The minimum wage is so pitiful that millions of people are curretly on Working Tax Credit, meaning that poorly-paying employers are subsidised by the State: I don’t see the anti-tax party complaining about the burden these companies are placing on hard-working tax-payers.

Freedom to take a pay cut doesn’t sound very useful, does it?

But consider a business that’s experiencing cash flow problems and needs to make savings. There’s two ways it can go: Either the staff take a pay cat voluntarily (which keeps all the capacity in the business) or they have to let some people go – or not give a new job to some extra person who’s needed.

In fact, that’s exactly what happened to me at the beginning of this year – Everyone else in the company agreed to a 10% pay cut because they needed that extra person with specific skills (which turned out to be me).

This Tory is simply saying that because of the minimum wage, if that’s what your staff are being paid, the only option is to sack people, or not give jobs. The staff can’t take a pay cut in order to save everyone’s job.

Minimum wage ‘prices’ certain workers out of the market. If your labours isn’t worth the minimum wage then it’s impossible for you to get a job legally.

So, basically, it’s complicated isn’t it? Not quite so clear cut. People don’t like being made redundant, especially in a recession when you hang on to whatever work you can get.

Shatterface,

It’s the Government that’s put the burden on the tax payer, not the employers.

I’ll say like I did in your blog, Claude.

Check the debate that occurred (thought it was obviously more of a statement) and you’ll see two things.

1) That it is a Tory that is the first person to move a bill that allows Asylum Seekers to take work rather than be forced to live off of paltry benefits and treated like third class citizens by our government. That alone is an indictment of the Labour government.

2) Check this quote…

The Government regard an income of £11,918 per year as much in excess of an employee’s personal needs. That is why a single person on that salary is required to pay no less than £1,887 in tax and national insurance, thereby effectively reducing their take-home pay to £4.82 an hour instead of the £5.73 that it is nominally.

IF (and it’s a big if that I don’t honestly expect to be fulfilled) there was the lower bound determined, it would be easy to regulate that…

a) Employers could not advertise or expect a person to take less than the current minimum wage,
b) that a person could opt-out of the minimum wage if they felt it would give them a greater competitive edge,
c) that the company would be able to negotiate with the individual if they opt-out to no less than the lower bound.

In which case I don’t see a problem with it. Though you need to be careful with Chope’s argument that £4.82 should be the new minimum wage in effect, given that such a wage would bring home even less of a take home income, and thus the argument can be self perpetuating. That isn’t to say that people shouldn’t be able to choose for themselves if they take the minimum wage or not.

Of course ideally the government would greatly increase the personal tax allowance to a liveable standard for individuals and make the minimum wage equivalent to that level, but outside of this I’m not sure Chope’s measure is entirely without merit, especially on the Asylum Seekers.

Charlotte(3): no, its employers who do not pay the market rate who place the burden on the tax payer.

Without subsidy by the State people would simply not take these jobs.

The difference between Chope and Purnell is, well, what, exactly?
His welfare reform proposals include the notion of pushing the unemployed into work for pay at below the minimum wage…

5. Where’s your evidence that wages have come down as a result of tax credits?

Clearly employers set wages based on what it takes to get the right people to come and take the jobs. There’s nothing sinister about that at all. It’s up to people to decide what wage they’re willing to work for (and if they’re not willing to work for the minimum wage and they can’t command a higher salary due to lack of skills then they’ll just stay on benefits).

It’s just as likely that people need more money than their skills are actually worth, and rather than skill up they’re just taking tax credits instead.

Never make the mistake of assuming that salary+tax credits is what a person’s labour is ‘really’ worth. Tax credits are nothing more than rebates for tax paid, and without the rebate they’d be paid the same wage (which costs the employer the same) but pay more tax.

It’s a political decision that people without children should be taxed far more heavily than people with children. Employers have nothing to do with it.

Peaple are paid less than they earn for their employers: that’s the nature of capitalism. That’s what profit is.

It is in the nature of capitalists that the discrepancy between what an employee earns for the employer and what they are paid is as large as possible.

“It’s up to people to decide what wage they’re willing to work for (and if they’re not willing to work for the minimum wage and they can’t command a higher salary due to lack of skills then they’ll just stay on benefits).”

What utter bollocks, Charlotte. There is NOT a market, in any meaningful sense, for jobs. People take a job, any job, because they need to do things like eat and pay the bills and clothe their children. If you aren’t lucky enough to get a decent job straight away, you get stuck in shitty minimum wage jobs, because if you’ve shown you’re willing to work, and work hard, for that little, it’s unlikely anyone will give you a well paid job.

It’s nothing to do with lack of skills, not for the vast majority of people in low paid work.

Huge corporations will force people to “voluntarily” agree to this or refuse to give them a job. There are many many many already doing this in regard to (for example) the working time directive opt outs. This is because, oddly enough, in contract negotiations between a low paid worker and a huge corporation, there is an imbalance of power. There are large numbers of people, especially in the current economic climate, who are desperate for a job, any job, and thus anyone who holds their ground over a living wage simply won’t get a job at all, no matter how skilled they are.

