Some of our more impatient bosses have moved fast to take advantage of the additional power given to them by WorkChoices, and it’s encouraging to see lots of signs that workers are fighting back. Along with marches and job actions, music has always been part of such protests, and the ASU is putting on a Rock for Your RIghts at Work event at the Zoo in Ann St., Brisbane on 6 April
(via Mark Bahnisch
John Quiggin 
There’s the presumption here that the sackings were unwarranted. Even Combet says the facts aren’t in.
But I guess a march and a rock concert will help to clarify things.
Two points:
(i) Employers might not always want to dismiss workers who are productive and pulling their weight.
(ii) As the cliche goes “Making it expensive to fire makes it expensive to hire.”
It’s a pity that the modelling done by Treasury on this has to be kept secret as ‘not in the public interest’.
“There’s the presumption here that the sackings were unwarranted.”
Since no court has jurisdiction to try the matter, we’ll never know. Note that workers now have fewer rights in respect of termination than they enjoyed under the common law of contract back pre-masters and servants acts. Unilateral termination of an employment contract is now non-compensible for many workers, and you can’t even contract out of the non-compensibility.
I was pleased to support Righty conservatives against Lefty “constructives” in the Culture War. I am equally pleased to support Lefty progressives against Righty regressives in the Class War. I just wish the Terror War would go away.
As the cliche goes “Making it expensive to fire makes it expensive to hire.”
Being expensive to hire makes them more valuable.
One of the problems of a casualised workforce is that companies have less incentive to invest in education and training. I see it in my workplace. The newer employees are all on contract, and as such are exempt from training programs. The older employees are permanents and still have access to training. Presumably this is because my employer knows they will be around longer, if only because they are harder to get rid of, and as such has an incentive to invest in their human capital.
I don’t suppose its actually a problem for my employer as it might be cheaper to hire staff with the necessary education already rather than paying to train their own staff up. But it could be a problem for the economy as a whole with an overall reduced incentive by business to invest in human capital.
Further to Jack’s point, under Workchoices the real class struggle (between workers and bosses) will marginalise the Crass Struggle (the cultural struggle and faux class struggle fomented by the Right and its unwitting allies in the labour movement over issues like the respective tastes in beverages of “battlers” and “elites”, same-sex marriages, “bloody greenies”, etc.).
Today’s Australian reports that the employer of 98 workers in Devonport welcomes Workchoices as it gives him the chance to implement a preconceived policy of sacking ten per cent of his workforce. Hopefully cases like this will give the battlers of Bass a clearer understanding of who the real class enemy is and where their interests as workers lie than they displayed at *that* rally in Devonport two days before the 2004 Federal election.
Scratch “Being expensive to hire makes them more valuable.”
Its glib, incorrect and not what I am trying to say. Sorry.
I agree with Paul’s observation.
The Right is so besotted by their fantasies about industrial relations that they have lost the capacity to perceive the possibility that a majority of Australian voters don’t agree with them.
This perceptual infirmity is similar to the results of neo-cons fantasies about the hopes and desires of the people of Iraq.
How to explain these forms of perceptual dissonance?
For almost twenty-five years the Right has comprehensively trumped the Left with their spin and management of perceptions. However, what begin as disposable debating points have a tendency, with reptetioin, to be promoted into the canon of “truth”.
Thus, the “battler” comes to be perceived as a firm proponent of deregulation, market forces, entrepreneurialism. This is because the “battler” has voted for the Coalition on a range of other issues: multiculturalism, strong borders, “traditional values”.
This confusion of hopes and realities will prove to be a very troublesome missidentification for the Coalition.
However, the long term institutional result of the misadventure will be a proliferation of IR tribunals with overlapping functions, a lawyers’ picnic, and a confusing thicket of government dirigisme. An ugly and unprepossessing spectacle.
” *that* rally in Devonport two days before the 2004 Federal election. ”
Paul raises an interesting point about whether WorkChoices will drive the socially conservative working class away from John Howard’s bosom, but his example is a poor one.
That rally was about the threat (real or perceived) to their jobs from Labor’s forestry policy. It had nothing to do with cultural issues. If the fear of unemployment isn’t the essence of the class struggle, what is?
“That rally was about the threat (real or perceived) to their jobs from Labor’s forestry policy. It had nothing to do with cultural issues. If the fear of unemployment isn’t the essence of the class struggle, what is?”
