work in flexible britain

For those neo-thatcherites
A friend was working in a very rich profitable company for 8 months, he was subjected to an 8month probationary period

this means:

1. no holiday,
   
2. no overtime pay,
   
3. no paternity maternity leave-not sure about this one but i think so-,
   
4. no compensation if fired
5. in practice no proper lunches (overpriced sandwich over computer)
   
6. as much as 50% of the salary was in the form of a discretionary bonus, i.e. they can withdraw it for no reason.

The guy put furious work, hardly had a life for 8 months pressured to work 12-13 hours a day and think about work problems at home at the rest of the time...

The day before his probationary period ended, he had a "review". His boss told him he was not getting the bonus (everyone in the firm got theirs). My friend said he thought this is unfair because they made him believe throughout that his bonus was secure, and the boss fired him on the spot. This is in a high finance firm and my friend is well educated, reasonable, and calm computer database expert.

Essentially the whole job was created in such a way to evade the pathetically weak employment laws in the UK give. Mislead the employee at the time of the interview about the job compensation. Outright crookery.. its not even because the employer had difficulties, they do it either for fun, racistically, or ideologically victimising others...

"Fair play..."
The bastards need to be taxed out of their wits... flexible workforce, yes very flexible workforce, very inflexibly greedy bastardly employers.

There are no unions in IT btw...