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Royal Mail privatisation approved

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    #21
    Originally posted by minestrone View Post
    'Glasgow Coma Scale'
    In England we just put the Alcohol by Volume on the bottles
    While you're waiting, read the free novel we sent you. It's a Spanish story about a guy named 'Manual.'

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      #22
      Originally posted by MayContainNuts View Post
      Perfect opportunity from the previous thread concerning out of work families.

      If you've been on benefits for a year, then you could job share sorting mail and packing bags. Not sure everything has to be privately financed when there are so many out of work.
      The companies they end up working for aren't going to pay two full wages for two part time workers, so either the government would need to subsidise it or the person who's job got "shared" would lose half their income and need to get another job to make ends meet.
      While you're waiting, read the free novel we sent you. It's a Spanish story about a guy named 'Manual.'

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        #23
        Originally posted by doodab View Post
        The companies they end up working for aren't going to pay two full wages for two part time workers, so either the government would need to subsidise it or the person who's job got "shared" would lose half their income and need to get another job to make ends meet.
        No. You don't understand.

        Companies such as the Royal Mail & other state owned industries should have a number of places available for 'Back to Work' or 'Benefits Job sharing'. These jobs are already subsidised by the fact you the person are already on benefits. After a while you struggle with confidence(or laziness) to get back into work. A number of these B2W roles would be part time & those who took them up should be paid a B2W 'bonus' and obviously travel & meal expenses (to a sensible level). Obviously if you're on benefits you still need to attend interviews.

        As part of this overall initiative Back 2 Workers could also be provided training/skills in new areas(a sort of B2W apprenticeship) or put to use on cleaning streets, maintenance, gardening, picking up litter etc etc.

        The trade off could come by reducing overtime costs for the likes of councils and state owned businesses and actually increase overall service by providing more resource (already paid for by benefits). You don't lose your benefit, you only get extra to it.
        Last edited by MayContainNuts; 11 September 2010, 07:13.

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          #24
          Originally posted by MayContainNuts View Post
          No. You don't understand.
          Sorry, my powers of comprehension are limited to interpreting what you actually said and not all the bits you only thought about.

          Originally posted by MayContainNuts View Post
          Companies such as the Royal Mail & other state owned industries should have a number of places available for 'Back to Work' or 'Benefits Job sharing'. These jobs are already subsidised by the fact you the person are already on benefits. After a while you struggle with confidence(or laziness) to get back into work. A number of these B2W roles would be part time & those who took them up should be paid a B2W 'bonus' and obviously travel & meal expenses (to a sensible level). Obviously if you're on benefits you still need to attend interviews.

          As part of this overall initiative Back 2 Workers could also be provided training/skills in new areas(a sort of B2W apprenticeship) or put to use on cleaning streets, maintenance, gardening, picking up litter etc etc.

          The trade off could come by reducing overtime costs for the likes of councils and state owned businesses and actually increase overall service by providing more resource (already paid for by benefits). You don't lose your benefit, you only get extra to it.
          So what you are actually suggesting is that people on benefits should continue to get their benefits while also being paid some small additional amount (by whom exactly?) for working in menial jobs. It's not an awful idea but it relies on the assumption that the benefit to these organisations, if there is one, of having an extra person who works essentially for free outweighs any costs required in equipment, training, additional insurance and so on. I suspect that ultimately if they worked out cheaper these people would end up displacing existing temporary workers, and if they were more expensive it wouldn't work.

          Of course there is also the problem that many of these functions such as street cleaning etc have been privatised or outsourced. You probably couldn't allow the companies that do this stuff to take advantage of such a scheme without falling foul of competition law or being accused of subsidising or somesuch.
          While you're waiting, read the free novel we sent you. It's a Spanish story about a guy named 'Manual.'

          Comment


            #25
            Originally posted by Mich the Tester View Post
            <bad taste money grabbing contractor mode>
            They'll need a big SAP HR system if they go the same way as NL, and just by coincidence I know a bit about that stuff.

            Great news for contractors!
            </bad taste money grabbing contractor mode>
            They should also implement a tiny bit of security in that SAP system. I can do that.

            do we have a team?
            "Condoms should come with a free pack of earplugs."

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              #26
              Originally posted by doodab View Post
              In England we just put the Alcohol by Volume on the bottles
              This scale could only have been 'invented' in Glasgow. A methodical process of inflicting pain.

              Step one, pinch ear.
              Step two, key into nail
              Step three, nuckle into ribs
              Step four, 5 minutes of the krankies.

              Comment


                #27
                Originally posted by MayContainNuts View Post

                Perfect opportunity from the previous thread concerning out of work families.

                If you've been on benefits for a year, then you could job share sorting mail and packing bags. Not sure everything has to be privately financed when there are so many out of work.
                Most of it is done with machines these days - I think they send the mail to a few large sorting areas, and run it through machines which read postcodes with OCR, and flash up an image of the address to people sitting at terminals to tap in or confirm the postcode in cases of doubt.

                In fact, a great way to extend automation even further would be to have "stamps" that were long strips where successive letters and numbers could be circled on successive lines, e.g. for SW2 ...

                A B C .. (S) T U V W ..
                A B C .. S T U V (W) ..
                :::

                and simply destroy any mail items where the postcode could not be read, so people would soon get the hang of it
                Work in the public sector? Read the IR35 FAQ here

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                  #28
                  Originally posted by minestrone View Post
                  This scale could only have been 'invented' in Glasgow. A methodical process of inflicting pain.

                  Step one, pinch ear.
                  Step two, key into nail
                  Step three, nuckle into ribs
                  Step four, 5 minutes of the krankies.
                  Surely there are a few extra steps between three and four? Seems like quite a quantum jump going straight to the krankies. Maybe something along the lines of eyeballs being skewered, and livers being torn out might make it more of a gradual scale?

                  “The period of the disintegration of the European Union has begun. And the first vessel to have departed is Britain”

                  Comment


                    #29
                    Originally posted by moorfield View Post
                    10% is stuff which, if we had the inclination, could be downloaded from t'interweb (bills, magazine subscriptions)
                    Dont count on it. The website that I 'should' be able to view my credit card bill from has been broken for the past 5 days that I've tried using it. (happens to be the Post Office credit card website )

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