Banish this abusive practice for good
AS THE rising tide of sleaze threatens to swamp the Government, Boris Johnson is trying to kick the issue into the long grass by setting up an enquiry.
He no longer has a formal independent advisor on ministerial standards because the last one resigned five months ago after his enquiry into the Home Secretary found that she had broken the Code of Ministerial Conduct.
But Boris simply ignored the findings because the Home Secretary is one of his cronies and rules which apply to ordinary folk do not apply to his pals.
So instead of holding an independent enquiry which might reveal inconvenient truths, like the enquiry into the Home Secretary did, Boris has appointed a banker who sits on the board of a private bank which deals, not with high street banking, but with managing the wealth of the rich.
The bank has provided financial support to the Conservative Party, is stuffed with former Tory MPs and civil servants (the very thing it is supposed to be investigating) and is chaired by one of the largest donors to the Conservative party.
What is more, the enquiry will have no power to compel witnesses to participate or to hold them to account if they refuse to disclose evidence.
My opinion of this so-called enquiry is that it is a sham run by insiders and aimed at covering up anything embarrassing to the Tories – exactly the kind of insider dealing which has created the scandal in the first place.
Boris is hoping nobody is really bothered about sleaze, that people are more concerned about the vaccination campaign, and congratulating him rather than giving our congratulations and respect to the NHS where it rightly belongs.
FIRE and rehire is an appalling, abusive practice that is becoming ever more common within our workplaces.
Dismissal and re-employment under inferior terms is not a new practice, however; anyone versed in industrial relations knows that this approach has always carried the reputation of being “the nuclear option”, which in everyday language translates as unnecessary and overly drastic.
A contract of employment in its most basic characterisation is a two-way obligation. Employees are expected to meet required standards. Equally employers should act responsibly and fairly.
The measures put in place to support businesses and employees throughout Covid-19, such as the coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, are welcome.
After everything we have endured throughout the crisis it cannot be right that workers, many of whom have continued to work under the designation of “essential worker”, face dismissal if they don’t accept worsened pay and conditions.
After months of pandemic hardship, this is no way to treat people.
Employers should not be allowed to use the crisis as a smokescreen to drive through ideological agendas that seek to smash existing terms and conditions.
FORMER Tory advisor Dominic Cummings has pulled back the lace curtains hiding what goes on in PM Johnson’s Downing Street.
Much of his grievance against his former boss is Johnson’s mishandling of the Covid pandemic.
In September last year, the scientists and doctors on the Government’s SAGE group called for a lockdown to prevent the disease coming back. Boris Johnson rejected that until, in panic, he had to impose a lockdown with the disease out of control at the end of October, tens of thousands died from November to February.
No wonder Britain has the highest death toll in Europe, and no wonder Cummings describes Boris as falling below the level of competence Britain deserves.
He also described the actions of the Prime Minister in seeking secret donations from rich businessmen to pay for refurbishing his Downing Street flat as mad and totally unethical and possibly illegal, since the donors could demand secret favours of the type, this Government is always doing for its cronies.
Meanwhile a minister who resigned on a point of principle last week because the Government was breaking its manifesto commitments says that the Government is a “cesspit”, almost nobody tells the truth and it’s the worst administration he’s ever served in.
One thing puzzles me. Why has it taken these Tories so long to realise this?
Labour has been pointing this out ever since Boris became Prime Minister by destroying the leadership of Theresa May. Indeed, the Supreme Court found that the Prime Minister had illegally mis-directed the Queen to suspend Parliament in 2019, and that this broke the Constitution.
It has taken these Tories until 2021 to acknowledge what everyone else has long known to be true.
As the list of employers grows there is irrefutable evidence that some of the businesses engaged in fire and rehire approaches are being, to be blunt, opportunistic. Where this is the case, it is an abuse of power.
During periods of challenge, responsible employers engage in negotiations with their trade unions and employee representatives to reach agreement on a viable future. Contractual changes should be agreed not imposed.
For me there is no moral justification for an employer to force pay cuts and inferior terms on a loyal workforce. In solidarity, the services and products from employers who choose to resort to fire and rehire should be boycotted by working people.
UK workers deserve respect and fair treatment. Fire and rehire should be outlawed just as it is in many European countries.
As we rebuild out of the pandemic, we need a government that will stand up for workers and ensure bad employers are not allowed to make workers’ pay the price for the crisis.
Government must use the power it has at its disposal to outlaw this despicable practice. As the Labour leader has repeatedly asserted, fire and rehire has no place in modern Britain.
YOUR readers will be aware of the shameful scenes currently taking place in a Belfast court, where veteran British soldiers are being tried for their actions in Northern Ireland, nearly 50 years ago.
These brave paratroopers have been betrayed by the British government for doing their duty under orders, and shooting a notorious IRA killer, who was responsible for the deaths of 15 of their comrades, and many more brutal terrorist actions.
Meanwhile, the surviving IRA bombers and murderers have been granted immunity from prosecution by a previous government!
For years the politicians have expressed sympathy for our veterans, and promised action to stop these trials. Nothing whatever has been done, and the trials proceed, exposing British ex-soldiers to the vengeance of the IRA, with their lying lawyers and “witnesses”.
They talk sanctimonious of law and justice, for which they paid scant regard during their indiscriminate terrorist war on soldiers, police and civilians.
When will our government have the guts to stand up to the IRA, and stop these appalling trials?