Getting closer to minimum wage

[mazzer2]

Rjan:

Mazzer2:

Rjan:

eagerbeaver:
The real question on this thread should be " WHO on here will work for minimum wage, if/when truck driving is only paid that amount? ". There must be a number of drivers on here currently working for £9.00 ph, so if these firms don’t give a pay rise for the next couple of years, who would stay?

Come on, fess up

They’ll get a pay rise anyway if Labour get in, with a £10 an hour minimum by 2020.

That’ll start to make even the lowest wage look reasonable.

And watch the workers smile disappear as soon after getting his first pay packet at that rate, as his tax credits disappear and his tax bill goes up, that’s before you take into account the rise in inflation to pay for it.

It’s a fair point, although even keeping 30p in the pound (if you’re a father of children) is better than nothing, and of course it means that you continue to receive your wage even if you divorce, and both before and after having young children. And of course, for families that already earn in excess of the tax credits upper threshold (feasible if you are doing 48 hours a week at £9 an hour, and have a partner who also does a substantial job), then it will be 70p in the pound that you keep (i.e. the full amount, notwithstanding your ordinary income tax that pays for schools and hospitals). It also means, if you are a parent, that your kids have some chance of earning a reasonable wage in due course.

Getting rid of tax credits in itself is no bad idea as they have been used by companies as a subsidy and a way of getting out of paying a proper wage. There was a thread on here a while back showing the effect of a £1 per rise on Downton’s wage bill add onto that the Labour pledge to reverse previous corporation tax cuts and it will be interesting to see where the money is going to come from.

Agreed on the subsidy, but does anyone really wonder where the money is going to come from? It’s a redistribution from unearned to earned income - it’s why the party is called “Labour”.

Nobody ever seems to ask the Tories “where is the money coming from for tax cuts” (the answer being from reduced public services and public infrastructure, which is why roads all over the country are crumbling), or ask the bosses “where is the money coming from for increased profits” (the answer nowadays almost invariably being out of workers’ wages and conditions).

An increase in corporation tax comes out of corporate profits (corporation tax is a tax on corporate profits, which is the residual that is left for owners after workers’ wages are paid). As for the increased wage bill, it either comes out of profits also, goes into increased prices, or forces better productivity (e.g. instead of working drivers 15 hours a day, higher wages encourage firms to get on with things, organise work like clockwork, and reduce waiting times).

The point about where the money is going to come from is important, in the private sector it will come out of profits and price rises and companies that cannot afford it will go bankrupt. In effect a no cost policy (except maybe for dole payments) for the government but where is the money going to come from to give the same rise to the civil servants? The civil service has a structured pay regime which means that if the person on the current minimum wage is to get a £2.50 per hour pay rise there will be rises throughout the whole organisation after all if you are currently a supervisor on £10 per hour would you still want that responsibility for the same pay as the person you are supervising?

[rjan]

Carryfast:

Rjan:
An increase in corporation tax comes out of corporate profits (corporation tax is a tax on corporate profits, which is the residual that is left for owners after workers’ wages are paid). As for the increased wage bill, it either comes out of profits also, goes into increased prices, or forces better productivity (e.g. instead of working drivers 15 hours a day, higher wages encourage firms to get on with things, organise work like clockwork, and reduce waiting times).

More delusional Labour bollox.An increase in corportation tax just means that the employers will pass it on into the economy in the form of higher prices and job cuts to offset more of the tax against wage costs.

Cutting jobs won’t increase their profits, because then they’ll be doing even less work - instead of paying 5 or 10% extra tax, they’d be paying 100% tax on the lost profits, and their competitors would sweep up in the marketplace (and that would increase scale and reduce competitive risk for those competitors, thereby increasing overall profits).

As for higher prices, that is a possibility as I acknowledged myself, but it still won’t be a price rise higher than the gains in wages for workers on ordinary incomes.

While a wage rise at the expense of having to do more work for it isn’t a wage rise at all.In this case your example would actually mean trying to force more work into the same 15 hour day combined with job cuts.

I agree working harder is no rise at all. But if they could simply get more work out of you by working you harder, cracking the whip, what makes you think they wouldn’t be doing so already?

IE how are you going to increase the ‘productivety’ of a crap multi drop job for example without making the job even worse for the unfortunate driver ?.Also how will you stop the issue of lower paid East Euro competition under cutting your wage and tax regime ‘improvements’.