True enough, as far as it goes. But part of the class struggle is also the fomenting by capitalists of divisions between workers and potential allies such as environmentalists, to enable capital to continue with business as usual to the detriment of workers and the environment.
In the case of forestry this has entailed misleading forestry workers and their families (and the wider community) about the actual employment impacts of forest conservation decisions, the prospects for retraining and re-employment of affected workers in good jobs (which Latham’s $800 million adjustment package would have done much to bring about), and the expansion of economic activity and employment which has occurred in other regions of Australia which have experienced an environmentally driven restructuring of the regional economy.
The class struggle also assumes that the relevant unions and union leaderships have (a) a position and analysis which is at least independent of, and where necessary in conflict with, the agenda of the employers and (b) a sense of solidarity with the wider working class who could be affected by the political and economic consequences of their actions. There has not been much of (a) in the positions of the forestry unions in industry/conservation conflicts over the past three decades, and there was not much of either (a) or (b) in the conservative sectionalist stupidity exhibited by the forestry union during the 2004 Federal election.
Women have supported the conservatives but many who will be disadvantaged in the workforce through loss of wages and conditions may well rue that day. To get rid of the principle of equal pay for equal work and to have employers who will be effectively able to sack women who get pregnant or have caring roles will be to challenge those who have firmly supported the coalition because of promises over interest rates and sound economy. It is not of much benefit to have low interest rates or a sound eceonomy if you don’t have time or money to play with the kids or to pay the electricity bills. Not many women are keen on the barefoot and pregnant look.
Any small employer who capriciously sacks good workers is not going to be competitive in the marketplace, for the simple fact that the good workers will go and work for his competitors, and he’ll be left with the dross.
So, by and large, most sackings are well-justified. The new laws just mean I no longer need to jump through hoops to remove the dross, and no-longer have to pay the hush money to get those people to walk away.
For those who like to paint it as a class war: I get some of the biggest push to fire from the good employees themselves. Short of dropping payroll, keeping bad workers around is about the worst thing you can do for morale.
For those who want it both ways – a guaranteed good income but freedom from the risk of being fired for poor performance – the public service might be a better destination.
“Women have supported the conservatives but many who will be disadvantaged in the workforce through loss of wages and conditions may well rue that day.”
Why would women be disadvantaged? Are they worse workers than men? If so are they really disadvantaged by being sacked more often? If not what do they have to be worried about?
You know yobbo, your parents may not have had the “birds and bees” talk with you, but women get pregnant and men don’t.
Dogz: “Any small employer who capriciously sacks good workers is not going to be competitive in the marketplace … So, by and large, most sackings are well-justified”
A priori nonsense, resting on hilariously false rationality assumptions, as anyone who’s done a variety of jobs in a number of different places will attest. Capricious sackings were already a daily reality in those situations that permitted them under the existing IR laws. The new laws simply extend that permissible capriciousness over a larger domain.
“For those who like to paint it as a class war: I get some of the biggest push to fire from the good employees themselves.”
Verily, you are a model employer Dogz. I doffs me cloth cap to yuz.
Has it occurred to you that not all employers are as enlightened as you are, and that maybe, just maybe, these employers may bear some responsibility for conflictual relationships and atmosphere of mutual suspicion that pervades industrial relations?
And has it occurred to you that Howard’s legislation may have served to rip the scab off that steadily healing wound of class war whose existence you so glumly deplore?
To put it another way, perhaps under the previous IR regime, over time, there was a process of healing the old injuries of class war. But now, because of Howard’s unnecassary and provocative actions, class war is back on the agenda.
Just how smart was Howard on this issue?
I know a parking attendant here in Brisbane acked on Tuesday just one week shy of the tenth anniversary of his starting the job – at which point he would have become eligible to have his long service leave paid. Methinks Dogz’s analysis is based on wishful thinking.
“Any small employer who capriciously sacks good workers is not going to be competitive in the marketplace”
“Capricious sackings were already a daily reality in those situations that permitted them under the existing IR laws”
I heard of a case recently when a boss was having an affair with an employee, and while she had his attention she got him to sack some of her colleagues she didn’t get on with. The boss himself was sacked when his boss found out (with a big payout) but the people he sacked got no compensation.
Perversely, this kind of thing is far more likely to occur in small business, who are now free to sack almost at will, than in big business, who are still subject to unfair dismissal laws, yet there are far more internal checks and balances to stop capricious behaviour in big business.
