Are Employers taking advantage of Staff in these "recessionary times"?

Whatever about specific employers, there is little doubt that our current economic crisis is being used as an excuse to try to cut the standard of living of ordinary workers - a 'shock doctrine' if you will, as has been used all round the world in hard times, from Chile to Iraq to Russia to New Orleans.

A classic example of this is the IBEC proposal to eliminate the defined benefit pension scheme for new entrants to the public sector - see [broken link removed]. Without getting into the rights and wrongs of this proposal, it has absolutely no relevance to our current economic climate. Any savings accrued from such changes would only have an impact when these employees reach retirement age, i.e. 20/30/40 years down the line. This is pure opportunism by IBEC - attempting to use the economic disaster created by the banks and builders as an excuse to squeeze nurses, teachers, gardai, dole office staff etc. Dispicable conduct....

I do feel like I am being takin advantage of. First off I work in a small business (4 employees). My employer fired our accountant and hired another accountant on part time to do accounts payable only. Everything else was thrown on me. My work load more than doubled. We have two techs and two office workers (myself being one of them). My employer cut pay on one of the techs by $5/hr. This would make sense if the economy was having an effect on my company, but it isn't. Actually we have made more profit in the last 4 months than this company has ever seen. When I brought up getting me a raise to my boss shot it down by saying "with the way the economy is, giving raises is out of the question." Then about a week later his son (the other tech) comes to me and tells me that his dad is going to give him a $2/hr raise in a couple weeks.
I'm sure you can all see why I fell like I'm being takin advantage of. I am the lowest paid employee yet I have the biggest work load.

I do feel like some companies are taking advantage. I started my job 3 months ago on a introductory rate, due to end a few weeks ago. As soon as i was due to go up to a decent wage, the did a company wide pay freeze, so now even if I get promoted I will still be on my introductory rate, its a joke. Although I am just happy to have a job at the moment

I know of places where salary increases have been put on hold until the end of the year even though business looks ok for 2009 and the employer made their 2008 profit and revenue targets. Employees have accepted the decision without much issue.[/quote]

Thats whats happening where I work and we all just accept it. No problem at all. Would rather have a job paying the same as last year than have none at all so no salary increase for a year won't kill me.

Hearing this every day "you are lucky to have a job", this is coming from a senior manager over our department, he is using the recession as an excuse to delegate more work out, the problem is that he is doing less and less work for the good salary that he is getting, in fact I think he is very lucky to have a job!

Too right it's happening.

Hobbs256 said:

Hearing this every day "you are lucky to have a job", this is coming from a senior manager over our department, he is using the recession as an excuse to delegate more work out, the problem is that he is doing less and less work for the good salary that he is getting, in fact I think he is very lucky to have a job!

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Which is why it is in everyones interest to sovle the unemployment problem once and for all. A good level of social welfare aids everyone in their bargaining position at work, if it was lower the bosses would only lower everyones wage to match the new lower rate.
Until we get full empoyment again we can do nothiing but sit tight.

Re: Are Employers taking advantage?
Some undoubtedly are. In my former company, I was issuing weekly and monthly sales reports and had been doing so for several years. The revenue figures for 2008 had been rising steadily until early November when I left the company. Three weeks later, the company announced over 100 redundancies and a pay freeze/short time working for 2009 based on sales figures allegedly falling in key markets by up to 50%! I cannot believe that such a fall took place - unless it all happened suddenly in a very short period.....

I cannot believe that such a fall took place - unless it all happened suddenly in a very short period.....

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Believe it or not, it is happening.
I really is happening very quickly, and yes, in the space of a couple of months.