Bringing to your attention a few matters of note from various publications. Be warned, the last item may leave you mentally dazed.
1 Wage Theft
There is a new term going around – wage theft – and I quite like it. Not the actual activity, just the term. Here is a good example of it from QANTAS, asking their head office staff to work for free over Christmas in the terminals at the airport, to add to the unpaid overtime they have most probably worked throughout the year. What I really like is the reply from QANTAS – ‘but we’ve been doing it for years, and nobody seemed to mind’.
So, let me see how well this excuse works. If, as a manager, I was to patt some young lass on her behind as she walked past my desk, and when challenged about this behaviour I replied, ‘but, I’ve been doing it for years, and besides, she doesn’t mind, she’s never complained’.
Commercial organisations asking / coercing staff to work for free is wrong – volunteering for a local community group is fine – but not for a commercial organisation. This is only one form of wage theft, the most common now being the underpayment of wages.
Let’s park wage theft in the same place we have parked groping in the workplace – in the history books.
2 Civility works for me
Clearly, I’m the fish that is attracted to a flashy lure, in this case the click bait headline of ‘Civility is Useless’ for this piece published in the Guardian. It is a short piece, less than half a page, and finishes with this mind numbing final paragraph:
It is true we should all spend less time getting angry at each other online. But it is not helpful to suggest we all befriend people at the other end of the political spectrum. Civility is useless in the face of those who want to strip you of your civil rights. Of course, it is important to surround yourself with people who have different viewpoints. But they ought to have the same values.
I am hoping this was written with tongue pressed firmly against cheek, because if it wasn’t … I just don’t know where to start. Civility useless – not sure Ghandi would agree. We should all have the same values – suits me – so long as they’re mine.