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geordiedean

geordiedean

Posted
Posted

Id rather be unemployed than ever ever work for these absolute nazi bastards. Slave labour to the limit, which is quite common in the retail sector. I used to work as a manager for Next in their distribution centres and th are exactly the same

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Altamullan

Altamullan

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Posted

Top article. The cracks (chasms?) in relationships are always make worse by stress. Can't imagine even 'Relate' sorting us out if we don't win 2 (or 3, hopefully) of the next 3 games. If we do, I reckon the fans-players relationship will be out of the huffy bed. The fans-board/ownership is past saving.

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Mattoon

Mattoon

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Posted

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34178412

 

 

Sports Direct site 'called ambulances dozens of times'

 

5 October 2015

 

 From the sectionDerby

 

Image copyrightPAImage captionSports Direct is one of Europe's largest sports retailers

 

Ambulances were called out to the headquarters of one of Europe's largest sports retailers 76 times in two years, a BBC investigation found.

 

Many of the calls, for workers at Sports Direct's complex at Shirebrook, in Derbyshire, were for "life-threatening" illnesses.

 

Former workers said some staff were "too scared" to take sick leave because they feared losing their jobs.

 

Sports Direct said it aimed to provide safe working conditions for all.

 

'Working under fear'

 

A total of 76 ambulances or paramedic cars were dispatched to the distribution centre's post code between January 2013 and December 2014, with 36 cases classed as "life-threatening", including chest pains, breathing problems, convulsions and strokes.

 

A further seven calls for ambulances were made but cancelled.

 

The figures, which came from a Freedom of Information request made by the BBC's Inside Out team to East Midlands Ambulance Service, also revealed the service received three calls about women having pregnancy difficulties, including one who gave birth in toilets at the site.

 

The details have since been passed to the Health and Safety Executive which has said it will examine the data.

 

Of the 999 calls, six were about car accidents on a road or car park next to the centre, one was for a dog bite and at least two were for a store on the site.

 

Image captionThe list of calls includes 36 cases classed as "life-threatening"

 

It is not clear exactly how many of these calls were for the thousands of agency workers on site.

 

One of the cases involved 52-year-old Guntars Zarins, who suffered a stroke in the warehouse canteen.

 

His daughter Liga Zarina-Shaw said Mr Zarins had gone to work with flu symptoms because he was too frightened to take time off.

 

Image captionLiga Zarina-Shaw says her father was too scared to take "one day sick"

 

The family does not blame Sports Direct or the agency which employed him for his stroke but Ms Zarina-Shaw said her father was worried about his job.

 

"He [was] even scared to take one day sick," she said.

 

Image captionGuntars Zarins has been left paralysed following his stroke

 

"Now I know why, because what is happening there is not normal," she added.

 

Mr Zarins was paralysed down his right side but has since had another stroke and has returned to hospital.

 

Ms Zarina-Shaw said workers were worried about a "six strikes" policy used by an agency that supplies staff to Sports Direct.

 

A document produced by one of the agencies states: "Any person who exceeds six strikes within a rolling six-month period will have their assignment at Sports Direct ended."

 

Recruitment agency's six-strike policy

 

Workers can receive a strike for a range of "offences" including:

 

Period of reported sicknessExcessive chattingExcessive or long toilet breaksUsing a mobile phone in the warehouse

 

The document adds agencies can end an assignment "at any time without reason, notice or liability".

 

Unite said it had been told that last year there were about 3,000 agency workers at the Shirebrook headquarters of Sports Direct, which was founded by billionaire Mike Ashley.

 

Sports Direct has also reported accidents in its warehouse have doubled in the past financial year.

 

The firm put the rise in accidents down to on-site building work, which has resulted in "increased footfall and decreased workspace".

 

Image copyrightPAImage captionSports Direct was founded by the billionaire Mike Ashley

 

According to council figures, there were 38 accidents reported across 2013 and 2014, including a fractured neck, when somebody was struck by a moving object, a crushed hand from moving machinery and back and head injuries.

 

At the firm's annual meeting, Keith Hellawell, the chairman, told shareholders he was satisfied the company complied with health and safety regulations and any concerns were investigated immediately.

 

The firm has previously been criticised as"Dickensian" in its employment practices.