Crispin Bennett, I am also one who has “done a variety of jobs in a number of different places”. I’ve been an employee and now an employer. I talk to other small business employers all the time, and their views are similar to mine.
So my statements are based both on experience and rationality. Rationality of the market that is; I am not impugning rationality to all employers, just the market, which is very good at sorting out the rational employers from the irrational ones. So your assertion that my opinion is “A priori nonsense, resting on hilariously false rationality assumptions” is both rude and unjustified.
It is noteworthy that no left-wing commentator even counseled the possibility that the 10 sacked workers referred to by JQ were fired for legitimate reasons. Not JQ himself, Greg Combet, the ABC interviewer, Labor, you name it. If this argument was about a “fair go”, I would have thought those attacking the decision would first attempt to determine whether the workers were capriciously fired. But this argument has never been about a fair go. It is about power. Union power.
“It is noteworthy that no left-wing commentator even counseled the possibility that the 10 sacked workers referred to by JQ were fired for legitimate reasons. Not JQ himself, Greg Combet, the ABC interviewer, Labor, you name it.’
The whole point is that we will never know. Since the workers have no right of redress for unfair dismissal, the employers can’t prove they were acting fairly. So they shouldn’t squeal when the opposite is assumed, especially when they take advantage of the new rules on the first possible day.
Taking the government as the collective representative of employers the fact they prohibit contractual provisions against unfair dismissal can only be interpreted as representing a desire to act unfairly, without labour market competion from employers who might be willing to guarantee fair treatment.
The employers shouldn’t have to prove they were acting fairly. In how many other areas of your daily activities are you required to prove that you are acting “fairly”? If you cut someone off in your hurry to get to work, should they be able to unilaterally summons you before a “fair driving” tribunal to defend yourself? That’s the problem with unfair dismissal – it is such a rubbery concept that the only practical way for a small employer to deal with it is to pay the dismissed worker to go away.
One of the problems with the introduction of these laws is that Australians currently attach unnecessary social stigma to losing their job. That’s not to say being fired is not extremely stressful, but in places that have more flexible labour laws (eg US), there is far less social stigma attached to being “pink slipped”. The effect is that people find new jobs more readily.
One probable effect of these laws will be to reduce the social stigma attached to the loss of your job. So we have a transient problem: you can’t change the culture without changing the laws, hence the new laws must necessarily have a greater impact in the present Australian workforce culture than they will have in the culture they will engender.
I did not appreciate that the legislation prohibits unfair dismissal clauses in employment contracts. If that is the case I will gladly write to my local MP objecting to it. Are you able to point me to the relevant piece of the legislation?
Dogz: apologies if my comment was rude. But in all honesty I literally find that kind of ‘logic of the market’ reasoning funny (ie. I didn’t use ‘hilarious’ as a term of abuse) and I call it a priori because it is prescriptive, not descriptive of reality. The notion that employers behave according to the abstract rubric of economic rationality is false. They’re various human beings with the same mixes of messy psychological factors at play as the rest of us. If economic rationality says that the ‘irrational’ (as defined by the crude model) employer ‘should’ be eliminated by competition, then it needs adjusting, because that is not what happens in the real world.
The last couple of examples I remember: sackings because the son of a restaurant manager masturbated into the soup, and because a new young employee objected to being whacked on the head by a supervisor. The employer in the first case is most definately still in business, not sure about the second. The notion that the market necessarily punishes bad employers with enough regularity that we can dispense with justice is an utter fantasy.
The point is that those of us who believe in protection for employees think that the sackings in the kinds cases I’ve mentioned are unjust enough that they should be illegal. Fundamentalist hire-and-firers think that the market makes them unusual enough that they don’t really matter, so employers should be allowed to get away with them where they ‘irrationally’ choose to. Which just shows that they don’t have even an elementary understanding of what ‘justice’ is.
What would be the benefit to a company of sacking employees who are both needed and doing a good job?
“I get some of the biggest push to fire from the good employees themselves. Short of dropping payroll, keeping bad workers around is about the worst thing you can do for morale.”
I agree with that completely. Nothing sucks the life out of good employees faster having to work with lazy or incompetent co-workers.
But I might add that the reason they are not fired in large organisations is as often due to managerial laziness or incompetence as fear of unfair dismissal laws. It takes work to find and train a replacement and a small amount of work to properly track poor performance. I have seen a number of situations where staff who really should have been removed have not been because their manager just does not want to deal with the problem. And unfair dismissal is not a factor because they are contractors. I have even seen contracts renewed for staff who should have been fired because the manager does not want to deal with the situation.
