Get back to the office! But why?

growstuff, in regard to your post @21:48 yesterday, so, it is now that the Liberal Democrats "traded in" their pledge not to introduce University Tuition Fees for "other benefits" to join the 2010-2015 coalition government.

In the above can I ask if the leadership of the Lib Dems consulted and gained agreement with their young supporters many of whom then found themselves paying those fees?????

Why don't you face it growstuff that the leaders of the Liberal Democrats sold those young supporters down the river so that they could get themselves senior positions in that disastrous coalition government?

That has never been forgotten in British politics as one of the biggest sellouts of all time.

Gwyneth

With reference to posters who say that working from home means less traffic, pollution etc. In fact where I live the traffic is far worse than before lockdown and as far as I’m aware a lot of people are still not back at the office. Must be all those visits to the beach and the shops!!

I suspect it is people avoiding public transport.

WFH and save the environment!

With reference to posters who say that working from home means less traffic, pollution etc. In fact where I live the traffic is far worse than before lockdown and as far as I’m aware a lot of people are still not back at the office. Must be all those visits to the beach and the shops!!

varian

Trades unions are raising concerns over the danger of workers commuting on public transport.

www.channel4.com/news/unions-raise-concerns-over-governments-back-to-work-campaign

varian it has been already been stated in this thread that many who have continuously physically attended their places of work throughout this crisis and lockdown have used their private cars to commute.

Those now returning after being furloughed for many months are also now using their own vehicles to commute. Commuters do not wish to use public transport due to the hazards they perceive and that is rapidly bringing about a crisis in public transport.

Congestion on Britains roads is now above pre-Covid levels and with schools fully returning which will allow many more to return to their workplaces that road congestion can only get much worse.

Services on buses and trains will have to be dramatically cut unless some way can found to encourage commuters back onto public transport??????

Furret

Why do many words to say simply that in your opinion employers are trying to comply with government guidelines.

Of course many are, but not all.

Try to be more succinct. Long posts are often glossed over or unread. And perhaps rather that take over a thread to present your point of view about H&S and the workplace you could start a thread of your own?

I will post on whatever thread I see fit to post my opinions on and in as many words as I choose to use Furret.

There are no site regulations that state that anyone has to read those posts and word, so, should any forum member not like what I post it the manner I post in, they do not have to read it.

Simple as that. ?

Why do many words to say simply that in your opinion employers are trying to comply with government guidelines.

Of course many are, but not all.

Try to be more succinct. Long posts are often glossed over or unread. And perhaps rather that take over a thread to present your point of view about H&S and the workplace you could start a thread of your own?

Trades unions are raising concerns over the danger of workers commuting on public transport.

www.channel4.com/news/unions-raise-concerns-over-governments-back-to-work-campaign

Apologies my above post was a response to the growstuff post @19:40 today and not 17:40 as I stated.

growstuff in regard to your post @17:40 today, I am so pleased that you have such knowledgeable relations and friends in the field of workplace safety. As they will be aware employers in workplaces have now for the last six months been following legislation laid out in the Management Of Health And Safety At Work Regulations, the Guidance given to employers who have operated their workplaces throughout the lockdown due to having essential workers employed by the HSE

In the above, those employers have operated distribution centres along with food production and processing operations which have employed hundreds of persons on any one shift on a twenty-four hour seven day a week basis with those employees often constantly moving about in the course of their job roles.

However, over the course of this crisis very few of those centres have incurred employee infection in regard to Covid-19 and where that has taken place those workplaces have nearly all contained that infection to within very limited numbers of their workers and have been able to continue operations to the huge benefit of all who reside in Britain.

Therefore growstuff your relations and friends will be very well aware of the experiences and processes that have been built up by very many who have been involved in workplace Covid-19 containment and which is being now passed on and enacted within businesses that are only now gradually reopening following complete shutdown throughout the lockdown period.

There are still many challenges ahead but with those experiences and the insistence of insurance companies that all legislation must be followed, HSE guidance and experiences gained must be acted upon. Therefore there can now be a limited optimistic outlook in regard to the future safety of returning office staff.

