BT has proposed that employees take up to a year off, in return for taking a 75 per cent pay cut. To encourage as many workers to take up of the offer, the company will pay their reduced salary as an upfront cash payment. It is also offering staff a one-off payment of £1,000 if they switch from full-time to part-time work. Parents are also being offered the opportunity to work only in school term times, so they can spend the summer holidays with their children. ... "It's already a widespread phenomenon in smaller companies, where there is a feeling that everyone is a family and needs to pull together. But more larger companies will follow suit," he said. Experts believe that cutting workers' hours and pay - rather than outright sacking them - is masking the true extent of the jobs crisis. ... Unions, however, support BT's initiative. Andy Kerr, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, said: "We recognise that there are falling work volumes at BT and have been focused on staff retention and avoiding any need for compulsory redundancies." He said the "summer sabbaticals" are a "great opportunity for staff to pursue travel, study pursue travel, study or other activities while knowing they have a job to return to". ... A senior manager in BT said the scheme is designed so that staff can go off on the "long holiday they've always wanted without having to quit their jobs". A spokesman for the telecoms company said: "These are innovative ways to help keep employees during these tough economic times."
It is also offering staff a one-off payment of £1,000 if they switch from full-time to part-time work.
Parents are also being offered the opportunity to work only in school term times, so they can spend the summer holidays with their children. ...
"It's already a widespread phenomenon in smaller companies, where there is a feeling that everyone is a family and needs to pull together. But more larger companies will follow suit," he said. Experts believe that cutting workers' hours and pay - rather than outright sacking them - is masking the true extent of the jobs crisis. ...
Unions, however, support BT's initiative. Andy Kerr, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union, said: "We recognise that there are falling work volumes at BT and have been focused on staff retention and avoiding any need for compulsory redundancies." He said the "summer sabbaticals" are a "great opportunity for staff to pursue travel, study pursue travel, study or other activities while knowing they have a job to return to". ...
A senior manager in BT said the scheme is designed so that staff can go off on the "long holiday they've always wanted without having to quit their jobs".
A spokesman for the telecoms company said: "These are innovative ways to help keep employees during these tough economic times."
"British opt-out" to the 48-hour workweek in the EU's Working Time Directive
I have tried to follow explanations at ET of UK conformation --or lack thereof-- with EU minima employment protection. Prejudice, I must admit, frequently prevents me appreciating fully the good faith and participation ("teamwork") of its membership in the EU community.
Beyond OECD series data for P/T employment which superannuate the peculiarities of British feudal politics, I've more or less concluded that the principle purpose of such a standardizing impulse it to minimize qualification for and value of welfare claims (transfer payments) to so-called under-employed persons as well as employer contributions to public funding and employee legal recourse to challenge involuntary separations. Many besides myself have anticipated one or more of these common features of public policy "initiatives" in this age of globalizng indenture. So.
Maybe instead the EU should have redefined "full time" to less that 40 hours
If I were not 96.34% certain of your naughtiness, I would argue that any definition of F/T employment is anachronistic. Inculcated yet no longer useful associations of time with (cash and non-cash) compensation are vestiges of industrial labor's morale and actuarial tables which approximate employment security. Producers seek labor force acceptance of market entropy through instituional claims to beneficence, expertise, predictive power, what-have-you, because this method of obedience training is less expensive to producers than coercion --especially given scale economies obtained by coordinating statute across jurisdictions.
In other words, whether 10 or 50 hours per week attributable to earnings, whether strictly amenable to UK standards of corporate governance, wage laborers may expect diminishing returns from collective bargaining power in the form of elected representatives. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
Bosses will still able to ask employees to work more than a 48-hour week under an EU agreement reached today in Luxembourg. ... Employees have the right to: · A maximum working week of 48 hours · A rest period of 11 consecutive hours a day · A rest break when the day is longer than six hours · A minimum of one rest day per week · The statutory right to four weeks' holiday In addition to this: · Night working must not average out at more than eight hours at a stretch · Workers will be entitled to a free health check-up before being employed on night work and at regular intervals thereafter ... The opt-out has allowed member states to put in place measures allowing individuals to agree not to be subject to the 48-hour working limit. In other words, they can work for longer if they want to. Britain was the only country at the time to take this action after the negotiations in 1993. Other countries have since put some measures in place for specific areas of work, but Britain has made the most widespread use of it. The individual opt-out comes with conditions: employees have to formally agree to waive their right to work a maximum of 48 hours a week, and a refusal to do so cannot entail negative consequences.
...
Employees have the right to: · A maximum working week of 48 hours · A rest period of 11 consecutive hours a day · A rest break when the day is longer than six hours · A minimum of one rest day per week · The statutory right to four weeks' holiday
In addition to this: · Night working must not average out at more than eight hours at a stretch · Workers will be entitled to a free health check-up before being employed on night work and at regular intervals thereafter
The opt-out has allowed member states to put in place measures allowing individuals to agree not to be subject to the 48-hour working limit. In other words, they can work for longer if they want to. Britain was the only country at the time to take this action after the negotiations in 1993.
Other countries have since put some measures in place for specific areas of work, but Britain has made the most widespread use of it.
The individual opt-out comes with conditions: employees have to formally agree to waive their right to work a maximum of 48 hours a week, and a refusal to do so cannot entail negative consequences.
This is stuff the EU should stay away from in the name of subsidarity. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