 

Image copyrightAlex Britton/PA WiresImage captionUnions say working conditions at the site seem "Dickensian"

 

In a statement, Sports Direct said: "Sports Direct aims to provide working conditions in compliance with applicable employment and health and safety legislation and seeks to provide safe working conditions for all staff working in our warehouse."

 

Adding: "We have a good working relationship with our local environmental health officer and we work together to maintain and improve the safety of our working conditions."

 

The firm added that there were only 24 calls directly to its warehouse during the period covered by the Freedom of Information request.

 

The BBC was also told it was incorrect to suggest workers went to work poorly because of the strike system and that agency staff should not fear losing their jobs if they called in sick.

 

Inside Out is broadcast on BBC One East Midlands at 19:30 on Monday 5 October and nationwide for 30 days thereafter on the iPlayer.

 

 

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Paully

Paully

Posted
Posted

http://www.true-faith.co.uk/thru-black-white-eyes-a-winter-of-discontent-5oct15/

 

THRU BLACK & WHITE EYES – A Winter of Discontent – 5/Oct/15

 

by Michael Martin • October 5, 2015 • TBAWE • Comments (3) • 727

 

 

 

 

Circumstances meant that I couldn’t get to a keyboard for much time following this season’s disintegration in Manchester, which is probably just as well as regular readers of this old toffee have probably reached their limits when it comes to reading another rant from me. Like last season, I walked out way before the final whistle. Unlike last season it was when the sixth goal went in (as opposed to the fifth) when I went slunk in resigned fashion past the Blue-Moon Burger Van en-route to Manchester’s enviable light-railway system and back into the town centre and some agreeable company. For the avoidance of doubt this was not to attend a fringe meeting of the Young Conservatives. Just thought I’d clear that up.

 

 

 

TRUE15 LUKE 1977 Voucher (1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving matches early is no longer a taboo for me and looking at the hundreds hitting the coach park as we contemplated the football genius that imagined Vurnon Anita and Yoan Gouffran could provide any kind of resistance to anyone in any kind of Premier League football match, I’m not alone. The stoicism that was once our signature as a travelling support is crumbling. Though, to be fair we had almost a full allocation at £44 a throw which is a bigger turnout than last season when we had our arses tanned x five by the nouveau-riche arrivestes in M11. I really get the impression that our support is now at a point where our defiance is almost as limp as the team we support. It’s hardly surprising and I don’t think any group of supporters anywhere in the world or at any time in the modern era could retain any sense of optimism or enthusiasm given the diet of thin gruel we’ve been fed on for so long.

 

 

 

One argument I’ve heard repeated a few times by those who believe the current era we are experiencing isn’t as bad as Yoan-GOUFFRAN-104281what we’ve had before and the implication is supporters should to use the modern idiom, “man-up”. I’ve followed United since the early 70s and I can pin-point two eras when we were really on a low. One of those was in the late 1970s/Early 80s and the other in the late 1980s/Early 90s. Don’t get me wrong seeing United sell Macdonald in the 70s and then Waddle-Gascoigne-Beardsley in the 80s led to a mass gnashing of teeth but this is worse.

 

 

 

Here’s why. In the period from 1974 to 1984, Newcastle United had two runs to Cup Finals in 74 and 76 and although we lost both, the days and games are still talked of fondly by those of a certain vintage. I’d also suggest the 82/83 and 83/84 seasons aka the Keegan Years were amongst the two most enjoyable seasons I’ve ever had following the club even though both were spent in the Second Division (old money). Likewise the period between 1988 and 1998 bore witness to the best football some of us have ever and will ever witness from a team wearing Newcastle United shirts. Sandwiched between both those periods were the McGarry years (Shinto, Rafferty, Clarke et al) and the period following the Play-Off SF defeat which led to a bleak couple of seasons prior to the sunshine of KK’s return in 1992.

 

 

 

That’s why this is worse. The unremitting gloom of the Ashley era has tested many beyond breaking point.  Remember it is eight long years since that unbearable Tory gobshite John Hall sold us out to Ashley. He’ll still be counting his pieces of silver now.

 

 

 

There have been very, very few ups to sustain us beyond a very brief but enjoyable tour of the Championship, tanning the Mackems 5-1 and a few decent trips to Europe. There are a few Mags in their mid-to-late 20s whose devotion to United is as committed as any of any other generation I’ve known, but I worry about what is sustaining them through this long, endless winter of Mike Ashley. Where are the Cup runs, the days out in Europe, the bravura displays and wins that make it all worthwhile and give us the emotional blanket to keep us warm in our supporting lives? The things to talk about in years to come when today’s young Mags become tomorrow’s old farts (hello there)?

