End of the minimum wage?

scooby088

dmg24 wrote: »

It amazes me that someone will happily claim JSA in the long term, yet turns their nose up at work that pays 'peanuts', even though that amount will still be at least four times what they currently receive!

I used to work for £3.50 an hour but those were in the dark days of conservative government, When you work or opt out of minimum wage they will get less than minimum effort. It's not about wanting or prefering to live on JSA it's about affording to live on less that NMW. As a single bloke i wouldn't be able to afford cc, water,gas electric let alone food and travel to work, and i for one wont sign out of WTD just to earn a decent wage i can live on.

relic

I wish I could leave my job, go on JSA and just turn down jobs paying NMW or close because I "can't afford it".

Some people need to get real.

As for the OP, ridiculous to even bring the idea up.

GothicStirling

Is anyone really surprised that the Tories are bringing this up? NMW was a Labour policy, and the Conservatives hated it from day one.

bluenoseam

not really surprised, i was thinking they'd drop the level of it but didn't think they'd be so stupid as to think people would let them away with dropping the idea completely.

SurreyBear

The BBC Parliament report is online and pretty much saying his Bill is dead in the water.

wantsajob

Of course the next logical step would be for the Job Centre to cut JSA to those refusing to accept a job under the condition of waiving rights to NMW. Will save a nice tidy sum for the Govt.

Googlewhacker

I believe there is a place for this but under certain conditions and i am only doing this off the cuff but

1) Only allowed for a certain % (5 or 10)of staff within the workforce of the employer

2) If said person is there after 12 months then they automatically goto NMW

It would encourage employers to employ someone during tougher times but would stop employers abusing the system by having all members of staff under NMW etc

It would also mean that people that do decide to work for less than NMW would get NMW after a year or if they find a better job before the 12 months are up.

It would help businesses that need that extra member of staff but couldn't afford a full paid member of staff (remember a member of staff is not just the wage, but the NI contributions, sick pay, maternity pay, paternity pay, holiday pay etc etc etc)

Before anyone jumps on me I am a believer in NMW I could see this working to help people back to work, get more money into the system and generally be a good thing for the country.

I know most will disagree

wantsajob

Googlewhacker wrote: »

I know most will disagree

Some parts of your idea I like. But what is to stop an employer sacking someone when they become entitled to NMW and hiring someone else for under NMW, to give them a constant line of cheap employees? Of course the employer will say "if you work hard we'll keep you on" to get them to work as hard as possible for naff all wage, then get rid of them anyway. This will continue for a few years until people begin to realise this is all that happens, and stop putting the effort in.

This is common accepted practice in business already, particularly in sales where you cream off the best sellers and get rid of the crap performing ones - ensuring they do so in such a manner that is legal/they don't have to pay redundancy. You hire new ones and start the process over. There are always jobs for energy sales people advertised at the Job Centre. I suspect there are not more positions available, but they got rid of the last lot for not doing as well as the company would like.

bethesda

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

and now they'll give it to the Polish for 10 bob and a bag of sprouts for a days work.

im sure the Polish really appreciate your comment

wantsajob

bethesda wrote: »

im sure the Polish really appreciate your comment

Like they'd appreciate swathes of British workers coming to their country, speaking broken Polish with a weird accent, and taking all of their jobs out from under their feet.