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Zero Hours Contracts


algy

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If you regard the NHS as a system where the government provides insurance for all residents (or citizens) and pays all health care expenses, then that would include:-

 

Norway, Kuwait, Sweden, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Finland, Slovenia, Italy, Portugal, Cyprus, Spain, Iceland, Brazil, Chile and Japan.

 

In fact  thirty-two of the thirty-three developed nations have universal health care with the United States the exception and the one that practically stands alone when it comes to people with illness or chronic conditions having difficulty affording health care and paying medical bills..

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The NHS is a victim of the success of it's own hype. It shouldn't be in the business of providing cosmetic surgery and the like for "free at the point of need" for example.

I agree, there's a lot wrong with the NHS but I wouldn't swap it for the US model.

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1910 the days of casual labour (the new definition - Zero hours contracts) these men at Liverpools' Alexandra  Dock crowding around the foremen in an attempt to get picked for a days work it was called 'the stand' and the ritual was repeated daily.

 

Bill Smathers speaks about his days on the docks:
You had to ‘get on the stand’, and if your face fitted, you got a job. You had to form a stand, inside the dock gates then. The boss would come out and put his hand on your shoulder. Well, when he done that, you were employed. You might get half a day’s work, a day’s work, or you might get a week’s work, which was very, very seldom. Only the bosses, like the office staff, were employed permanent. The ordinary dockers were all casual workers.
You got eight shillings a day. That’s all and you had to work very hard for it. You had no mechanical gear. Everything was hand-balled … you worked any kind of cargo that came along … grain, hides, sugar, tea. cotton, asbestos, carbon-black. You were glad to do the day’s work to get the money.

 

I can see these times returning, what unions there are are not strong enough to protect their members.

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The government have worked a crafty move now by having the job centre referring customers to their employment providing partners which are ,in effect ,agencies  so the customer can then be taken off the dole figure because he/she is now with an agency which still has few jobs to offer.

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Or nasty bosses taking cheap illegal labour instead of employing legal labour :wink:

 

that could be a factor too.... Although from all the times I have seen that it tends to be foreign restaurant owners and builders etc. that tend to employ illegals (although not exclusively) the craziness of it though (if you have ever watched the programme that follows the UK Border Force in their work) is that you can have an illegal Chinese immigrant running a Chinese takeaway in South Wales who also employs illegal Chinese workers. The workers are rounded up and deported (allegedly) and the boss gets a £10,000 fine per illegal

 

a) How did they manage to set up a business in the first place?

B) How do they get the illegal workers to work there?

c) Why are they not deported too?

 

On occasion they have raided "legitimate" businesses and found illegal workers. Hit the business with fines of up to £30,000 and then gone back a few months later only to find more illegals there.... how can any takeaway food business afford to pay fines like that and if they aren't paying the fines why are they still allowed to trade??

 

The bloody mind boggles

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