6th March 2006, 04:00 PM
Tile man, sorry, Im not convinced!
The IFA needs to find a way of proving in the here and now that it can do something tangible about pay and conditions before I will part with ?100 on the promise of jam tomorrow. The perennial cry of the IFA is 'if you don't join, we can't represent you' thereby attempting to shift the blame for their inaction onto others.
But the fact is that I don't believe that they have the will to do what I want them to. I think they act like a trade body, representing the interests of employers by setting the rules for competition within the marketplace (for their members at least). It may be that they do a lot of good in that role (Codes of conduct, Guidelines etc), but it is down to them to convince me that they have any intention of doing something to improve pay and conditions and provide tangible benefits for field staff. I mean more than just words.
I don't have an ideological stance against joining, but only if I am fully convinced of the benefits will I pay a hundred quid for the privilege. And I'm not, so I won't!
A substantially lower fee (perhaps compensated for by a higher fee for those earning a lot - I'm still gob-smacked by ?28,000+!) might mean that more people could join on the off chance that good would come of it.
The IFA needs to find a way of proving in the here and now that it can do something tangible about pay and conditions before I will part with ?100 on the promise of jam tomorrow. The perennial cry of the IFA is 'if you don't join, we can't represent you' thereby attempting to shift the blame for their inaction onto others.
But the fact is that I don't believe that they have the will to do what I want them to. I think they act like a trade body, representing the interests of employers by setting the rules for competition within the marketplace (for their members at least). It may be that they do a lot of good in that role (Codes of conduct, Guidelines etc), but it is down to them to convince me that they have any intention of doing something to improve pay and conditions and provide tangible benefits for field staff. I mean more than just words.
I don't have an ideological stance against joining, but only if I am fully convinced of the benefits will I pay a hundred quid for the privilege. And I'm not, so I won't!
A substantially lower fee (perhaps compensated for by a higher fee for those earning a lot - I'm still gob-smacked by ?28,000+!) might mean that more people could join on the off chance that good would come of it.