No doubt the apologists for “free” markets (no labour market ever is, has been or could be “free” in the sense economists use the word, although I suppose self-employed computer geeks approximate the closest, especially if they’re multi-lingual – but I’ll return to them) will be along soon enough to say that such an example is one of malpractice and means nowt.

It isn’t. It’s structured into the system. Remember that the directors of a PLC have a legal duty to maximise shareholders’ returns. And consider that it’s likely that a sadist will work as a line manager for less than a normal person because he receives a non-pecuniary benefit, i.e. the opportunity to obtain pleasure by abusing staff. (At least, liberal economic theory posits this.) Thus capitalism actually selects for sadists as line managers.

And those computer geeks? Not a free market in labour at all, if you listen to their employers. Damnable monopsonists – as bad in their own way as Arthur Scragill. WTF haven’t we produced twice as many geeks as we need? That would bring them into line.

Later, one of my permanent colleagues, who questioned why she was threatened with redundancy if her hours weren’t reduced one week, when new staff were taken on the next, was told in no uncertain terms that she better “not question management” and start looking for a new job. And soon.

Now the 10 temps they were taken on a temporary basis and an hours notice is all they were entitled too but it’s hardly fair is it? Lying to staff about redundancies isn’t justifiable is it?

It’s class war and we’re losing.

I think you will find that Mike’s ‘strange’ views of the workplace is shared by thousands of people who find themselves in that position.

The labour laws are so lax that such abuses are common among those on the bottom rungs of the employment ladder.

[46][50] Actually, it isn’t necessary for someone to be “evil” for them to treat their staff in that way. Rationality is sufficient motive.

The more effective workers turn out to be the ones who are still reporting to the line manager who hired them. They’re much easier to motivate than the staff managers inherit with the job. The rational manager will therefore seek to get rid of the latter by the methods I mentioned earlier.

If there reallly are 6 million people in need of work then why do govt keep telling us that we need foreign labour to plug gaps in the labour market – it doesn’t make sense.

That is a question better suited to the CBI as they are the ones importing labour.

Or they could just sack them if they have served less than two years. That means they pay no redundancy pay or access to tribunals. Or they could just phone the relevant agency and have them dismissed. ‘Temps’ have no recouce to the law either.

Or they could just sack them on the spot, the lowest paid workers have no-one to turn to as no-one is interested in fighting their corner.

They can humiliate X in front of colleagues. They can give the nod’n'wink to others to bully X. They can mislay X’s requests for leave, or remove their car parking space. They can claim that X’s sick record is such they need a doctor’s note for all sickness absence. And so on and so on. In fact, all these practices are going on in a workplace near you, right now.

If there reallly are 6 million people in need of work then why do govt keep telling us that we need foreign labour to plug gaps in the labour market – it doesn’t make sense.

I am not sure I agree with you that unemployment is a lot lower in economies with ‘flexible’ labour markets. Surely unemployment is higher when you can throw people onto the dole on a whim?

Oh, I agree there are lazy people who do not want to work. The problem is of course, that while there is a surplus of labour of up to 6 million (see previous posts) then there is little point in trying to force them into work that does not exist. The fact that wages are hardly better than benefits seems to point out how slack the labour market is. Which is exactly the point of many of the policies perused by both Labour and the Tories have initiated over the years.

The welfare state was supposed to be a safety net. On that much, we agree, but by the same token, the welfare state was conceived at a time when full employment was the economic aim of all the major political Parties.

The use of the welfare system as a suppository for surplus labour is a Tory construct.

We now have an economic strategy that requires that unemployment form part of the political infrastructure. Given that unemployment is a permanent feature of the economy, it stands to reason that those with least to offer potential employees will find themselves unemployable.

Take away the benefits for a second. You find high levels of unemployed people in every major free market run city in the World. Whereas we have council estates, other cities without welfare systems have shantytowns and squatter camps. In Johannesburg and San Paulo there are people living in little better than huts, cobbled together with scrap. Surely these people are not dissuaded from taking on menial tasks, such as street cleaning because they enjoy a better standard of living not working. So what do they need to encourage them to work?

If you have not already done so, try reading Andre Gorz ‘The Politics of Time’
Using his model, it would be easy to assimilate 5 million people into our economy.

Not four and a half million people though. I don’t see many McDonald’s shutting down through lack of staff willing to take up jobs, do you?

Perhaps we need to to force them to take on only unemployed people?

A more tangible ‘excuse’ for not working is the proportion of our economy that has been outsourced within the last forty years. It is just as well that many of these people do not want to work, for a significant proportion of them there is little prospect of them working anyway. If you want the three million currently unemployed and the alleged incapacity claimants who could or should work, to find work, then you are going to have to create 5 million jobs. There is no point taking a big stick to the unemployed unless there jobs out there for them to fill. Creating millions of jobs will solve the unemployment problem overnight.

How you do that is a different thread.