Slashdot Mirror
How P2P Can Taint a Career
duncan writes "After appearing on the BBC news review program Newsnight to discuss the recent Grokster case, Alex Hanff returned to work the next day and was promptly sacked because 'his presence within the company could count against it when bidding for big government contracts.'
Read more at The Guardian"
What do you do for that telecom company? If you're Public Relations, I would agree. But what if you're a system administrator? Does a belief in alternative communications systems really affect your ability to maintain the systems under your charge?
Likewise, did Mr. Hanff's belief in reformation (or even removal) of Copyright and associated "intellectual property" laws really affect his duties within the company? Or is this simply a personal call by someone within Management with an axe to grind against the opinions expressed by Mr. Hanff?
Also, keep in mind that Mr. Hanff seems to believe it was about possible pending litigation. From the article:
And this may be a legitimate concern. If Mr. Hanff is required to get a security clearance to work on Government contracts, legal entanglements may become an issue. But even then, this particular case is questionable. And it certainly isn't in line with the other statements from higher company management.
In the UK any employee who has been in their role for less than 13 weeks has zero protection.
The mistake here, if there was one, was the employer giving a reason for dismissing the employee... they should have just thanked him for his time and sent him on his way.
He is a fool and obviously thinks he can say what he wants and still rake in the cash from companies, you can't!. If you want the cash you gotta play the game.
can be downloaded here via bittorrent. I think the overall question is whether or not a person can be fired over a philosophical view.
He never said that he is going to pirate software or will help those who do (he removed the torrent tracker from his site in December). However he was served with lawsuit via the MPAA in March. He is going to fight the lawsuit in court. He is fighting the lawsuit on jurisdiction grounds, that the MPAA has no right to sue him. Even though the server was temporarily hosted in California.
Anyway I think his point is that the MPAA is using gestapo tactics in scaring people to settle and he is not going to settle. He'd rather fight this in court. Anyway he does have a case in light of the recent ruling since it only applies to those who promote the trading of illegal material. I think removing the tracker in December is the appropriate action.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
WTF? Seriously, what's hard to understand here, you should buy the product that is the best value, not the product which is made by your favourite idiological organisation.
Buying products made by companies that act in a responsible way is not exactly the same as only buying only from your favourite idiological organisation, stop confusing the 2.
A company that does not consider the social and/or environmental consequences of what they are doing is causing hidden cost for me (and everyone else).
That cost is hidden but is definitely there. Not considering that fact is extremely short sighted.
I prefer dealing with companies that confront me with the price for that upfront instead.
Worst of all are the people who buy a more expensive product because x% of the purchase price goes to charity. For fuck sake, just buy the cheaper product and donate the money to charity yourself if that's what you want to do.
Nice try, but that was not what was being argued here at all, stop confusing the issues. If I were to counter your argument with a similarely irrelevant hyperbole, I could say that we need to allow slavery again, the way in which something is produced is irrelevant, only value counts, and it is a much cheaper way to get such value.
The argument was to not buy from companies that do things that are not desirable to society (because of those things being destructive to society)
while the UK does not have the concept of "at will" employment any employer is able to release an employee for any reason during the first 13 weeks of employment without a need to state a reason.
Up to a point, this is correct. However, you cannot terminate a person's employment (even within the probationary period) for reasons contrary to discrimination laws. You couldn't, for instance, terminate the contract of a person of Asian extraction because "we don't hire Pakis here", nor could you fire a woman because the company has an all-male employment policy (such a policy would be almost certainly illegal, except for some very well defined exceptions).
Now, here's the interesting bit - and I really don't know how this will turn out - Hanff has made no secret of his views (which is why the Beeb interviewed him!); and it's reasonable to suspect that his employer was aware (or could reasonably be expected to be aware) of said views, and hired him anyway. He's claiming that his termination violates the Human Rights Act (though that tends to bind governments acts against the people, rather than between private entities), and he will sue accordingly.
We'll see how this turns out. Should be interesting. At stake is just how much control an employer can exercise over an employee speaking in his own time. It's not really about the "right to a job", it's to do with the extension of a contract beyond its terms. Employment contracts are infamous, being the only contract which one side can change the terms unilaterally (hence employment protection laws).
