MSE News: 900,000 to get minimum pay rise

gadgetmind

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Your value or your values?

I like to think both, but the latter is always subjective.

their insight and drive should be enough to carry them to greater things

It should certainly be enough to earn them more than minimum wage. How much more depends on how valuable and marketable the skills are that they have acquired.

Supply and demand. I didn't make the rules, I don't even like the rules, but that's the way they are.

I think you may have led a charmed life to this point

I could correct you, at length, but it would rapidly turn this thread into a pastiche of The Four Yorkshiremen sketch.

gadgetmind

2sides2everystory wrote: »

you even call graduates "grads" like they are some grist to your mill

Let me describe the mill. We typically pay £25k pa on day one, with a *very* good benefits package, tasty pension, and share-based reward scheme. At the end of our grad programme (and 95% of those we employ are grads), they will be mid 20s and typically earning well over £30k. Where they go after that varies wildly depending on the abilities and ambitions of said grist.

We treat our grist well, and we pay our grist well, because the mill needs its grist. And not all mills are dark and satanic.

hermante

2sides2everystory wrote: »

I have insights a-plenty and drive you'd maybe not credit (you even call graduates "grads" like they are some grist to your mill)

I call myself a grad.

I do not think you have a clue what you mean unless you are referring to ESoL and Microsoft Office courses for migrants

For a number of years migrants from outside the EU have needed to prove they can speak English to a reasonable extent in order to come to the UK. The exception is asylum seekers and EEA family members. For genuine asylum seekers anything is better than what they have previously. For other Europeans and their family, they have chosen to come to the UK for a reason and the reason is usually not because they admire the weather and food.

No, my first low pay experience was at the agricultural minimum for a while and 60 and 70 hour weeks a bit like the hours I suspect those I see at four in the morning catching buses are doing. I know their tiredness.

Under the EWTD, you now need to explicitly opt in to work more than 48 hours a week. So anyone working 60 hours has agreed to do so. I work night shifts sometimes and get buses at 4 in the morning. Of course people are tired, people who catch the bus home from a 9-5 job are tired too!

Simplisticly you are correct in your assertion and in the sentiment expressed but who is managing the opportunistic excesses created by these "freedoms"? We cannot rely on infinitely insignifant and unconnected scales associated with a million head of roaming buffalo under the sun in one cornmer of the globe versus the habitually returning whales off Innuit shores every year, or the well-being of hairy Mammoths grazing in the Alps to protect our economies any longer.

Sorry but I don't have the slightest idea what this means. First of all mammoths are extinct, and never lived in the Alps. As for the Inuits, they are being prevented from their traditional whaling practices so is it surprising if they eventually want to urbanise? You come across as one of those people who gets offended on behalf of others. If you don't like the wage policy of a shop then shop elsewhere. If you think people who have come to the UK would be better off elsewhere then tell them when you see them at 4am.

2sides2everystory

One of my favorite Monty Pythons but until you pulled me up Obidiah, I'd for many years been one Yorkshireman short of a full sketch, extolling the virtues of just 3 of them and getting blank looks

Hermante, when I were working 60 or 70 hours a week we used to dream of being able tell our boss that we'd rather not thank you and having a piece of paper that said we was right enough to stay in bed.

As it was, and you'll have heard about this now, we used to have to get up, half an hour before we went to bed and ... and ...

As for my roaming buffalo, Inuit whaling (thank you too for the spelling correction) and mammoths for the hunting in the Alps, my intention was to describe micro-economies that were far from being connected. What we have now is the exact opposite. If the buffalo hunters are on minimum wage and the Inuits and Alpine nomads are having a tough time because, as you say, there aren't any more Mammoths in the Alps, then all they do is catch a Ryanair flight and seek out the labour-ganger who herds up the migrant workers who work on the buffalo farms in Somerset (for a minimum wage). The local buffalo workers get eased out and can no longer afford their Ryanair holidays from Bournemouth, and a general depression sets in.

I blame Ryanair as much as anyone because they have put their prices up as well as opened more gateways to all this low cost migrant labour.

PS How do you know there were never any Mammoths in the Alps? I am sure that Hannibal chap led some Mammoth looking beasts down that way once and they did quite well considering

tagq2

Minimum wage has nothing to do with promoting "people who lack drive" (the politically un-corrected term is "undeserving poor"). I have drive. I have studied hard. I have qualifications. I am a hard worker. But I'll never earn much above the minimum wage. Couple of reasons:

(1) I'm not, and have never been, that healthy. No matter how hard I try, I can't beat my body;

(2) I'm not, and have never been, that bright. No matter how hard I try, my IQ's fairly low.

So while many people can start at the bottom and, through good health and good intelligence, apply their will to hard work to better themselves, there are many people who cannot. For these remaining people, these willing but unable, you have two choices in a social democracy: you could let them suffer and sink, perhaps under the misconception that you'll breed out these inferior specimens. Or you could understand that biology creates people of different capabilities and ensure that everyone has at least a comfortable existence.

