How not to treat staff
Good God, read this story in the Herald about the boss who sacked one of his staff, while he lay in hospital recovering from a heart operation.
I would be talking to employment lawyer Peter Cullen about this one, if I was the employee. Sounds like one could set a record for damages.
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February 23rd, 2008 at 10:59 am
Hamfisted, difficult and heart-wrenching. Yes it can’t be easy if your business is in need of a by=pass and one of your staff is having one. In strictly utilitarian terms, the boss did the right thing, after all what of the other four staff he employs? can he afford to jeordies their livlihoods as well?
This is a symbolic analogy for the state of the modern NZ Labour market and smaller businesses, isn’t it?
February 23rd, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Pretty much… running a small business like that myself having something like that happen would hurt, very much so.
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
hmmmm … well as much as I feel for the guy, in terms of employment law, being unable to go to work for a long period IS grounds for termination under NZ employment law. Employer must make reasonable efforts to hold job etc, but for many smaller employers they cant have a person away for several months without significant loss to the business.
Anyway .. not saying what is *right* just what is legal. So it MAY be legal (since we don’t know the circumstances).
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Noting your reaction to this, David, I hadn’t realised that your socialism was so ingrained. Looking at this realistically its clear that the employer was in a dreadful bind. Evidently the invalid was a key member of his small workforce and apparently essential to its effective functioning. I don’t deny that this was a terrible dilemma for the employer, but what to do? Let the business stutter along until the invalid was fully fit again at risk to the livelihoods of the other staff? I don’t think so. Whilst to do so would be admirable in a warm fuzzy context, it would hardly make commercial sense. And don’t forget that we live in a socialist paradise anyway, where the invalid is entitled to degree of on-going support. Tough one, nevertheless.
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Noting your reaction to this, David, I hadn’t realised that your socialism was so ingrained. Looking at this realistically its clear that the employer was in a dreadful bind.
Dreadful binds can be dealt with by using some common sense. Most capitalists are smart enough to know that sacking someone is best done after they’re out of hospital.
If, as Akaroa implys, commercial needs totally trump common decency then socialists have been right all along. Luckily the vast majority of employers and business owners are reasonable people.
February 23rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Have you lost the plot, David? There are few small businesses that can sustain the charity of continuing to pay someone who isn’t contributing. There is a clear benefit in engaging resource as contractors.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
In NZ, something happens when you go from an employee to being self-employed.
You are still what you were – a nice guy if you were that, an asshole if you were that.
You still suffer from stress like you always did, but probably worse. You still have the same assets – only they are now at greater risk than before – not lesser. You have not become a “rich prick” just by becoming self employed. If you were actually not that well off, you are still not that well off – perhaps worse off as you struggle to get established.
But the BIGGEST change, is the way you are regarded by the law, politicians, the unions, and many fellow NZ-ers. Too many fellow NZ-ers.
You are no longer entitled to any sympathy for YOUR position and that of YOUR dependents. You used to enjoy rigorous protection from the law; you are now on the opposite side of that law. It is now a rigorously punitive law, not a “protective” one, in spite of the fact that you are the same vulnerable, or even more vulnerable guy you had been before. That law will take the shirt off your back if you make a false move. The law is the biggest threat to your existence, ahead of evil creditors, ruthless fellow businessmen, competitors, and crooks. You are now a “class enemy”.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
OK, it was wrong to sack a guy in hospital recovering from a heart op. But a violent thug who beats someone to within an inch of his life gets to plead extenuating circumstances. An employer doesn’t. An employer is about the only citizen with no rights in this respect.
So yep, Mr Farrar, there will be a record settlement. The lawyers will be rubbing their hands. The business is TOAST. It will be CLEANED OUT, the employer will lose everything he has toiled for and saved for all his life, barring what he is allowed to keep for the sake of his missus and kids, and the other 4 guys will lose their jobs.
Welcome to NZ workplace justice in action.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
By the way, the Socialists LOVE this. They know that the big corporations can afford to hire legions of lawyers and well-staffed departments, and wrangle for months and years over employment law provisions, the RMA, and other regulations. THEY KNOW that the people they are destroying, is the potential new upper middle class. Strangling it in its cradle, in fact.
Hernando DeSoto, in “The Mystery of Capital”, calls this “The Glass Bell Jar” effect. The regulatory environment beloved of socialist politicians is a major obstacle to social mobility. It is a major cause of the phenomenon decried by those same socialists; “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer”. The established wealthy big businesses have no objection, as it helps to lock potential new competitors out of their markets.
Conveniently, it helps to broaden the “us and them” gulf that socialist politicians love to exploit with their rhetoric. Ultimately, of course, the public majority is behind them when they move against the evil “big businesses” that are exploiting their powers.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
It’s the same with property prices, too. OK, easy credit might have something to do with it, and immigration. But a strangulation of the supply of land is the main factor. Again, we have socialist policies that are sold to the ignorant masses as something that is for our “protection” and “help”, that actually serve to lock potential new property owners out of the process.