I wish it was the case that a person with skills can magically “command a higher salary”, but the truth of the matter is that there are exponentially more skilled people than there are high paid jobs.

Sheesh I didn’t want a lesson in basic Marxist economic theory thanks very much.

Careful where you pointing your irrational hatred, Shatterface. Sure Capitalism’s very hard on the unskilled. They either need more skills or the ability to undercut their competition (which they’re not allowed to do, so it comes down to other factors like personality and personal appearance).

It’s hard, and the only advice I have is not to let yourself stay unskilled for long.

At the end of the day profit is a reward for success, for doing something that people need and want, at the right price. That’s not easy, and can and often does go the wrong way. People lose everything. Profit is good. It rewards the right people doing the right things. What’s the alternative? The alternative is Government deciding who and what to reward based on political considerations, and that means protectionism, it means subsidies for cronies and friends, it means old tired failed technology (high speed diesel trains) continues to thrive at the expense of newer, better technology (like electric trains). It means workers continue to hang onto a limited and pointless set of skills rather than retraining and moving into some actually useful area. It’s economically destructive no matter how well meaning or well intentioned the minds behind it are.

The alternative is much worse – we know because it’s been tried, over and over again, and it fails every single time – corruption, incompetence, poverty and death. Look at how the politics and economics of the Soviet Union influenced the Chernobyl disaster as a very obviously and striking example.

The potential for making profit is what makes people economically active. If you take that away then you’re making people take risks without any hope of reward, so they simply don’t bother. Why take out a second mortgage on your house if all you’re going to get back is cost at best?

I want a job, I want to work, I want to make a living. I don’t care how much profit my employer makes, so long as they’re making profit because that means they’ll keep running and I’ll keep my job. If they stop making profit then I’m working for losers and will need to move on, and in a recession that’s not easy.

Just cos you don’t like something or don’t understand something doesn’t mean it’s bad. In this case, you’re having a go at the thing that puts food on the table for millions of people here, and it’s profit that’s taxed to pay for your public services, your hospitals, your schools. Like I said: Careful where you’re pointing that irrational hatred.

“It is in the nature of capitalists that the discrepancy between what an employee earns for the employer and what they are paid is as large as possible.”

And if there are appropriate safeguards then Chope’s proposals won’t allow the employer to demand or even expect to pay less than minimum wage. So what’s your point?

Hi Jennie,

I wish it was the case that a person with skills can magically “command a higher salary”, but the truth of the matter is that there are exponentially more skilled people than there are high paid jobs.

Well, true, yes. This is why I go mad when I look at things like the tax burden and regulatory burden – and the authoritarian planning regulations – that limits the amount of activity there is in the private sector.

So long as the private sector is artificially limited to the point where there’s more people looking for jobs then this is what’s going to happen. Skilled people end up competing with unskilled people for unskilled jobs, which is bad for both isn’t it?

I want more real economic activity. I don’t want the Government to tax what little real economic activity there is even more to create magic public sector jobs.

Especially in a recession, when things are getting worse, you’re not wrong that things are tough, that people will sometimes take any job they can get.

But this doesn’t change the fact that employers advertise a job for the minimum salary it takes to get people to apply and take the job.

@Charlotte yes, because it’s only the ‘unskilled’ who work in low-paying jobs, and it’s their own fault and they deserve everything they get, of course… it’s odd, because I now earn £24,000 per year and have no more skills than when I was on the minimum wage a year ago, while my wife (who has all the skills I use in my day-to-day work, can speak more languages than I can, and has a number of other skills I don’t have and will probably never acquire) is still on not much over the minimum wage. But it *must* be that I magically ‘skilled up’. It couldn’t possibly be that ‘the market’ simply doesn’t work very well at rewarding people for the work they do, could it?

And what on earth are you talking about, “irrational hatred”? Shatterface made a fairly straightforward, emotionless statement…

The ability to shop around for jobs to make the most of your skills is dependent on a healthy amount of economic activity. Which we don’t have.

And, if the Green Movement gets their way, and the socialists, and all the other people that see Business as an enemy to be beaten into submission get their way, there’ll be even less economic activity and the problem will be even worse.

I’m not saying you’re wrong, far from it. These problems are exactly what you’d expect from a gimped economy, which is what ours is.

“What utter bollocks, Charlotte. There is NOT a market, in any meaningful sense, for jobs.”

It really depends on the field, obviously. In markets where there are less skills available for the jobs that need them it’s amazing to see how easily wages can shoot up…the opposite drives wages down…how is this not a market?

The lack of the jobs, in general, for the skills the country is learning is a very real issue though, one the government seems genuinely oblivious to.

“Huge corporations will force people to “voluntarily” agree to this or refuse to give them a job.”

This is really not hard to stop, if we have the will to ensure it is appropriately regulated and enforced.

“There are large numbers of people, especially in the current economic climate, who are desperate for a job, any job, and thus anyone who holds their ground over a living wage simply won’t get a job at all, no matter how skilled they are.”

So perhaps a good alternative would be that companies making a profit of at least £X a year shouldn’t be allowed to pay less than minimum wage, opt out or not? Combine that with employers not being able to offer less than the minimum wage or to at any point suggest/cajole or require that an opt-out is taken and you’d have a fairly robust system that could open up the employment market a bit more in these times.