--Ng
How about if i'm just buying a new TV and want to weight in my choice the environmental track record of the manufacturer?
Or am buying clothing and want to know if the manufacturer uses child labour?
Or am buying financial services and want to know how does that company treat it's employees?
When sitting on the store one rarelly has internet access or the time to trail through the information even if said access is available.
It's self-deception to expect most people to take notebooks with mobile internet access to the electronics shop in order to make an informed decision on which TV to buy.
My sugestion is as follows:
- Setup an "informed choices" service. This should serve as an intermediary between consumers and third party entities (consumer groups, NGOs, government, business groups, whatever) willing to provide information about products and companies
- The service is customiseable per-person. You can log in via de internet and choose what factors do you care about and how much do u trust the information coming from each of the third party entities
- The service should support a simple and easy way of letting consumers get the right info when they're out shopping. For example using a mobile phone with a bar code reader (or maybe using the phone camera for that) or an RFID reader and a mobile connection to said service allowing to simply: press a button; point mobile at product; get the info u care about; choose.
The point here is two-fold:
- Give enough information to the consumers to let them do informed decisions but not so much that they need to spend lots of time just getting informed. (otherwise ppl will simply not do/use it). Hence the whole user configured filtering and trust weighting.
- Give consumers access to the information when and where they need it. Consumers should not have to prepare themselfs before going out shopping by browsing some site(s) in the Net, figure out beforehand the list of brands of the things they want to buy and having to memorize the (environmental, work conditions, polution history, whatever) information for each brand just to make informed decisions. Simply put - if they have to jump through all those hoops people will just not do it.
Hence the sugestion of mobile access and bar code/rfid tag reading - fast, simple, no preparation required - you just scan the product and out comes an evaluation of the brand/maker according to your chosen criteria (for example, respect for the environment)
Buying products from a company I know to be ethical adds value for me.
If it were legal, would you buy the cheapest product knowing that the company making it provides funding for guerilla groups who kidnap children, fill them with drugs and turn them in to child-soldiers?
if your answer is yes, then you've got a pretty interesting moral compass. If your answer is no, then you're making a decision based on idiological reasons.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
That would be the perfect time to say, "Yes, Cocoa-Puffs ARE cheaper here, but did you know they anally rape their employees with weed whackers?", or something like that.
Like the Corporate Fallout Detector, you mean?
I can testify to that. I recently worked with a company to integrate with their Groove.net based solution, a peer to peer environment for document exchange and synchronization. However, when we prepared to present our work, I was told explicitly and repeatedly NEVER to use the phrase 'peer to peer'. Given that we were trying to use our resulting solution to sell the overall package, I found it quite disturbing that such steps were necessary.
If the site were a wiki site, the companies accused could respond to the allegations, ensuring that if the allegations were outright false, or mistakes were made and later redressed, readers of the site could learn that.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
That's not true, at least not according to the legal advice I took when a new contract was being put together after my employer was bought out a few months back. There is no such thing as a contract that can automatically be changed by one party unilaterally, at least under UK law: one of the basic requirements of a legally binding contract is the understanding and consent of both parties.
What is common in the UK is to have a clause in your employment contract that says the employer can change anything at any time. This is usually argued to be a CYA manoeuvre in case the government changes employment regs and the wording needs tweaking. I've never bought this argument myself -- nor ever seen such a change being required -- but I can at least understand the perspective.
However, you have to realise that this is only possible because the contract already includes a term providing for it, to which both parties agreed, and its scope is rather limited even if it's written in an open-ended way. Even without the fact that the major employment details can't be changed unilaterally under UK employment laws anyway, changing anything in an unreasonable way using that clause could lead to a finding that the fundamental trust relationship has broken down between employer and employee. That in turn can result in a finding of constructive dismissal, which can be very costly in both financial and PR terms for the company.
In summary, the idea that an employment contract can be changed at will by one party is rather misleading, at least in the UK.
Obligatory disclaimer: IANAL, and if you're dealing with this sort of stuff relating to your own career, you do want to speak to one.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
as a side note, companies that do treat their employee's poorly always end up failing anyway, due to them not being able to keep any decent or well trained staff.
Oh, well that explains why walmart is such a crashing failure.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.