Makes me a bit cynical of complaints about unfair dismissal, for large organisations anyway. Seems to have more to do with HR departments complaining about their workload than actual impediments to firing staff.
“What would be the benefit to a company of sacking employees who are both needed and doing a good job?”
Increased bargaining power over the remaining employees. You can demand unpaid overtime with the implicit threat of dismissal.
Removing potential whistleblowers on unsafe work practices.
Individual managers protecting themselves at the expense of the company by preventing employees from escalating problematic first level management further up the chain.
etc etc….
“Increased bargaining power over the remaining employees. You can demand unpaid overtime with the implicit threat of dismissal.”
You’re saying that a company, in business presumably to make money, would see it as a benefit to get rid of people who are doing a good job and who the company actually needs? Does this make sense to you?
We really need these employees, our busines is doing well enough that we need their labor, they’re doing a great job, but let’s get rid of them anyway?
seriously?
How long would a business that made such bone-headed decisions actually BE in business?
Crispin Bennett,
… I feeel ill …
Whacking employees on the head is simply illegal.
I agree entirely. No one is proposing that we dispense with justice. There is still unlawful dismissal. Only unfair dismissal has been removed, and the bar set higher for employees to bring actions against their employers.
The old system that allowed any dismissed employee to easily bring an action against their employer was far too skewed in the employee’s favour. It was a brake on hiring.
People fire their employer without good reasons all the time. Several times I have lost valuable employees simply because their needs or inclination have changed. They did not even ask for us to change anything at our end (like pay or conditions or attitude). There is no court process to assess whether they were being fair to the company that had nutured, motivated and mentored them.
If people want employers to guarantee them a job then they should be compelled to guarantee that they won’t resign. Especially in the small business sector.
We used to offer employees contracts with 4 weeks notice on both parties. When employees left they rarely honoured the arrangement so we ditched it on new contracts. It now says 2 weeks.
When we started in business it annoyed me endlessly that two people could not make an agreement and both be treated equal before the law.
I welcome the new IR reforms. They bring some long overdue balance to the labour market.
avaroo,
What kind of fantasy world do you live in where bad companies are instantly driven out of business? Or large companies don’t have both poorly performing divisions along with the successful ones? I know that in the small business world survival is not easy, but as anyone who has ever related to a Dilbert cartoon would agree, there is a hell of a lot of sub-optimal business practice in the real world.
The economy is not so ruthlessly competitive that it has no place for second rate companies.
And what kind of fantasy world do you live in, still, that you honestly believe that companies get rid of people they actually need who are also doing a good job? One of those conditions must not be met for it to make any sense for a company to get rid of people. And if either of those conditions are true:
1) the company doesn’t need the employees, or
2) the employee isn’t doing a good job,
it’s entirely reasonable to get rid of the employee. If you’re in a poorly performing division and the company cannot afford to keep you, then you ought to be gone.
Are you TRYING to have the kind of problems France has?
“You’re saying that a company, in business presumably to make money, would see it as a benefit to get rid of people who are doing a good job and who the company actually needs? Does this make sense to you?”
Sack one person in a 100 employee workplace for complaining about unpaid overtime.
Get 2 hours of unpaid overtime per week per employee as a result.
Gross benefit to the company @ $15/hour = $15/hour * 100 * 2 = $30,000/week.
Obviously there are costs such as lower morale and higher turnover with the associated extra training so the above would be a net loser for most businesses. But there are no doubt places where those costs are less than $30,000 a week, so sacking a decent employee would make them money.
“Obviously there are costs such as lower morale and higher turnover with the associated extra training so the above would be a net loser for most businesses.”
Bingo! And companies aren’t in business to LOSE money. Companies keep employees they 1) need and 2) are doing a good job. You can probably think up any number of examples of a company not needing an employee. If that’s the case, the company ought to be able to get rid of the employee.
Sack one person in a 100 employee workplace for complaining about unpaid overtime.
The last sentence in my post above was copied by mistake from still’s post.
“that companies get rid of people they actually need who are also doing a good job?”
I am seeing it happen fifty feet down the corridoor from me.
The managers responsible will probably get promoted for making some cost cuts, even though in the long run its going cost more. It won’t send this business broke because it is so big that you could not find the reduced productivity in the company accounts with a team of forensic accountants, but its happening none the less.