Productivity doesn’t have to increase for every job - some jobs will just be paid better for what people are currently doing - but one example of how to reduce “crap multi drop jobs” is for companies to build larger warehouses and have fewer, larger deliveries, and indeed to make multi-drop legs shorter. I presume when you call them “crap jobs” they are the kind of jobs you’d want to be replaced with something better, ideally.

Also, for jobs that are crap but need doing, increasing the wages in easier jobs (and increasing the proportion of such jobs) improves the bargaining power of those in crap jobs (which can be expressed either as even higher wages, or as better conditions), because otherwise those firms will face prodigious turnover (or just a plain inability to recruit) as people leave to seek better positions.

Whereas when the mass of jobs with reasonable conditions in the economy are poorly paid, bosses only have to offer smaller increments to fill crap jobs, and don’t have to improve the conditions - that’s why many unionised jobs nowadays tend to have fairly poor conditions, because as the pay in non-unionised alternatives has fallen away, and whilst the union is busy fighting to defend the pay rates, the bosses can just eat away at conditions (indeed, partly because the poor conditions are the only way they can maintain the high pay rates, when they have competitors paying so much less).

While no surprise that you wouldn’t want the real increase in productivety which LHV’s would provide.

I’m not that bothered about LHVs either way. I think the last time we discussed that, it was in the context of you trying to effect “modal shift” and undermine the railways - which is already better waged, short-houred, and highly productive.

Combined with removal of road fuel duty to stop the situation of what is effectively a discriminatory tax on all of those employed in the road transport industry.Because that would upset your preferred elite union mates at ASLEF and RMT.

And it forces firms to organise trailer movements better, to put money into being organised, and thereby be more productive. The railways already have to pay for their own rails, bridges, and tunnels, which the haulage industry does not. But let’s not start that one again.

[rjan]

Rob K:

Rjan:
You say that is “Labour’s history” but I don’t remember a single case when Labour piled on debt followed by austerity. Even the IMF loan in 1976 was repaid before Labour left office, and that too wasn’t caused by spending.

Even with New Labour, the debt only shot up because they used the state to rescue the capitalist economy - along with every Western nation, including those run by right-wing governments (like the Republicans in the US). And New Labour can certainly be faulted for not regulating the economy better (i.e. in a more socialist fashion), but they did not even devise the deregulated conditions - they simply stuck with those that they inherited from the Tories (whose record I assume you are trying to defend comparatively).

I’m not trying to defend anyone. I am merely adding some balance to your endless pro-Labour posts. I wouldn’t vote for any of them because for the past 20 years+ there hasn’t been any noteworthy difference between the left and the right and everyone in between except the colour of their ties. The sooner that the population wakes up to this and stops voting for a different shade of the same tired old [zb] every 5 years nothing will ever change and the country will continue to go to the dogs.

I welcome being counter-balanced but it would be nice at least if it was accurate and representative. The national debt has increased only twice since 1945, once under Major in the early 90s, and then again under Blair from about 2003, and the increases in both cases were quite modest (and were of about the same amount). The 2008 increase has been emulated all over the world because of a private sector crisis which spun out of control due to unfettered speculation and deregulation, and cannot at all be blamed on Labour spending - and I’m hardly a supporter of New Labour myself.

On unemployment too, the 1970s were considered shocking when unemployment rose from a steady long-term trend of 2% (under both parties), up to 4% under Heath, and finally to 6% under Callaghan. The Saatchi’s propaganda of Labour dole queues might have seemed credible in 1979, but you’d have to have chutzpah to deploy that again, having seen the stratospheric heights reached under Thacher of over 10% unemployment, and then under Major again in 1993.

[rjan]

Carryfast:

Rjan:
You say that is “Labour’s history” but I don’t remember a single case when Labour piled on debt followed by austerity. Even the IMF loan in 1976 was repaid before Labour left office, and that too wasn’t caused by spending.

Labour didn’t exactly ‘leave’ office in 1979 they were rightly kicked out of office.Remind us how that came about.Oh wait imposed wage cuts and public sector cuts to pay back the debt.Which hit the lowest paid hardest resulting in the winter of discontent in which you yourself have blamed the workers for not being prepared to pick up the cost of the 1970’s inflation spiral.Preferring instead to maintain the profits of the oil companies flogging off our own oil at world prices on the world market including to us.

