Corporate Bluffing Inequity

Like many a grumpy politico I should imagine, I wander around with an image of the "Boss" inside my head. Thats him on the left. The proverbial Fat Cat, wearing a tailored suit, smoking a cigar, lord of all he surveys and bloated with his own self-importance. This mental picture serves my purposes quite nicely most of the time as it allows a 'them and us' mentality to embed itself in my cerebrum while allowing me to nurture both image and attitude in others.

However I appreciate that it is not quite true. I have met many managers over the years and, remarkably enough, not one of them looked like that picture and most were, perhaps even more unbelievably, almost human. I daresay that many managers have a similar picture of the "Worker" inside their heads - lazy, under-achieving, disinterested, etc. - which is similarly skewed to their point of view.

Thankfully, the "Voice Of Business" - the CBI - do everything in their power to perpetuate those images and thus continue the confrontational nature of workplace politics. Remember how the CBI rejected extending maternity/paternity leave as it would be an undue burden on business? Or how they opposed, and continue to oppose rises in, the minimum wage because companies wouldn't be able to afford it? Or indeed how they would like you to stay at work longer, by "choice" as they put it? Well, despite modest improvements in all of the aforementioned items, I haven't yet seen the UK economy disappear down a black hole due to maternity leave, a minimum wage or the right to not be at work all the fucking time.

But I have seen the UK economy collapse thanks to the actions of the people the CBI represents - funny that.

Well, the CBI now have a terrifying new EU ruling to deal with . The European Court of Justice has ruled that workers on leave who become sick can claim the time back into their own annual leave entitlement. In the CBI world view this naturally means that 'unscrupulous workers could cheat their bosses' because, after all, you can't possibly trust the people you have employed to work for you.

Bring it on I say. Anything that allows people to spend less time engaged in wage-slavery and more time doing the things they really want to do can only be a good thing. And if that means they fiddle their annual and sick leave to achieve it then fine - I shall await the resulting, CBI predicted, collapse of civilization with disinterest.