Why do people only pay the minimum wage

globalds

tomterm8 wrote: »

The minimum wage is a bad idea. The reason for the discrimination between younger and older people was that youth unemployment was (and a decade later, still is) significantly higher than 'normal' unemployment, and that letting the younger generation be exploited was better than having them unemployed altogether.

I think you would have to explain to the (mainly) women who worked for stupidly low wages and had no legal recourse to change the situation that minimum wage was such a bad idea.

As for youngsters there used to be some sense of responsibility to train them ..Now it is just as a temp doing the job no permanent worker wants to do.

I think maybe we as a nation have a tendency to be mean to each other.
This is not a modern creation we are still very much part of a tradition of privilege ...The flip side of this will be those who are underprivileged.
It is how we justify this difference in entitlement that makes us a mean country.
Look more at the multiples of rewards between top and bottom of individuals within the same organisation to really see how unfair the system has got.

I can say honestly that were I earning 2 or 3 hundred times the salary of the lowest paid worker in my organisation I would feel I was taking more than my fair share ....As I mentioned it is how we justify to ourselves that somehow this is not wrong that makes me feel this can not go on without quite major social consequences.


......Got on a bit of a soapbox there ..:o

bendix

globalds wrote: »

I can say honestly that were I earning 2 or 3 hundred times the salary of the lowest paid worker in my organisation I would feel I was taking more than my fair share ....

With the greatest of respect, that's a pretty empty statement.

You would only 'feel' you were taking more than your fairshare? So what? Does that make you something special?

Can you honestly say you would both feel wrong, and do something about it, like hand it back?

If not, there's little point in making the point.

chewmylegoff

misskool wrote: »

interestingly, people pay their personal household cleaners more.
http://www.house-cleaning-uk.co.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=171

I've seen rates of up to £15/hour.

there is a reason for this though, as personal household cleaners have to travel to and from each place normally just to do a 1-2 hours of cleaning. you need to make it worth someone's while to come out to only do a small amount of work and then they need to travel again to get to the next place where they only do another hour of paid work. in contrast, you can pay someone less an hour if they are going to do a full shift.

Malcolm.

tomterm8 wrote: »

Well, I think if you look at it from a legal perspective, the laws about discrimination in general place a duty on public authorities to "reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage" according to the Equality Act 2010. While this is age descrimination, from a legal perspective it is discrimination whose purpose is to reduce socio-economic disadvantage, and so it is consistent with the requirements of the law.

I thought the Equalities Act 2010 was more far reaching than this.

I could be wrong - I haven't read the act.

tomterm8

globalds wrote: »

I think you would have to explain to the (mainly) women who worked for stupidly low wages and had no legal recourse to change the situation that minimum wage was such a bad idea.

The minimum wage helps employers discriminate against women. If, prior to the minimum wage they had all got together and set a maximum wage for jobs like cleaning, caring, catering, etc where women have an traditional predominance, they would have broken the law. Now, we have a defacto working maximum wage in many sectors. Women have no negotiating power in these industries, because Employers collectively don't need to actively discriminate against women, just set the wage at minimum and go, my impression is since the minimum wage was introduced wages for women in a lot of sectors have increased much slower than before the minimum wage.

globalds

bendix wrote: »

With the greatest of respect, that's a pretty empty statement.

You would only 'feel' you were taking more than your fairshare? So what? Does that make you something special?

Can you honestly say you would both feel wrong, and do something about it, like hand it back?

If not, there's little point in making the point.

Maybe it is just an empty statement.

The point I was getting at is that this massive disparity within organisations goes unquestioned by those who are at the top and yet don't seem to realise how this disparity is observed by other parts of society.

The only way I can simplify it would be to have a small tribe who suddenly found that there most able group ( the young hunters) came back each day with a deer and then sat and ate the whole thing without sharing any ...Then wondered why the rest of the tribe felt no real obligation to do the more menial tasks.

Reward and responsibility go hand in hand in a society that wants some kind of cohesion.

globalds

tomterm8 wrote: »

The minimum wage helps employers discriminate against women. If, prior to the minimum wage they had all got together and set a maximum wage for jobs like cleaning, caring, catering, etc where women have an traditional predominance, they would have broken the law.

The specific job that came to mind when I typed was the mother who works most evenings in the local Chippie.
It was quite common for these wages to be as low as £2.00 an hour and no real way for one or a couple of employees to negotiate , other than withdraw there labour.

Loughton_Monkey

The country has a short memory. Once upon a time....

1. Do you remember the days when OAP's were shown on television wrapping up over winter because they couldn't afford to turn the heat on? Well the government then started to give special grants if the temperature went below a certain temperature for a fixed time. Then more whinging about how this could be unfair with two short spells etc... At the end of the day, the government caved in and paid every pensioner a Winter Fuel Allowance every year. People started whinging yet again, and now in addition, we have "Cold Weather Payments"......

2. Employers used to be able to pay what they liked per hour. Despite usually having enough staff, people were whinging about how they only got £2 an hour or something. Eventually, the Labour Government, against robust opposition, introduced a National Minimum Wage, which was well above the 'normal' rate for cleaners, McDonalds etc. Now people whinge about 'Only being paid minimum wage.....'

And they all lived miserably ever after!

Masomnia

I'm starting a job as a cleaner next month. £6.72ph. Not complaining.

I'd do it for less, as I'd rather work. But I'm not exactly going to turn round to them and say 'You've overvalued my labour, so here, have 79p per hour back'

Just to disclose, it is in the public sector (anyone surprised?) Fingers crossed after the spending review.

Butterfly_Brain

Actually some branches of cleaning are highly specialised, such as operating theatre cleaning etc for which you need to have a knowldedge of micro-biology. PH values are also involved and would you know what a surfactant is?
I bet a lot on this board wouldn't pass the BICS cleaning sciences exam, it would be too hard