New Boss Vs Kremlin

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by Clive_ofthe_Kremlin, Feb 26, 2020.

  1. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    Our family-run care company has been bought out. We humble carers have been put up on the selling block, bound in economic chains, and flogged off to the highest bidder from amongst the gathered mass of masters.

    And the winning bidder this time, the infamous Société de Explotación. Or Sodexo as they coyly call themselves these days. Infamous for the horse meat scandal, running awful private prisons and conduct which a UK judge recently declared amounted to torture. The most rapacious of the speculating, free-wheeling sweaters and ha'penny skinners.

    A letter arrived for everyone announcing the takeover and with several decrees and commands from the new masters. From next month everyone will be going weekly paid. There will be changes to how our holidays work. Arrogance and insolence from start to finish. A mass consultation meeting lasting one hour to be held for each of the three branches, where they'd consent to answering any questions we might presume to bother them with. Signed HRH Head of HR

    The hand of Kremlin intervened in the matter. There was a sharp exchange of emails, eventually leading first to HRH confessing to "recognising the legal position" and then being forced into ignominious defeat and confusion, with all three consultation meetings abruptly cancelled a few hours before they were due to take place.

    Since they'd hired the rooms and had to pay all the staff anyway, the meetings went ahead, but converted now into 'team meetings'. The mood amongst everyone hugely improved. Towards the end, who should show up, but a cowed and sudued HRH himself who has come "to introduce himself". As I'd guessed, he was about 28, designer stubble, earring in each ear and a black polo neck. He announced there would now be elections to find a staff rep for proper TUPE consultation. I am surprised and delighted to tell you that it seems that your humble correspondent may be in with a chance of being chosen to be the rep. At least judging by how my comrade carers all bowed their heads, pointed at me and muttered "he's our spokesman" when in the executive presence. In fact it seems I may even be selected to represent all three branches. Amazed and delighted!

    Once the meeting was over I strolled over to introduce myself and shake hands with the new master. When I tell him my name is Kremlin, he giggles nervously and it seems he already knows which one I am. My local line manager told me later that he had been nervous about meeting me. I was able to put him at his ease though and assure him that if we get a move on and the "consultation seeking agreement" negotiations required by law under way, then the takeover needn't be delayed by too long. I told him that although they'd got off on the wrong foot, we all want a prosperous successful company with happy management, happy staff and happy clients. That can only be achieved through cooperation with the carers delivering the service - not through decrees from on high. He nodded furiously and pumped my hand. I'm his best mate now.

    So now he's sorted, I need to get in with the big boys who can make decisions. This HR bloke is just an overseer. I am relishing the struggle.
     
  2. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    5 years from now we will look back to this post as evidence of the first shoots of revolution. This was the day that the overthrow of capitalism truly began.
     
    Moose and Clive_ofthe_Kremlin like this.
  3. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

  4. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    HR boy-manager was also shocked to have his generous new 'carer of the month' award - £25 in shopping vouchers - instantly dismissed too. How does that make people feel if they work hard and never get it? What if one person keeps winning it, or a little group of 2 or 3? Divisive and counter-productive.

    With the money saved, we can move towards paying carers sick pay. Biggest scandal in public health that is. Minimum wage carer wakes up Monday morning with a streaming cold or whatever and you have two choices - dose yourself up on paracetamol and drag yourself round your visits to a load of frail elderly people with weak immune systems or b) call in sick and have a couple of days off to recover, but can't pay your rent. Scandalous really. Rock and a hard place. I'm ready to compromise and have it limited or only paid after 12 months service etc. I'm not some sort of hard line militant or anything.

    Sick pay is my number one priority. We'll move on to other things later. The staff are a bit giddy with their first little victory over authority and now they've had a taste of it they want other outrages sorted out too. Of course we all do. But sick pay first.
     
  5. Bahrain Hornet

    Bahrain Hornet Academy Graduate

    All the best Clive I will follow this thread with great interest! My better half is an in house carer and the way the company treats her and her fellow carers is diabolical in my opinion especially with the way they are treated with any time off sick with no pay, also the long shifts and short breaks. You all do an amazing job that I know is so under appreciated at every level. Some evenings she comes home mentally and physically exhausted after a 12 hour shift caring for her residents that have a rough day due to their worsening dementia! Unsung heroes the lot of you!
     
