A few thruths about Virgin media engineers (Kelly Communication ones!)

[spenderw]

For 9 yrs i thought things might eventually change to give the subbies more employment rights.This was masked by a poor attempt at conning everyone into believing they were on the cards with these composite payroll firms with promises of holiday pay and sick pay which amounted to a small fraction of their wage and guess what?the ni contributions they paid did n`t entitle them to any benefits.The whole industry needs to go back in house with fair distribution of work for 8 hrs with the event of special installs catered for by a floating crew.This should go all the way back to construction where in my experience there appeared to be more money available for the subbies untill kellys could`nt cope with the workload on a incorrectly maybe even amateurishly priced contract,they subbed it out again leaving the actual workforce on a reduced day rate i.e.i used to earn 180-210 a day for 10 construction jobs which was hard work and would take 10 hrs now they pay 120 a day for 14 jobs in a bigger area i would have to drive 160 miles a day to cover those 14 jobs.Nodding off at the wheel several times was enough for me to get out although i think i was pushed out in the end sorry about ranting but i could go on for days if i were a whistleblower you would hear me in Austraila.

---------- Post added at 21:02 ---------- Previous post was at 20:37 ----------

another point is kellys are locked in a 5yr contact with 3 1/2 years left to go.This happened when the contract went turnkey kellys had to work to an agreed budget based on a price agreed with TELEWEST/NTL Lets not be fooled RB only has 8% its a brand name. He latches onto failing companies who would benefit from a name change(everyone trusts the bearded one).its still the same upper management as it was when telewest/ntl merged.example of price agreed; standard remote priced by kellys £1 actual price;£5 how can they make money its only a matter of time and kellys will pull out when the fine is affordable by ripping their own guys off.Ido think having RB on board was good for morale but that is flagging daily.

[eth01]

Originally Posted by spenderw

I have worked for kellys for 9 yrs as a installer and construction pre-proofer 3months ago i received a phone call informing me i have six days then i will no longer be required. i was then employed by another firm for a crap day rate who subbed the work off kellys themselves guess the managers needed new cars(fact).I would have to say if you hear anything good about kellys its a lie and vice versa.im off for therapy now after 9 yrs of brainwashing then im off to cobra to see if they are any better

would you ever contemplate using Kelly again (after you've had time to think)?

[spenderw]

i assume you mean work for them again,things would need to change,the money was good,but a majority of their staff myself included were regarded as casual labour even after 9yrs.i would have gone on the cards and probably still would its only the contractor side thats crap.

[wigro]

Originally Posted by spenderw

i assume you mean work for them again,things would need to change,the money was good,but a majority of their staff myself included were regarded as casual labour even after 9yrs.i would have gone on the cards and probably still would its only the contractor side thats crap.

All you ask is a fair days work for a fair days pay . After 9 years of hard work if you still havent got , contract , terms and conditions whats the point ? You might earn good money but for how many hours or days a week ?
Its so unfair that decent hard working blokes get treated like this by suits . Just my p o v

[ZZJohnSmithZZ]

also they dont provide latex gloves to protect staff from leprosis (weils disease)

also they dont have enough stock in the stores and resort to scrounging stock from techs and sending out faulty box's

not giving tech pit pens to tag cables and result in tech failing audit
same with TV GUIDES AND PHONE GUIDES

they get rid of people for not enough reason and so "FORCE" members of staff to leave. they are also banned from certain areas because of being cowboys

---------- Post added at 13:55 ---------- Previous post was at 13:54 ----------

also have not go id badge.. how shoddy

[Graham M]

Originally Posted by ZZJohnSmithZZ

also they dont provide latex gloves to protect staff from leprosis (weils disease)

More commonly known as Leptospirosis </pedant>

[ZZJohnSmithZZ]

you spent 2 minutes of your time to correct that, you need a hobby. the answer i was given when i asked why, they said they dont protect against needles. but the rigging gloves gave better protection.??
burn kellys burn

[adrian1971]

hi guys,
this may sound dumb like but im gonna ask anyway, the telephone interview ?
how the el can you have an interview over the telephone,
with regards to terms of contract. i think there is a law that says you must have a contract after a certain period of being with the company, however if you get paid through a composite company then that be diffrent.
was some time ago that i went through a composite company so it might have changed, but when i went through it i was in theary employed by the composite company and went through there terms and conditions, bear in mind though that im going back 8 years er.

[Scarlett]

For composite company read possible tax dodge.

A number of composite companies have been set up for this reason and HMRC pay them special attention.

And as for contracts, they cannot make you sign away your rights in a job contract. It might be a complicated and long document but you get your basic rights regardless of what it might say.
Legally they cannot make you sign away your right to not work more than 48 hours a week as a condition for getting the job in the first place although many companies (and I've had first hand experience of this) will tell you that you have to sign it otherwise they cannot employ you.

[Dons]

I see it has been quite some time since some1 posted anything on this thread, i am only posting this to confirm on what is STILL going on at Kelly Communication. The Engineers are still getting the same money the hours are still way to long and the amount of crap all of the employees have to go through makes this job very undesirable. Kellys now have all their engineers on self employed status, wich meens no holiday pay, no sick pay. Someone in kellys told me virgin pay them £150 per engineer per job, you do the math if a average day consisted of 4-7 jobs @ 100+ engineers working North london only.

I would wish anyone who dares the best of luck if they are about to join this company, oh yes and the training pay is actually £40 a day for 3-6 weeks and good luck with getting paid in full. It seems that the composite companys that you are forced to use that do your tax and N.I are having a great time....just a example for 2 weeks worth of hard work i only managed to earn a measly £600<---thats not actually the amount i got paid. After the composite companys had their fun with my wages i only CLEARED £405 and that is for 2 weeks worth of hard word. Not to mention that Kellys will subtract something called retention every payrun of about £25 untill it hits £500, that is to say that they dont hit you with some sort of miscellanious charge. It has happened in the past that they actually tried to deduct money from my wages after a customer apparently told them i moved a cd rack infront of a radiator heater and it MELTED all of his cd's, they tried to deduct £500 pounds from my wages untill i asked who the guy was and when it happened they were quick to back down and say SORRY we got it all wrong.

Best of luck

I handed in my resignation last week..... i can honostly say the time i spend at this company I learned a lot and one of those lessons were NEVER work for these self obsessed money hungry *******s.

[siteauditor]

Hmmm. This all makes very interesting reading!

[JayJay]

Thats a bit mad! So the moral of the story is, Avoid Kellys!

Im happy with Avonline thank you

[siteauditor]

Well, I've been travelling the UK auditing Kelly sites on behalf of VM, and all I can say is.......well I'll give you a clue - American chaps who ride horses a lot and dabble in the odd bit of gunslinging!

[JayJay]

Yeeeeeehawwwwww!!!

[piggy]

Originally Posted by siteauditor

Well, I've been travelling the UK auditing Kelly sites on behalf of VM, and all I can say is.......well I'll give you a clue - American chaps who ride horses a lot and dabble in the odd bit of gunslinging!

to be fair have you done a audit on any of the rest? imo even with there faults they still better than the rest by a very very long way.