Friday 27 March 2009

Straw man attack of the day

From a Metro article headed Cost of red tape up £10bn in year, a figure which I am perfectly happy to accept as being in the right ballpark and probably an underestimate:

But TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "This tired stunt is well past its sell-by date... Their biggest complaint is working time rules. That might sound bureaucratic but in plain English this is the right for everyone at work to have four weeks paid holiday a year. What business calls red tape, the rest of us call a well-earned rest.

... I suppose we should be grateful that the BCC haven't added in the cumulative costs of the abolition of slavery and stopping children cleaning chimneys."

2 comments:

AntiCitizenOne said...

I don't think he realises that businesses react to keep costs the same, i.e. you really only get 48/52ths of the your income if you get the holiday.

In reality it means that EVERYONE gets lower pay even if they don't want the holiday.

John Pickworth said...

And workers have lost their 'rights' to work in excess of 48 hours per week. For a lot of low-paid, this was a way out of poverty.