May 20, 2009
In one of life's great ironies that the gods send down to amuse all us little people, news reaches Guru that trade union Unite is making some staff redundant.
The so-called 'super union' is looking to make cuts across all departments, with the number or job losses as yet unconfirmed. Cuts are happening because it expects the recession will lead to a substantial drop in membership and therefore income.
It transpires that Unite employees are actually represented by the GMB union, which is a bit like a plumber getting someone else round to fix a leaky tap at his house.
The GMB doing its usual trick of jumping up and down and making a lot of noise. It wants all redundancies to be voluntary, something which Unite pushes for when employers in other sectors announce job losses.
Guru trusts the top brass at Unite will fully consult with their employee representatives and act with the spirit and rules of employment law. We'll be watching...
The so-called 'super union' is looking to make cuts across all departments, with the number or job losses as yet unconfirmed. Cuts are happening because it expects the recession will lead to a substantial drop in membership and therefore income.
It transpires that Unite employees are actually represented by the GMB union, which is a bit like a plumber getting someone else round to fix a leaky tap at his house.
The GMB doing its usual trick of jumping up and down and making a lot of noise. It wants all redundancies to be voluntary, something which Unite pushes for when employers in other sectors announce job losses.
Guru trusts the top brass at Unite will fully consult with their employee representatives and act with the spirit and rules of employment law. We'll be watching...
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Comments (3)
This blog is in very bad taste. Why is it funny that people are losing their jobs? You'd expect trade unions to be as vulnerable to the current economic climate as anyone else. And would you seriously expect a union to represent its own employees? Negotiations would be a bit of a farce! Perhaps rather than sniping at the Unions you could write something about the many corporations that have abysmal employment practices ... but no, the HR profession is quite happy implementing Thatcherism and can't resist a dig at the 'old enemy'.
Posted by John Tamar | May 20, 2009 4:52 PM
Posted on May 20, 2009 16:52
It makes sense that they're represented by another union - it's more like a doctor needing another doc to write prescriptions for him/her.
Mark
Posted by Stress Mark | May 20, 2009 9:32 PM
Posted on May 20, 2009 21:32
It's not funny that people are losing their jobs. It is funny -- or at least appropriate -- that the union is being forced to face the reality of the market and to make the hard choices itself. It may find that it is not as easy as it thinks to make layoffs "voluntary." Perhaps they will just keep everyone on the payroll and lose money instead. That's an option, right? Or perhaps their top management will take major pay cuts to keep from laying off lower-level employees.
Posted by class factotum | May 26, 2009 2:51 PM
Posted on May 26, 2009 14:51