[Archived] The General Election 2015

[Gav]

Yeah, in what way?

Well if you think about the Government cuts alone, LCC for instance has lost thousands of jobs and services, no more hanging your coat up and watching the clock until home time.

[yoda]

Well if you think about the Government cuts alone, LCC for instance has lost thousands of jobs and services, no more hanging your coat up and watching the clock until home time.

The cuts are irrelevant, the real point in your reply is surely the bit in bold, what the private sector would call productivity gains.

ps

we didn't watch the clock all day, chess was the preferred form of entertainment

[Gav]

The cuts are irrelevant, the real point in your reply is surely the bit in bold, what the private sector would call productivity gains.

ps

we didn't watch the clock all day, chess was the preferred form of entertainment

The cuts are irrelevant? Are you mad?

Trying to deliver the same services with thousands of less staff?

You really are out of touch if you believe that Yoda.

[yoda]

The cuts are irrelevant? Are you mad?

Trying to deliver the same services with thousands of less staff?

You really are out of touch if you believe that Yoda.

Not really, it is what the private sector do naturally, efficiency is the bible,

The only criteria you are judged by is how efficient you are, not how many numbers you employ

[Gav]

Not really, it is what the private sector do naturally, efficiency is the bible,

The only criteria you are judged by is how efficient you are, not how many numbers you employ

I don't disagree with you on efficiency, but to just dismiss the loss of thousands of jobs is just silly. How can you deliver the same services having lost so many jobs? Efficiency just doesn't come into the equation at those levels.

[yoda]

I don't disagree with you on efficiency, but to just dismiss the loss of thousands of jobs is just silly. How can you deliver the same services having lost so many jobs? Efficiency just doesn't come into the equation at those levels.

Efficiency determines the level of manpower required, when was the last time someone did an in depth work study of your work environment, say like a Hudson's study.

A truism for you

"Work expands to fill the time allotted"

nail that scenario and you are looking at a brighter future

[Gav]

Efficiency determines the level of manpower required, when was the last time someone did an in depth work study of your work environment, say like a Hudson's study.

A truism for you

"Work expands to fill the time allotted"

nail that scenario and you are looking at a brighter future

My work environment was under constant review, but I don't work for LCC and never have so I can't comment on that.

Again I agree with you on efficiency, but no study or review can compensate for losing thousands of posts the likes that LCC have lost.

[yoda]

My work environment was under constant review, but I don't work for LCC and never have so I can't comment on that.

Again I agree with you on efficiency, but no study or review can compensate for losing thousands of posts the likes that LCC have lost.

LCC, controlled by Labour are they not ?

[Stuart]

Well if you think about the Government cuts alone, LCC for instance has lost thousands of jobs and services, no more hanging your coat up and watching the clock until home time.

The cuts are irrelevant? Are you mad?

Trying to deliver the same services with thousands of less staff?

You really are out of touch if you believe that Yoda.

Haven't you just undermined your own argument?

If people were just hanging up their coats and watching the clock then they weren't delivering anything and were just wasting valuable tax money.

[Gav]

LCC, controlled by Labour are they not ?

I really don't know Yoda, it was Tory for a while, but regardless of who runs the council the budget comes from Central government and the cuts have meant loss of essential services and thousands of job losses.

I don't think it's any coincidence either that LCC and other northern councils have felt the cuts more than the southern councils.

Haven't you just undermined your own argument?

If people were just hanging up their coats and watching the clock then they weren't delivering anything and were just wasting valuable tax money.

I was told back in the 80's if you want a cushy number as an engineer get a job at BAE or ROF, full of lazy ******** and its a cushy number. I never worked at either by the way.

My point being that it was probably this way once upon a time, but not now.

[yoda]

I really don't know Yoda, it was Tory for a while, but regardless of who runs the council the budget comes from Central government and the cuts have meant loss of essential services and thousands of job losses.

I don't think it's any coincidence either that LCC and other northern councils have felt the cuts more than the southern councils.

You may be right, it is about time they got together (SNP style) and kicked Whitehall, for one item the high speed link should start at Manchester.

Manchester is moving in the right direction with more control over budget, hope they do it correctly as it should transform the north West.

[Stuart]

I was told back in the 80's if you want a cushy number as an engineer get a job at BAE or ROF, full of lazy ******** and its a cushy number. I never worked at either by the way.

My point being that it was probably this way once upon a time, but not now.

Wasn't British Aerospace a public sector gig in the 80s...?

[yoda]

Wasn't British Aerospace a public sector gig in the 80s...?

Yes it was, I worked there for a while and the ROF, full of inept management (and corrupt union officials) as opposed to the lazy workers as Gav suggested.

It was the dodgy management that finished the ROF off

[Paul]

Not really, it is what the private sector do naturally, efficiency is the bible,

The only criteria you are judged by is how efficient you are, not how many numbers you employ

That will be the efficiency that requires the self-employed to work 75 hours a week, 6 days a week and no weekends off. Highly productive.