I haven’t “blamed workers”. I simply said that, short of overturning capitalism and squeezing the last drop of juice out of the rich, then they would (as a class) have had to accept wage cuts (i.e. below-inflation pay rises), because the oil crisis was an exogenous shock which raised the price of inputs. Even if you wanted to protect lower-paid workers, it would have meant better-off workers shouldering the burden with zero pay rises in the face of double-digit inflation.

As for oil, even if you disregard all the political issues I’ve been over already and I’ve said enough about, it still would have meant expropriating the oil companies (or it would have meant levying higher taxes on workers in order to subsidise oil buyers, which would have had the same effects on workers’ bottom lines as the inflation did, except firms would have had no incentive to become more efficient with their use of oil).

I put it to you, if you’re not a communist who supported expropriation of the oil companies without compensation (if it was with compensation, then workers would have had to pay), and if you’re not in favour of higher taxes for workers to pay for subsidy, and if you’re not in favour of below-inflation pay rises, then how do you expect it to be paid for?

There’s no point expecting it to come out of profits, because it would have meant almost the entire economy making sustained losses, and either folding or running up huge spending debts (not investment debts where you have capital machinery or other durables to show for it afterwards), and capitalism can’t work like that - at best, capitalism can work on a break-even basis (where workers get the full fruits of their labour via earnings, and owners make nothing - feasible perhaps if the owner is the state), but it cannot work year after year on a loss-making basis (where capitalist owners literally take a loss on running their factories).

[rjan]

Mazzer2:
The point about where the money is going to come from is important, in the private sector it will come out of profits and price rises and companies that cannot afford it will go bankrupt. In effect a no cost policy (except maybe for dole payments) for the government but where is the money going to come from to give the same rise to the civil servants? The civil service has a structured pay regime which means that if the person on the current minimum wage is to get a £2.50 per hour pay rise there will be rises throughout the whole organisation after all if you are currently a supervisor on £10 per hour would you still want that responsibility for the same pay as the person you are supervising?

I’m not sure most of the civil service is currently on minimum wage, although it may not be much more.

But it will just be paid for out of taxation as before. If you are a worker on £7.50 an hour, paying taxes on £7.50 an hour, which pays for someone to clean a hospital on £7.50 an hour, then you’ll be a worker on £10 an hour, paying taxes on £10 an hour, which pays for someone to clean a hospital on £10 an hour.

The real losers are those at the upper end of the scale, who might see price rises but who don’t see any rises in income - in effect, those who suffer are those who currently enjoy nice lifestyles on the back of underpaid workers!

That’s partly the function of progressive rates of taxation, to control runaway wage markets, and to ensure that if wealthier workers try to bargain in the market for higher pay to maintain the old relative differentials (the very differentials that are supposed to be eroded by the increase in wages at the bottom), then those wealthier workers (and their employers) increasingly pay over more and more to the tax man, which then allows tax rates at the bottom of the progressive scale to be dropped, enforcing the redistributive effect of raising wages at the bottom and controlling the inflationary effect.

[mazzer2]

Rjan:

Mazzer2:
The point about where the money is going to come from is important, in the private sector it will come out of profits and price rises and companies that cannot afford it will go bankrupt. In effect a no cost policy (except maybe for dole payments) for the government but where is the money going to come from to give the same rise to the civil servants? The civil service has a structured pay regime which means that if the person on the current minimum wage is to get a £2.50 per hour pay rise there will be rises throughout the whole organisation after all if you are currently a supervisor on £10 per hour would you still want that responsibility for the same pay as the person you are supervising?

I’m not sure most of the civil service is currently on minimum wage, although it may not be much more.

But it will just be paid for out of taxation as before. If you are a worker on £7.50 an hour, paying taxes on £7.50 an hour, which pays for someone to clean a hospital on £7.50 an hour, then you’ll be a worker on £10 an hour, paying taxes on £10 an hour, which pays for someone to clean a hospital on £10 an hour.

The real losers are those at the upper end of the scale, who might see price rises but who don’t see any rises in income - in effect, those who suffer are those who currently enjoy nice lifestyles on the back of underpaid workers!

That’s partly the function of progressive rates of taxation, to control runaway wage markets, and to ensure that if wealthier workers try to bargain in the market for higher pay to maintain the old relative differentials (the very differentials that are supposed to be eroded by the increase in wages at the bottom), then those wealthier workers (and their employers) increasingly pay over more and more to the tax man, which then allows tax rates at the bottom of the progressive scale to be dropped, enforcing the redistributive effect of raising wages at the bottom and controlling the inflationary effect.