And again, the socialists LOVE IT. They DON’T WANT YOU OWNING PROPERTY OF YOUR OWN. Their “remedies” say it all: THEY WILL OWN PART OF THE PROPERTY, seeing YOU can’t afford to buy it ALL anymore.
As a creeping program, it is in sucking stupid, stupid Kiwis, and others all over the western world, frighteningly successfully.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
And even a “center right” blogger like Mr Farrar is dead from the neck upwards on these fundamentals.
February 23rd, 2008 at 2:59 pm
his one is on a par with the boss who dictated a letter of dismissal to his secretary – dismissing her.
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I have seen one of these cases first hand although with a difference in that the employer handled it all a lot better.
First it needs to be pointed out that people who suffer from a potentially life threatening illness not only have to deal with the prospect of dying but if they end up on the benefit it isn’t anywhere enough to live off. It isn’t uncommon for such people to go bankrupt. I can give an assurance that people with serious health issues can endure deep anxiety over money.
The case I was involved with was my brother who nearly died of leukemia in 2007, now not long after he took ill the company he worked for (a well known national retail franchise) was sold to a new owner. At this point he was not strictly employed as his holiday pay was paid out etc but the new owner kept a job open for him if he was ever able to return to work (which he was).
Now it looks to me that the employer in this case made several mistakes, he didn’t seem to get some decent legal advice and acted out of self interest. Why didn’t he think of the ramifications of being without the employee previously if he was so important and have a backup plan?
It not an issue whether or not DPF or anyone is a socialist it’s about compassion and common sense. Now I’m not a socialist either but I have spent months visting a cancer ward and have been seen these issues first hand.
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
What the law allows the employer to do and what is the right thing to do are not always the same thing. Its been said before but the law, at times, is an ass.
I sympathise with the business-owner and his predicament. The profitability and perhaps the future of the company are at stake.
But I sympathise more with the man who has suffered a heart attack and is recovering from a by-pass operation. His life is at stake.
I know what I would prefer to lose. And I know which can be restored or replaced and which can’t.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
The most heartless sacking I ever received was having a letter tossed on my desk by a secretary telling me I had a week left to work and then I could get out – a week before Christmas.
This was despite the fact that I’d played a key role in ensuring the organisation received several million dollars it would not otherwise have done, and had other, clearly measurable, positive results.
And despite the fact that the boss’s office was directly across the hall from mine, and I reported directly to him.
After I’d gone, other staff reported that he’d ordered a new car to replace the one he’d been provided with just a year earlier – he wanted a 4WD for his holidays, apparently. I’m sure the money saved by not employing someone in my position over the Christmas break improved the bottom line sufficiently to justify the expense.
I, meanwhile, had a lousy Christmas and ended up having to sell my house.
He was certainly a heartless bastard, motivated only by money and his own perks.
He was also General Secretary of a large union.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
The message here is that an employer should have some form of insurance to cover this. My organisation (admittedly a large one) only covers our sick leave for a few weeks, then we move onto the insurance policy at 90% salary. The company doesn’t care that much when we come back from a financial perspective – that is between us and the insurer.
In a “key man” perspective, if you didn’t have to worry about the employee cost you could get in a temp or a contractor. Or take on someone a little more junior to train, with a plan to grow a bit when (if) the other guy comes back.
There are options, but it depends a little on having some foresight.
February 23rd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Wow, this is New Zealand under clark and liarbor, . I hope this employer has his hands slapped for not following the employment law and dismissal steps(dumby). As a sidenote what does this employers other staff, think of their employment security if and when they or their family gets really sick.Morale must be at rock bottom, but then they could be a bunch of arseholes like this employer.
February 23rd, 2008 at 10:18 pm
PaulL, you have (probably by summarising) mixed two insurances.
the employee (and everyone working unless you have a passive income of at least you annual salary), should have personal income protection to cover 75% of your salary if you can;t work for 10hrs a week. obviously that would apply in this guys heart attack.
if the employee was that key to the business, and losing him would cost the business, then the business should have had key person (not key man anymore, has to be PC) cover on the staff member. key person cover is a regular payment that you set, for up to two years (depending on insurer). it allows you to pay the higher wages of a temp, train a replacement, or just cover the loss of income the person is no longer generating the company.
neither cover is particularly onerous in terms of cost, and are usually both deductible.
sadly from my experience, most employers and people don;t have it, becuase they are too cheap to take advice, or think the cost of paying the premium is more than the cost of losing your income, or key person.
this employer is going to get crucified in the media and by the unions.
AL
usually
February 24th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Grendel, actually I was just talking about one insurance, the personal income protection. My company provides it as part of the package, meaning that we don’t have to have arguments when you get to the end of your sick leave provisions, because everyone is covered under insurance.
I wasn’t aware of key person insurance, although it makes sense. Whilst the personal income protection allows you to get the payroll cost of the sick individual back, you would typically need more than just that payroll cost to cover a temp (temps more expensive than perms). But if you are brave enough to take on someone new and perm, train them, and plan to grow when the sick person comes back, then you shouldn’t need that key person insurance.