h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

from the conservative party confrence an idea appeared
workers should be able to give up there rights (which people have fought for) and replace them with shares in the company which wont be taxed if at the end of the day they are worth a fortune
but this is for medium and small businesses...
how many of them are actually trading stocks?
and why would you agree to such a thing?

"Why would you agree to such a thing?", you ask.

I suspect that it would be for the same reason that people offered ridiculous mortgages: It *sounds* like easy money.

What rights would be given up?

I smell a trap

You would be giving up rights under your employment contract, for maybe getting some extra money as a share dividend.

So say your employer offered shares in exchange for part of any potential redundancy payment rights...
Sounds like a money maker until just after you sign, the company reports a big loss and you get the push.
And then sells itself to another company

No dividend, lower redundancy payment, and a pile of worthless paper.

[BB]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/08/george-osborne-workers-rights-shares

for anyone unfamiliar with the story

Pretty much all of them Witty: a right to a reasonable period of notice if being sacked and the right to be given a reason for the sacking, the right to redundancy payments and much shorter redundancy notice period, maternity leave rights, the right to arbitration in the case of workplace disputes, rights to flexible working hours and time off for training.

Crucially, the right to an employment tribunal in cases of unfair dismissal. This is essentially carte blanche for employers to get rid of people because they're the wrong colour, gender or sexuality, or just because the boss feels like firing someone that day. It means a person wouldn't be able to contest a sacking, no matter how illegal that sacking was.

As for why people would sign such a contract: because, thanks to the government, work is very hard to come by. Given the assault on the benefits system (which is supposed to be a safety net) and the policy of forcing people on unemployment benefit into slavery for massive companies, people may face a choice of accepting such a contract or starving and being homeless. I can't see how that isn't coercion, but by next summer it'll be law.

For myself, if I was ever facing that situation, I'd choose starvation and homelessness. And I'd make a lot of noise, make damn sure people watched just what this government is forcing people into.

"What rights would be given up?" [Witty Moniker]

Excellent question! I'm presuming that some rights are so embedded in local and national law that giving them up would be illegal anyway.

But the right to bargain for wage settlements is a very likely one to be given up in exchange for shares of the company. Here I would advise extreme caution. No one, not even a high-ranking company insider, can tell you where the company stock's share prices will be five or ten years from now. Individual company stocks can be very volatile. Just ask the people who worked for companies that contributed shares to their retirement accounts with the stipulation that they not sell them for X number of years. If the company goes under, the employee will be unemployed AND the stock in the employee's retirement account will be worthless. This is a double whammy.

Company executives are likely to be smart enough to know when the rights-exchanged-for-stock benefits them. If it benefits them, it probably won't benefit the employees, though a booming economy might come along and benefit everyone to some extent.

(as a note, this comes from me as a conservative)

I'm slightly unsure about this being an option for people already at a company, and notably against companies being able to establish this as part of any new contract for workers
And yes, i was thinking that some of these rights would be impossible to give away, and probably even more so under EU law

I'm assuming that the company would offer a revised contract to be signed by both parties

And I'm also assuming that if the nasty party are offering this, it will not be expected to benefit employees

Like HI, I'd make a lot of noise and my current employment contract will be prised from my cold, dead hands.

"Like HI, I'd make a lot of noise and my current employment contract will be prised from my cold, dead hands"[Sho]

Same here. The company would not even be bringing this up unless they thought it would give them an advantage.

I am very wary of giving up any rights whatsoever: they are legal rights for a reason. My current employer made it a part of the sign-up process to opt out of the EU Working Time Directive, saying that this would make working overtime easier. I didn't want to be branded a troublemaker, and thus earmarked for disposal before the end of the initial 3-month probation, so I went along with it. Admittedly, nothing bad has come of it, but then I have only ever had one period of paid overtime, a shortened Saturday, which still would have put me inside the WTD limit and so the WTD wouldn't have been an obstacle. I gave away a right, for no actual benefit whatsoever. Now I've been with them for over 2 years, I'm tempted to opt back in, since ISTR it was stated in the contract that we could do this at any time.

Good to hear that you could opt back into it though (and also that it doesn't seem to have anything bad come of it)
What is your employer like? Do you think they did it to be easier just for them? Or for both?

I think the idea is that you have to volunteer for the stock and shares option.

But yes, it is disgusting and I wouldn't sign up for it unless they gave me enough money that I could safely retire on it - which of course they won't.

I hope this fails miserably with zero uptake but sadly I suspect there will be many who do not understand the implications and just see £2000 waved in front of them and get $$$$$$$ in there eyes

One of the big things, of course, is that you aren't being guaranteed a damn thing. I don't think I'd be left feeling to smart if I worked for Enron in 2000 and took the stocks and shares option...

you have to opt for it if you have a current contract
but if you have a new or renewed contract they could write it in I think

Buying shares in your employer is a bad idea! They go bust: you loose the cash and your job.

I think it's okay to have 10% of your investments in shares of your employer, Z. That's enough to profit if the stock goes way up, but not enough to kill you if it tanks. There are lots of people who don't understand risk management, though. Studies have been done on variations in performance for retirement plans. There's a *lot* of difference between the ones who do the best and the ones who do the worst. It seems downright cruel to make people invest when they have little or no aptitude for it. Under the old system, when companies had pension plans, the plans were managed by people who understood what they were doing. Now, in the hands of the employees, they aren't.

I think employee share ownership is a great idea, but not at the price of signing away basic employment rights.

This is a really weird suggestion, because it's hard to imagine there being much uptake. From an employer's perspective, I'd imagine that there are plenty that would be happier if workers had less rights, but quite why it would be in their interest to buy them out of those rights I'm not so sure. It's presumably going to be expensive, unless it's something that's compulsory and written into new contracts on a 'take it or leave it' basis in times of high unemployment. Perhaps this will be the thin end of the wedge and the right to just to impose it on existing staff will come later.

But.... I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of the first few employers to deprive workers of their rights and then treat them shockingly, especially if racism is involved.

The fact that if it comes in Employers can make it a take it or leave it policy for new contracts does make me fear that it is a thin edge of the wedge

For a number of years I worked for an employer where shares were given as part of the reward system, depending on how well the company was doing, you'd get a number of shares. and that was on top of the agreed salary, as a bonus. For a while it was profitable, but then the shares dropped in value...
But giving up my legal or negotiated rights for shares? No, that does not appeal.