If the emphasis is on businesses not being able to offer the job unless they’re willing and able to pay the minimum wage, then the power is in the workers court. If none of them want to opt-out they don’t have to, if one does then that’s their prerogative.

“It couldn’t possibly be that ‘the market’ simply doesn’t work very well at rewarding people for the work they do, could it?”

Can we differentiate the job market from the general market of commerce and commercial activity? The market works perfectly fine for rewarding workers for the skills they have relative to the general availability of those skills and the skills required for the job.

Jennie speaks the truth. There are so many people in unskilled jobs who are highly intelligent, often well qualified, but for whatever reason don’t manage to earn what they could because they don’t find jobs.

We do not live in some libertopia where someone can magically go from being the tea girl to master of the universe based on merit, we live in a system whereby ability to bullshit one’s way through the interview, nepotistic connections, & parental income distort “meritocracy”.

You should be glad, as these jobs need to be done.

If jobs do not provide enough to live on, people will rely on the state, as happened in the 1980s.

I am no supporter of the tax credits fiasco as I would rather see the threshold raised. But having a national minimum wage is the most realistic way of making work pay for those who do not dwell in the pages of an Ayn Rand “novel”.

A question for those that feel aggrieved at the idea of working for less than minimum wage by your own choice…how are you on the situation of businesses that are cutting pay by 20% and reducing the working week?

In the latter situation they aren’t working 100% of their previous time for 20% less, that is true, but they are not going to be able to find work for the extra day they now have, they aren’t going to be able to claim benefits (or are very unlikely to).

In effect if these are minimum wage jobs where it is happening, they are earning £4.58 an hour for the timeslot of a working week given that they won’t be able, especially in this market, to fill that last day.

This is employer led and employees only have the choice of taking the cut or leaving too, though with less productivity for the company involved. I’d really appreciate your perspective on this occurrence.

I admire those companies who are cutting working hours rather than lay staff off, especially if they are training staff. It is extremely forward-thinking behaviour & I think the employers will be glad to have made these choices as they keep their skilled employees.

A lot of people who worked at JCB, which isn’t far from my home, used to do a load of overtime but appreciate that this is over. It is a blow to them but they are glad to have been so well treated given the shite the firm is in.

I read that their wives give them lists of orders for during their time off. Hilarious

Highly intelligent and highly qualified does not automatically translate into commercially useful skills though, asquith, as regrettable as that might be.

I don’t have any qualifications beyond GCSEs but I’m now a professional programmer and technically ‘skilled’. Sure it took me 15 years of working to get this job – learning and working unpaid in my spare time, and after years of shitty low paid tourism work, then call centre work then IT donkey work to get it. It takes time but it can happen.

I did my period of unskilled work before the minimum wage came along yet I still have all my limbs and faculties and didn’t die. I guess I should just be grateful that I escaped the dark ages Before Minimum Wage intact shouldn’t I?

What Lee’s said in 16 is spot on.

And why is having the full working week at a lower than minimum wage any different?

22 is at Asquith obviously

There is a difference between getting paid less for doing the same work and getting paid less for doing less work. It’s far from ideal, but at least it’s a trade-off- the worker getting a day of his/her time back in return for the lost money – rather than the worker *just* losing the money.

Charlotte, there you go again saying that people who haven’t got good jobs haven’t got them because they didn’t work hard enough.

You didn’t get your good job because you worked harder than anyone else. You were LUCKY and lots of other people who worked just as hard – or possibly even harder – DIDN’T get a good job because you are there hogging it.

Your assertion that the only thing needed to rectify this is more activity in the private sector is lovely, but completely unrealistic. I would agree with you, if we were starting from scratch, with no huge multinational corporations waiting for an unregulated workforce to stripmine and exploit, but we both know that isn’t the case, don’t we?

No, Jennie, I’m sorry, the answer is more jobs, which means more economic activity. What Lee said – if your particular skills are in demand then wages and conditions improve – if your skills are commonplace then wages fall, competition increases.

Sure I was lucky to find the vacancy (the company refuses to recruit from agencies), but my particular ‘niche’ is one that I saw coming a couple of years ago and have worked to fill that niche that I believed – and hoped – would become more in demand in the future. Is that luck? I suppose, but at the end of the day I still had to make it happen, still had to work for it, and during my life I’ve failed and failed over and over again. Nothing’s happened overnight.

The point is everyone’s circumstances are different, everyone’s skills are different and the less economic activity there is the more brutal the competition between workers for limited vacancies will be. None of us really want that, whether we’re economic liberals or protectionists, surely?

I am not denying that you worked hard. I am saying that lots of other people do so too, and gain skills, and have expertise, and it doesn’t get them anywhere. Ever.

“if your particular skills are in demand then wages and conditions improve – if your skills are commonplace then wages fall, competition increases.”

That’s not entirely true, is it? I know shitloads of people who are talented at web design, for example. But I know two people who actually work in web design, and I wouldn’t rank them in the top ten of those I know in terms of ability, but they are well-paid and comfortable for the work they do. The difference between them and the others is that they had contacts, or family members, who helped them to get the jobs they have.

