BBC article on season ticket prices

[PenrithBeacon]

5 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

One thing I do not seem to have seen mentioned is the employer's position on health and safety at the workplace if it is your home. If you have an accident in your home office what will your employer's insurance company's take be?

Jonathan

It was decided many years ago that employers were responsible for the health and safety of their employees at work and travelling to and from. Theoretically the employer should arrange h&s inspections of the employees workplace but of course nobody does. 

[Bernard Lamb]

7 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

It was decided many years ago that employers were responsible for the health and safety of their employees at work and travelling to and from. Theoretically the employer should arrange h&s inspections of the employees workplace but of course nobody does. 

Some companies do. A couple of the big city firms where they have asked people to continue working from home have provided suitable desks and chairs and carried out posture assessments just as they would have done in the office.

Bernard

[hayfield]

15 hours ago, mdvle said:

 

And you have conveniently blown up your entire argument.

 

Because your employer wasn't located in central London, they were scattered all over the place both in central London and around central London.

 

And yes, a company running (by your own estimate) 20+ offices around London is going to find efficiencies in downsizing their real estate.

 

And despite your initial claim this wasn't a move to 1 suburban office, but you now say the company has maintained a number of offices around London, thus avoiding the commute issue.

 

Great that it works for your company, and whatever business it is in.

 

But most companies don't have offices scattered all over the city, they tend to be in one location.

 

 

How have I blown it up, a national company, but with many commuting, initially the relocation was nothing to do with downsizing, it continued much the same for quite a few years. I had no intention of stopping commuting, could not see it working as well as it did. That first year saw my income rise the most in the previous 9 years and I had more social time.

 

I had a relative working for the NHS commuting from the middle of Kent to central London, using your reasoning he also does not count !!!  Many businesses have multiple locations. My last employer had 3 large central London offices, it has been very active moving the bulk of these jobs out of London, leaving a small executive group behind 

 

Later on rationalization of offices and tiers of management can along. But all businesses evolve, the last business I worked for seemed to shed a layer of management every other year

[corneliuslundie]

"the last business I worked for seemed to shed a layer of management every other year"

Definitely against the trend in my experience. Much more likely to add a layer.

Anyway, we seem to have drifted a long was from the title of the thread and are rehashing what has already been done to death in the HS2 thread. Perhaps time for a Christmas break.

Jonathan

[62613]

On 19/12/2020 at 11:03, PenrithBeacon said:

True, but it's also true that the entire family was engaged in the work and therefore children didn't have a childhood. 

That's not necessarily correct, and the work that children did wasn't necessarily as strenuous as it was in factory settings. you here stories of some independent workers completing their work in four days, and spending the rest of the time in taverns. In mills, for instance, before the Ten Hours' Act, it was 12 hour days, six days a week for children.

 

[62613]

13 hours ago, PenrithBeacon said:

It was decided many years ago that employers were responsible for the health and safety of their employees at work and travelling to and from. Theoretically the employer should arrange h&s inspections of the employees workplace but of course nobody does. 

Not if the person doing the work is a subcontractor. That then becomes their own responsibility. I had to fork out for stuff like public liability and other sorts of insurance to work.

 

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, 62613 said:

That's not necessarily correct, and the work that children did wasn't necessarily as strenuous as it was in factory settings. you here stories of some independent workers completing their work in four days, and spending the rest of the time in taverns. In mills, for instance, before the Ten Hours' Act, it was 12 hour days, six days a week for children.

 

 

57 minutes ago, 62613 said:

Not if the person doing the work is a subcontractor. That then becomes their own responsibility. I had to fork out for stuff like public liability and other sorts of insurance to work.

