Inflexible and stressful work harming families, says Nick Clegg - do you agree and if so what should be done about it?

[KatieMumsnet]

The government says it wants to do more for hard-pressed working families, and is launching a report on maternity, paternity, employment and community involvement

Whaddya think?

Heehee, I note that MNHQ have sneakily changed the post-title (did LibDem HQ complain?) from "Nick Clegg promised..."

Was that just to pull us in? Or didja genuinely not realise that would be lighting the blue touchpaper?

LOL, that made me larf too WS

The Home Office is currently forcing through some massive changes to working conditions for employees in the Border Agency.

Apart from losing shift allowances which will see an average drop in earnings of around 16%, they are introducing a compulsory fixed 7 week rolling shift pattern, which will take away all the flexibility which makes life possible for shift workers (3 shifts per 24 hours), especially parents and carers. They are also being switched to "annualised hours", meaning staff can be sent home if work is quiet but will have to make up the hours on a day off. They can be called into work on days off and have booked annual leave cancelled without notice.

There are a great many parent couples working for this particular Agency who are currently able to arrange childcare around their shift patterns, because they are allowed to choose their days off. In many cases one or other parent will have to give up work after the introduction of these rotas.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. There is no justification whatsoever for changing the way things work at present, except an ideological one. Keep workers scared, skint and insecure.

Oh, and you'd better be young single and childfree too, with no elderly relatives to care for.

So WTF is Clegg on about? This Government is currently destroying perfectly effective, flexible family-friendly working practices for thousands of public servant.

Nick Clegg is lucky to HAVE ANY KIND OF JOB.

I find Nick Clegg is the biggest risk in harming my family:

I might not have a job at all in a year, and neither may DP.
The NHS cuts and re-organisation will almost certainly decimate Ds's ongoing support for hi mobility disability.

How fucking fatuous to start on about this when most people know that hanging on to any job at all is key atm.

Blu have you done the DLA consultation form?

I doubt they listen but still........

Inflexible and stressful work harming families?

What about inflexible and stressful decisions regarding cuts?

What on earth is a point of a review. They already have enough information to know that their recent decisions have had a negative impact on the majority of families. What will a review do? Confirm that again?

And then what?

what the hell is a business with only 2 or 3 staff supposed to do - why don't they just shut us all down

Edam put it well: 'Well, he could go back to his government's budget, the one that hit women, children and the disabled hardest of all, and try to explain why they didn't bother complying with the law and carrying out a gender equality impact assessment.

That'd be a start.'

But now they are asking us for ways to make our lives better.

My suggestion is to make work optional or abolish it altogether (too stressful), put us all on the dole and get the idle rich to pay for our lives of luxury.

Nah - I like my job.

So we should tell them what we want, again and again. The more times we repeat it, the more likely it is that someone will busily write it down and wave it in front of DC's nose. It's not much but it's not as if there is any other opportunity of influencing anything.

Norway seems to have some good ideas imo.

I'm interested in ways of making the working day more flexible for everyone, not just parents, with opportunities to work at home and in the evenings if necessary. There are many organisations that are already run along these lines and I think, with a bit of imagination, it could work for more, even for small businesses with only one or two employees.

See Snuppeline about Norway.

How about not wasting money on thinktanks and reports which will promise change to mat leave in 2015? Funny how they can introduce cuts within a year or two, but can't action something like this in 4 years.
Do they really think they are fooling us with these empty gestures?

Let's not do their job for them.

No, OFFS, let's! We'd make a better job of it than they can.

They know nothing about how normal people live - they're all millionaires.

I agree with the poster who posted about long hours. I think this is hugely damaging to family life - that the 9 to 5 job seems to have effectively vanished, to be replaced by an 8 to 7 job, with another 2 hours on the laptop after dinner. We could start by limiting the working week like the French have tried to.

Nick Clegg must think we are all complete mugs if we fall for his touch-feely working families claptrap. All the government is interested in is in keeping the highest earners in the economy - it is ludicrous in the extreme to think fathers need paternity leave (do they breastfeed? do they need to recover from pregnancy and birth?) - this is just a ploy to get breadwinning mothers back to work ASAP.

Bramshott - my DP is out of the house from 8 to 8, and often works after supper. French working hours aren't all they are made out to be

Bonsoir - there are couples where the woman has higher earning power than the man and/or he wants to look after children and she wants a full time career. Me and my DW for example.

Not all of us live in the 1950s archetype nuclear family.

Yes, I realise some women need to be breadwinners to feed their families, BeenBeta. But surely the touchy-feely claptrap is just as annoying to them too?

But Bonsoir...they need to bond apparently.
Actually, if I was in the position of having another baby, I'd fight the OH to stay at home myself. I personally feel it's my job although that could just be because I've brought both of my Dc's up alone.

My family is the living embodiment of highly successful father-child bonding in the first year where the mother and child were living in another country to the father.

Claptrap, I tell ya!

Is it Nick? Ah well done for pointing that out Best come on here if you want to know how it REALLY affects people..it will be good for your research.Don't expect you to be here anytime soon!

I have a slight suspicion that some women only want equality until....erm...they dont.

I would say that this generation of men are far more boned with their children than the previous.
Despite the fact that their hours are longer.
It's all about ones attitude and what one actually does during family time, surely?

I want just as much work and just as much fun as my DP. That's equality. The nature of the work and the nature of the fun might be pretty different!