Yes- the former, in particular, was the result of a campaign run by the Independent & enough grassroots support/pressure to enable them to withstand the usual fucking tossers.

Unfortunately we are still waiting, and have been waiting 12 years, for something that will even remotely be worthy of the struggle we waged against Thatcher, whose legacy despite having been totally discredited in the credit crunch has not been disowned and will not be disowned until a real Labour government has the balls to speal for the majority who have seen right through the fucking lies told to us in the 80s.

I have now arrived at the view that we will have to wait for Cameron to form a government and, by his failure, discredit free market fucking shite once and for all before we can get what we demand.

Sunny – they could shout louder about the agency workers, but as the idea is only in a consultation paper, I’ll wait until the ink is dry and the legislation enacted before I’m convinced

redpesto, I understood the agency workers deal is pretty much sealed. I think agency workers should be given equal rights from day one, rather than from 12 weeks, but that’s not to say this isn’t massively welcome (and overdue).

David’s view is a bit too close to the theory of emmiseration for my liking.

tim f: it’s a case of either ‘many a slip between cup and lip or ‘get it in writing’ (or in blood) – either way the deal isn’t done just yet.

When, and if, that deal is done, it will be very scrappily enforced. At least until unemployment begins to fall (after this Government), they have no means of making it stick.

I see it as just a gesture to keep Union funds coming in to Party finances.

Gesture or not, as long as it’s enacted, it’s a positive step forwards. It’d be nice if this Government had made more of this type of gesture to help the working class rather than it’s much more favoured type of gesture of taxing the poor more and eroding our civil liberties.

#5 – are you saying the deal shouldn’t be done ’till after unemployment begins to fall (in your words after this government)? Are you saying the government should rely on the Tories to bring it in?

What a joke you lefties are with your faux concerns for the working-classes. You’ve been party to policies that’s brought in millions of cheap labour to squeeze out the low-paid and uneducated, you otherwise refer to as chavs and lazy. What a bunch of cunts!

@chavscum

What a joke you lefties are with your faux concerns for the working-classes. You’ve been party to policies that’s brought in millions of cheap labour to squeeze out the low-paid and uneducated, you otherwise refer to as chavs and lazy. What a bunch of cunts!

As eloquent as ever. Now hows about you actually engage with the post, instead of this brainfart? Every post you make just furthers the impression that you come here in between sessions working up a spuzzstorm over pictures of Nadine Dorries.

Fantastic, this will ensure that agency workers will normally be employed for no more than 11 weeks at a stretch. Just what they wanted I’m sure.

No, chavscum, I think you mean you refer to as chavs and lazy. Evidence: your moniker.

Both policies could be better. Even if restaurant staff get minimum wage pre-tips, that doesn’t mean they get their tips. Before you tip, make sure the staff get them, especially if you are paying by card.

#10 – I agree that that’s a major concern, which is why I think agency workers should have equal rights from day one.

However do you seriously think the legislation is worse than no legislation at all? Many employers will not want to employ someone new without the skills and experience of someone who’s worked for 11 weeks, and this will mean that people who are currently employed for months and even years on temporary contracts cannot be sacked on a whim or forced to do overtime on fear of being let go otherwise.

First, was the announcement yesterday that restaurants and cafés will be banned from using tips to pay basic wages.

Don’t tell Mr Pink:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBFUDbOldMs&feature=fvst

“First, was the announcement yesterday that restaurants and cafés will be banned from using tips to pay basic wages.”

They never have used tips to pay basic wages. An entirely absurd idea.

What they have been doing is saying that if you’re making a certain amount in tips then you can be paid directly by the employer less than minimum wage. The reason being that the fee you’re receiving for your labour is the wage paid by the employer plus the amount that you get in tips.

If tips do not take you past the minimum wage then the employer must indeed pay you minimum wage.

So it’s all an irrelevance anyway. Simple stupidity. All of these people were already making over minimum wage.

(Disclosure, I spent a decade making my living as a waitron unit. It’s the tips we all worked for, not the wage.)

#14

So what happens if one week you don’t get many customers and tips don’t reach the level of minimum wage? (Not that minimum wage is a lot, anyway.) Will the employer top up your wages that week only and then return to the previous system, or do you just have to survive on less for a week?

It sounds like a very flexible accounting procedure which allows for abuse. I find it difficult to believe that all cafes and restaurants behave impeccably all the time and none exploit their workforce using this loophole.

“So what happens if one week you don’t get many customers and tips don’t reach the level of minimum wage? (Not that minimum wage is a lot, anyway.) Will the employer top up your wages that week only and then return to the previous system, or do you just have to survive on less for a week?”

You suck it up. Just as when the place is busy for a week you make shed loads. Then save bit for the bad weeks you know will inevitably happen at some point.

On the first – an excellent move.

The second – it will simply destroy jobs. The harder and more costly it is to fire the less likely companies are to hire.

#16

That really doesn’t sound like a good system at all. Someone could be living week to week but never really know how much disposable income they actually had.