And no matter HOW much economic activity there is, the percentage of high paid rewarding jobs as a proportion of the whole is NEVER going to be bigger than the percentage of shitty, menial, no qualifications required jobs. So why are you in favour of making it less possible to earn a living wage from such a job?

Oh, and thank you for implying that not only am I stupid and lazy, but a protectionist. That’s made my day, that has.

Agh, Jennie, seriously: I never implied that, I never said anything about you, I’m not suggesting anything about you whatsoever. Seriously. You are neither stupid nor lazy. I’ve not said /anyone’s/ stupid or lazy. Don’t even ever think that, I mean it!

Don’t ever think about about yourself, I mean.

I don’t think you’re a protectionist either, for that matter.

“But I know two people who actually work in web design, and I wouldn’t rank them in the top ten of those I know in terms of ability, but they are well-paid and comfortable for the work they do. The difference between them and the others is that they had contacts, or family members, who helped them to get the jobs they have.”

What you know about those people isn’t what everyone else knows. Rightfully references play a role because they provide a trust in what is claimed. That is an element of your personal portfolio.

“There is a difference between getting paid less for doing the same work and getting paid less for doing less work. It’s far from ideal, but at least it’s a trade-off- the worker getting a day of his/her time back in return for the lost money – rather than the worker *just* losing the money.”

There is a difference, it just isn’t all that large a difference. On the one hand you have companies reducing their economic output to give workers the free day, with which I’m sure they will do what they wish but they will not be earning more than less than minimum wage for a “full time” week for all intents and purposes. On the other your have companies still being as productive as they were, with workers earning around the same wage, but that company is more likely to get itself back in to a situation where they can pay the minimum wage again.

So I guess the question is why do people approve of pay cuts to a less than minimum wage standard in return for free time but slower recovery, but not pay cuts to a less than minimum wage standard for as quick a recovery as is possible? To me the difference is not large enough for a principled person (regarding, certainly, quality of life on low incomes as Jennie is) to differ in opinion on the two.

I don’t share Lee’s optimism that it would be easy (or even possible) to put in safeguards to make sure an employee only took a “voluntary” pay-cut voluntarily. Where it was possible to police it it would require massive resources from the state – although I suppose that would create jobs, I am not sure it’s the most productive means of job creation.

There are some sectors where it would not be possible to police at all. In practice the “voluntary pay-cut” would become standard for agency-workers who compete with each other day-in day-out for labour.

I didn’t think the Tories would be quite as blatant as this – I had assumed they would just not raise the minimum wage by inflation/above inflation as Labour consistently have done (that notwithstanding, it’s nowhere near high enough, though), leaving its real value to decline considerably.

“In practice the “voluntary pay-cut” would become standard for agency-workers who compete with each other day-in day-out for labour.”

Bringing agencies workers in to this, who already are unfairly abandoned by the government in terms of employment rights, minimum wage or not, is not going to be entirely relevant I’m afraid.

As for ease…it would be very easy. The same processes necessary to cut the working week would apply to pay cuts, and as for a starting wage of less than minimum you’d only have to ensure that the minimum wage was the initially accepted price offered. As I said, if everyone says they want minimum wage the employer will have to take it, if some opt-out that is there choice and who are we to step in their way?

No active policing needs to happen, though a good dose of education on employment rights would be a good idea…but then that’s necessary with this law or not given how woefully uneducated some are on what their employers are allowed to get away with.

Charlotte, whether you meant it or not, it does read like you’re implying that those working low-paid jobs are either stupid, lazy or both.

And Lee, how can taking those who are ‘already unfairly abandoned’ and making things *more* difficult for them make any kind of sense at all?

Okay, not what I meant though.

Would we even have this discussion if we had a worker-owner economy instead of one based on private hierarchical establishments in which all the decision making is vested in the hands of a few individuals?

Soon – no, but we also wouldn’t be having this discussion if we were speaking a language which had no word for ‘work’ or ‘wage’ either. And the two seem about as likely in the medium term – whether such a thing would be desirable or not, we’re talking about what can be best done in the world as it exists at the moment…

Andrew – I appreciate the sarcasm but I was being serious myself. Not in a do it right now way but as a possible model for the future. It might send a few people running for the hills but that would just be an added benefit in my view.

I might be mistaken but I think it is right to say that the majority of redundancies are among people who are earning more than the minimum wage so I don’t see how this proposal will affect the numbes.

I find it odd, extremely odd, that some will speak about the person skilling themselves up to get a better paid job and then the employer looking at the person as a ‘cost’ to be thrown out if time should be hard. If this person is skilled, as some say, why is that person not looked at as an asset?

All this “you’re in the jobs market – you need to do this, educate yourself with this, take that course…” is all bollox beyond belief.

BT – takes a 81%(?) drop in profits, looks harsh, eh? They STILL made a whopping 100 million (plus) quid. And all that was through some accounting shit about international this and that.

The minimum wage should be increased [links to my blog] and those in a tax bracket below 12k per year should pay no income tax at all!

May post has gone into the spam bucket.