“I am seeing it happen fifty feet down the corridoor from me. ”
Then either
1) your company didn’t need the employee(s)
or
2) the employee(s) was (were) not doing a good job.
Avaroo,
There is a third option which is that managment is stupid. This is not that uncommon.
However a company is entitled in my view to employ stupid managers. And until somebody other than managment is responsible for making managment decisions there is no getting around this problem of bounded rationality. Managers should manage and if they do it badly then that is the companies problem.
Regards,
Terje.
Dogz, Terje and any other employers,
I know I am defending the unfair dismissal laws, but I must admit that it is really in the abstract rather than the practical sense. I have never employed anyone and hence am ignorant of the costs of unfair dismissal and I am curious exactly what they are and how those costs play out.
With unfair dismissal being such a problem why not just hire contractors and casuals? About a year ago my workplace got rid of over 50 contractors. No redundancy payments or any other such complications. Or perhaps put another way, how much extra would you pay to hire someone if they came with an exemption from unfair dismissal? Perhaps that would be an accurate market based reflection of the cost of unfair dismissal?
Avaroo…define ‘need’
A company may be able to ‘do without’ certain employees in the short term, although in the long term it is detrimental to the company. Is that need or not?
You ascribe far too much rationality to these decions. Not to mention the fact that these are people’s lives we are talking about, sacking people should not be so easy that it can be taken too lightly by incompetent, vindictive or stupid management.
Pinguthepenguin,
Employers have lives also. And yet employees are allowed to quit their job on a whim for stupid misguide reasons. Or just because they decide they don’t like the boss this week.
The fact that stupid decisions happen does not mean we need a law to complicate decision making.
Regards,
Terje.
The unfair dismissal laws are/were a completely stupid idea dreamt up & implemented by craven fools. A more idiotic and one-sided law I cannot think of.
To bring a semblance of fairness into such laws, there should also be an unfair resignation law, with similar financial penalties for those who resign unfairly.
Some of the posters here seem to be disconnected from reality.
NOBODY who was in the marketplace dealing with such laws, either employer or useless bum bludging off such laws, was under any illusion that the laws were anything but a legalised shakedown of hardworking and honest employers by vindictive, vexatious, sour tempered harpies.
Note for those with limited reading comprehension: EVERY employee who used, or threatened to use the unfair dismissal laws to “get” an employer, knew the laws were wrong.
This product of a jealous and disgruntled union mind has deservedly been struck from the books. It should never have been law in the first place. The changes were waaaay overdue. The comprehensive abuse of the unfair dismissal laws meant they would never last.
“There is a third option which is that managment is stupid. This is not that uncommon.”
Nor is it illegal. If you own the company, you get to be as stupid as you want to be. If you can stay in business while being stupendously stupid enough to get rid of employees that you need AND who are doing a good job, well, that ought to be legal.
“A company may be able to ‘do without’ certain employees in the short term, although in the long term it is detrimental to the company. Is that need or not?”
If they don’t need you today, they ought to get rid of you. Who gets to make the decision as to whether a company needs someone today or next week or next year? The courts? The employees?
SATP,
Unfair dismissal would have lasted just fine if the Liberals had not gotten control of the Senate.
The “modern” ALP is wall-to-wall union, public service, and party apparatchiks, whose preselections are controlled by backroom factional union bosses. There’s no way the ALP would have a policy of removing unfair dismissal.
Check their website. ALP policy is to introduce a residential-tenancy-like tribunal and to favour reinstatement over compensation. There couldn’t be better evidence that the ALP is out of touch. I’ve been on both sides of the Landlord/Tenant relationship – those Residential Tenancy Tribunals are heavily skewed in favour of the tenant.
And reinstatement in a small business?? Right. We’ve got 10 people, one of whom was fired for being a lazy shit, his co-workers hate him, but now after a shake-down at the Unfair Dismissal Tribunal we’ve been ordered to reinstate him. That’s gonna work real well.
Clearly the ALP drew on the extensive small-business community within its own ranks when formulating this one (sarcasm alert).
Still working it out: casual is only suitable for certain jobs in certain kinds of industries (those where demand is intrinsically variable). Contractors are useful to service short-term demand spikes for commoditized tasks, but if the job requires a lot of training specific to the role then it is not so easy to do that with contractors – you need to train and retain employees.