“The second – it will simply destroy jobs.”

Work always needs to be done, people in agencies aren’t being employed for shits and giggles, the work is there requiring an employee. This nonsense about how better rights for employees will suddenly make employers not want to make money at all is tedious.

“Someone could be living week to week but never really know how much disposable income they actually had.”

Oooooh Noes!

Every single person who has ever worked on any sort of bonus or commission system has exactly the same problem.

“Work always needs to be done, people in agencies aren’t being employed for shits and giggles, the work is there requiring an employee.”

Good grief.

There’s always work to be done “at a price”.

Change the price that must be paid for the labour to get that work done and you change the amount of work people want to have done.

Think just for a moment. If someone comes and offers to sort out your garden for £5 an hour you’re likely to hire them for more hours than if they want to charge £100 an hour, aren’t you?

19 “Work always needs to be done, people in agencies aren’t being employed for shits and giggles, the work is there requiring an employee. This nonsense about how better rights for employees will suddenly make employers not want to make money at all is tedious.”

Theory of marginal utility, the work needs to be done until the cost of doing it exceeds the benefits.

Also companies can exist in uncertainty – work may develop which may not be permanent, there are risks to companies in taking on that work, the higher the labour costs the lower likelihood that they will take that risk.

The simple fact is that there are advantages for many people to being an agency worker. Oddly enough there won’t be if you take away all the disadvanges,

“Change the price that must be paid for the labour to get that work done and you change the amount of work people want to have done.”

How does the price differ exactly, other than through the practice of firing someone before they can be entitled to more cash and paying a continual premium to the agency that is slightly less than the cost of a raise? And more to the point how is it ethical behaviour to accept that?

“Also companies can exist in uncertainty – work may develop which may not be permanent,”

I believe that’ll be why the 12 weeks mark is what is being mooted, no? Regardless, it’s no excuse. Contracts, rolling ones at that, exist for a reason.

This nonsense about how better rights for employees will suddenly make employers not want to make money at all is tedious.

Not only that – I’d like to see the evidence for the idea that improving rights will lead to massive job losses.

It’s funny that after losing the argument on the minimum wage – people like Tim Worstall are still regurgitating the same rubbish economic theory.

#20 – You seem to be saying that because something is bad, we shouldn’t make something else better.

#21 – Leaving aside the assumption we all have gardens, if I had a garden it doesn’t matter how little a gardener was charging, I wouldn’t employ her/him for any more hours than it took to sort it out.

“Not only that – I’d like to see the evidence for the idea that improving rights will lead to massive job losses.

It’s funny that after losing the argument on the minimum wage – people like Tim Worstall are still regurgitating the same rubbish economic theory.”

I’ve not said that it will lead to “massive” job losses. Just as I didn’t with hte minimum wage at the level we have it. But about the “rubbish economic theory” perhaps you’d like to consult your own in house economist, Chris Dillow? He is the bloke, after all, who dug through the Low Pay Commission report and found out that even they were reporting job losses as a result of the minimum wage?

For it simply ain’t a rubbish theory. If you raise the price of something then people will use less of it. It’s not that startling a finding really.

“I wouldn’t employ her/him for any more hours than it took to sort it out.”

If Labour moved from a pound and hour to a hundred pounds an hour then the definition of “sort out” would change I suspect.

He is the bloke, after all, who dug through the Low Pay Commission report and found out that even they were reporting job losses as a result of the minimum wage?

That may well be true – but you have to do a cost benefit analysis to ascertain how many people were helped by the minimum wage versus how many lost out. Would love to see that more.

If you raise the price of something then people will use less of it. It’s not that startling a finding really.

Of course, you know this depends on various factors that you hate considering. Firstly it depends on how elastic the price of the product is to the wage labour behind it. Secondly it depends how how elastic the price of the product is to demand.

So your theory won’t stack up unless you can conclusively show it leads to less purchases and less employment.

“That may well be true – but you have to do a cost benefit analysis to ascertain how many people were helped by the minimum wage versus how many lost out. Would love to see that more.”

So would I. But at least we’ve moved the argument on. We now both agree that the minimum wage will lead to job losses. You were previously seemingly denying that.

Now you’re saying that yes, there will be job losses but the nastiness inflicted on those who lose their jobs might be balanced by hte benefits received by those who get the higher wages. Indeed they might be and I’ve not been claiming that they cannot.

My claim has been that minimum wage laws kick some people out of jobs, something which we now agree upon.

“Firstly it depends on how elastic the price of the product is to the wage labour behind it. Secondly it depends how how elastic the price of the product is to demand.”

I’m not sure what you’re saying here. Indeed, I’m not sure that you know what you’re saying here. Elasticity normally refers to the connection between the supply and demand for something and the relationship between those and price changes. How can you have elasticity of price to the amount of labour used to make it? We’re already assuming that people are profit maximising aren’t we? So they price at the maximum they can get. Their costs of production don’t change that, do they?