Much larger problems have been overcome than bringing about safe working covid-19 procedures in offices when anyone views the problems that had to be overcome in many of those huge distribution centres and transport operations at the start of the Covid crisis and lockdown.

I would tell your friends and relations growstuff that there is every reason to believe that the return of their acquaintances to their workplaces offices can be achieved safely and no litigation can succeed if employers have followed the management of Health & Safety At Work Regulations and the guidance instructions of the Health &Safety Executive.

Grandad1943

varian

Some people who used to make sandwiches or coffee may have to retrain. There was a time when horse drawn carriage drivers had to retrain and they did.

And do you think that retraining and finding new jobs will be at all possible with Britain having three or possibly four million unemployed at best in the coming year?

What the government is trying to achieve I believe is to return the economy back to as near normal as possible prior to lockdown and then let changes inline with Covid-19 and Brexit slowly come into being.

The General Secretary of the TUC stated general agreement with the above policy in her interviews with the media today. It would seem that this Conservative government are being far more socialist than those who claim to be such on this forum.

I don't know why you don't just sign up for the Conservatives. You're doing as much for their re-election chances as any activist could. It is absolute nonsense to claim that this government is in any way "socialist".

What this government is doing with its pleas for people to go back to their offices is protect their property owning donors.

Grandad1943

varian Quote [The Liberal Democrats policy of lifelong learning means that in the future many will have to change career but that should be viewed as a challenge and supported by learning] End Quote.

varian the above must be the biggest joke ever placed on this forum. While in a coalition government with the Tory Party from 2010 until 2015 the Liberal Democrats broke a long-standing pledge to their young supporters that should they be elected to government they would never bring in University Tuition Fees.

What happened, the Liberal Democrats sold those young supporters down the river with that pledge just to buy themselves into power in that coalition government. Therefore do you expect varian that the electorate will ever trust the Lib Dems in anything they say and pledge in regard to education especially when their new leader was a leading member of that coalition government?????????

The power it gave them was as a bargaining chip to make the Conservatives introduce Pupil Premium, which is still worth over £2 billion for children from poorer backgrounds.

Nick Clegg's argument was that money was better spent on younger children to give them better chances when starting school rather than on 18 year olds, who had already successfully negotiated their way through school.

To this day, the young pupil who go to university tend to be from families at the upper end of the income range, so tuition fees were essentially a subsidy to the middle classes, who were likely on average to go on to better paid jobs.

If you're going to do childish smears Grandad, at least get your facts straight.

No of course I don't think that SueDonim I've just got fed up with hearing about the poor office workers. Yes I did read the thread title, now I'll go away and leave you to it.

Sodapop, you think it’s better that as many people as possible are ill? What a horrible attitude!

One of the reasons we had lockdown was to save the NHS. Most people with coughs and colds don’t need NHS treatment but some do, people such as my severely asthmatic son, or my small GD who was hospitalised three times last year with respiratory difficulties caused by colds.

varian Quote [The Liberal Democrats policy of lifelong learning means that in the future many will have to change career but that should be viewed as a challenge and supported by learning] End Quote.

varian the above must be the biggest joke ever placed on this forum. While in a coalition government with the Tory Party from 2010 until 2015 the Liberal Democrats broke a long-standing pledge to their young supporters that should they be elected to government they would never bring in University Tuition Fees.

What happened, the Liberal Democrats sold those young supporters down the river with that pledge just to buy themselves into power in that coalition government. Therefore do you expect varian that the electorate will ever trust the Lib Dems in anything they say and pledge in regard to education especially when their new leader was a leading member of that coalition government?????????

sodapop

Lucky friend that she can stay so healthy SueDonim others don't have that choice.

Are you suggesting a race to the bottom in employment conditions?

Fewer people on public transport and out and about in the community generally leads to a safer environment for those who do have to leave their home to work.

Grandad1943

growstuff

No employer would want to risk facing a class action if he/she were to try to force employers back to working in an office, unless a safe working environment could be provided.

Employers are the best judges as to whether employees have been working efficiently at home and the pandemic might have forced some changes in attitudes towards a more flexible way of working.

