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On 21-5-2009 12:41, Invisible wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>
>> If the unemployment benefit is based on your last income it is also a
>> 10% cut on that.
>
> As far as I know, in the UK unemployment benefit is unrelated to your
> prior income and is computed based only on how much money they think you
> "need" in order to survive. (E.g., stuff like whether you have children.)
Here it is a percentage of your last income. Makes sense in a way,
because if you earn more you have a bigger house, a bigger car and you
are probably the only income. So you need more to get you through the
hard times. Not totally fair perhaps but it prevents a lot of secondary
damage.
I am not following what is going on in the private sector, but I think
the concept here is that people are partly fired for some time and get
unemployment benefit for that part. That way it doesn't affect your
unemployment benefit later.
>> So in general this kind of 'offer' is only acceptable if
>> - your official salary stays the same but you get a percentage of it
>> - it is temporary
>> - the mother company guarantees that the UK branch will not be closed
>> as long as this measure is in place
>> - the guy who offers it also accepts a cut in salary. Preferably more
>> that that 10% to show his confidence in the outcome.
>
> Somebody asked if Fathead is taking a pay cut as well. We are told he
> is. (Obviously, there is no way to actually verify this.)
Ask him to proof it ;)
>> Did you check if such a thing is even legal in the UK? What do the
>> unions say about this?
>
> It's legal if we all sign a written document agreeing to it. It is
> required to be unanimous though.
Does that mean it is only legal if it is unanimous or that they want
full pressure from do-workers on everybody?
> Unions? We don't have any.
Interesting. A relic from the Thatcher days?
>> I think you have also to take into account how likely it is that it
>> will get better. Is the management competent and how well do they know
>> the market are some of the most important questions.
>>
>> I know not in details how the actual situation is, but based on what I
>> heard I would not agree.
>
> Uh, yeah.
>
> We got fed the whole sob story of how lots of other companies are doing
> this sort of thing and it isn't unusual, and our industry has been hit
> hard, yadda yadda yack.
>
> It's true that our customers' entire business model is based on
> continuous R&D. If you imagine a company such as Intel deciding to stop
> developing new products, you'll instantly see how utterly suicidal that
> would be. So they'll have to start taking projects off hold soon if
> they're not going to go under. But they don't have to give the contacts
> to *us*; there _are_ other people in our line of work.
>
> The fact of the matter is, last year two key people left the company -
> our Director of Business Development, and shortly afterwards our General
> Manager. Since that time, our order book has become progressively more
> empty.
Are you sure you have the events in chronological and causative order?
> Then we got rid of our lab manager (we're not sure why, it just
> randomly happened one afternoon).
>
> Right now, it's pretty bad. I've never known the lab to be so quiet.
> Every time I walk into the office, I see a dozen people sitting around
> surfing ebay. When you've got three project managers sitting there
> *watching* people playing Flash games, you know something isn't right.
>
> So far, I'm not seeing any kind of plan to get work to materialise. I
> guess it's just an unglamourious "our sales guys are going to keep doing
> what they're doing until some work starts appearing". Last time our lab
> was this empty, our lab manager was jumping up and down on the phone
> daily demanding to know when more work was coming. But he doesn't work
> for us any more...
So the short version is that everybody that was actually able to find
new work is no longer working there? Enquiring mind wants to know.
> Basically, they want us all to take a pay cut, they can't tell us how
> long for, they can't tell as a specific condition for removing the cut,
> and we need to decide, unanimously, in the next few hours. Great.
That pressure alone would make it illegal in my opinion, but IANAL.
> PS. I'd almost consider resigning myself just so my collegues can keep
> their jobs... but my pittiful salary is unlikely to make much difference.
Here that would mean voluntary unemployment and a complete loss of benefit.
Whatever you decide: go looking for another job.
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