Just to play devil's advocate: dairy workers wages

www.stuff.co.nz/4677322a3600.html

I thought the dairy industry were firm supporters of free market principles? [}]

Sorry Tiggs, I actually agree that wages should be controlled.. to a certain degree, one can always get a bonus if they dont, drop the bike into the stream, kill 4 cows by some uncertain means, reverse the tractor into the shed that means collapse on another few thousand $$4 worth of equipment, then have them forget to turn the drain tap off and let the days worth of milk go out into the waterways and get another $$$$ bill. then not turn up on a sat morn cos they had a headache from boozing too much on the fri.
so frustration both ways.

I'm not saying I agree with it, beedee, take it tongue in cheek - just that it's ironic that the dairy industry keeps crying 'free market' when it suits them but not when it doesn't...[}]

Seems to me there is no way of controlling the wages - if they don't pay what is being asked, they won't get workers, full stop. That's the hard reality of it for most industries when they find that there is a skills shortage and low unemployment. Under those conditions, it's a workers market - just like its an employers market when unemployment is high, so employers can dictate wages and terms...

beedee;196018 wrote: Sorry Tiggs, I actually agree that wages should be controlled.. to a certain degree, one can always get a bonus if they dont, drop the bike into the stream, kill 4 cows by some uncertain means, reverse the tractor into the shed that means collapse on another few thousand $$4 worth of equipment, then have them forget to turn the drain tap off and let the days worth of milk go out into the waterways and get another $$$$ bill. then not turn up on a sat morn cos they had a headache from boozing too much on the fri.
so frustration both ways.

I guess in whatever industry you employ staff you run all those same risks with your equipment and property whether it be a cow or a truck or a 747, a farm building or a factory. Someone doing something silly or careless can cause massive amounts of damage

Who would want to have anything to do with the dairy industry! [:0][}]

Staff say the boss is a jerk, the boss reckons the staff are ripping them off and incompetent, all those tv ads were false advertising.

The problem is they have already paid through the nose for their dairy conversions as there was a huge shortage of labour and plant available for that, then the cows are worth a fortune and now the staff are hard to come by..

Supply and demand. *shrugs*

the 90 day proposal would be a big help, if the guy skips work, is sloppy with the equipment, hoons around on the bike buggering the suspension and the turf trying to do stunts, ignores the mastitus band on the cows leg and just milks it into the vat instead of an isolating test bucket...

then just don't renew his 90 day temp contract with a permanent staff one.

same principle goes in a carpentary workshop or a retail outlet.

at the moment I've had employers complaining how hard it is to get rid of a piece of sh!t no-good worker who's costing them money because of the current legistation.

Having a job is a privilege you get for being a good worker. the current legistation seems to think it's a right that comes with breathing.

on that note Kiwi I was talking to someone the other day with a problem staff member. After several discussions he gave the guy a written warning. Within a few hours the employee had a lawyer there explaining how he could not give out a written warning it was illegal on a technicality rah rah.

He fixed the problem - a read of the employment contract showed there was no redundancy provisions so he made the guy redundant.

Kiwi303;196093 wrote: Having a job is a privilege you get for being a good worker. the current legistation seems to think it's a right that comes with breathing.

An employer/employee relationship is, at its most basic level, a business transaction in which I supply my labour to a certain standard for which an employer/client pays.

I do not consider it a 'privilege', as that to me denotes some sort of charitable graciousness on the part of the employer/client in that they are doing me a big favour!!

Maybe its the wording I am hung up on Kiwi, but if any employer/client told me that I was 'privileged' to have a job with them when I was working to the standard required for that job, I would tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine [}].

Having said that, if any employee isn't working up to standard, their employment contract should state clearly what will happen. If the employer can read and follows the processes he or she has put in place when they wrote the employment contract, then there shouldn't be a problem.

Seems to me that plenty of employers want their staff to comply with the terms of their contracts to the letter, or even exceed these terms to the advantage of the employer, but then when the employer wants to issue warnings etc they don't want to follow this process themselves, and get upset when they are pulled up on errors in doing this. It all works both ways [].

tigger;196136 wrote:
I do not consider it a 'privilege', as that to me denotes some sort of charitable graciousness on the part of the employer/client in that they are doing me a big favour!!

Hmm, I was using "privilege" as in the meaning of "not a right" as opposed to the meaning "gracious charity"

theres so many shades of meanings that can be applied to a single word in the english language dependant on context

Anyhow, I suppose we'd bettwe shelve this discussion until after the election it's treading close on political debate when discussing the 90 day stuff and so on as thats Nationals policy and Kate hates politic in her lovely forum when there are political forums out there to debate it all ad infinitum

Kiwi303;196173 wrote: theres so many shades of meanings that can be applied to a single word in the english language dependant on context

This is very true []

At least german is so much more precise, instead of changing the context, bang another word on to the end or beginning of the original one to make a new word with a slightly different meaning

Friend of my son's is a dairy farm worker, this season he started a new job but found the working conditions terrible, ie. milking shed too low, being 6ft odd he couldn't straighten up in it. One of the 'big wigs' in the area gave his opinion that it was fine etc, anyhow he packed that in for fear he'd be crippled and luckily got another milking job nearby better setup and they are paying hinm more too.. good for him.

wino;196112 wrote:
He fixed the problem - a read of the employment contract showed there was no redundancy provisions so he made the guy redundant.

Uh oh. Redundancy is a dismissal and it doesn't matter what the contract says, you can't make someone redundant because they are a pain in the bum. In fact, I'd say it's harder to dismiss someone by means of redundancy than it is to dismiss because of poor performance.

No he made him redundant due to lack of work. He had been willing to carry him for a bit longer if he got his act together. The employment lawyer couldn't fault it.

Fair enough - he must have done things right. It's not impossible to fire an incompetent worker, it's just tricky because there's all these procedural do's and don'ts that even big companies get wrong sometimes. It's a bit of a minefield because every case is different.

On the positive side, I have noticed a trend lately in the Employment Relations Authority quite often not awarding the employee compensation, where the employer had a good reason for dismissing the employee but got the procedure slightly wrong.