fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
He needs to have a business model that pays his staff a decent wage
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Bin men strikes (17 Viewers)
- Thread starter Covstu
- Start date
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Marty
Well-Known Member
Just out of interest what do you do for a living?
Most small businesses barely scrape by so adding a 5k+ over night to the payroll is just ludicrous.
Nick
Administrator
He would be paying them the average going rate for that job with their experience and qualifications. To suddenly just whack thousands onto that because of benefits is laughable.
What happens if a care home business needs to suddenly pay their 100 carers £20k instead of £14k so it's more than benefits. That's £600k a year they need to find, so they will need to whack their prices up to cover that.
It's easy to say "pay people more" so that benefits aren't so tempting and it encourages people to work, where does all of the money come from to pay them all the extra few grand a year? This isn't just the people on £15k, as you give them a £5k payrise you have to give the people above them a payrise, then the people above them.
dancers lance
Well-Known Member
I have a small business, I would be very interested in the secret that will allow me (whilst barely getting by) that gifts me the opportunity of paying 20% more for materials (due to that sterling rate), not being able to pass this on to the end user, whilst enjoying a life changing pay rise?
A company I used to work for (1000 shops) cut store running hours by 5% when the minimum wage went up from £7.20 to £7.50 earlier in the year.
I'm not sure what they would do if it was suddenly upped to say a tenner an hour. I would bet the unemployment rate would jump drastically in no time as I'm sure plenty of other companies would cut their hours too.
In my case I'd probably have to sack the wife. Every cloud and all that...
I'm not sure what they would do if it was suddenly upped to say a tenner an hour. I would bet the unemployment rate would jump drastically in no time as I'm sure plenty of other companies would cut their hours too.
In my case I'd probably have to sack the wife. Every cloud and all that...
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Why do you keep talking about benefits? You're even more obtuse than Astute
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
What's happening with those corporation tax savings?
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Captain Dart
Well-Known Member
Not so sure about that, but the experience might be a tad rumbustious for one's tastes.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
I'm a buyer. Can you tell me what you mean by small business? SME / Micro Business?
I'm not sure why you and Obtuse II think I'm advocating wage rises across the board.
I'm just making the general point that the alleged growth and strength in the British economy is a load of bollocks, and what growth there is is swallowed up chiefly by executive pay.
This is aided by people like Nick with the race to the bottom mentality.
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Nick
Administrator
Because the discussion was to raise wages above benefits rather than decrease the benefit amount.
Where does all the money come from for the raised salaries?
dancers lance
Well-Known Member
I think you will find they are called "non binary, gender undefined, refuse colleagues.
Nick
Administrator
Because you were saying the bin man was underpaid at £17k and should be paid more, because universal benefits are more so there's no incentive to work. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs on less than £17k so surely they should be increased too?
It isn't a race to the bottom mentality, it's a "Its ok demanding pay rises for people on less than the universal benefit alternative, but where does the money come from?" mentality. Yes, at huge corporations where you have the big wigs on stupid money for doing nothing it's different where there is "executive pay" but what about small businesses where there is no executive staff and it's a man / woman with a couple of staff on minimum wage grafting.
I haven't mentioned the growth and strength or any politics, I have just said if people start getting pay rises because they earn less than benefits then there is a knock on effect.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Where have i said wages should go up across the board? I'm just making the point that pay in the UK is shite.
What's happening to the gap between inflation and pay growth Nick?
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
Remember when the living wage (the real one not the one that is being brought in) was being discussed one big chain, forget who, said that they would have to increase prices to be able to pay it. Somebody calculated how many of their employees it would impact and how many hours and the extra wages came to less than 5% of the previous years profit.
That to me is a great illustration of the problem. Things need to be rebalanced.
How can it be justified that people working full time hours require benefits on top of their wages to survive when they are employed by the likes of Tesco who are making a fortune in profits. Its basically robbing the poor to pay the rich. Taxpayers are subsidising poor wages while those at the top walk away with millions.
Nick
Administrator
Which jobs should be increased and which should stay under the amount they could get on benefits if it isn't across the board so there is an incentive?
I haven't mentioned executives, politics etc. Just commented that realistically £17k for a bin man job isn't actually that bad. It's as you say though, why would people bother when they can get paid more on benefits?
For clarity the Universal Credit /benefit is per household, designed to bring down some of the extravagant lifestyles of folks with 8 kids etc.
But I maintain that £20K is fair as an incentive to get out of bed at 5-30 in the morning.
17K will be considerably above what benefit one individual would receive while out of work.
The poverty line for a couple of pensioners is £237, how is being single or alone supposed to be easier if your take home is not much more than that?
chiefdave
Well-Known Member
Universal income is an interesting topic. The (very basic) theory of it is that given how much the benefit system costs in both payments and administration you could give every person a wage that is enough to cover a basic standard of living.
