StockholmRam

I've been elected to represent the factory based salaried staff in the Consultation meetings regarding the "proposed" closure of our factory.
Had our first meeting today and it was quite brutal. We're ducked. Its an old site and due to several changes of ownership in recent years leading to no investment, coupled with mental increases in the price of flour, sugar, palm oil, and energy costs over the last 18 months, there is no way back.
We are not financially viable.
We have been through severe restructures in recent years, chopping jobs left, right and centre to no avail, the company that owns us does not want to modernise and invest so we will close in March 2022.
I've worked there for 42 years. Started as a machine operator in 1978, ended up as a Shift Production Manager, covered the Operations Manager role for a period when the site was between owners. FFS, I met me missus there!
In a small town like Uttoxeter, I have seen kids and grandkids of lads I first worked with start their working life at the factory. Had blokes coming up to me in pubs demanding to know why their lad had been sacked, had people begging me for jobs, my wife has been threatened because I had to sack somebody.
I have also had people come up to me and thanked me for giving them confidence to improve their lives, people who I used to work with who now run their own businesses who always buy me a pint because they were inspired by me. I can't express the feeling that gives me.
My son did his engineering apprenticeship at the factory and is now the Operations Manager for Aggreko in Asia. My daughter worked there for a few years part time running the factory shop and now runs her own business.
We used to do Evening shifts, Lunch Time relief shifts  etc that appealed to mums who wanted a part time job to work around childcare but we had to stop all that as we got taken over by different companies. We were a factory that was part of our community.
Its a sad situation but I will do everything I can to negotiate the best possible deal for the people who have asked me to represent them.
 
I'm a bit emotional and had a couple of drinks so time to call it a night.
 
 

Erm, perhaps not.
Been told today that the Biscuit Factory in Uttoxeter is to be closed down by next March.
There may well be a few agency short term positions going but 600 of us will be out of work very soon.?

Who owns Brentford? Anyone who sells us Jozefzoon whilst en-route to sustainably getting promoted seems to have the right idea.

I would like to see a new owner that ain't a fan. A businessman who has a good record of making money with some connections to sports. A football club should be run like a business. Make sound investments and planning to grow step by step. Too much emotion could hurt a club. People tend to grow love their businesses so there would be enough emotion that way.

Over 30% of this forum currently voting for Mike Ashley. 
Mike. 
Ashley. 

Where have you been the last 6 years?

The whole Newcastle takeover and the way Newcastle fans have reacted to it has just added to my general disillusionment to football. The whole thing just seems pointless.
All football is these days is which billionaire happens to buy which club. The history, location, community means nothing. The reasons why they buy a club means nothing. What is the actual point of the success they do or don't get from it?
The saddest thing is the way Newcastle fans are just embracing it. Even the BBC has a big article with Shearer saying how it's a 'Special day', then right at the bottom it has a little line about 'questions need to be asked' about human rights abuses etc. Like that won't be completely forgotten if they start winning. There's a part where Shearer says 'I'm excited about what will happen to our club'. It's not your club. No club is any fans club anymore. Fans are just completely irrelevant.
Do they not care at all that they're just being used by the Saudis as a form of Sportswashing? Is winning at all costs really worth it? Do people these days just have no morals or dignity? or does it just show that anyone will be happy if throw enough money at them?
I know footballs always been like this to some extent, but it's just got to a point where it just makes everything meaningless. Has football ever been further away from what it was originally meant to be? They warned us this would all happen in 1992.
 

Would the 77 year old former rock guitarist from the sixties rock group Yardbirds have enough money to buy us?
 
 
 
 
Oh... hang on... let me fetch my glasses...

What’s Ashley done soooooo wrong at Newcastle?
What were the realistic aspirations for that Club?

Happy birthday Charlie - my wife says I only remember her birthday as it's the same day as his ? it's really the other way round though but what a player, one of my all time favourites ?
 

So much respect for Wilder after that.  And I love Fury, what a boxer. Agree he was leaving himself open looking for the KO but he’s good enough to do it.

Watched her the other day funnily enough - took 4 wickets against NZ. Didn't know the connection though.  Actually, to be brutally honest I wasn't sure at first who Sam Longson was and had to Google him to remind myself ?

Whilst @GeordieRam maintains his polite and well reasoned opinions, (whether we agree with them or not), there should be no hints that he and/or his opinions aren’t welcome on here.
If he doesn’t share those opinions with us… the victims… the affected… the so called “homeless people”… then he has nobody else to share them with, because quite literally nobody else gives a T0$$!
Unfair to suggest that he is being insensitive by airing his views on here, IMO.
 If he gets cocky, mind, or starts pointing and laughing at us, then strip him of his barcode, soak him in a vat of broon, then dunk him in The Derwent, I say!
So far, he’s behaved impeccably.  
?
 

The most significant thing I can remember about that was that Bobby Moncur played over 300 times for Newcastle, scoring 7 goals in his career with them.
3 were in the Fairs Cup final.

Yes, public sector do here, relatively speaking - although some councils or Health Trusts pay better rates within each salary band, plus there are area weightings based on cost of living. 
Trouble here is, Derby County Community Trust is a registered charity and have more choice. A quick look at their Board suggests they are mostly private sector business type trustees, so I am not surprised that they are adopting private sector values, which aren't really governed at all in this country apart from minimum wage legislation and market values. 
Lots of charities (any I have run included) always advertise salary bands and try to mirror scales in similar jobs in the public sector, especially when receiving public or Government grants. But they don't have to.
BTW, this is not a criticism of DCCT, who I think do some fantastic work across sports and the community. I am just explaining how it is.
 

Think one of his lads is at Millfield School, in Somerset.

In Sweden... Public sector jobs have the same pay for each relative position regardless of age, sex.
Private sector heavily regulated on fluctuating salary offers.

Im no expert in employment law. However, if I was to go out drinking and put myself into a situation with my work colleagues where I ended up injured and unable to do my job for many months Im pretty sure id expect to lose my job. 

Im no expert in employment law. However, if I was to go out drinking and put myself into a situation with my work colleagues where I ended up injured and unable to do my job for many months Im pretty sure id expect to lose my job. 

Sadly interest in women’s sport isn’t as big as Sky and BBC are trying to convince people. I’d never heard of her. 

Im no expert in employment law. However, if I was to go out drinking and put myself into a situation with my work colleagues where I ended up injured and unable to do my job for many months Im pretty sure id expect to lose my job. 

Im no expert in employment law. However, if I was to go out drinking and put myself into a situation with my work colleagues where I ended up injured and unable to do my job for many months Im pretty sure id expect to lose my job. 

He was found unconscious in the car but then allowed to walk home? Did I read that part right? Surely that would not happen and the paramedics would have a duty of care to take him to hospital to be checked up properly. 
 

Of course it's going to be Keogh's spin on things and DCFC do make a good "all purpose sports villain" for the papaers right now.
I don't think it's neccessarily not true, but i do think it's only a one sided version. I'm not going to rage and be disgusted at anything in that article. I think the "just a few ales" stuff is probably underselling it a bit, there vidoes of puking in toilets going round i remember....
I'm a bit surprised about the "oh Tom was genuinly sorry so he's still my pal" stuff, jezz, i'd stuggle if i thought my mates had left me for dead in a crashed vehicle.
At the time, i thought Keogh's sacking was justified, what wasn't was retaining Lawrence and Bennett. And if they retain Lawrence and Bennett they can't also justify sacking keogh because he's injured and it's financially worth it. I wasn't surprised Keogh won.
 

Knowing Derek all my life he will continue supporting the Rams from where ever he is now a true gentleman 
RIP Derek