Minimum Wage,£7 an hour

[markcoznottz]

Prawnboy said:

Rovinghawk said:

Prawnboy said:

what percentage should the employer or state cover the basic cost of living, or should neither have to worry about it?

It's not the employer's place to deal with social issues; if the employee has 7 kids then that's still no reason for the employer to have to pay enough to keep them all in what you describe as basic comfort. The employee should bear a certain responsibility for where he is in life.

The state has a certain responsibility to the population, but with responsibility come rights. If the employee wants money to live to a certain standard then I would have no problem with certain restrictions. He might have reasonable expectations of a roof, clothes & balanced diet & I could support this. I do not accept that I should have to help pay for booze, tobacco or Sky TV; they can fund that for themselves.

In short, I would accept that the state, ie the taxpayer, should fund a safety net but it should be at the most very basic level. If people want more than the bare essentials they should be forced ("incentivised") to climb the ladder themselves rather than expect to be helped up by others.

I accept that there would be exceptions such as disabled, etc.

i utterly agree, that the individual shouldn't take the piss, and should be striving to do the best they can, those are the ones i'm talking about.

is a shortfall in wages at a full time job something that should be covered by a safety net though?
tesco for example has a profit forcast of £2.4bn this year, i don't know if i feel comfortable that my tax money pays the rent of many of their employees.

Tesco is (was??) a success story, the shortfall we all pay covered taxation is to cover the governments stupidity, inflation for example is nothing more than the state moving away from it debts, shrinking them. Tesco isn't to blame really. What you are really doing there is blaming tesco for the housing boom, which is 100% state derived. Maybe blair and brown should donate 50% of thier income to the pot for HB.

[Rovinghawk]

Prawnboy said:

tesco for example has a profit forcast of £2.4bn this year.

markcoznottz said:

Tesco is (was??) a success story,

Tesco isn't to blame really.

Have you two been hearing the news recently?

[Prawnboy]

markcoznottz said:

Tesco is (was??) a success story, the shortfall we all pay covered taxation is to cover the governments stupidity, inflation for example is nothing more than the state moving away from it debts, shrinking them. Tesco isn't to blame really. What you are really doing there is blaming tesco for the housing boom, which is 100% state derived. Maybe blair and brown should donate 50% of thier income to the pot for HB.

not blaming anyone, just saying i'm not sure if i feel ok with the situation.
it's all very complex of course, and the buy to let boom certainly screwed alot of people, but then it made others very rich, in a capatalist democracy nothing is 100% state derived. businesses and individuals took the opportunities presented to them and made successes with them, this in turn may not have worked out so well for others but no-one HAD to take those opportunities.

[MissChief]

Rovinghawk said:

Have you two been hearing the news recently?

So instead of £2.4 billion it will only be £2.15 billion? Oh my heart bleeds for the CEO and his bonus.

[JensenA]

Murph7355 said:

JensenA said:

...
Compared to what I do now, IT. Work was an absolute piece of pi$$. In at 9, have a coffee, have a chat, go to the subsidised canteen, sorry 'restaurant', at 1, finish at 5, easy life. ...

Easy life....until you were made redundant.

There is no such thing as an "easy life" and to earn good money and minimise your chances of being cast adrift. Doesn't matter what the industry IMO.

The people who don't live in the real world are those expecting an uptick in benefit with no downside. One way or another there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Yes it was easy. And I did earn good money. My post was made on the basis of my experience of 20 years in the IT Industry, and a fair few years in the Auto sector, So stop trying to imply things, and assuming you are correct in your ignorant assumptions.

[mph1977]

for those forecasting the death of the warehouse operative as it can all be automated ...

i'd suggest that for some stuff it won't

pallet load you could compeltely automate it and just have robot VNA trucks feeding to / from robot PPTs overseen by a couple of people in a control room and a couple of people to sign the manifests off at the loading dock

attempts ot mechanise 'less that palletload' in both parcels and retail distribution have been fraught with problems, to the point that one systme in parcel distribution requires extra staff to make the the none functioning automated system work after a fashion , and one in retail has been put back from full deployment repeatedly over the past couple of years ...

[turbobloke]

Never said death, merely accelerating demise to a significantly lower employmemt point than now, and illustrations were just that but they still look reasonable.

[Rovinghawk]

mph1977 said:

for those forecasting the death of the warehouse operative as it can all be automated ...

i'd suggest that for some stuff it won't

Look at how containerisation got rid of the need for so many dockers. Project that concept forward.