Jennie *9. I totally agree with you. I remember when I turned down an agency job in 1996 – as a waiter. They offered £1-80 an hour, for a total of 3 hours a day. When I said it was REALLY too low I remember the lady at the agency in Brum giving me a lecture about me being “too demanding”.

It’s thanks too the minimum wage that this crap ended.
Sure, it was (and still is) too low, but at least it’s a step forward towards human dignity. Because, seriously, it is dignity we are talking about. You can’t bloody pay a human being £1-80 an hour. And Chope and those on this forum can argue what they want and dress it up as much as they want, we all know what this is about.

Again, I remember working as a barman in 1997 for the Firkin company (remember?). £3-17 an hour. I remember thinking that the glossy welcome pack I was given would have cost them surely more than my whole day at work.

Lee *19. If a company has to close down it won’t be paying someone £5-73 an hour instead of £4-82 that will tip the balance. Of that you can be sure. They may gain an extra week of survival, but really…
In any case I disagree with your argument. In the practical world, it’ll leave thousands of vulnerable workers more at the mercy of bosses than they already are.
I appreciate your optimism Lee, but sometimes I think you really do have posters of good old Dr . Pangloss up on your wall

There are so many people in unskilled jobs who are highly intelligent, often well qualified, but for whatever reason don’t manage to earn what they could because they don’t find jobs.

In which case your goal should be to introduce changes that make it easier for people to find better paying work. (For example, things like council house waiting lists can tie people to an area, making it harder to move to more prosperous areas. Untying then would leave them effectively freer, and more able to move in search of a job.)

A minimum wage simply bans them from accepting a job that pays less than an amount you select. Certainly, to have your hands tied in this way can be an advantage, but then again, sometimes it is not.

CHARLOTTE N.26
“What Lee said – if your particular skills are in demand then wages and conditions improve – if your skills are commonplace then wages fall, competition increases.”

Proper ideological texbook.
In theory yes.
In the real world, unfortunately, no.

I have to say. This time, Jennie Rigg, you find me in agreement with practically all you’ve written.

A few too many people, with the best of intentions no doubt, live in fairyland here. They recite the script about the “free market” and “free competition” but they forget all the factors that distort this allegedly “free market” from the start. Greed but one of them.
The supporters of Chope’s proposals forget that the majority of those on the minimum wage are exactly the LEAST protected people. Often the non-unionised ones. Those with zero bargaining power. Often the most vulnerable. Cleaners, caterers, bar staff, agency fodder.

This are people who if they turn down an “overtime” offer, they can forge receiving another call. These are people who, if they call in sick one too many times, they can forget another chance.

And you can tell me that these people can effectively “choose for themselves whether to take the minimum wage or not”???????? C’mon.

“Proper ideological texbook.
In theory yes.
In the real world, unfortunately, no.”

In the real world…yes. The salary in my sector is increasing despite the downturn due to a lack of skills. There can be no denying that this is precisely how the job market works in the real world. There are no salaries being lowered because there are not enough people to do the jobs, and there are no salaries being increased because there are too many.

I might be mistaken but I think it is right to say that the majority of redundancies are among people who are earning more than the minimum wage so I don’t see how this proposal will affect the numbes.

It won’t affect those numbers, you’re right, the only danger is that (as Claude and Jennie fear) people on minimum wage will be forced to earn below it against their will. I’ve given examples of how that can be regulated however that’s been ignored in favour of the argument “No, businesses are greedy and can never be fair”.

I find it interesting that I’m being called an optimist, I think that I’m thinking on a realistic level here…one that requires stringent rules to ensure it doesn’t become what these others fear. The idea that it can never be something that works fairly is very pessimistic I would say, though clearly if no safeguards end up in the bill I wouldn’t be able to support it either.

Not that it all matters really, as some member of parliament on Labour’s side will talk it out of the house anyway.

This are people who if they turn down an “overtime” offer, they can forge receiving another call. These are people who, if they call in sick one too many times, they can forget another chance.

There’s a whole other set of arguments regarding employment law and fairness, especially with agency workers, and it doesn’t ring true that this needs to add to that unfairness if done properly. You can ignore how much of a market there is if you like, however your examples just go to show that there are too many people available (and wishing) to do jobs than are available in that area…if there wasn’t then the companies would not be able to stop employing someone just because they refused to do overtime.

“If a company has to close down it won’t be paying someone £5-73 an hour instead of £4-82 that will tip the balance. Of that you can be sure. They may gain an extra week of survival, but really…”

Yet we’re a) not talking about companies closing down..if you’re refering to my example we’re talking about companies that have identified they need to make ~20% savings on salaries, and b) not talking about companies requiring people to be paid less than minimum wage, as such a stance could never be supported and would never be supported by the house.

This policy, in a workable and supportable way, can only allow people to drop their own salary expectations, and allow companies to give people the option of working the full week rather than reducing their working hours for approximately the same salary drop. If it is restricted to this then it is easily regulated and is hard to abuse.

When talking about skills, jobs and pay ,people need to specify very clearly about the skills. The collapse in construction in the UK and Middle East means there is a surplus of technical people in this sector but there is probably a shortage of people with electrical, power, chemical , process and civil engineering skills required for the power generation industry .A persons usefullness also depends upon their initiative, drive, managerial /organisational skills and therefore their ability to earn money. NASA employed Jams Lovelock because of his exceptional chemistry skills and ability to design analytical equipment which could fit into a space rocket. As Dyson has said only 4% of undergraduates read engineering and fewer enter the profession.

