the Tories could support it in the knowledge that they won’t empower it, so we won’t really know what he thinks until events unfold.
I think it was customer pressure that stopped British Airways using the same “fire and rehire” tactics on their staff, so the public could help sway this, IF it gets the publicity it needs. Losing customers could put a halt to this, although losing too many could then lead to job losses if the workforce is cut back.

A TUC poll claims that
nearly 10% of those who answered have been told to re-apply for their jobs on worse terms.
18% of 18-24 year olds had been affected by fire and rehire, with those considered “working class” twice as likely to be affected.
15% of black and ethnic minority workers have suffered from this.

This poll shows that it isn’t an isolated case.

Edit.
Where small businesses are concerned, I can understand the employer sitting down with staff and discussing the financial position and maybe put forward a temporary employment package that allows regular reviews to return their employees to their previous status when trade has returned, BUT under no circumstances should a company that returned a £901 million profit in 2019, and has shown increased business for the first 6 months of 2020, be allowed to do this.
 
Last edited:
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St Badger said:
I don’t think any of this has been hidden in “clever writing”, it is just opportunism.
The CEO has been seen gloating that the media were ignoring the strike action, as a result of the recent events in the USA and the growing Covid death rate in the UK filling up the media.

What Johnson thinks could be revealed when Labour use “Opposition Day” in the Commons to discuss it, and force a vote on stopping workers rights from being eroded. Having said that the vote will be non binding so the Tories could support it in the knowledge that they won’t empower it, so we won’t really know what he thinks until events unfold.
I think it was customer pressure that stopped British Airways using the same “fire and rehire” tactics on their staff, so the public could help sway this, IF it gets the publicity it needs. Losing customers could put a halt to this, although losing too many could then lead to job losses if the workforce is cut back.

A TUC poll claims that
nearly 10% of those who answered have been told to re-apply for their jobs on worse terms.
18% of 18-24 year olds had been affected by fire and rehire, with those considered “working class” twice as likely to be affected.
15% of black and ethnic minority workers have suffered from this.

This poll shows that it isn’t an isolated case.

Edit.
Where small businesses are concerned, I can understand the employer sitting down with staff and discussing the financial position and maybe put forward a temporary employment package that allows regular reviews to return their employees to their previous status when trade has returned, BUT under no circumstances should a company that returned a £901 million profit in 2019, and has shown increased business for the first 6 months of 2020, be allowed to do this.
Click to expand...

I agree with you one hundred percent. Perhaps by forcing current employees to go self-employed, as no-one wants to accept worse terms and conditions, British Gas's obligations to holiday pay, to pensions and so on is much reduced. Hey, a winner for the CEO and big shareholders!!!! The euphemism is "reorganising the structure to make it more economical and buoyant in today's market."
 
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The Ides of March said:
That seems totally unbelievable!!!!! Has the company actually camouflaged this offfer in clever writing? As you have said, totally unacceptable. ;What does the PM, Johnson, say about this injustice?
Click to expand...
May be I'm wrong but my understanding is that British Gas/ Centrica lost £849 million in 2019. In 2016 it made a profit of 2.5 billion. The share price has dropped from £2.40 to 50p in the last year. There is a potential for £283 million profit this year partly funded by the sale of 'Direct Energy'. This sale will also pay for the deficit in the company's pension scheme..
It seems to me that the company are now struggling in a highly competetive energy industry where there have been many start up companies without the inherited overheads, which why is SSE was taken over by Opus.
I'm not excusing their gungho approach to industrial relations but it's important to be accurate about context. Ref: uk.finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/centrica
 
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