But you haven’t answered the question raising the bottom significantly will have a knock on effect on those higher up because as I said why would you be a supervisor on the same wage as those you are supervising.

[carryfast]

Rjan:
Cutting jobs won’t increase their profits, because then they’ll be doing even less work - instead of paying 5 or 10% extra tax, they’d be paying 100% tax on the lost profits, and their competitors would sweep up in the marketplace (and that would increase scale and reduce competitive risk for those competitors, thereby increasing overall profits).

As for higher prices, that is a possibility as I acknowledged myself, but it still won’t be a price rise higher than the gains in wages for workers on ordinary incomes.

I agree working harder is no rise at all. But if they could simply get more work out of you by working you harder, cracking the whip, what makes you think they wouldn’t be doing so already?

Productivity doesn’t have to increase for every job - some jobs will just be paid better for what people are currently doing - but one example of how to reduce “crap multi drop jobs” is for companies to build larger warehouses and have fewer, larger deliveries, and indeed to make multi-drop legs shorter. I presume when you call them “crap jobs” they are the kind of jobs you’d want to be replaced with something better, ideally.

Also, for jobs that are crap but need doing, increasing the wages in easier jobs (and increasing the proportion of such jobs) improves the bargaining power of those in crap jobs (which can be expressed either as even higher wages, or as better conditions), because otherwise those firms will face prodigious turnover (or just a plain inability to recruit) as people leave to seek better positions.

Whereas when the mass of jobs with reasonable conditions in the economy are poorly paid, bosses only have to offer smaller increments to fill crap jobs, and don’t have to improve the conditions - that’s why many unionised jobs nowadays tend to have fairly poor conditions, because as the pay in non-unionised alternatives has fallen away, and whilst the union is busy fighting to defend the pay rates, the bosses can just eat away at conditions (indeed, partly because the poor conditions are the only way they can maintain the high pay rates, when they have competitors paying so much less).

I’m not that bothered about LHVs either way. I think the last time we discussed that, it was in the context of you trying to effect “modal shift” and undermine the railways - which is already better waged, short-houred, and highly productive.

And it forces firms to organise trailer movements better, to put money into being organised, and thereby be more productive. The railways already have to pay for their own rails, bridges, and tunnels, which the haulage industry does not. But let’s not start that one again.

Let’s get this right.Extra tax means extra cost.Shedding labour and increasing the ‘productivety’ ( workload ) of those remaining combined with price increases mitigates the increase in costs.Just like expecting the workforce to pick up the tab for a world market oil price increase and resulting inflation spiral and the massive trade deficit caused by the transfer of industry out of the country which your lot presided over.

You’re the one calling for ‘productivety increases’ while at the same time agreeing that more pay for more work isn’t a wage increase at all.While if you don’t think that there’s any more margin for such ‘productivety increases’ ,because the bosses are already working the workforce to the limit,then what are you going on about ?.While obviously evading the question what happens in the case of the already crap multi drop sector.

As for LHV’s and the removal of road fuel duty as I said typically biased selective some workers are more important than others bs.Bearing in mind that it’s your lot that’s actually calling for the modal shift ‘from’ road ‘to’ rail and deliberately using punitive financial sanctions and contrary to what you’re saying,actually enforcing unproductivety on the industry when it suits you,to achieve it.

Then to add insult to injury you think that those working in the industry will be naive enough to think that working harder,limited to the same outdated unproductive equipment and diet of same zb work,for the same if not less money,to pay for yet more taxation on it,will fix anything.While the foreign competition is allowed to just walk in and take whatever the rail transport industry doesn’t.LHV’s obviously fitting the definition of working smarter not harder.Which is what’s actually needed together with less costs imposed on the industry to allow it to actually pay its workforce properly,not more.

The analogy of voting Tory in that case would be at least ■■■■ Turpin wore a mask.Or preferably either vote UKIP or don’t vote at all.

[rjan]

Mazzer2:

Rjan:
[…]

But you haven’t answered the question raising the bottom significantly will have a knock on effect on those higher up because as I said why would you be a supervisor on the same wage as those you are supervising.

It depends what you mean by “higher up”. True, I expect the increase in the minimum wage to have an effect on the entire bottom end of the labour market, not just those whose pay rise is compelled by law, so that supervisors who used to be on £9 an hour supervising those on £7.50, might end up on £10.50 or £11 an hour (so low-paid supervisors won’t just be lifted to the minimum wage, but beyond it).