When it comes to art degrees I am sure someone who is fluent in Cantones and Mandarin Chinese, Korean and Japanese;who has drive , flexibility,a good head for business and initiative could find employment. However, someone who has read media studies from a poorly rated university and lacks drive , initiative and has rigid requirements for employment ,will probably find it difficult to find work. Over the next decade , I think peole will have to be careful about the education, tarining and the establishments they attend. Reading media studies at a poorly rated university is likely to be a waste of time and money; reading engineering or a sought after science at a Russell Group University and learning Cantonese and/or Mandarin Chinese, is likely to make one highly employable .

When considering non degree training, then I think specialising in electrical, electronic and advanced mechanical training combined with learning a difficult language will make one employable. In addition, I think people will have to be prepared to travel. If someone expects to be able to settle down at 25 then they may have problems finding well paid work. It may be that the people who survive are thos who can react quickly to change – evolution. The employee who accepts that on Fiday that they are told to fly to another country on Sunday and be prepared to work there in very different circumstances to which they are used to, is the one who is likely to survive. Remember Homo Sapiens survived because it is likely that they could adapt to climatic changes quicker than other hominids . When considering employment , it is those who have accepted technology , rather than acting as luddites, who have prospered. Being an excellent coach builder in 1900 was of no use in 1920 unless the person and company had adapted to building cars, motorbikes and lorrries. Metal working skills were transferrable, most of the wood working skills were not.

People may have to think differently about their life/work balence. If they want work , then it may have to come first, second and third in their list of priorities. If client says they want to meet you , then you may have to drop everything andfly thousands of miles. When it comes to delivery , then it may mean working around the clock , no overtime , no weekends in order to achieve the clients demands.

Apparently there is a famine gene which enable people to survive a lack of food. I expect I means they have a very low metabolic rate which means their bodies makes best use of any food. People, organisations , companies and countries which have the best famine gene ; who can survive on the least, who can react quickest to changes, who can learn new skills , who are endowed with sound judgement, will have the best chance of survival.

Britain started the Industrial Revolution and the Modern World beacuse we had a political structure which allowed change, a blessing of natural resources and a critical mass of people with the technical skills, drive and initiative to develop technology. Rather than indulge in arcane disputations, we need to identify the skills required over the next 20-30 years and recreate the spirit of the manufacturers, scientists and engineers of 18C and 19C.

Our tiny Company , of four , is actually doing quite well (touch wood). So we thought we might get a typist come gopher in . The main problem at this level is not so much the minimum wage ( god knows we would if we could ) , it’s the potential risk of being taken to court for who knows what and more to the point the agony of getting rid of someone useless. The regulatory burden dwarfs the minimum wage as a real disincentive to employment .It must cause unemployment but I suspect not for the British. Yes lets get rid of the minimum wage but it is a symbol not a truth .The real minimum wage is the benefit rent council house opportunity cost which is a great deal higher for UK citizens than the torrents of foreigners New Labour want here …well therein lies plenty of problems

The ridiculous tax credit system which was a politically motivated attempt to spread dependency into the middleclass via an inept tax /hand out merry go round has to be the worst and most catastrophically delivered policy since the war. That is was the one eyed idiots baby surprises me not at all. It is not a subsidy for employers it is a distorter of the employment market . It creates jobs by financing part time useless and May fly companies , the fact they exist is the last stage in the process of waste and inefficiency. Shatterface note

PS- .I really try hard not to laugh , I really do , but Jenny Rigg`s discovery that life is not fair tests me sorely .mmmmmphsnort

Charlotte – welcome to the world of making assumptions about people to match your own ideology, and then coming across someone who doesn’t fit into that rigid category.
This is why libertarianism doesn’t work.

Excellent Sunny, well done you.

Now, if you don’t mind, please could you explain to me where I made:

“…assumptions about people to match your own ideology, and then coming across someone who doesn’t fit into that rigid category.

Please be specific. I’ve just read through everything I wrote and I can’t find it. Isn’t that peculiar?

Yet we’re a) not talking about companies closing down..if you’re refering to my example we’re talking about companies that have identified they need to make ~20% savings on salaries

But the implication is that if they can’t make this saving then they will not be able to stay in business. Why else would they need to make this saving? And why, of the numerous costs which businesses have, is it wage costs which they need special dispensation to cut?

charlotte: The alternative is Government deciding who and what to reward based on political considerations, and that means protectionism, it means subsidies for cronies and friends, it means old tired failed technology (high speed diesel trains) continues to thrive at the expense of newer, better technology (like electric trains). It means workers continue to hang onto a limited and pointless set of skills rather than retraining and moving into some actually useful area.

Your assumption here is of course that : re-training is easy and straightforward, moving to new areas for jobs is straightforward, that any government investment is a failure (actually, more on that soon) and that people “hang on to” pointless skills even though things don’t move that fast that skills become “pointless” that quickly.

I assumed none of those things.

