Question for the IPSE CC members who post here

[eek]

Thanks for rephrasing, but can I point out that I, much to my own relief, am not Mal, nor am I Mal's keeper.

Happy to discuss anything in the appropriate place.

As I am no longer a member of the PCG would it be fair to say that the place to discuss it may be here.

So here is a simple question from the other thread that hasn't been answered

From

And that explains the huge proportion of university leavers how...?

Of course, there's an element of what you're saying, but the point is there's a lot of people working without a contract of employment. They still need support and representation, whether you call them "professionals" or not. And, amazingly to most on here I suspect, IR35 is a minor element of that support.

...

I replied as follows

The huge proportion of university leavers is for the same reason there are an awful large amount of self employed care workers.

Self employment allows companies to avoid taking people on, on a proper basis. Granted there are some people who actively do not want to be employed but I think most simply don't have the choose of an employed position.

Now granted there needs to be an organisation to support those unavoidably self employed people. However, nothing I've seen from PCG over the past 14 years makes me think they are the appropriate people to perform that task. Unison or the GMB would be a far better bet..

So could you explain why I should recommend IPSE to these people when to be blunt GMB would and has for years done a far better job representing them...

[eek]

Firstly does it really matter?

Organisations re-brand themselves all the time. I went to one of the a PCG evening a couple of months ago and the name was an issue with freelancers who aren't contractors. Some were confused by what the name meant.

Secondly got to the IPSE forums to have a go at the people who did the re-branding exercise.

Yes but see my comment above. The justification seems to be to capture a new set of potential customers who I believe IPSE are both wholly unable and totally inappropriate to offer support to.

[malvolio]

I remember him saying "now that I'm a CC member, it's not appropriate for me to post on CUK any more" and disappearing.

That's funny, 'cos I don't. I signed off for eight months in 2008 for good but unstated reasons. It wasn't because I was a CC member

And like V8 I'm very happy to answer questions on IPSE and the CC's role in it, but not on here.

[original PM]

While I have no real vested interest why not in here?

Surely any business should be willing to promote itself on all available forums as it will help bring in new customers...

This whole - well we cannot talk to you unless you join our gang and come to our gang hut seems to be a strange attitude to take.

[Batcher]

While I have no real vested interest why not in here?

Surely any business should be willing to promote itself on all available forums as it will help bring in new customers...

This whole - well we cannot talk to you unless you join our gang and come to our gang hut seems to be a strange attitude to take.

That's fair enough if you are talking about the benefits of membership to non-members or other promotional reasons but the actual running of the organisation, CC elections, etc., is for the members to discuss on their own closed forum.

That way you know that the people having an opinion have paid for it by joining up and aren't anonymous users on an open forum.

[DiscoStu]

While I have no real vested interest why not in here?

Surely any business should be willing to promote itself on all available forums as it will help bring in new customers...

This whole - well we cannot talk to you unless you join our gang and come to our gang hut seems to be a strange attitude to take.

You don't want to go to their gang hut, there's far too much pastel blue going on.

[TheFaQQer]

That's funny, 'cos I don't. I signed off for eight months in 2008 for good but unstated reasons. It wasn't because I was a CC member

And like V8 I'm very happy to answer questions on IPSE and the CC's role in it, but not on here.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but I'm sure that you said something about it not being appropriate for you to post while you were a CC member. Just after you were elected.

If the forum search facility was better, it would make it much easier to find, of course, and it would have been a number of versions ago.

Anyway, I've now asked the simple question that you won't answer here on the IPSE forums. Please feel free to give just a yes or no answer.

TIA

[SueEllen]

Yes but see my comment above. The justification seems to be to capture a new set of potential customers who I believe IPSE are both wholly unable and totally inappropriate to offer support to.

The evening I went to had freelancers in marketing, PR, finance and counselling who are independent professionals and self-employed but don't work like contractors. (There are other people I know/known in similar things.) Likewise we use to have social worker on here.

You would tell care workers to join a union, but unions aren't appropriate if you are a freelancer in marketing or PR who is experienced and making a decent living out of it.

[Batcher]

As I am no longer a member of the PCG would it be fair to say that the place to discuss it may be here.

You can discuss it here as much as you like but I wouldn't expect any answers to questions relating to the running of the organisation.

I'm just a normal member but one of the privilages is membership of the IPSE forums to discuss internal matters.

[TheFaQQer]

That way you know that the people having an opinion have paid for it by joining up and aren't anonymous users on an open forum.

Given that the PCG had 23000 members tops, and the IPSE forum has 48178 members, that's a lot of people who aren't paid up members. Or the software can't count.