Avaroo, “if you own the company, you get to be as stupid as you want to be.” Is this the reason why some people prefer a legal system where owners of a company and have unrestricted rights to hire and fire?
why shouldn’t the owners of a company have unrestricted rights to hire and fire? should you be able to tell a company that someone else owns who they have to hire and who they may not fire? and if so, why should you have that kind of power over someone else’s company? if you want to hire and fire, start your own company.
Any post that contains the word “should” is prima facie a sermon in disguise.
Do a “find” on this thread for “should” and you’ll find many sermons.
Now the interesting thing about sermons is that they are usually directed at people who don’t want to hear them.
Thus, the supporters of Howard’s IR changes tell the workers how they “should” think and behave. The opponents of Howard’s IR changes tell the bosses how they “should” think and behave.
All very catharic for the posters, but mostly a waste of effort.
The salient truth that remains unrecognised in this welter of prescription is that this thread is only the most recent and among the least memorable of a centuries-long debate about the rights of labour.
It began with master craftsmen having the first and last word about who could work and and having much control over how that work was done.
Ever since, employers have attempted to seize control of the shop floor. It is true that, on average, the employers have won. But even in the era of laissez-faire economics and the Masters and Servants Acts they never achieved complete control. And there has been a patchy but measurable wresting of control by unions since the heyday of laissez-faire.
And when either side demanded too much, often the counterstroke proved to be successful. In the present case Howard’s IR changes may well provoke a counterstroke that won’t be welcomed by employers.
The most noteworthy example of the counterproductive effects of extremism is the Taff Vale decision in Britain at the turn of the 20th century. This decision looked like dealing the death blow to legal unionism. Its effect was to spur its development. Employers took a huge hit.
The trick is to boil the frog without waking it up. I believe that Howard may have scorched the frog, making it very angry.
And any number of your sermons about how the frog “should” feel about being scorched will make not a blind bit of difference.
Katz,
The growth of unionism in Britain also gave a huge hit to the employees, in the long run. Britain went from being both wealthy and powerful at the start of the century to be poor and powerless in the 1970s, requiring a bailout from the IMF to remain ‘solvent’. The people of Britain were similarly getting relatively poor.
I agree that these changes may help the union movement, but possibly not in the way you are expecting. Perhaps they will start servicing their members, rather than trying to make political points to their detriment. Their increasing relevance to their members may reverse their decline. Just a thought.
Naaaaah, just hold a rock concert and a march. It requires less work.
avaroo and Dogz, employers and company owners benefit hugely from state intervention, as follows:
* the legal abstractions called corporations let company owners capture profit without risking their personal assets
* property law enlists expensive police forces to protect the assets of wealthy people
* business law enlists the aparatus of the state to assist company owners in forcing customers to pay bills, even to the extent of foreclosing on the customer’s residence, which is staggering, really
* contract law prevents workers providing their labour freely in the market. For example, in a completely open labour market, a worker who found a new customer or was about to close a large sale could just resign and take the new business with him. As we know, the state protects company owners against this.
Accordingly, there is nothing wrong with the state ensuring workers have fair arrangements.
Excellent points Tony, are you aware how few of those apply to small businesses?
* Point 1 does not apply to me. My personal assets are very much at risk, as are those of every other small business in my town. Neither is profit sitting there to be “captured”. We have to work like donkey and remain ever vigilant to keep in the black.
* Point 2. Ever tried to get the police interested in a property crime? The court system however, in practice protects street thugs and those who beat up/burgle small businesses from the natural justice which would otherwise prevent re-offending.
* Point 3 applies to banks corporations etc. In practice I cannot collect a bill unless the debtor willingly pays me. Ever tried to pursue through the courts a debt against a debtor who is bigtime? Eg an RSL club or a big corporation? Courts will listen like a hunting dog on a leash to a submission from a bank regards foreclosing on a householder, but will demand 10 times the proof from small businsses who are desperately trying to collect a debt from a large scale operator. Chances are remote the court system will be anything but an expensive waste of time for a small operator trying to collect from anybody, the chance of failure is logarithmically increased if the debtor is a large scale operator or institution.
* Point 4 is breached every day. I am trying to think of a case where a contractor has NOT started up business with clients taken from the previous employer. Of a case where drinkers do not follow a bar manager from pub to pub, of shoppers who don’t follow a decent consultant around.
I do the same, regardless of where my favourite fridge mechanic is working, I follow him with my business, the same for computer equipment and service etc etc.
I am trying to think of a law which does NOT side against me when it comes to dealing with staff….