 

 

 

We are not deluded to believe Newcastle United deserves more than what Ashley and the people he has appointed to keep it ticking over are providing. Let’s start from that point. Let us never ever forget that or concede that point. Ever.

 

 

 

The other points have been made by The Chronicle’s Mark Douglas this last week. This is, in terms of results, the worst calendar year in the history of Newcastle United Football Club. It is as things stand the worst start we have had in the Premier League era. As McClaren’s request to judge him after ten games stretches now to twelve, the season is starting to develop a feeling of desperation about it. It is not a season which has come out of the blue or is the coincidence of a lot of random factors which might convince us we are experiencing some rank bad luck. The context for this season is another of entirely predictably dreadful results on the back of previous seasons when we have looked closer to the trap-door than the mythical land of top eight finishes and cup runs, an increasingly clueless Steve McClaren talks about.

 

 

 

So, who is to blame? It is inescapable. It has to be Mike Ashley. He has appointed every single person to a position of authority (ha) at United, he has set the budget, he has plotted the course and he signs the cheques. It is easy to imagine (and I’ve heard some articulate the argument) that Ashley is engaged in some form of spite against us because we had the audacity to challenge his running of the club and maybe called in some horrid names. But I think it’s worse than that. I don’t think he even gives a fuck really. All of his actions suggest he is supremely indifferent. I regularly hear about a complete lack of communication between him and anyone at the club. You read in the post-Man City humping Steve McClaren say quite clearly he does not speak to Ashley. Imagine that, the owner of a football club having no relationship with the man who picks the players and stands at the side of the pitch in the full glare of football’s microscopic attention. Oh, I beg your pardon, Ashley sent McClaren a text.

 

 

 

You can look elsewhere beyond Ashley and point to the grotesque inadequacies of Lee Charnley as someone to steer the club to anywhere out of the bottom quartile of the Premier League. You can set a harsh spotlight on Graeme Carr’s increasingly frequent flops in the transfer market. A squad of has-beens and never-will-bes is all the work of Northampton Town’s ex-manager. A first team populated by poor characters with the losing mentality Alan Shearer speaks of is the culmination of too many bad buys courtesy of Mr Carr, another of United’s executive team who lives in the shadows. Fingers will point at a manager who was sacked by Forest, Derby, Wolfsburg and most memorably by England with only a Dutch title with Twente providing him with any credibility whatsoever. How does the sack at Derby in the Championship prepare you for Newcastle United in the Premier League?

 

 

 

As for McClaren, he may be supping deep from the poisoned chalice of Mike Ashley’s Newcastle United and is attempting to get a tune from a selection of players completely disconnected from our just and righteous cause and pursuing the narrow agenda of self-interest they were tempted here to pursue. The formations change, the tactics are amended but the same rotten results continue. The big question is, how long will it be tolerated before Ashley sees the PL millions disappearing down a massive Lee Charnley shaped toilet and act to completely over-rule the football board he entrusted to run the club for him? Personally, I can’t see McClaren surviving the next two PL games without gaining 4 points. There, I’ve said it.

 

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Hughesy

Hughesy

Posted
Posted

Had exactly the same conversation with my dad a few minutes ago - I think he needs a minimum of 4 points from the next two games.

 

There is so much wrong with the club, it's almost impossible to know where to start.

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NEEJ

NEEJ

Posted
Posted

http://www.true-faith.co.uk/thru-black-white-eyes-a-winter-of-discontent-5oct15/

 

THRU BLACK & WHITE EYES – A Winter of Discontent – 5/Oct/15

 

by Michael Martin • October 5, 2015 • TBAWE • Comments (3) • 727

 

 

 

 

Circumstances meant that I couldn’t get to a keyboard for much time following this season’s disintegration in Manchester, which is probably just as well as regular readers of this old toffee have probably reached their limits when it comes to reading another rant from me. Like last season, I walked out way before the final whistle. Unlike last season it was when the sixth goal went in (as opposed to the fifth) when I went slunk in resigned fashion past the Blue-Moon Burger Van en-route to Manchester’s enviable light-railway system and back into the town centre and some agreeable company. For the avoidance of doubt this was not to attend a fringe meeting of the Young Conservatives. Just thought I’d clear that up.

