Sounds pretty crazy. I've been super lucky to have some financial support from others while working part time and going to school. My workplace is unionised and after experiencing that I would never want to switch to a job that didn't provide some employee protection of some kind. A better job to me is one that has the same level of protection and stability but with even more pay.
this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2022
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You just need to do it right. You only quit your job once you've signed the contract for the new one, for example.
never had a job that involves signing anything. Including when I was flipping burgers
Is that normal where you live? For me that sounds very bad, like you are not legally employed at all. So you may have no legal rights - sick leave, unemployment benefit, etc.
Sounds like you have two problems.
Definitely my expirience too. I have worked crap jobs, good jobs, and everything in between, but have never signed a contract. Tax paper work, retirement paperwork, and all that just not a contract. The people I know who have, the contract restricted their rights rather than providing them.
Since we last spoke, I signed a contract for a job where I was gonna get 30hrs/week, quit my other job and started working for this job. Boss told me today he doesn;t have enough work for me so my hours are cut to 15hrs/week. I get paid hourly. (So i’m screwed again financially atm, if you know some easy like remote job I could get into, let me know)
I’m was hoping the paper contract would have prevented this from happening.
Got it. So you are definitely legally employed. But still. Where is it written what your job is?
Can your employer say now you have to clean the toilets, or work nights, and then fire you for not doing your job if you refuse?
If you start managing the café or supervising people, you need your contract to be able to tell him "this is a promotion from my original job I need a new title and a pay rise now".
How do you know what you're entitled to? If he says in the interview that you get sick days etc, you make sure that's in the contract, or else he can change his mind of forget about that.
The only downside is that it says I have to give notice before I leave. It says I can't work a second job. It probably forbids lots of other things I wasn't going to do anyway. On balance I'd much rather have one than not.
My sweet summer child, let me tell you the story of poverty or peak capitalism jobs.
Where is it written what your job is?
No where
Can your employer say now you have to clean the toilets, or work nights, and then fire you for not doing your job if you refuse?
Yes
How do you know what you’re entitled to? If he says in the interview that you get sick days etc, you make sure that’s in the contract, or else he can change his mind of forget about that.
I don't. It regularly happens that i'm told I will be paid like 10/hr then only get paid 9/hr. Regularly hired for part time and get given full time - 30 minutes to prevent me from receiving benefits. Regularly hired for full time and then given 10/hrs per week - then when i pick up a part time job, get fired from job number 1 for not having 100% availability.
I've never worked a job that gives me sick days or vacation days or anything. When my coworkers had covid, they are ordered to come in anyway.
The worst part is all my coworkers are 'happy to even have a job at all' that nobody wants to unionize, despite the fact that 90% of my coworkers agree that a union is beneficial.
In contrast to @Slatlun i've rarely signed anything at jobs, except giving the boss my social insurance number - and even then that is only a sometimes.
So you may have no legal rights
So you may have no legal rights
No may, definitely didn;t have any legal rights at a bunch of my jobs. A guy was killed by a machine at an old work place due to lack of safety equipment
My sweet summer child
I was not expecting a post beginning with that, to be a serious, earnest, clear answer. It sounds horrific but I can't offer any advice. This situation would be impossible in Europe. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to fire someone incompetent, when he has a contract in a country with workers' rights.
Right now all you're telling them is all hot air. Maybe you could try to find a unionised job, or even go work in a union, then tell all your co-workers how different it is. Their jealousy might motivate them.
It probably happens in europe, many region that employ foreigners to work on farms have some pretty bad conditions.
Quick qwant search;
Farm worker injured after getting stuck in potato harvester - wales online
’No running water’: foreign workers criticise UK farm labour scheme - The Guardian
I am going to answer this twice. Once for my current job with a strong union and once for any of my crappier jobs. These are across 4 states in the US.
Now: I have a job description and work plan. These I have a hand in modifying yearly along with my supervisor, but they're guides not contracts. The cleaning is also union, so they absolutely couldn't ask me to do it without getting push back from that union. There is a process for disciplinary action that mostly won't result in instant firing as long as I don't do anything dangerously negligent. Promotions are approved by an established process and come with increasing responsibility and changes to a work plan and a raise. There is a union agreement that defines my benefits. I could quit on a minute's notice if I thought that was a good idea.
Then: Job description/posting gave basic responsibilities, but for all of my crappy jobs that included cleaning and other work like that. They could fire me whenever. Promotions/pay increases were verbal. I always checked the paystubs to make sure that there weren't any 'clerical errors'. My benefits were defined by legislation, so I had no sick leave, no vacation, and no retirement to keep the company on track with. Still, I could quit whenever I wanted. I never had any problems with getting shorted or asked to do unreasonable things. I did have to take my boss aside and correct how they treated me and other employees at couple of places. Just as context I check most of the privilege boxes, and I know that my relative ease navigating these jobs is not universal.
My general thought is that if it isn't collectively negotiated the contract probably favors the company because they have a disincentive to write a contract that protects your rights. If you have the means, you could bring your work contract to a lawyer and see what they think about it. In my experience companies try to write a bunch of stuff in that is unenforceable/illegal so employees will read and abide by it without looking into whether they actually have to. I would rather have a union at my back than have to worry about an individual contract. At this point in my life, I wouldn't sign a work contract if I didn't like the terms or the tone - time to look for a place that isn't trying to screw me over before I even start work.
Por que no los dos.
It's an interesting take. I think that if you are desparate for work you will be forced to accept an exploitative contract and that's bad. But that having no contract allows you to be exploited much worse. A manager could literally make stuff up - one day say "you don't work here anymore" with no notice or "you forfeited those wages because the moon was in Scorpio".
But unions are also important. And not having a large body of desperate workers is important.
You're right about being exposed to instant firing, but generally being short staffed on short notice hurts the company. For random garnished wages or whatever I depended on labor law protections. It is literally illegal to do what you describe in the places I have worked. There are probably less extreme examples that the law doesn't protect against that a contract could, but what incentive does a company have to write protections for you into their contract? There are probably good contragts out there. I just personally don't trust them.
Since we last spoke, I signed a contract for a job where I was gonna get 30hrs/week, quit my other job and started working for this job. Boss told me today he doesn;t have enough work for me so my hours are cut to 15hrs/week. I get paid hourly. (So i'm screwed again financially atm, if you know some easy like remote job I could get into, let me know)
I'm was hoping the paper contract would have prevented this from happening.
That's a breach of contract. It's illegal, unless the contract also says they are allowed to do that. Talk to an expert about it.
Employers will test the waters to see what they can get away with. They can go on breaking the law for decades, until someone calls them up on it.
It’s illegal, unless the contract also says they are allowed to do that
It does not
Talk to an expert about it.
If talking to an expert involves money, can't afford it. Unless you mean like a gov labour bureau
There must be some kind of regulator or ombudsman. This sort of thing. Or maybe a local union?
If somebody is breaking the law to exploit you, there must be a legal way to report and stop that, and eventually get compensation money probably.