But there are also other reasons why one would become a supervisor. Firstly, for many it’s a step on a career ladder that will ultimately take their pay above average. Secondly, most who are truly capable of leadership would probably rather be engaged in it than not, because it’s a position of social status. Thirdly, in some cases but not all, the nature of the work is different and more varied.

I would also say lastly that I’m inclined to think some so-called supervisory positions are not actually organisationally necessary, and in many cases they are simply ancillary roles in which no authority is necessary, and no pay differential as a mark of status would be necessary (if the basic roles were not so underpaid).

[rjan]

Carryfast:

Rjan:
[…]

Let’s get this right.Extra tax means extra cost.

A tax on profits is not an extra cost that has to be made up though, any more so than a 5% increase in income tax is a cost that has to be met with higher wages.

And like I say, if higher profit taxes do force some bosses out of business, that will be good for the market, because it squeezes out marginal competitors and third-rate business owners, lowers the competitive risk for those remaining, and those remaining can then capture higher market shares and tolerate lower profit rates (but running larger businesses with larger overall profits).

Shedding labour and increasing the ‘productivety’ ( workload ) of those remaining combined with price increases mitigates the increase in costs.

But if they could shed labour and increase profits, why haven’t they? Since that would give them a saving on the wage bill regardless of whether a new tax is introduced or not. In other words, the only way they can recoup profits against a profit tax, is if they are already operating inefficiently and paying the “tax” of being overstaffed or underworked.

On the other hand, if they shed labour beneath what they need, or worsen conditions beneath what is acceptable, there will be a flight or churn of labour or an increase in the rates they must pay, and that will impact their profits.

Speaking more broadly, this is also why it would be beneficial to encourage all workers to unionise, so that they can resist bosses’ predation against their pay or manning levels.

Just like expecting the workforce to pick up the tab for a world market oil price increase and resulting inflation spiral and the massive trade deficit caused by the transfer of industry out of the country which your lot presided over.

They’re not “my lot” Carryfast, but if an Arab sheikh puts his hand out and demands more money for oil, or (what actually happened…) shortens the supply so that the whole world is bidding more for what oil he is willing to sell, then if the Arab sheikh is to gain, somebody has to lose.

You still haven’t put your finger on who you think should have been made to pay for the oil (bearing in mind that the North Sea didn’t at the time cater for all our needs), or how you would deal with the implications of your choice (implications that would have costs which someone would need to pay for).

You’re the one calling for ‘productivety increases’ while at the same time agreeing that more pay for more work isn’t a wage increase at all.

Perhaps I’m assuming a certain amount of likemindedness by now, but obviously when I say “productivity”, I mean real productivity - more money, more things produced, for less work - not simply sweating. If I meant sweating, I’d have called it sweating.

While if you don’t think that there’s any more margin for such ‘productivety increases’ ,because the bosses are already working the workforce to the limit,then what are you going on about ?.While obviously evading the question what happens in the case of the already crap multi drop sector.

Like I say, real productivity. You give the example of LHVs - nobody would doubt that the driver works no harder in general pulling an LHV than an ordinary trailer. That’s a real productivity increase.

As for LHV’s and the removal of road fuel duty as I said typically biased selective some workers are more important than others bs.Bearing in mind that it’s your lot that’s actually calling for the modal shift ‘from’ road ‘to’ rail and deliberately using punitive financial sanctions and contrary to what you’re saying,actually enforcing unproductivety on the industry when it suits you,to achieve it.

I’m not enforcing “unproductivity” - I’m saying that a more productive mode of transport already exists. The only way that LHVs compete with trains is via dramatically low wages - so it’s not more productive at all, you’re just undercutting an industry that already has higher productivity and better wages. In other words, LHVs would lower the productivity of the transport sector.

And that, if I remember correctly, was exactly what the DFT study found, that because lorry drivers are so cheaply paid, it would encourage a shift of bulky, long-distance movements onto even more crowded motorways, increase fuel use, and erode the utilisation of the railways (which depend on high utilisation for their efficiency).

As I say, it’s not an issue that weighs heavily for me either way, but lorries are simply not productive compared to freight trains, if drivers, mechanics, road workers, and planners were paid the same sort of money as those on the railways.

Then to add insult to injury you think that those working in the industry will be naive enough to think that working harder,limited to the same outdated unproductive equipment and diet of same zb work,for the same if not less money,to pay for yet more taxation on it,will fix anything.While the foreign competition is allowed to just walk in and take whatever the rail transport industry doesn’t.