The idea is that then any job you take is earning you more, you're never in a position where it doesn't pay to take an offered job. And of course if you wanted to pursue a career as a sportsperson, musician, actor or similar you could concentrate on that for a few years.
The theory goes that jobs then have to be made more attractive. Nobody would go and stack shelves in Tesco on a zero hour contract for minimum wage if they had the basic cost of living covered so Tesco would have to make the job more attractive via better pay and conditions.
Obviously you'd need to bring in things like rent control and other safeguards to ensure everything doesn't just shift up and leave you back where you started. Interesting idea but I can't see it happening here. They're trialling it in some places though. Finland, Canada and Italy being the most prominent.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Isn't the cap 26k per household? Or has that been reduced? Or is 20k the net equivalent?
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Similar to tax credits when they were first introduced to support growth and encourage folk to accept roles where wages were indeed low.
Obviously not to the level where you could live off the credits alone though.
Nick
Administrator
I agree when it comes to places like that. It wouldn't make a dent to places like Tesco or Amazon but would make a difference to smaller companies who aren't making millions in profit.
I don't disagree with a Living Wage, if that was brought in or the minimum wage raised surely it would still have a knock on effect with the companies that couldn't absorb them from profits like Tesco, Amazon etc etc? For example a small florist who has the owner and one other member of staff where it could be the decider on whether they employ that 1 other staff member.
Nick
Administrator
I work in IT.
I believe £21K is the cap FP where under the same circumstances it was £26K, you have induced doubt there for me now though. B-)
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
Bet you're looking forward to the trade deal with India post Brexit
Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Nick
Administrator
I haven't even thought about it.
Nick
Administrator
But if the 17k is still a lot more than somebody would get not working, why is there no incentive to do it?
£20k would be pretty decent for a job you can walk into without qualifications and experience. There are graduate jobs with degrees and experience needed for much less than that.
dancers lance
Well-Known Member
FP, I was a purchasing manager for years, I had 40+ staff, buyers, blanket order buyers, purchase ledger staff etc... I had the power to list products with large multi nationals, nationals and 'tied in' independents.
As a buyer, when you are offering an 'opportunity' to list a product to a potential supplier you would know that your job is to force down the wholesale price (therefore maximising profit and reducing risk), and include an over rider, surely you would be well aware that these are only achieved buy the supplier being able to get that product produced at the lowest cost? And you would be well aware that labour would be the first 'port of call'
Astute
Well-Known Member
Depends what your job is.
I work in manufacturing. Our production lines are big. We get a decent wage. It isn't because the work is hard. They pay for my knowledge. I normally know what is wrong as soon as the machine breaks down or doesn't work properly. Some fixes only take a minute or two. Someone without knowledge could be there for an hour or so scratching their nuts trying to work out what is wrong. That is a lot of lost production.
Bin men deserve a decent wage. In the summer it stinks and you get too hot. In winter you get freezing cold and slip all over the place. When it rains you get drenched. Yes you can get replaced. But they are better off with people who like the job and stick with it for years.
Astute
Well-Known Member
Astute
Well-Known Member
Come on Nick.
I have moved about a fair bit. One move I did about 25 years ago gave me an idea what bin men do....although it was binbags them days. And they weren't left at the gate either. I got the job the day after moving area. I stayed in the job for 2 weeks until I got the job I trained for. I took a pay cut. But once doing the job I wanted I looked for a better paid job doing the same. Eventually I ended up working for the company I do now. I have been with them for over 20 years.
Or I could have stayed as a binman because it paid more than the next job I took.
Nick
Administrator
Yep, but bin men aren't walking up gardens and steps and carrying bin bags and steel bins on their backs down to the truck to throw them in and then take them back up again any more. I can understand if that was the case.
If you had trained for another job then surely that would influence whether you were a bin man or pushing a wheelbarrow on a building site anyway?
Astute
Well-Known Member
But they are still out in all kinds of weather. 17k is well below the average wage. But you are making out it is a good wage. My wife earns more than that. And her job is easy. 8am to 4:30pm Monday to Thursday and a half day Friday. By what you are saying she must be vastly overpaid. She works in IT.
Nick
Administrator
Plenty of jobs are below the average wage though. You could go to uni and get a degree and have 5 years experience in the job and still be below the average wage.
If all jobs were then raised to be closer to the average wage then surely the average would just go up when other jobs go up because of it? Not just bin men.
I am not saying it is an amazing wage, I am saying it isn't as bad as being made out for a job somebody could potentially walk into from leaving school with no qualifications. If you believed everything from this thread it would be that being on £17k would have people searching through the bins to get food, and that binmen are tidying people's houses for them.
I'm not saying bin men are scum of the earth and they don't deserve to be paid etc. I am just saying that there are plenty of other jobs where people are outside all day, plenty of other manual jobs and jobs that aren't the best working conditions. Surely they should all get a pay rise as well if it's on that basis?
Surely like you knowing exactly how to fix a machine and engineering your wife would be trained and experienced to know how to do things in IT? It's the same with most jobs.