 

 

 

TRUE15 LUKE 1977 Voucher (1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving matches early is no longer a taboo for me and looking at the hundreds hitting the coach park as we contemplated the football genius that imagined Vurnon Anita and Yoan Gouffran could provide any kind of resistance to anyone in any kind of Premier League football match, I’m not alone. The stoicism that was once our signature as a travelling support is crumbling. Though, to be fair we had almost a full allocation at £44 a throw which is a bigger turnout than last season when we had our arses tanned x five by the nouveau-riche arrivestes in M11. I really get the impression that our support is now at a point where our defiance is almost as limp as the team we support. It’s hardly surprising and I don’t think any group of supporters anywhere in the world or at any time in the modern era could retain any sense of optimism or enthusiasm given the diet of thin gruel we’ve been fed on for so long.

 

 

 

One argument I’ve heard repeated a few times by those who believe the current era we are experiencing isn’t as bad as Yoan-GOUFFRAN-104281what we’ve had before and the implication is supporters should to use the modern idiom, “man-up”. I’ve followed United since the early 70s and I can pin-point two eras when we were really on a low. One of those was in the late 1970s/Early 80s and the other in the late 1980s/Early 90s. Don’t get me wrong seeing United sell Macdonald in the 70s and then Waddle-Gascoigne-Beardsley in the 80s led to a mass gnashing of teeth but this is worse.

 

 

 

Here’s why. In the period from 1974 to 1984, Newcastle United had two runs to Cup Finals in 74 and 76 and although we lost both, the days and games are still talked of fondly by those of a certain vintage. I’d also suggest the 82/83 and 83/84 seasons aka the Keegan Years were amongst the two most enjoyable seasons I’ve ever had following the club even though both were spent in the Second Division (old money). Likewise the period between 1988 and 1998 bore witness to the best football some of us have ever and will ever witness from a team wearing Newcastle United shirts. Sandwiched between both those periods were the McGarry years (Shinto, Rafferty, Clarke et al) and the period following the Play-Off SF defeat which led to a bleak couple of seasons prior to the sunshine of KK’s return in 1992.

 

 

 

That’s why this is worse. The unremitting gloom of the Ashley era has tested many beyond breaking point.  Remember it is eight long years since that unbearable Tory gobshite John Hall sold us out to Ashley. He’ll still be counting his pieces of silver now.

 

 

 

There have been very, very few ups to sustain us beyond a very brief but enjoyable tour of the Championship, tanning the Mackems 5-1 and a few decent trips to Europe. There are a few Mags in their mid-to-late 20s whose devotion to United is as committed as any of any other generation I’ve known, but I worry about what is sustaining them through this long, endless winter of Mike Ashley. Where are the Cup runs, the days out in Europe, the bravura displays and wins that make it all worthwhile and give us the emotional blanket to keep us warm in our supporting lives? The things to talk about in years to come when today’s young Mags become tomorrow’s old farts (hello there)?

 

 

 

We are not deluded to believe Newcastle United deserves more than what Ashley and the people he has appointed to keep it ticking over are providing. Let’s start from that point. Let us never ever forget that or concede that point. Ever.

 

 

 

The other points have been made by The Chronicle’s Mark Douglas this last week. This is, in terms of results, the worst calendar year in the history of Newcastle United Football Club. It is as things stand the worst start we have had in the Premier League era. As McClaren’s request to judge him after ten games stretches now to twelve, the season is starting to develop a feeling of desperation about it. It is not a season which has come out of the blue or is the coincidence of a lot of random factors which might convince us we are experiencing some rank bad luck. The context for this season is another of entirely predictably dreadful results on the back of previous seasons when we have looked closer to the trap-door than the mythical land of top eight finishes and cup runs, an increasingly clueless Steve McClaren talks about.