In doing so, you'll allow lesser mortals to remain as healthy and educated as they can be. They can contribute far more in the long term than if you were to leave them on their own to push themselves until they break.

tagq2

Googlewhacker wrote: »

A very defeatist attitude there and one that hopefully most people don't have.

Thank you for your response. I'm presenting the fact that some people are unhealthy and not very bright. I'm not suggesting that people can or should not try. I've tried for decades and will continue trying at life until I die.

plenty of not bright people as you say can go on and earn alot of money, they just have to find their niche.

There is no intelligent design: each human is not allocated an equal share of ability and given the challenge to find it. Some people may have certain strengths which take a long time to discover, but other people may have no such strengths.

At the end of the day you only stay on NMW if you want to stay there, if you want more money you will further yourself, work for yourself and make sure you get a better paid job.

"You only... if you want to" - why are you so sure? I've heard people say what you say a lot. But what is the basis for the argument? There are certainly things most people can do to increase their chances of improving their wage. But that's not the same as asserting certainty. Is it not possible to try yet fail repeatedly?

fedster

tagq2 wrote: »

Minimum wage has nothing to do with promoting "people who lack drive" (the politically un-corrected term is "undeserving poor"). I have drive. I have studied hard. I have qualifications. I am a hard worker. But I'll never earn much above the minimum wage. Couple of reasons:

(1) I'm not, and have never been, that healthy. No matter how hard I try, I can't beat my body;

(2) I'm not, and have never been, that bright. No matter how hard I try, my IQ's fairly low.

So while many people can start at the bottom and, through good health and good intelligence, apply their will to hard work to better themselves, there are many people who cannot. For these remaining people, these willing but unable, you have two choices in a social democracy: you could let them suffer and sink, perhaps under the misconception that you'll breed out these inferior specimens. Or you could understand that biology creates people of different capabilities and ensure that everyone has at least a comfortable existence.

In doing so, you'll allow lesser mortals to remain as healthy and educated as they can be. They can contribute far more in the long term than if you were to leave them on their own to push themselves until they break.

You are implying that people who have a low IQ, will never earn more than Minimum wage, that is rubbish, some of the people who i have worked with in the past, are as thick as a plank of wood, but these guys through hard work and realibility are earning comfortably above MW.

People have this idea that those people on MW are somehow unintelligent delinquents, again this couldnt be further from the truth, i have worked with people on MW who have included Graduates, People made reduntant from other jobs,indeed i was on MW not to long ago, but i have managed to climb the ladder, being on MW does not mean there is no hope, stand out from the Crowd, work hard, show initiative, there is always hope!!!

tagq2

fedster wrote: »

You are implying that people who have a low IQ, will never earn more than Minimum wage, that is rubbish, some of the people who i have worked with in the past, are as thick as a plank of wood, but these guys through hard work and realibility are earning comfortably above MW.

I was using IQ as an example of a measure which does not change with effort. There are other ways of measuring mental ability.

The guys who you judge as "thick as a plank of wood" are in fact not so thick - to be reliable they have to remember what they are supposed to do and be able to execute their assigned tasks with a level of skill and awareness. Maybe they are not as bright as you, but that's another matter. To work hard and reliably also requires a level of stable physical and mental health.

People have this idea that those people on MW are somehow unintelligent delinquents, again this couldnt be further from the truth, i have worked with people on MW who have included Graduates,

I don't think I'd be classed as a delinquent - I try to be honest and have never engaged in any criminal activity - but I am certainly unintelligent. And I am a graduate. Maybe this says something about the quality of modern undergraduate education, but I am not going to blame anyone else for the way I am. I also know many graduates on minimum wage.

People made reduntant from other jobs,indeed i was on MW not to long ago, but i have managed to climb the ladder, being on MW does not mean there is no hope, stand out from the Crowd, work hard, show initiative, there is always hope!!

I don't think I will necessarily achieve any more than what I already have, and I certainly don't feel entitled to anything further, but that doesn't stop me trying to work hard and think hard. In the meanwhile, NMW (and other worker protections) allow people who are simply not that brilliant to have something resembling a bearable lifestyle.

fedster

tagq2 wrote: »

Is it not possible to try yet fail repeatedly?

Well if you are repeatedly failing at something i would say that indicates that you are not preparing well, or there is some other underlying probelm, it is definetly not intelligence.

2sides2everystory

fedster_on_another_thread wrote:

... most jobs these days pay around the minimum wage or slightly over, is it possible to stand on your own 2 feet on such a wage? I would guess £8 per hour is a decent starting wage,but i have to work my way up for that and it is taking time.

Tell this to the old farts of today and they won't believe you, ... they just won't