Owen Jones Twitter feed

Simon Pegg sketch from years ago on wanking at work. Amazing how comedy/satire is now reality

What is this bickering for.

The statement earlier was that it would be hard to sack him for this.

Implying that this sort of thing is not gross misconduct and anyone who thinks so is prudish/ out of step with the modern world / that sort of thing.

This is misleading.

It is physically possible to ignore the law and fire him on the spot.

Thank you. Well done. We got you there at last.

You’re just being needlessly rude now sackrifice

So an employer can sack someone, and then cough up the £ if the lose a tribunal. It is not the same as saying that an employer absolutely cannot sack someone.

I assumed we were talking about lawful behaviour. If anyone took me to mean they literally couldn’t sack someone, that they laws of physics would operate to somehow stop the words “you’re fired” coming out of their mouths, then yes that was misleading. It is physically possible to ignore the law and fire him on the spot. But it would be cast iron unfair dismissal and I don’t expect them to do that.

I do expect them to take it seriously and follow their own procedures for dealing with such things, instead of attack those raising concerns.

I’m astonished if you’ve been advised by any reputable lawyer you can sack on the spot

A reputable lawyer would surely say that absolutely they can, but it may cost them at a tribunal?

Are you sure you are an employment lawyer? Or do you identify as one?

fibbke

Ignoring the cheap lawyer jibe, I’m astonished if you’ve been advised by any reputable lawyer you can sack on the spot. Are we at cross purposes - I agree you can sack without notice, summary dismissal, after a meeting, is that what you mean? I had taken you to mean tell him he’s fired as soon as it was found out about the video?

See here: www.gov.uk/dismiss-staff/fair-dismissals

This matters because if we make baseless complaints like this about the NSPCC, we look like we don’t know what we are talking about and have less credibility for the complaints which matter, eg calling those complaining bullies, not suspending etc.

In the meantime, get new lawyers.

Well yes sackrifice in the same way they can shoot someone on the spot if they want to, it’s just they’ll be sent to prison for murder

Only if they are convicted.

An employment lawyer will only get back a financial account of what is considered to be owed, or their job back though right?

So an employer can sack someone, and then cough up the £ if the lose a tribunal.

It is not the same as saying that an employer absolutely cannot sack someone.

My area of expertise is owning a business that has been going for over 150 years. We have plenty of employment law advice and union involvement. If we'd been doing it wrong we'd know by now.

But i suppose employment lawyers like to convince people that cant be fired on the spot as its how they make their money.

cwen

Yes, I agree it’s very concerning they haven’t suspended him and don’t seem to be taking this seriously.

Well yes sackrifice in the same way they can shoot someone on the spot if they want to, it’s just they’ll be sent to prison for murder.

I’ve known several people seem to be dismissed instantly for gross misconduct - theft, drug use/drunk at work etc - but I think generally they have been told to go home and then officially fired at a meeting later once the evidence/paperwork is in order.

In this situation though, his employer knows he made a porn film at work, and have chosen not to dismiss him. This isn’t a can they/can’t they fire him question - they don’t see that they should, they are supporting him in this behaviour. The issue is not so much James Makings as the NSPCC itself.

You literally can’t. What is your expertise in this area that you are so adamant about this? I have nigh on 15 years as an employment lawyer. You always have to investigate and hold a hearing at which the employee can be accompanied and state their case. It’s a procedure you have to follow, even if the outcome is pretty obvious

No, you might be an employment lawyer but companies can fire whoever they want whenever they want.

They they are subject to though is the potential for that employee to win a tribunal because of the method of firing them was inconsistent with procedure, even if they were 100% guilty of whatever it was that got them fired.

Please don't mislead people into thinking companies cannot fire people immediately. They absolutely can.

fibbke

You literally can’t. What is your expertise in this area that you are so adamant about this? I have nigh on 15 years as an employment lawyer. You always have to investigate and hold a hearing at which the employee can be accompanied and state their case. It’s a procedure you have to follow, even if the outcome is pretty obvious.

If you have evidence you can fire someone straight away for gross misconduct.

Like, for example, already having disciplined someone for the same thing a few months before?

He has form for this. It's not just once or twice, he's made a thing out of this work-based wanking and pissing and whatnot to put online for his fetish community to see.

You can't just fire someone, in an instant, there are are a bunch of boxes you have to tick, you know

Stop saying this. If you have evidence you can fire someone straight away for gross misconduct.

As i have said before, we have 'indecent behaviour' as part of our description of gross misconduct. If someone who we employed did what this guy did, and said it was filmed at work, he'd be sacked instantly. Even if it turned out that it wasn't in fact at work, the fact that he said it was, and that his place of work is easily identifiable would mean that it would have been indecent behaviour AND bringing the company into disrepute.

I imagine this guy has lots of dirt on other employees which is why he hasn't been sacked straight away.

LangCleg Gove's father was a business owner and employer, he owned the means of production, so his family might not have been intelligentsia, but they were members of the bourgeoisie.

Yes. Concur with that.

But I think what Owen is at the greatest of pains to obscure is that he is left gentry, not a plucky working class hero.

I find it so patronising, the way upper middle class lefties think the great unwashed are so stupid that they mistake a regional accent for a class accent. Jess Phillips exactly the same.

I know you all probably think I am one of your students because I look so young

I bet that statement was followed by an awkward silence from the audience. What a dick.

OJ was feted by my union a while back and used to attend our rallies talking about education. I particularly remember one event where he turned up late, we were told to applaud his entrance and he then told the same speech word for word that was done at a rally a month or so before. It went something along the lines of

"I know you all probably think I am one of your students because I look so young....then went on to blame bankers, the government and austerity while carefully mentioning his book in every other sentence! I did actually look his book up after the first rally. I now won't attend if he is there but he never comes to education rallies now because he has moved on!

LassOfFyvie not as far as I'm aware, and he certainly doesn't claim to be the saviour of the working classes.

LangCleg Gove's father was a business owner and employer, he owned the means of production, so his family might not have been intelligentsia, but they were members of the bourgeoisie.

I think the problem is that it sounds like someone is doing something to get that person fired...on purpose

I can see that, it's not what I was thinking though. More the sense of an action that takes place over time, the continuing form of the verb maybe?. You can't just fire someone, in an instant, there are are a bunch of boxes you have to tick, you know. It would probably have been clearer if I'd just said "the process of..."

I think they're both utter cockwombles but Lass is correct. The Sanctimonious Morph has a far more bourgeois intelligentsia background than Gove.

I don't think Gove goes around claiming to be working class, does he?

(LassOfFyvie I still say Gove is not working class. But I can believe he's met more working class people than LOJ - he seems to be as contemptuous of them though.

He'd be a leftie version of Michael Gove - dull, pasty and mediocre

Gove's mother was unmarried and gave him up for adoption. His adoptive parents were probably comfortably off but actual workers, not academics (sorry academics, but "real life/not ivory towers")His father ran afish processing plant and his mother was alab assistantat Aberdeen University. Gove started off at a state school but won a scholarship to Robert Gordon's College (a boy's fee paying school) He went to Oxford, which was, and is, not particularly common for Scottish children.

My take on this is Gove is not only a lot cleverer than little OJ but is likely to have had far more contact with actual working class people during his childhood.