MoneySaving Poll: Would you vote for a £14.66 minimum wage?

MSE_Wendy wrote: »

Hi all

Just to let you know I've made the poll discussion live so feel free to head over there to discuss the issue.

Wendy

Ah thanks Wendy!

As I was saying in another place then ...

The UK minimum wage, increasingly poor working conditions, deliberate government ploy to make it harder to bring cases against employers plus the widespread use of zero hours contracts have all created a stupid dumbed down fearful disrespected labour market in the UK which means we are now like third world savages compared to some other so called western countries.

So called strivers are expected to eat dirt and get up and ask for more whilst success is measured according to the cloth of City fraudsters running banks and insurance companies or legal firms (they're all in it together of course - but we're not).

Our unions are not worth a light any more - the last union leader worth a light was lost a few months ago. He was a bit too "darn to bleedin' urf" for most, but his heart was in the right place.

There are better developed Northern European countries than ours where they still attract Eastern European labour and economic immigrants (probably including me shortly). They still have respected trades unions. Everyone respects you no matter what your job, even if you empty bins to make ends meet. That is a clear difference to the UK where most citizens look down on bin men and other low paid workers.

Another clear difference is that the lowest paid workers elsewhere are rarely seen holding their head high, usually seen in their own worn out day clothes that are spoiled at work - painters in jeans covered in paint sitting on the tube in the rush hour. In Northern Europe high quality protective uniforms for the working man are often de rigueur, and arrangements are automatic to ensure they are laundered and maintain a business-like image. In the UK we us a different and very much brader catch-all phrase "workman-like" and it does not mean business-like, does it?

All commercial vehicles in some countries have conspicuous official marks identifying the owner by number so very few anonymous white vans - very few anonymous throwaway workers, very little evidence of could care less quality workmanship.

And amazingly you may find that these working citizens who often receive a good living wage without there being a national minimum, are proud to pay quite high levels of tax. Because their government and systems work better than ours and citizens value what their taxes pay for.

If I told you that a typical undergraduate working as a part-time shelf stacker in the Northern European equivalent of Tesco was paid twice what Tesco might pay the same kind of student in the UK, would you laugh or cry?

If I told you that typical North Europeans live in dwellings 50% greater in floor area than UK workers accept as the norm, but typical pay average housing costs no greater than ours would you laugh or cry?

We have it wrong in the UK - after Thatcher destroyed the unions and then led us towards Big Bang in financial services, the die was cast. It has gone terribly wrong now. If you are a worker in a big supermarket or fast food chain you deserve to be respected at least a twelfth as much as a top CEO for what you do ! That is typically the way wealth is distributed much more fairly in some countries - the CEO will earn maybe 12x what you do or 20x at a push - not the stupid multiples and lottery numbers we see in UK and USA.

And when you are not working and enjoying leisure time, then you might find you are rubbing shoulders with all up to CEO types, and it is the most natural thing.

In many parts of the world McDonalds workers are protesting at pay levels and working conditions. It doesn't have to be that way. For years there has been frequent reference to a semi-official BigMac chart of the cost of living around the world. The price of a BigMac gives you an indication of the cost of living in that country.

That is a fallacy. In my experience the price of a BigMac is more a direct indication of the general quality of living in a country not the relative cost of it, even in big experimental economies like China's. At least there experiments are based on making stuff. Maybe one of the biggest experimental economies is ours - it's so much hot air!

In some Northern European countries you won't find McDonalds workers complaining too much in 2014. Because they are paid well enough, and can afford to live solid lives without fear of job-loss or poverty, are respected by their employers and neighbours alike, and basically are happy right now. They are not molli-coddled by strict employment legislation that makes them hard to fire as in France. They are simply a confident workforce in a buoyant market who if made jobless can find and do tend to find another job quite fast and if not will receive substantial and respectful state welfare help until they do get another job. They will not all be forced to accept zero hours contracts at six or seven quid an hour making sandwiches if they've signed on for 3 months running.

We could achieve so much more if we travelled a bit and came back and did something with what we learned about how progressive societies work.

I have described what some will laugh at and call some imagined Utopia, and I would be the first to admit that it may not last, but in the UK we can do so much better if we root out the worst excesses of the corporates and start respecting labour again of every type.

PS I voted for the £11 or so rate per hour to get us all on the right track

You could make min wage 63.10 (10 times current rate) you know all that would happen?
We would pay ten times more for everything as everyone who has touched a product you are buying is being paid ten times more. You would be no more richer.
Remember pre euro spain where you paid for things in 1000 and 2000 notes? Thats all that would happen here is inflation would kick in so we would pay for everything with an added 0.

What is more important is what you earn in comparison to your costs of living.

I make no bones about it. I think the minimum wage is not a good thing, I turned 16 just as we started implementing the minimum wage, I as a 16 year old was earning more than the minimum wage for a 21 year old. But that same organisation reduced pay rises over the ensuing 5 or 7 years till miraculously their wages were the same as the minimum wage.

I hasten to add that this was a shelf stacking job in a major supermarket, basically the minimum wage has meant my ex colleagues have suffered a significant reduction in quality of life, this occurred to many of my friends also working for other large supermarkets. Going from being able to buy a house and car to being on the poverty line within the space of 15 years.

If you increase the minimum wage all you do is increase the amount it takes to exist in poverty. If there is no minimum wage the market will find levels. There will always be employers who take the Mickey, as we have now with zero hour contracts, or expecting people to clear up at the end of the day on their own time. As individuals we need to stand up for our rights, if you work somewhere that treats you badly do something, strike, change jobs, start up on your own, the opportunities are endless.

The big problem is the apathy in this country everyone just lets things happen and then complains when it's rubbish.

the £8.80 a hour figure is fine for the most part as I got around that 10 years ago and I know prices have increased but I was able to treat myself then to luxuries though my rent was next to nothing.

Its more we need to tackle issues like landlords ripping off tenants i.e having high rents for low quality housing and not doing standard repairs as I have lived in or near areas with high unemployment that charge like £95 a week rent and LHA is only £65 for a under 35 and £80 for over £35 then as its a poor are no work is available and you are limited in what shops you can use.

And I can honestly in every job I have had that you get a lot of lazy employees and even lazy supervisors who get paid by performance so harass their workers to work harder just for their own benefit so we are never going to win.

To give everyone a high minimum wage means the lazy get more for nothing and the hard working are still working above what they should be doing.