Why would the UK which has far better workers rights than the EU, reduce workers rights to align with the EU after we have left?
Makes no sense
I think we are trying to align with the US, Bread, rather than the EU. Just the way I see it 
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Its been Great Britain for 600 years, ordinary folks spent the lions share of the time being downtrodden. Probably.
I donât think the aim is to align with the rights the EU give, I think itâs to take those rights away so as to benefit employers, companies etc at the expense of the employees. And now weâre not bound by law to be at least as good as the EU, thereâs not much to stop them.
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Yes, thatâs true, but youâd have to be brave to stand up and do it.
The opinion in the US isnât as supportive of unions as it is here and people labelled trouble makers might find it hard to find work
And if you have a family to support, would you risk your job by voting for a union?
The reason theyâre voting again is because there was intimidation last time.
âThe National Labour Relations Board determined that Amazon illegally interfered in the unionisation attempt by intimidating workers. A revote was ordered for 29 November, the same day that one of the individuals reportedly died at the Bessemer plant.â
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Donât mean to sound unsympathetic but if you allow your boss to treat you that way, and yes, I understand financial pressure will mean youâre afraid to say or do anything ⊠you also have to accept he cracks the whip.
Iâm going back 40 years now but I worked at a small garment factory and the bosses there always said if the unions came in theyâd close the place down. So the unions were never brought in. There was only about 20 workers.
But even then , in those days there was the National Minimum Wage Council and more than once I rang ACAS to find out my rights.
It makes you wonder what legal protection workers have in the US, irrespective of Unions.
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I donât believe that we are, we have always lead the world in employment rights, thatâs why the UK is such a desirable place to work.
Employers often exceed workers rights to attract the right people - cars, pensions, bonuses are just an example.
I get the impression they donât have as much protection as here. And anyway, if your employer breaks the law but you desperately need your job, you probably wonât report them. That happens here too.
I know they donât get annual leave or paid time off in the same way, thatâs why the man wasnât allowed to go home.
I think our government would like to make it like that here.
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Iâve just finished reading a John Grisham novel âGray Mountainâ that covers employment law in the coal fields of the US. If you think Amazon is a bad employer, read this novel.
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Maybe in the old days, Bread, but not now. The last place I worked was in retail, and there were no unions. Someone turned up with sciatica and could barely stand, let alone run around replenishing stock. She was told A) She wasnât dead, so she could stand at the till, and B) There was no cover for her, so if she left, the shop would have to close and that would mean a financial loss to the company - which would come out of her wages. She had been there less than two years, so had no come back legally. Put up and shut up. She was young and it was her first âproperâ job, so of course she put up with it.
Everyone is entitled to be off sick with statutory sick pay. This is more like crap management to me than workers rights.
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I agree with you on the management. Bullies really, that couldnât work in any other environment. But it seems to becoming more commonplace I think.
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Well, yes, itâs crap management exploiting the employees need to keep their job, so they know they can dump on them
What you are entitled to and what you get are very different things from some employers, with the ever present threat of getting laid off or getting no hours on your zero hours contract if you fight back or rock the boat.
HMRC has a unit that investigate employers that donât pay their employees minimum wage and apparently itâs very hard to get the employees to testify, too scared.
Employers should bring back the company handbook. Then everyone would know where they stand.
I donât think some of them would want to put the way they treat their workers in writing
Workers have only one right (until recently), the right to withdraw labour, contracts of employment (for the common man) arenât worth the paper they are written on.
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If the employers didnât do what was in the handbook the employee has all the information he needs to take legal action against the company. Itâs the same the other way around.
Itâs not that easy to take legal action in the US if you are not wealthy. In particular they seem to have a right to fire people without much pretext.
There is always no-win-no-fee lawyers.
Unions are all about serving the union leaders in my view. I donât know anyone who has asked for support from a union to actually get it. I also know people who have had to do 6 months overtime to make up their loss in wages due to strike action where they didnât get paid for a few months, all for a 10p in the ÂŁ pay rise. I also know a union leader who made a fortune out of being a union leader.
One thing I do know about the USA is how much credit people get and how much debt they build because they need to have the latest of this and the latest of that. I know that happens here too, but in the USA its on an enormous scale.
But why we would implement USA working regulations in the UK is beyond me.
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For sure Amazon isnât the only one, but theyâre one of the biggest. They also pay zero taxes but leave their workers so destitute that they have to get government services for food even with a job.
because of this. Amazon got unions defeated in Alabama, the place where this happened.
Forming a union is not that easy in the US. Some unions requires dues, take the employeesâ money and then work on the side of companies who pay them off.
Itâs also difficult to get the laws changed on this because corporations pay off politicians legally. Politicians will vote against their constituentsâ interests in favor of the large corporations. People voting out these incumbents is also very difficult for a vast array of reasons.
In the US, many places have âat will employmentâ. That allows the employer to terminate anyone at any time for any reason or no reason.
Iâve never bought anything from Amazon. Iâm not boycotting them or anything like that. If I boycotted every company that had bad practices, I wouldnât survive, but stuff like this sticks in the back of my mind when I think about ordering there. They did just increase their minimum wage to $15/hr, so Iâm closer to ordering there than I was before. And Bezos did just step down, so maybe thatâs a plus. Hereâs hoping.
Edit: This is another reason I support universal basic income. People shouldnât be allowed to die because they canât afford not to. If there was a basic floor of income, people would have more leverage to fight these practices.