  6. StuBoy

    StuBoy Forum Cad and Bounder

    Nice work Clive. I can't help but think this could be the beginnings of a modern day version of Animal Farm though!
     
  7. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

  8. ...“The carers outside looked from Clive to boss, and from boss to Clive, and from Clive to boss again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
     
  9. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    The main savings to be made from outsourcing care to private companies were through eliminating those pesky ‘perks’ like sick pay and pensions.

    It became the fashion to rail against the ‘inefficiencies’ of Local Authority or even Voluntary Sector care as independent sector care is so much cheaper!

    Well let’s hope we don’t see how ‘efficient’ it is when carers without sick pay, poorly with Covid 19, drag themselves in to visit the elderly and unwell.
     
  10. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    Well done Clive.

    Sick pay is incredibly important. By coincidence, today is my last day after nearly 14 years at a large public sector organisation in London (I won't mention who, but if you have an Oyster card, you've been paying my wages). Over the time I've been here I've had a few bouts of really bad anxiety (with a side order of depression - all not really work related) that's meant I eventually hit a wall and had to go sick. My employers and management were incredibly sympathetic and I genuinely felt looked after - no pressure, no unnecessary questions asked and could have had 6 months at full pay. As it was, I had about 2 and a half weeks off both times before coming back and pretty quickly getting back into the swing of things - give people help and support and it will actually cost you very little

    My new employer is trendy start up that's been going for quite a while and is now massive. Quite the opposite to where I am now - table tennis in the office, people in flip flops etc. but their HR policy seems to be equally as considerate when it comes to sick leave. I can't imagine working somewhere where compassion and fairness are pushed aside for the balance sheet.
     
  11. The undeniable truth

    The undeniable truth First Team Captain

    No matter how desperate I was, I'm not sure I'd use that open air toilet.
     
  12. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    It's really disconcerting when after working somewhere which 'walks the walk' and 'talks the talk' about "...our employees are our greatest resource..." when you then arrive at a place with a much less, ahem, 'dynamic HR policy'.
     
  13. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player


    Well you already know me. As I said to my comrade carers, I cannot be "bought off" with little bribes and I would certainly never use the rep's position for any personal ambition or advancement.
     
    Happy bunny and Moose like this.
  14. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    But anyway, I'm off down Asda now with £25 of vouchers that just fell into my pocket?
     
  15. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    "When I wrote the following posts, or rather the bulk of them, I worked alone, in the care industry, a mile from any good bosses, in a business they had not built themselves, on the shores of England, in the UK, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only."
     
    Ghost of Barry Endean likes this.
  16. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    The working class can kiss my arse, I’ve got the foreman’s job at last...
     
  17. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    With all this corona virus about I would suggest you keep your Y fronts on.
     
  18. Happy bunny

    Happy bunny Cheered up a bit

    I don't always agree with you, Clive, but you've hit the spot here. Our care sector is desperately under-resourced and our buccaneering global government doesn't show the slightest interest in helping.

    I tend to feel that an international outfit with deep pockets like Sodexo is better placed to run care homes than small local providers, but they need people like you to keep them up to scratch.
     
  19. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Agreed. There's nothing wrong with farming out this stuff as long as the quality of service is maintained and the contract is properly managed.

    @Clive_ofthe_Kremlin could you hold your nose for a bit, play the long game and the politics and grab a bit of power. You should really be running this sort of service, rather than railing against the bosses, become one and do it properly.
     
  20. Of course, Napoleon. Never doubted you.
     
  21. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    Staff Rep election results out today.

    Elected: Kremlin, C.

    Surprised and humbled. THINGS! Can only get better! Etc. Etc.

    Now we can get to some discussing...
     
  22. I'll be disappointed if your first act wasn't to declare a strike
     
  23. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    Nice one Clive.

     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  24. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    @Clive_ofthe_Kremlin I promise I'll set up the crowd-funding page for this tomorrow.