As long as any employer has carried out all that is reasonably possible to ensure the safety of the workforce as defined under the Health & Safety at Work Act there is little or no chance that legal action of any kind would be successful.

In a huge number of instances, it has been the insurers that have pushed employers to bring about the highest possible standards of protection against Covid-19 infection under the guidance of the Health & Safety Executive and consultancy Safety companies.

Strangely enough I have talked to my daughter, who is an HR Manager, and a friend, who is a specialist lawyer, about this very topic. That's how I know I'm not talking about rubbish about this.

Both are fully aware of the laws relating to Health and Safety at work. In many cases, it is just not possible to ensure that all staff are two metres apart, which is the government's current recommendation. Staff with pre-existing conditions such as T2 diabetes are a special concern, especially as they are already covered by the Equality Act.

It is a genuine concern to people who really know their stuff about employment law that if anybody should become seriously ill or die after being forced to work in unsafe conditions (ie less than two metres) that expensive litigation could result. It is not only the offices, but the stairs and the lifts and the travel to work (unless they were able to "beam me up" to the office).

Lucky friend that she can stay so healthy SueDonim others don't have that choice.

Well it would make sense then for those who can and want to work from home to do so and help reduce the pressure on the road system and the environment.

A friend who has been working throughout said her general health and that of her colleagues has been so much better since they’ve all been WFH. She hasn’t had a single cold or other illness while they’ve been off. She said previous winters were a misery because the demands of presentee-ism meant that people came into work with dreadful colds and bugs, infecting everyone else.

She doesn’t miss that and feels she’s more productive anyway partly because she feels well and also she’s not constantly interrupted so can concentrate more.

varian, in regard to your post @18:19 do you not realise that there is a major crisis rapidly coming about in public transport. Many of those now having no other option but to physically return to their workplaces due to the nature of that work are using their cars rather than buses and trains were very close proximity to others and the use of face masks over a protracted period can be concerning and uncomfortable.

Evidence to the above can be witnessed now on Britain's motorways and major trunk roads with (by example) it taking an hour to do ten miles on the approach to the large Avonmouth and Severnside industrial estates this morning and at one time an eight-mile traffic jam on the M5-M4 interchange to the north of Bristol. That congestion can only become even worse as ever more return to commuting to their workplaces in their own private vehicles.

The time is rapidly approaching when the bus and train operators will have to dramatically cut services if commuters cannot be encouraged to return to using public transport. That will affect many older people who rely on public transport for those off-peak services as those services will also disappear with those vehicles being withdrawn as they are often run at a loss outside of peak periods.

Local councils are very unlikely at the present time to increase their subsidy to those services.

Great for carbon-free environmental friendly Britain.

People who need not go back to working in an office, but are pushed back for no good reason, will make commuter trains and buses busier, city streets busier and lifts in high rise buildings busier -and almost certainly increase the community transmission of the virus - for no good reason. Protecting our health is the best way to protect the economy.

Our son wanted to book a table for four after work in town this evening at his favourite restaurant. Fully booked, just one slot left at 9.15 pm. Similar at other comparable restaurants (London). Seems high end restaurants are still getting the business. Maybe they will be the ones to survive whereas the coffee shops and sandwich bars will suffer.
(Sadly he wasnt inviting me along!)

I think this demand that everyone gets back to the office because some people don’t work in offices is illogical. My youngest son can easily work at home and go into the office once a week. His wife works for the NHS and actually can work at home and just go in for outpatients appointments that need face to face consultation( not all of them do). Forcing people onto overcrowded transport in the belief that it is somehow unfair on those who have to travel smacks of sour grapes. Keeping the sandwich industry afloat is not a good enough reason.

Grandad people going back to the office isn't going to make much difference to the damage that Covid has done to the employment market.
To say I am not concerned about this is an uninformed view. I have children and teenage grandchildren who are and will be affected by this pandemic.
But everyone going back to the office will make everything better in your view.

You are absolutely right about the need for lifelong learning Varian this was also Labour party policy before the last election, hopefully it still is.