Saturday, May 14, 2005

Exactly who's being "flexible" here?

With the Institute of Directors, Confederation of British Industry and the Federation of Small Businesses all trying to shout loudest at the European Parliament's decision to end the UK's Working Time Directive opt-out, no-one is questioning how voluntary employee opt outs really are.

The truth is that UK has the second highest proportion of men working more than 48 hours a week among the 15 longest serving Member States. In that context, it's a bit rich for the employers' representatives to start lecturing us about our inability to compete against low wage economies in China and the Indian sub-continent. The truth is we will never successfully do that - and requiring your hard-pressed workforce to opt out of the right to refuse to work in excess of 48 hours per week doesn't have any effect when you're dealing with economies that pay a fraction in wages. Or is that what they really want? A race to the bottom for the workers - with the "entrepreneurs" creaming off the profits in dividends and share options?

And here are some more defenders of the "right" to work all hours. Courtesy of The Times' letters pages - music to Mr Murdoch's ears...

A final word to the gullible: the world in which Westfield lives, works and has its being is characterised by the export of jobs to India and China. We will never compete with them on price - even if we work 24 hours a day, 365 days per year: we will only win this one if we argue for the quality of our products and the immorality of exploitation and threat. You could always start by refusing to bank with those financial institutions that "outsource" their call centre and other back office operations.

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