My experience after 30 years of working in small family businesses is if you push your staff to hard for too long productivity and efficiency falls of the scale. We never allow our staff to work more than 6 x 9 hour days in peak season. All staff have Sunday off even in peak season, management work if they, personally, deem it necessary on Sunday. Experience shows everything gained by working Sunday is lost by midday Monday.

75 hours a week and lecturing LCC on efficiency?

[yoda]

That will be the efficiency that requires the self-employed to work 75 hours a week, 6 days a week and no weekends off. Highly productive.

My experience after 30 years of working in small family businesses is if you push your staff to hard for too long productivity and efficiency falls of the scale. We never allow our staff to work more than 6 x 9 hour days in peak season. All staff have Sunday off even in peak season, management work if they, personally, deem it necessary on Sunday. Experience shows everything gained by working Sunday is lost by midday Monday.

75 hours a week and lecturing LCC on efficiency?

The devil is in the detail, it's my business, if I choose to work those hours that is my choice, it is actually more efficient If I carry out certain tasks than employing someone to do it.

I did not lecture the LCC on efficiency if you read it again, surprising stance you are taking about business but it seems you have worked in a family business and not owned it.

My grounding in working practices and efficiency came from industry and transferred into my personal businesses to great effect.

The bit bold, who is in charge at the business ?

[jim mk2]

Working practices in the private sector in my experience usually involve trying to get the job done as cheaply as possible with no regard to quality or safety. Our union has taught the management a few lessons on how to do the job properly, to the benefit of everyone.

[yoda]

Working practices in the private sector in my experience usually involve trying to get the job done as cheaply as possible with no regard to quality or safety. Our union has taught the management a few lessons on how to do the job properly, to the benefit of everyone.

[thenodrog]

I wish David Milliband had won the leadership race, don't think we'd have been talking about the SNP at all then.

I'll never understand why he didn't. So much more credible a leader than his brother.

Private sector complaints about the public sector don't wash. Private sector workers have only themselves to blame if they don't get pay rises or have poor conditions. They need to organise themselves into a collective and negotiate with management from a position of strength. They're called trade unions.

David Milliband lost the leadership race to little Ed because the unions who run the Labour Party backed Ed. Their stupidity as usual was breathtaking.

btw jim did you ever work in the public sector?

[thenodrog]

I was working in the public sector until January and I've not had a pay rise for 4yrs. Vast majority of public sector workers are no longer on final salary pension schemes and wages are often much lower than the private sector.

I work in the public sector because I like the ethos, I like to feel I'm making a contribution to society not lining someone's pocket. In my experience the private sector is full of people trying to climb that ladder, earn as much cash as possible and they don't care who they shaft along the way, that's just not for me.

So you don't work in the Public sector and the private sector isn't for you. Where exactly do you work Gav?

[Gav]

So you don't work in the Public sector and the private sector isn't for you. Where exactly do you work Gav?

Now that would be telling, how about you, which sector do you work in?

[thenodrog]

Well if you think about the Government cuts alone, LCC for instance has lost thousands of jobs and services, no more hanging your coat up and watching the clock until home time.

Good! I was paying for that along with thousands of other poor beggars.

[thenodrog]

Over 30yrs ago, things have changed I can tell you!

Things have changed everywhere. Hence the saying 'the only constant in life is change'.

Gav I can't believe how one eyed you have allowed yourself to become. Tell me a mature industry with the possible exceptions of education and healthcare that has not shed jobs in the past 30 years? Do you think there are as many car workers now as then do you think? Miners? Steelworkers? Shipbuilders? How about fishermen? How about farmers? Poultry and Pig farmer numbers have been decimated in that time whilst dairy farmer numbers have fallen from 30,000 in 1985 to 10,000 now!

I'm sure I read somewhere that when the Empire was at it's peak that the civil service was miniscule compared to todays number.

Cuts are nothing new anyway in fact the biggest %age of cuts were carried ot by the Labour Government of 1945. Quote "Clement Attlee was swept to a surprise landslide victory over Winston Churchill at the end of World War 11. He and his colleagues, such as the Chancellor Stafford Cripps, and Nye Bevan as the creator of the NHS, were committed socialists. But they realised that in order to pay for the Welfare State they must cut the numbers of public employees. There were 1.1 million public employees in 1945 and Attlee reduced this number to 740,000 – a cut of 33%. Stafford Cripps ruthlessly sliced 26,000 people off the public pay-roll in one Budget alone. This was at a time when the Labour Party was nationalising industries, so state sector employees included all those working in the coal and steel industries. Yet, with this pared-down public sector, they established the Health Service, began the programme of rebuilding a bombed-out Britain and – for better or worse – changed Britain into the Welfare State it became.

Whatever you think of that historic Labour Government and its legacy, it is a good example of how the fewer public sector employees there are, the more efficiently they operate."

Would that there were only a million or so of them now eh?

[Stuart]

David Milliband lost the leadership race to little Ed because the unions who run the Labour Party backed Ed. Their stupidity as usual was breathtaking.

Why back Mr Ed though? Surely it doesn't benefit the unions if Labour aren't in government?

[thenodrog]

Why back Mr Ed though? Surely it doesn't benefit the unions if Labour aren't in government?

Cos they knew they could work him like a puppet.

[meerkat]