 

 

62613

 

Sorry we all know about rogue employers in this country who just ignore both health and safety and employment laws, plus those not in this country and across the world working on behalf of UK countries

 

You sound extremely conscious, but how many small businesses have both public and product liability ? and these are not the bad employers, just oblivious to the requirements

Edited December 20, 2020 by hayfield

[62613]

3 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

 

62613

 

Sorry we all know about rogue employers in this country who just ignore both health and safety and employment laws, plus those not in this country and across the world working on behalf of UK countries

 

You sound extremely conscious, but how many small businesses have both public and product liability ? and these are not the bad employers, just oblivious to the requirements

Most of the organisations I worked for were international; Jacobs Engineering, for instance; Bechtel; Bilfinger; and so on. It was just the way that these outfits ran their UK operations. You took the risk, if something went wrong, and the company just sailed blithely on. The Twenty-first century equivalent of lining up by the dockyard wall hoping for work.

[hayfield]

Back to the main part of the thread, I think most people would agree that public transport should in certain instances receive a subsidy to support mass transit, however whilst not being an out ant out socialist I can see no reason why business and first class transport should receive and subsidies. . I would also go as far as suggest that targeted support to be aimed more at the less well off in society. Lets face it trains are not offices, certainly when I commuted it was standing room only and still paying full price. 

 

Just because we can do something does not mean we should !!

 

 

[Sir TophamHatt]

On 16/12/2020 at 23:38, ikcdab said:

Mmm. Not sure. Some people have to live further out because they cannot afford the ridiculous London house prices, either buying or rental. I'm pretty sure the affluent do stand on their own two feet, I wouldn't want to pay his tax bill etc. It's the hallmark of a good and supportive society that we all pay in and then we all benefit....

I don't feel a personal benefit so my taxes.

I feel the benefits in line with everyone else, but paying extra to be good and send my green waste to composting instead of landfill isn't my idea of a benefit.

 

At the end of the day, there are jobs all over that perform the same, or near same function.

People CHOOSE to work in London and CHOOSE to catch the train to get there - nobody forces them to do either and thus it's a choice.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Sir TophamHatt

[Nick C]

I've noticed there seem to be two predominant attitiudes towards working from home:

 

1. "I find that WFH suits me, but I acknowledge that others don't"

2. "I find that WFH doesn't suit me, therefore no-one should be allowed to"

 

I don't understand 2. Why not have WFH for those who want it, and WFO for those who prefer that?

[Nick C]

8 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

I don't feel a personal benefit so my taxes.

I feel the benefits in line with everyone else, but paying extra to be good and send my green waste to composting instead of landfill isn't my idea of a benefit.

 

At the end of the day, there are jobs all over that perform the same, or near same function.

People CHOOSE to work in London and CHOOSE to catch the train to get there - nobody forces them to do either and thus it's a choice.

Agreed - I live and work in a medium-sized town about an hour from London. I could get a job in London and earn probably twice what I'm on now, but chose not to as I prefer to have the time and lower-stress that I get here - and accept the trade-off of having less money. It all comes down to personal choice in the end...

[hayfield]

19 minutes ago, Nick C said:

I've noticed there seem to be two predominant attitiudes towards working from home:

 

1. "I find that WFH suits me, but I acknowledge that others don't"

2. "I find that WFH doesn't suit me, therefore no-one should be allowed to"

 

I don't understand 2. Why not have WFH for those who want it, and WFO for those who prefer that?

 

Many have jobs where you cannot work from home, but having had a foot in both camps in the past, I have benefitted initially from working much closer to home, then from home

 

I have also worked in an industry where I could not work from home, plus had to use my car as no direct access using public transport.

 

 

[hayfield]

22 minutes ago, Nick C said:

Agreed - I live and work in a medium-sized town about an hour from London. I could get a job in London and earn probably twice what I'm on now, but chose not to as I prefer to have the time and lower-stress that I get here - and accept the trade-off of having less money. It all comes down to personal choice in the end...

 

Most folk commute to work, even if its the odd mile or two. Suburbia was build to house workers. But inter city commuting is more than one step too far.  How many desirable and affordable areas are you allowed to pass before these decisions become un-defendable !!, why not put a surcharge on long distance commuting. 