“But the implication is that if they can’t make this saving then they will not be able to stay in business. Why else would they need to make this saving? And why, of the numerous costs which businesses have, is it wage costs which they need special dispensation to cut?”

It’s not about giving companies special dispensation to cut wages, it’s about giving employees the chance to choose whether to keep working at slight benefit to the company and to fill their time, or to have a reduced working week. Why we have to limit the options so much I don’t know. As I said, you can’t approve of one and not approve of the other.

Of *course* you can approve of one but not the other, as has already been explained to you.

I don’t go to work to ‘fill my time’, I go to work to earn money. I have no problem with filling my time with such activities as reading, blogging, talking to my wife, playing the banjo, going for walks and many other things. Give me some time, and I guarantee I can fill it.

Nor do I go to work to benefit my employer. I have no great interest in my employer’s wellbeing, except insofar as they continue to pay me for the work I do.

I suspect these things apply to the vast majority of people. They probably apply more to people working for the minimum wage than to people working other jobs, as it is rare that someone feels a great sense of accomplishment at cleaning toilets or serving fast food.

I would gladly accept a 20% pay cut in return for an extra day off work a week, but would be absolutely furious at the idea of a 20% pay cut with no reduction in my expected work hours. While no-one on the minimum wage would *gladly* accept a 20% pay cut, I’m sure the same principle applies.

Given the hugely unequal bargaining positions of the average minimum-wage employee and the average employer, any leeway in the minimum wage, however regulated, would end up with a race to the bottom with the poorest workers being exploited.

The minimum wage is the one wholly positive thing to point to in the last 12 years of utter incompetence, barbarism and creeping totalitarianism. It should not be discarded under any circumstances…

55. Andrew Hickey. You are right. The average minmum wage employee has very little bargaining power because the unskilled and sem-skilled workforce is so large . The joke is that in Israel it is difficult to find a plumber because practically everyone is educated to a degree level. We need to learn from Germany who created a an economic miracle after WW2 because they had a large highly skilled and industrious workforce. Unskilled do not design and build Porche or Mercedes.
Unless we create a large highly shilled workforce producing top end end goods, we will always have the problem of large numbers of unskilled people undertaking poorly paid work.

“I would gladly accept a 20% pay cut in return for an extra day off work a week, but would be absolutely furious at the idea of a 20% pay cut with no reduction in my expected work hours. While no-one on the minimum wage would *gladly* accept a 20% pay cut, I’m sure the same principle applies.”

And that is your choice, no-one would take this choice away from you or those you say that wouldn’t take the pay cut either.

But regardless of if you choose to work or take the extra day, your pay is the same…and if we’re talking about minimum wage that is (according to yours and others arguments) unacceptable if it’s effectively in the form of a below minimum wage. I still can’t see any relevant argument that makes a case for being off one day a week and on a less than minimum wage working week is any better whatsoever for reasons of poverty and the economic struggle than working all week and getting the same money.

“It should not be discarded under any circumstances…”

Even if an individual wishes to, for whatever reason that may be…Sorry, I thought we were against totalitarianism?

Yes, Lee, because preventing companies from exploiting the poor is *exactly the same* as Hitler and Stalin did, isn’t it?

It isn’t a meaningful “choice”. Employers can coerce those who work for them, especially given that workers’ representation is so weak.

Oh yes, giving people a choice is solely exploitation. Let me join in with your game. Not giving an opt-out is destroying the economy. Are we having fun with our pointless, contextless and overly-extreme synonymisations?

David: If workers rights are weak then that is a separate issue, and one that need not influence this kind of debate. The fact that so many of these arguments are based on the flaws of other related policy is sad, especially given even adhoc thinking of how to keep such a ruling safeguarding the workers can come up with several ideas…

1) Workers can’t individually opt-out once employed, though measures should be made to enable them to make such an opt out choice if made alongside a “redundancy saving” move such as reduced pay for reduced hours. This could result in them choosing to actually earn slightly more than they would under the traditional 20% for one day arrangement, though working at under minimum wage.
2) Employers can’t advertise a job expecting to pay less than minimum wage
3) Employers can’t encourage or advertise opting-out as part of the process of employment
4) Employers can’t refuse to employ simply based on not opting-out alone.

“Employers can’t refuse to employ simply based on not opting-out alone.”

Which would render the entire exercise a waste of time as the workers would find themselves in a prisoners dilema situation. If you want to kill the idea have a clap, if you want something workable then it’s back to the drawing board.

It’s the lefts fault that menial work is so poorly paid, they brainwashed a generation into thinking that working with your hands is degrading and anything less than a (even dodgy 3rd in media from a provincial ex polytechinic) degree is failure. They have converted what used to be prestigious skilled work (e.g nursing) into an over qualified, pseudo profession dominated by university educated pen pushers. I would also dispute that all min wage workers are “powerless”. Many are women with kids who only want part time, low skilled work of the kind that requires flexible hours and little commitment, or they are students on their way to bigger and better things. Either way it is their individual choice, in their individual circumstances.
Even in highly skilled economies, someone has to clean the toilets.