    Incidently, does your new role get you access to courses at this place?
     
  25. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    **** it I voted for Lord Buckethead.
     
  26. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    You'll be out of a job after the coronavirus has finished with the old dears.
     
  27. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    Never as truer word said in jest. A friend of mine works in a care home that has a specialist unit caring for dementia sufferers - she's heartbroken as she's been told to expect at least a quarter of them not to be there by the summer.
     
  28. Bahrain Hornet

    Bahrain Hornet Academy Graduate

    In the nursing/care home my missus works in they didn’t lose hardly any to CV 19 in fact they had most recover when testing positive! Not what your told by the government though eh!!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  29. Bwood_Horn

    Bwood_Horn Squad Player

    ur rite m8 the ly1ng bitch they lost 3 out 13 in her unit thats nowhere near a 1/4
     
  30. Cthulhu

    Cthulhu Keyboard Warrior Staff Member

    The current thinking is that 3/4 of those who have tested positive have shown minimal or no symptoms (of covid) at all.
    That holds up anecdotally in terms of what I have seen on cohort wards (Wards where all the patients have tested positive)

    And that is what the government and department of health are feeding through
     
  31. AndrewH63

    AndrewH63 Reservist

    Compulsory sick pay should go hand and hand with track and trace, if you want to thwart a second spike of the pandemic
     
    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin likes this.
  32. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    So now we have been taken over and are subjects of the great Sodexo empire.

    Things have gone downhill fast. Everyone is moaning. Morale is rock bottom. Calling me up complaining. I have had 5 so far threatening to leave out of around a dozen of us. 1 has left. I am not including myself.

    Since new recruits now have much worse conditions than even our appalling ones, we have so far managed to recruit a grand total of zero new carers.

    In the past, each client got a nice printed out list each week showing what day, time and identity of carer is due to come. They would keep their list by their chair. Some even liked you to tick your visit off on 'their' sheet.

    Stopped as an unnecessary expense and the possibility of skinning a ha'penny. Our grannies and grandads can now find out details of their visits by simply entering their complex password into their mobile phone app, completing a simple two stage verification process and then making the appropriate selection from a series of menus. You might as well tell them they can fly to Mars and pick them up.

    One poor old dear told me she couldn't have a lie in any more. She had to get up at the crack of dawn each day in case a carer arrived.

    That's just a fer instance. I won't bore you with the rest. You can imagine. Absolutely shambolic. I was rostered 5 mins the other day to do 12.2 miles between clients. New record today. Scheduled to finish first visit at 0745 and start the next one, about 7 miles away at 0745. Using my teleporter.

    I have so far found 1 definite illegality, 1 almost certain waiting confirmation illegality and 1 strong possibility illegality. The lady in UNISON's legal department said I was "on the ball". I am meeting with the Regional Sec and Oxfordshire Branch Sec. Just deciding now between putting in a claim for offences under TUPE law or to use it as a negotiating tool.

    The UNISON lady asked for an online 'member's meeting' to discuss it. I think though the only one is me. Now they are all squeeling and moaning I wonder whether they wished they'd not scoffed quite so much when I tried several times to recruit them. Even handing out membership forms.

    "Who'll defend the workers who cannot organise, when the bosses send their lackeys out to cheat us?"
     
    Moose and Bwood_Horn like this.
  33. Bahrain Hornet

    Bahrain Hornet Academy Graduate

    Clive, out of interest have you been given different advice of what you are to do if any staff go on leave and travel abroad?
    My missus has been told by her bosses that she has to take an extra week off unpaid to quarantine no matter where any member of staff has been on holiday! Then one the fifth day of quarantine they have to go and get tested off their own back and only when they receive a proof of a negative results of said CV 19 will they be allowed back to work!
    This was a message sent out from HO to all care staff as new Government guidelines for all care workers!!
    I can’t find this on any Gov.uk website that there is different quarantine rules for certain professions!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  34. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player


    No. Sodexo currently seem to be in the 'denial' stage after buying us.

    We're currently ignored and not told anything about anything.
     
    Bahrain Hornet likes this.

Share This Page