Bromley trade unions at war with 'nasty little Tories' (From This Is Local London)

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  goldenbroomboy wrote:
  

  karmapolice wrote:
  

  PaulErith wrote:

  goldenbroomboy wrote:

  PaulErith wrote: Brilliant quote in this article, "If people aren’t performing then are capability processes for that, you should not attack their standard of living .” What a load of rubbish that just sums up the Union's way of thinking. He's moaning that their standard of living is cut. Well they should think themselves lucky. As far as I'm concerned, if people aren't performing then sod the 'capability processes', sack them. Where I work, if you're not performing then you're out and rightly so!

  What do you mean "should think themselves lucky"? Do you think they should be glad that they are still alive? There are procedures in place in most companies to deal with underperforming staff. Yes in sales it's pretty clear cut, you either make the money or you don't, but not everybody works in sales. How do you calibrate good customer services? or recovery of debt? If somebody has no money, you can threaten to blow their knees off, it will not make any difference. I don't know where you work, but in most companies it costs time and money to train staff, so sacking people is not something that a responsible company will do willy nilly. And you seem to have not heard of industrial tribunals, which are not cheap for companies who fire staff incorrectly.

  The point is that you are employed to do a job, and are paid money to do so. It is morally wrong to think that you can turn up, under-perform and still get a pay rise. That's basically what the union guy is saying here. I'm not saying that as a blanket statement, under performing staff should be sacked. If they are working hard and need help in improving their performance, I'm all for that. In fact I've stuck my neck out to save someone who fitted into this category. However, if they're lazy and don't bother, then yes they definitely should be dismissed/performanc e managed out of the company. In either case, there is no way that they can justify a pay rise or bonus. I think it's fairly obvious as to what I mean by 'should count themselves lucky'! There's lots of people out of work, and yet someone is in a job, under performing, and has the nerve to complain that they've not had a pay rise.

  You have obviously totally misunderstood the point. The union guy refers to a capability procedure existing for under performing staff. The local terms and conditions which allows cuts over the national agreement is for all staff. The Council wish to move to a system where staff they deem to be 'underperforming' (criteria not specified) are punished financially whilst others are rewarded to existing levels with canteen vouchers rather than the nationally negotiated and agreed pay rise given to every other Council in the country. This is a significant loss of conditions which people are going to resent and will quite rightly want to fight. The union guy is explaining that if there is a problem with performance a fair procedure already exists to deal with those staff. If this goes ahead everyone suffers. How would you feel if your boss removed a section of your pay and said you can earn it back as vouchers if he\she deems you perform well? This also has to be seen in the context of Council workers nationally already having had a real-terms cut in pay for 4 consecutive years, constant threats of job cuts looming over them and a huge cut in their pensions. In the end people have to think whether they want good staff providing local services or not. As the old cliche goes, 'if you pay peanuts you get monkeys'.

  I think it should be remembered that Bromley Council cannot simply change their employees contracts of employment! Any employee wishing to "take advantage" of Stephen's new scheme would have to consent to it by signing a new contract of employment.
  
  As for "performance related" vouchers, those are common in the private sector, where every Xmas the bosses favourites receive some kind of pat on the head-perhaps vouchers, perhaps a hamper, but they are not common in the public sector. How many council tax payers want their money to go towards store vouchers for the civic centre "In" crowd? I certainly do not. If however Stephen & his comrades want to put their hands in their pockets & pay for the same themselves, then they are at liberty to do so.

  They will presumably 'dismiss and re-employ' those who refuse to sign new contracts which will probably lead to wasteful legal battles at the rate payers expense."
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