“But the implication is that if they can’t make this saving then they will not be able to stay in business. Why else would they need to make this saving? And why, of the numerous costs which businesses have, is it wage costs which they need special dispensation to cut?”

Beacuse, in the wonderfull candyfloss, sorry service economy nulab have created, in most businesses, wages are the biggest overhead. How much of the cost of a big mac do you think goes on the ingridients ?

It’s the lefts fault that menial work is so poorly paid….

Stop right there. You’re boring.

“Which would render the entire exercise a waste of time as the workers would find themselves in a prisoners dilema situation. If you want to kill the idea have a clap, if you want something workable then it’s back to the drawing board.”

The “idea” is to give people the opportunity to make themselves competitive if they wish. It is to open up opportunities for themselves where that are none. Let’s not pretend (especially given the wording for the bill isn’t here, and we are going on the speech in the commons) that this is about trying to hand employers power to pay less than minimum wage. That was never Chope’s argument, and it certainly isn’t the basis of this discussion.

Again, I ask, stop spinning this in to what it is not to suit your argument.

Negotiations on pay would have to happen after a candidate has been decided, though after it’s been made aware they are willing or not to opt-out. The employer should never be in the position they are choosing solely on pay, and so this seems fairest, as the employee can say “£5ph” and if the employer doesn’t like that then they are in no position to not hire them, even if they can suggest a different level. I guess negotiation would be the wrong word, there’s (after all) no reason for the employer to have a final say over the pay given that whether or not they opt out of minimum wage shouldn’t be more than a secondary factor in hiring.

So can we take it that Matt Munro is a toilet cleaner?

No, probably not, as whatever he does is so mentally absorbing that he on here he has to trot out such unthinking drivel: the “left” responsible for convincing this generation that manual labour equals failure, “nulab” as the onlie begetters of the candyfloss/service economy,…

Throughout my lifetime* there does seem to have been perhaps the slightest of correlations between crap jobs and crap wages; the big money tends to go with the “aspirational” jobs. My recollections are that it was the “left” that would campaign for higher wages for the low-paid and the “right” that argued that low pay reflected the natural and correct evaluation of those roles by society (remember – people doing those jobs often travel to work on buses, which we all know to be the definition of failure).

As for the origins of the service economy, a moment’s examination of the 1980s may dilute New Labour’s ownership of the concept. But then MM may have to grapple with the possiblity that New Labour, having come crawling out from Thatcherite gene-pool, is not a particularly left-wing kind of phenomonon.

* It is just possible that this correlation may predate my birth by some hundreds of years

Apologies needed for the typos in my previous comment. My eyesight is poor and when impelled to get on my high horse I cannot always see the errors until it’s too late.

67. Congrats, the first post on this board that has made me laugh, out loud, at myself. For your info I’m a hugely unproductive civil servant with no idea what I’m actually supposed to be doing so I just spend all say trawling blogs winding socialists up. If I do this for long enough it may well become my official job description.
Of course there is a correlation between crap jobs and crap wages,and crap wages and crap houses, crap cars, crap vocalubary, crap health, crap diet and maybe even catching buses, and unless you live in a full fat communist society there always will be.
The problem with your argument is that it inevitabley leads to the proposition that all jobs, irrespective of skill, difficulty, risk, qualification, market demand or anything else should be paid the same. Simply saying “low wages should be increased” is not a coherent argument, economically or socially. Increased by whom and at whose expense ? If the gap between crap and good jobs is reduced how do you motivate anyone to do the good ones, how would you ensure you didn’t end up with an oversupply of toilet cleaners and a shortange of doctors ? (Cambodia in the 1970s springs to mind as an extreme example of this)
One of the few good things nulab have done in the labour market is launch an (addmitedly confusing) plethora of schemes to enable the low paid to get qualified and improve their bargianing power in the labour market, bearing in mind that many have already forsaken the biggest, a free education, they are given multiple, lifelong second chances to improve themselves, some take it, some do not.
In slightly more erudite mode my point could perhhaps be summarised as
“Spending on higher education and the increased supply of graduates produced has been to the detriment of vocational qualuifications, wastefull of public funds and disadvantagous to the wider economy”. Discuss

if your business is going bust, saving 50p per worker won’t be the one thing that keeps it afloat.

If costs have to be cut, let them cut a whole range of stuff but not the workers’ wage at the bottom.

Reduce the managers’ pay. Or the junior managers’. Or make your welcome packs or adverts a little less glossy.

Or sell your second Porsche. Or don’t buy your wife a 4×4. Get her a Ford Fiesta instead.

Or cut out the fancy furniture, annoying marketing techniques, or other frills. Or maybe work on the supply chain. Or get rid of those pathetic managers’ meetings with free food, entretainment or even trips to exotic places.

If all that failing you still think you have to undercut wages then it means it’s time to close down.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmbills/060/09060.i-i.html

The bill wording is up, and it is fairly clear that the power is in the hands of the employee. Can anyone tell me what the legal standing would be of a company that fired a person that decided they wanted to be back on the minimum wage? My thought is that it’d be unfair dismissal as standard.

Obviously there are always problems, blackmail for the want of a better term, however I don’t think that the framing of this bill as “abolishing” the minimum wage is even remotely accurate.