 

 

 

So, who is to blame? It is inescapable. It has to be Mike Ashley. He has appointed every single person to a position of authority (ha) at United, he has set the budget, he has plotted the course and he signs the cheques. It is easy to imagine (and I’ve heard some articulate the argument) that Ashley is engaged in some form of spite against us because we had the audacity to challenge his running of the club and maybe called in some horrid names. But I think it’s worse than that. I don’t think he even gives a f*** really. All of his actions suggest he is supremely indifferent. I regularly hear about a complete lack of communication between him and anyone at the club. You read in the post-Man City humping Steve McClaren say quite clearly he does not speak to Ashley. Imagine that, the owner of a football club having no relationship with the man who picks the players and stands at the side of the pitch in the full glare of football’s microscopic attention. Oh, I beg your pardon, Ashley sent McClaren a text.

 

 

 

You can look elsewhere beyond Ashley and point to the grotesque inadequacies of Lee Charnley as someone to steer the club to anywhere out of the bottom quartile of the Premier League. You can set a harsh spotlight on Graeme Carr’s increasingly frequent flops in the transfer market. A squad of has-beens and never-will-bes is all the work of Northampton Town’s ex-manager. A first team populated by poor characters with the losing mentality Alan Shearer speaks of is the culmination of too many bad buys courtesy of Mr Carr, another of United’s executive team who lives in the shadows. Fingers will point at a manager who was sacked by Forest, Derby, Wolfsburg and most memorably by England with only a Dutch title with Twente providing him with any credibility whatsoever. How does the sack at Derby in the Championship prepare you for Newcastle United in the Premier League?

 

 

 

As for McClaren, he may be supping deep from the poisoned chalice of Mike Ashley’s Newcastle United and is attempting to get a tune from a selection of players completely disconnected from our just and righteous cause and pursuing the narrow agenda of self-interest they were tempted here to pursue. The formations change, the tactics are amended but the same rotten results continue. The big question is, how long will it be tolerated before Ashley sees the PL millions disappearing down a massive Lee Charnley shaped toilet and act to completely over-rule the football board he entrusted to run the club for him? Personally, I can’t see McClaren surviving the next two PL games without gaining 4 points. There, I’ve said it.

 

Great, if depressing, stuff.

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Minhosa

Minhosa

Posted
Posted

Looking at the 'Do you want NUFC relegated?' thread there's much discussion about whether the 'R' word would lead to Ashley's departure.

 

Self-made Billionaires, like him, don't recognise failure. It will not be a word in his vocabulary. He's only really known success and that's not a coincidence.

 

So, the question as I see it, is what would MA define as a 'success' here at NUFC?

 

I think there are only three responses to that;

 

1) To win something of meaning (obviously not the Championship).

2) To be universally popular within the fanbase (He'll have a massive ego and he'll want to think he's liked hence the original 'man of the people' act back in the day).

3) To sell the club at a significant profit to verify that billionaire 'acumen', to get the headlines of being one of the few owners to make a profit where others fail etc etc.

 

The Sky interview at the end of last season (and I'd encourage you to watch it again with the benefit of hindsight) effectively covers 1 & 2 which, at this stage, are one and the same and hugely unlikely.

 

To go with option 3, would be a recognition that the first two are not going to happen.

 

After what appears to be another error (the appointment of SMc/the faith in Charnley) I just wonder how far off the final option he can be.

 

He's never been shying of selling up brands/assets before. He buys and sells on a huge scale every day. You only have to look at the press to see how often he's investing in other businesses and causing unrest in many more.

 

He'll not want to relive the experiences of last season with, effectively, tail wagging dog in the fans pressuring AP out and then turning to him. He really won't like that AND he'll see it coming this year. He didn't last year.

 

When I think about it, the only times he's come out publically are when things have gone disastrously wrong (last seasons Sky interview after the Carver implosion) and the big tabloid article he did when we went down last time (Can't remember - was it the Mirror or Mail?) basically saying about threats etc etc.

 

He's never been one for going public, as it were, and he's clearly uncomfortable in doing so.

 

He'll know that if we have another bad month (hardly unthinkable) he's going to be put in that position again very soon and a Billionaire boxed into a corner is not going to be a pretty sight.

 

I'm banking on some tremors soon and I wouldn't want to be Lee Charnley right now.

 

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mrmojorisin75

mrmojorisin75

Posted
Posted

That's fine and dandy but he has zero track record of knowing how to appoint the right people for the club. I zero faith he can get top people. Or even just decent ones. Zero.

 

it's utterly staggering this when you think about it like, i suppose by his own low standards pardew was a roaring success mind :anguish:

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