[rockershovel]

Some years ago, a number of London based companies (notably Pearl Assurance, who built the office development still known locally by that name) had the happy notion of moving to Peterborough. The idea as presented, was that they could attract local staff who would be glad to be free of the commuting. The problem came when they tried to recruit at very substantially reduced rates of pay and with high levels of contract positions replacing staff jobs (this was before ZHC was a common model). 

 

It didn’t work out as intended. Those same staff were already committed mortgages funded by London earnings less season ticket costs, at then-current levels. In any case, no one wanted “took on the same responsibility or more, for a or less money” on their CV. Nor did they want to commit to, in effect, the only local employer, especially since a high proportion of them had had their problems with this in the 90s recession. Nothing’s ever as simple as it seems.

 

I certainly agree that WFH is best suited to established professionals. It works for me, because I basically perform clearly defined tasks in semi-isolation from the rest of the company anyway. It works for my sons, because their work models are similar. It doesn’t work for my daughter, who has to see her patients. 

[rockershovel]

17 hours ago, 62613 said:

Most of the organisations I worked for were international; Jacobs Engineering, for instance; Bechtel; Bilfinger; and so on. It was just the way that these outfits ran their UK operations. You took the risk, if something went wrong, and the company just sailed blithely on. The Twenty-first century equivalent of lining up by the dockyard wall hoping for work.

 

Not just international companies. The construction industry essentially organises itself to push all risk onto “contractors” with no meaningful independence, hence the IR35 crisis (no part of which, is resolved as yet). 

 

I was at a major construction site when the present crisis began, and one of the first things which happened industry-wide was a rather sordid blame game between clients, main contractors, agencies, umbrella companies (and remember, contractors employed through umbrella companies are employed for tax purposes), Uncle Tom Cobley and all, by which all declared “we have no responsibility for these people”. It wasn’t sense of duty that kept construction workers at work when they were able, but that most of them were excluded from furlough from the outset. 

 

Interestingly enough, industry sources predicted from the outset that the availability of government grants and loans would result in high incidence of businesses taking the money, then defaulting by closing. 

[rockershovel]

On 20/12/2020 at 08:17, Bernard Lamb said:

Some companies do. A couple of the big city firms where they have asked people to continue working from home have provided suitable desks and chairs and carried out posture assessments just as they would have done in the office.

Bernard

 

I have been required to fill in such an assessment. Bought a new chair, too, but that was overdue anyway.. the invoice has gone to my accountant, who appears to feel that I can claim it against PAYE, since I am specifically described as “home-based” on my latest contract. 

[62613]

5 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Some years ago, a number of London based companies (notably Pearl Assurance, who built the office development still known locally by that name) had the happy notion of moving to Peterborough. The idea as presented, was that they could attract local staff who would be glad to be free of the commuting. The problem came when they tried to recruit at very substantially reduced rates of pay and with high levels of contract positions replacing staff jobs (this was before ZHC was a common model). 

 

It didn’t work out as intended. Those same staff were already committed mortgages funded by London earnings less season ticket costs, at then-current levels. In any case, no one wanted “took on the same responsibility or more, for a or less money” on their CV. Nor did they want to commit to, in effect, the only local employer, especially since a high proportion of them had had their problems with this in the 90s recession. Nothing’s ever as simple as it seems.

 

I certainly agree that WFH is best suited to established professionals. It works for me, because I basically perform clearly defined tasks in semi-isolation from the rest of the company anyway. It works for my sons, because their work models are similar. It doesn’t work for my daughter, who has to see her patients. 

I was with an umbrella company at one point. They took an inordinately large amount of my money for doing next to all. Then they tried the "Directors' loan tax liability" scam on me (I was limited company), so I ditched them. My wife also pointed out to me that as my turnover was less than £2 million, there was no compulsion on me to employ an accountant, so she did my books; there was nothing stupendously complex, so that was even more cash in my pocket. Result!