Are the minimum wage increases enough?

Dave101t

dsab wrote: »

:rotfl:Congratulations! I believe that's the biggest piece of uninformed bulls**t I have ever read on this board. Can only shake my head about this statement... :rolleyes:

i refer the right honourable gentleman to any of studentphil's posts for the most uninformed bulls**t on the planet

louiser123

mardatha wrote: »

I've done office cleaning full-time on the minimum wage. And the posters above saying that these bottom-of-the-pile workers can go to night school etc and better themselves are being unrealistic. If we were all brain surgeons then who would empty the bins & clean the toilets ?? And if they hadnt increased the MW think of the outrage in the country with the MPs allowance scandal !!

wholeheartedly agree!:T
also, i cant see why low paid mw workers are classed as "working class scum" or bottom of the pile. dreadful label!!

how about the top paid MPs then, who openly fall asleep in the commons even when televised and all they say or shout is eye or nay!! i could do that job without a problem no worrys there and i would be paid fortunes plus defrauding the state!! :eek:

gizza job gordon!!:D

mardatha

Huge danger of the loony fringe being the only people to vote come the election. I'm glad we have the SNP up here, because England is kind of stuck now for choice, & the BNP is bound to take a few seats which is not a good thing !

A_fiend_for_life

lemonjelly wrote: »

Fully agree with this comment.

There are a great deal of allegedly "trainee" jobs, telesales and the like which are full time paying NMW. However the staff continue to carry out the ful role.

There are particular examples of some companies paying what they call a living wage (I believe HSBC are one) who have increased pay in certain geographic areas and for certain roles. In example, there are cleaners being paid in excess of £7 per hour. This results in greater staff loyalty, increased productivity, willingness to be a flexible employee, employees going beyond the call of duty, increased competition by applicants for vacant posts - all of which are a great benefit to the employer - think about how much they save through staff retention/not having to advertise/interview/recruit/retrain. Think of the consistency the business has.

These staff then spend this higher amount in their local communities, in the local businesses. In current times, having such a disposable income could be keeping some of these small businesses going.

It also raises the profile of the employer in the local community.

So who loses out here? Hell, with higher wages there is less dependency on tax credits etc - saving all of us money!

Agree with what you say but with contact centre jobs that is not the full picture. Employers can register an interest for New Deal candidates who earn an extra tenner a week. Contact centres, typically the outsourced varieties, can and will recruit up to a third of their employees on new deal. In my view the criticism of new deal that it puts people into jobs that were already there is wholly founded.

This at least was the situation about 7 or 8 years ago.

Some of the harshest criticism of new deal is that it has only created about 13,000 jobs in 10 years. Most of the money from new deal I suspect goes to management firms that move people into a new deal post and the company that gets cheap labour.

StevieJ

mardatha wrote: »

Huge danger of the loony fringe being the only people to vote come the election. I'm glad we have the SNP up here, because England is kind of stuck now for choice, & the BNP is bound to take a few seats which is not a good thing !

There is still hope :j down my street the Christian aid man said the out of 60 houses only 5 had not contributed to helping people who are poorer than ourselves in foreign lands even though we are in recession. We sometimes forget that there are actually some decent and thoughtful people out there.

mardatha

thats surprising, but very good .

dylansmum

My Oh, while working p/t and doing the child care, worked for min wage at a pub. Indeed, most bars, pubs and eating places near us pay min wage.

The min wage should go up!

ninky_2

one way to force wages up without having to raise them with legislation would be to say that those on benefits should accept any job, but only if it paid them equivalent or more than what they received in benefits each week (including housing benefit).

this would mean employers would only have access to workers if they agreed to pay them a living wage.

dylansmum

ninky wrote: »

one way to force wages up without having to raise them with legislation would be to say that those on benefits should accept any job, but only if it paid them equivalent or more than what they received in benefits each week (including housing benefit).

this would mean employers would only have access to workers if they agreed to pay them a living wage.

Interesting. But how would you stop work intensification - more work given to existing employees whereever possible. And would this move also mean that those already in work would have to have wage rises?

dopester

ninky wrote: »

one way to force wages up without having to raise them with legislation would be to say that those on benefits should accept any job, but only if it paid them equivalent or more than what they received in benefits each week (including housing benefit).

this would mean employers would only have access to workers if they agreed to pay them a living wage.

If an employer takes on an employee, do you really the hourly rate or salary is the limit of how much it costs? :rolleyes:

There are some variations depending on the sector, but it is often calculated as being from 40% to 100% of an employee's salary, in addition to the salary itself.

Employers should be grateful should they? Maybe you ought to set up in business yourself and get an idea of the real world.