Labour exchanged

JenL

Me and some family and friends are thinking of doing a labour exchange for tasks we would normally struggle with and/or pay someone to do. The whole idea is to save us the expenditure of paying for these tasks to be done. For example I am physically disabled and can't wash my car or tend to my garden, but I can sew, bake, write letters etc. The idea is that if someone washes my car I do something they need

One of the things we aren't sure of is how to assess what is a fair exchange of labour. Our initial idea was a task for a task but then we got to thinking about the amount of work. We don't know if it'd be fair for someone to spend an hour weeding my garden in exchange for me to spend fifteen minutes repairing their work uniform.

Has anyone here done a labour exchange? If so how did you decide what is a fair exchange?

Mr_Singleton

All you need to do is agree between yourselves. Job A for job B. We do it all the time ie 35p for a loaf of "bread" both you and the seller agree so you swap money. If that loaf was £100 you wouldn't or if it was 1p then the seller wouldn't .

So, you both need to agree simple really!

CRANKY40

Invent a currency and allocate each unit of currency a time, say 15 minutes per button. You all start off with a certain amount of buttons and pay in buttons for jobs done. Someone could kindly offer to keep a spreadsheet rather than use actual buttons so nothing gets lost. You can just submit a text or email so person A pays 3 buttons to person B for car wash, person E pays person C 4 buttons for a cake made and so on.

If you have a group text/email set up and remember to text as you use the buttons then everyone can see how it's working or not as the case may be and any necessary adjustments can be made.

VfM4meplse

There is already a national skills exchange scheme up and running - looked into it some time ago but was put off by the requirement for references. I can understand the attempt to safeguard but in truth enough people seek help from me already without having to create work for other people in the process.

meanmarie

I think that a labour exchange within a family is a great idea......Cranky's button idea seems good. Unfortunately it wouldn't work for OH and me as the things we can't do can't be done by any of those who would be interested.

Marie

Mr_Singleton

I think you've all missed the point..... it's how do you link 2 jobs in value terms. Would a 15 minute token of back breaking gardening be worth 15 minutes of doing somebodies accounts? I'd say.... No. Hence you have to agree that 15 minutes of gardening is worth say 45 minutes of doing the accounts. If both agree then the work gets done or it's back to negotiating.

Again it's all about AGREEING.

herbily

Just to add, for some of this work there is already a market value, eg an hour of gardening round my way costs about £15, and the drycleaner in town charges £6 to sew on a button, so an hour of gardening is two and a half buttons if you use that basis. Part of the point (I think) is that people get the work done at less than the current market price, but you could use the current proportionate value as a guide?

maman

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

I think you've all missed the point..... it's how do you link 2 jobs in value terms. Would a 15 minute token of back breaking gardening be worth 15 minutes of doing somebodies accounts? I'd say.... No. Hence you have to agree that 15 minutes of gardening is worth say 45 minutes of doing the accounts. If both agree then the work gets done or it's back to negotiating.

Again it's all about AGREEING.

I see your point but.....

It depends on the skills/attitudes of those concerned. Some people might think nothing of 30 minutes digging but wouldn't know where to start sorting out their accounts. It's about attitudes and aptitudes IMO.

bsuije

Do you already know what those jobs cost if you get someone external to do them? If so, you could use the monetary value as a guide, as that should take into account time, materials and skills required for each particular task. Each individual could then be given a "budget" - though I don't know what a fair starting point would be tbh - and you either spend the budget (when you get someone else to do jobs for you) or you add to the budget (when you do something for someone else). That would be the market economics way of looking at it.

Inadvertently, though, this will result in inequalities sooner or later. A car washer will "earn" relatively little for their time, whilst an accountant will "earn" much more. Time is a fixed input (only 24h in a day!), so over time the accountant's budget will grow, whilst the car washer's might shrink.

To deal with that, you could complicate things and adjust the "market prices" for the value actually received. If I really hate washing my car, then I value the service more. On the other hand, I might decide that sorting through receipts and doing my own accounts is a pain I can live with if need be, and therefore I won't value the help as much.

I remember reading in an economics books that exchanges like this are doomed to fail, because people will easily spend, but then not want to earn back. The example was with a baby-sitting sharing arrangement between several groups of parents. Each parent was given an amount of tokens to spend on baby-sitting, and each could earn from the other parents for doing the baby-sitting. Turns out though that all the parents wanted to go out, and noone wanted to stay and baby-sit. If someone did, and they accumulated tokens, then they found it difficult to "spend" those tokens because noone else was willing to stay in and baby-sit. Ergo market failure. Made me chuckle!

It may be because the exchange was focused on one task only, though. Perhaps with more tasks to choose from, you won't get the same unwillingness from participants to carry out their tasks...

pollypenny

We used to work like this with a previous neighbour, when we were all hard up young marrieds.

Remember that a job will take a skilled person far less time than it would take an amateur.

JenL

Thank you all, you've given me plenty to think about and discuss with the others