[mph1977]

Rovinghawk said:

mph1977 said:

for those forecasting the death of the warehouse operative as it can all be automated ...

i'd suggest that for some stuff it won't

Look at how containerisation got rid of the need for so many dockers. Project that concept forward.

so did palletisation as well

containerisation / palletisation reduces the labour required at changes of form of transport en route but unless you are delivering whole containers to stores there is still handling at the destination nation

product is packed into boxes and loose loaded into containers at place of production - loose loaded bwecause containers and standard pallets are incompatible sizes also palletised product in containers would waste volume for high volume / low mass products

containers travel to holding centre/ DC in the destination and the loose loaded products are palletised as a 2.55 m wide container doesn;t accomodate standrd pallets in aspace efficient way.

the pallets are stored at and then eventually are dispatched

pallets are picked or boxes / loose product picked from the pallets and dispatched to stores

trying to pack at point of origin ot preduict in store demand 8-12 weeks ahead is virtually impossible and also doesn;t account for the lose ./ delay en route all to common.

[Murph7355]

JensenA said:

Murph7355 said:

JensenA said:

...
Compared to what I do now, IT. Work was an absolute piece of pi$$. In at 9, have a coffee, have a chat, go to the subsidised canteen, sorry 'restaurant', at 1, finish at 5, easy life. ...

Easy life....until you were made redundant.

There is no such thing as an "easy life" and to earn good money and minimise your chances of being cast adrift. Doesn't matter what the industry IMO.

The people who don't live in the real world are those expecting an uptick in benefit with no downside. One way or another there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Yes it was easy. And I did earn good money. My post was made on the basis of my experience of 20 years in the IT Industry, and a fair few years in the Auto sector, So stop trying to imply things, and assuming you are correct in your ignorant assumptions.

And what ignorant assumptions are they?

Which part of my main observation do you disagree with?

The minimum wage increase that you seem to think will help hard working people out of a rut (lifelong or otherwise) will do nothing of the sort. Did the introduction of a minimum wage in the late 90s do anything to improve the lot of that sector of people? Narrow the wealth gap?

As others have said...improve education so that people can make the very best of their potential. Try and drill into people that hard work is essential in doing this. Improve private business/industry conditions (less red tape, less dumb rules, better tax incentivisation) so that more people can be employed to open up opportunities. And we also need to accept that there will always be people at all ends of the income/ability/whatever spectrums. Trying to falsely flatten this is the road to ruin (Labour seemingly tried for many years and had us on the brink of ruin).

[powerstroke]

Wages are the perfect example of the free market while we have unlimited low skilled labour the minimum wage will be the wage for many, put it up and all it will do is draw even more migrants and make things worse , control immigration and the problem of the vast gap between rich and poor Brits will narrow as firms compete for workers with a better offer in pay and conditions.

[Murph7355]

powerstroke said:

Wages are the perfect example of the free market while we have unlimited low skilled labour the minimum wage will be the wage for many, put it up and all it will do is draw even more migrants and make things worse , control immigration and the problem of the vast gap between rich and poor Brits will narrow as firms compete for workers with a better offer in pay and conditions.

It's not that simple though.

First of all, many companies have to compete globally. So just hiking wages may not be feasible if it makes them uncompetitive.

And is all immigration linked to low paid jobs? I suspect not - end of the day we have 2-3m (?) unemployed in this country. I suspect a chunk of immigration is skills based. Personally I'd prefer to see the unemployed trained up to fill roles, be mobile, and start filling jobs that we apparently need immigrants to cover... But these things are also not straightforward.

We're significantly far away from being like India. Talk of poverty in this country is ridiculous IMO. I wouldn't be faffing about with the minimum wage, I'd be cutting into benefits heavily, using the money saved for focused training schemes and encouraging businesses to set up and grow.

[jonah35]

Id scrap the minimum wage and let employers be free to choose what they want to pay. Market forces will find their level.

[Digga]

Murph7355 said:

We're significantly far away from being like India. Talk of poverty in this country is ridiculous IMO.

I agree totally.

Murph7355 said:

I wouldn't be faffing about with the minimum wage, I'd be cutting into benefits heavily, using the money saved for focused training schemes and encouraging businesses to set up and grow.

I think the adult conversation that is required is how and where we begin to cut back on the size of the state. Where, for example, was CMD's "Bonfire of the Quangos"?

As for incentives, do not let the government get involved with this. They always tend to favour the same (favourite) businesses and redistributing the wealth in this way is far less effective than government stepping back, as far as is possible, from business (in terms of both regulation and taxation) and letting them get on with it.

[The_Burg]

And now £8 an hour? I'd argue it's not a living wage still. But what will it cause? The £10 Big Mac meal, £5 a pint?
Nobody will benefit overall, just force those just above it due to skills etc to have no pay rise for a couple of years,
It won't encou the feckless as the charity, oops income support will have to rise to cover the increased cost of goods.