Looking at the news its obviously bad news that mini are laying off people but I cannot understand why the Media are banging on that they were sacked immediatley and with no redudancy pay. It appears that the people who went, according to the news I just watched, were all agency workers. I assume that anyone who works for an agency is made well aware of the differencies vs being employed direct. Not nice I know but why chase an angle that makes a bad job sound even worse.
At least they have not closed down and anything that keeps them going long term has got to be of greater benefit that running it into the ground.

 

i used to work for mini - the agency staff ( and prob 80% of the people that work for bmw mini are... ) do all the manual work on the line, i suspect they have cut the weekend shifts, and maybe the daily shifts from 3 too 2, they turn out 600 odd cars a shift, so bubble had to burst at some point , arse is very few people work direct for bmw... always wondered why.. now i know !!

 

Thats exactly what they have done changed the shift pattern from 3 to 2 and from 7 days to 5.
Like I said its horrible but it winds me up the way the media sensationalise it. The honest way to report it would be "Mini cease contract with agencies supplying staff".

 

Seems like the pink pound is suffering in the downturn as well.

 

what no weekend shifts at all ??? gosh so that means there must be a very low demand for the mini now... suppose after 9 years the bubble of number of mini's sold would burst...

arse is very few people are directly employed by ' bmw' loads is outsorced and we had a VERY sketchy contract....

so the idea that they are ' laying off staff ' is not quite true... all those staff had a one day contract... so all the people saying that they worked there for 5 years bla bla yes its awful BUT those were the terms you agreed to.. i never felt like i was treated well there - or had a safe contrat so jumped ship quickly...

 

Why a big organisation like Mini is taking on agency staff is another discussion but by the sounds of it they did their sums and missed the sweet spot with regard to production.

 

Guess what 2 cars I have at the moment? A cooper s and and X5. marvellous.

 

they take on agency staff as they have a lot of jobs to fill , takes around 30 mins to train someone for the basic tasks of a job... also why do they watn to deal with all the paperwork etc, and means they can bump people just like this when they need to !

 

Thats the reason.

It gives them the ability to size their workforce in line with demand and allows them to lose poeple without severance costs etc.

Makes sense in that type of business, especially in the current climate.

 

Thats why you are an agency worked and get paid more than staff.

At the end of the we are in the recession and why should BMW (Germans) have an quarms about laying off British workers.