Wilko Collapses Into Administration

[Al Bundy]

1 hour ago, ECCOnoob said:

 

I don't really understand what this tit for tat debate about employees is supposed to be.  

 

People are making it out as if somehow workers and owners are on equal level. They are not. Never have been.

 

It's not the employees who were investing their personal monies into the business, it's not the employees whose potential liabilities could have been at stake.  It's not the employees who  bought that business, invested, brought it up from a small enterprise to a national corporation.   

 

Employees are contractually obligated to serve the business in a specific job role and in return are renumerated by salaries and benefits under the control, and contractual terms that they agree to set by the business. That's the relationship.  Full stop.  

 

At the end of the day,  don't you think those employees wouldn't or didn't jump ship as soon as something brighter, better and more well paid came along.  Do you think they sat there going... "Ooh no I need to say and be loyal to Wilkos". 

 

Do you think when it all hit the fan those employees went running to the management volunteering to chuck in some of their own monies to keep the store running or pay off some supply debt.  Do you think even most of those employees regularly shopped in Wilkos outside of their work shifts or perhaps they might have sneakily popped along to their  competition with better prices and products.

 

Of course it's important to treat employees fairly and kindly. But lets not be under any sort of delusion that there is equal relationship status.  

 

When the markets are good, employees have the power, they can reap the rewards of an abundance of roles, demanding better and progressing to sell their best assets.  When the markets are bad power shifts back to the business and employees have to make do and trudge through it. The harsh fact is they become just like any other commodity and by their very nature are dispensable.

 

Its simply business.

 

Bang on.

 

That will get the left and socialists frothing, get the popcorn ready.

[Delbow]

18 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

Keep to the long winded diatribes 

 

You seem to have the time for them 👍

Sorry for making a point obliquely, I know you can't deal with that. 

 

 

"Of course it's important to treat employees fairly and kindly. But....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... actually it isn't"

Edited November 28, 2023 by Delbow

[Axe]

4 hours ago, Mister M said:

Has it been established that's the reason why the company became unprofitable?

You cannot have it both ways.  You implied the workers were responsible for making the profits for the Wilkinson family and if that is true then the workers are also responsible for the Wilkinson business becoming non profitable. 

[Jack Grey]

1 hour ago, Axe said:

You cannot have it both ways.  You implied the workers were responsible for making the profits for the Wilkinson family and if that is true then the workers are also responsible for the Wilkinson business becoming non profitable. 

There's no point trying to discuss business practices with Soclialists because they believe in rainbows and unicorns

 

Look what they have done to Venezuela

 

And San Francisco 

[Anna B]

50 minutes ago, Axe said:

You cannot have it both ways.  You implied the workers were responsible for making the profits for the Wilkinson family and if that is true then the workers are also responsible for the Wilkinson business becoming non profitable. 

As Delbow said the demise  might have something to do with the Wilkinson family paying themselves multi millions in dividends even when they knew the company was failing. instead of using the money to keep it going. They have their money but the workers are not now going to be paid the money they are owed by the company pension scheme after years of working for the company.

 

That may well  put people off in future from paying money into company pension schemes, so they will  have to have their old age pension subsidised in the end by the taxpayer.

Riding roughshod over the workers doesn't justaffect the employees it affects us all..

Edited November 28, 2023 by Anna B

[cuttsie]

22 minutes ago, Jack Grey said:

There's no point trying to discuss business practices with Soclialists because they believe in rainbows and unicorns

 

Look what they have done to Venezuela

 

And San Francisco 

The Kibbutz system in Israel is a socialist system that has worked for 70 years (Applied to go my self once )   , Apart from that I have always considered the UK to be as near as you can get to a socialist system with our National health service and benefits system , OK we have the Royals , along with the silver spooners who attend public schools but so do the so called socialist Countries , China has more millionaires than us ,as does Russia ,(The communist leaders stole the Countries industries there )  , So socialism can be interpreted in many ways , some good some bad .

6 minutes ago, Anna B said:

It might have something to do with the Wilkinson family paying themselves multi millions in dividends even when they knew the company was failing, instead of using the money to keep it going. The workers are not now going to be paid out the money they are owed by the company pension scheme.

Bang on Anna they made sure they were on easy street just 12 months before the balloon went up . These are not the family members who built the firm but later generation who have cashed in on their good luck of being born at the right time , silver spooners .

Edited November 28, 2023 by cuttsie

[Jack Grey]

1 hour ago, cuttsie said:

The Kibbutz system in Israel is system that has worked for 70 years (Applied to go my self once )   , Apart from that I have always considered the UK to be as near as you can get to a socialist system with our National health service and benefits system , OK we have the Royals , along with the silver spooners who attend public schools but so do the so called socialist Countries , China has more millionaires than us ,as does Russia ,(The communist leaders stole the Countries industries there )  , So socialism can be interpreted in many ways , some good some bad .

The UK is a capitalist country but we currently have a socialist government

 

A Kibbutz is not something would base any business model on because it's essentially a hippy commune 

 

Hippy communes generally don't have heavy machinery industres, a mass workforce or transport infrastructures 

[Anna B]

10 minutes ago, cuttsie said:

The Kibbutz system in Israel is system that has worked for 70 years (Applied to go my self once )   , Apart from that I have always considered the UK to be as near as you can get to a socialist system with our National health service and benefits system , OK we have the Royals , along with the silver spooners who attend public schools but so do the so called socialist Countries , China has more millionaires than us ,as does Russia ,(The communist leaders stole the Countries industries there )  , So socialism can be interpreted in many ways , some good some bad .

That was true of the days of responsible capitalism, but now we have gone into turbo charged neocapitalism, the National health service and benefits system are being dismantled as fast as they dare.

[Axe]

9 minutes ago, Anna B said:

It might have something to do with the Wilkinson family paying themselves multi millions in dividends even when they knew the company was failing, instead of using the money to keep it going. The workers are not now going to be paid out the money they are owed by the company pension scheme.

The money the family took in dividends is a very small percentage of the  shortfall for the pension pot. In any case  secured creditors and HMRC are the first in the queue for payments meaning the dividends paid to the Wilkinson family makes no difference to the pension pot.  

[Mister M]

1 hour ago, Axe said:

You cannot have it both ways.  You implied the workers were responsible for making the profits for the Wilkinson family and if that is true then the workers are also responsible for the Wilkinson business becoming non profitable. 

I was implying no such thing. I said they were part of the profitability of the company.