But I’m not in favour of the “foreign competition” walking in and taking what they will. If they are paid what we are, work under the conditions that we work under, and pay the taxes that we do, then how will foreign firms (located away from the market they intend to serve) compete with domestic firms?

LHV’s obviously fitting the definition of working smarter not harder.Which is what’s actually needed together with less costs imposed on the industry to allow it to actually pay its workforce properly,not more.

I agree that LHVs are a real productivity measure. I just don’t see why you’re trying to compete with rail, which already is more productive?

The analogy of voting Tory in that case would be at least ■■■■ Turpin wore a mask.Or preferably either vote UKIP or don’t vote at all.

Indeed, the Tories certainly do wear a mask. You moan about foreign competition, and then advocate voting for the party which (wearing a mask, of course) is in favour of yoking us into free trade deals and other measures, not to increase productivity, but to increase competition between workers and force down wages.

[alamcculloch]

IMO most of our problems are down to “His Toniness” opening up our labour market and flooding our Countries with cheap foreign labour.

[carryfast]

Rjan:
A tax on profits is not an extra cost that has to be made up though, any more so than a 5% increase in income tax is a cost that has to be met with higher wages.

But if they could shed labour and increase profits, why haven’t they? Since that would give them a saving on the wage bill regardless of whether a new tax is introduced or not. In other words, the only way they can recoup profits against a profit tax, is if they are already operating inefficiently and paying the “tax” of being overstaffed or underworked.

On the other hand, if they shed labour beneath what they need, or worsen conditions beneath what is acceptable, there will be a flight or churn of labour or an increase in the rates they must pay, and that will impact their profits.

Speaking more broadly, this is also why it would be beneficial to encourage all workers to unionise, so that they can resist bosses’ predation against their pay or manning levels.

They’re not “my lot” Carryfast, but if an Arab sheikh puts his hand out and demands more money for oil, or (what actually happened…) shortens the supply so that the whole world is bidding more for what oil he is willing to sell, then if the Arab sheikh is to gain, somebody has to lose.

You still haven’t put your finger on who you think should have been made to pay for the oil (bearing in mind that the North Sea didn’t at the time cater for all our needs), or how you would deal with the implications of your choice (implications that would have costs which someone would need to pay for).

Perhaps I’m assuming a certain amount of likemindedness by now, but obviously when I say “productivity”, I mean real productivity - more money, more things produced, for less work - not simply sweating. If I meant sweating, I’d have called it sweating.

Like I say, real productivity. You give the example of LHVs - nobody would doubt that the driver works no harder in general pulling an LHV than an ordinary trailer. That’s a real productivity increase.

I’m not enforcing “unproductivity” - I’m saying that a more productive mode of transport already exists. The only way that LHVs compete with trains is via dramatically low wages - so it’s not more productive at all, you’re just undercutting an industry that already has higher productivity and better wages. In other words, LHVs would lower the productivity of the transport sector.

And that, if I remember correctly, was exactly what the DFT study found, that because lorry drivers are so cheaply paid, it would encourage a shift of bulky, long-distance movements onto even more crowded motorways, increase fuel use, and erode the utilisation of the railways (which depend on high utilisation for their efficiency).

As I say, it’s not an issue that weighs heavily for me either way, but lorries are simply not productive compared to freight trains, if drivers, mechanics, road workers, and planners were paid the same sort of money as those on the railways.

But I’m not in favour of the “foreign competition” walking in and taking what they will. If they are paid what we are, work under the conditions that we work under, and pay the taxes that we do, then how will foreign firms (located away from the market they intend to serve) compete with domestic firms?

I agree that LHVs are a real productivity measure. I just don’t see why you’re trying to compete with rail, which already is more productive?

Indeed, the Tories certainly do wear a mask. You moan about foreign competition, and then advocate voting for the party which (wearing a mask, of course) is in favour of yoking us into free trade deals and other measures, not to increase productivity, but to increase competition between workers and force down wages.

If your income tax stoppage increases by 5% that’s effectively a 5% cut in your take home wage.So you’ll obviously need to work 5% harder just to stand still.Or in the case of an employer get rid of 5% of your staff and make the remainder work 5% harder to compensate for the lower workforce.

Yes unions are great.You know just like the ones who you’ve said were to blame for bringing Callaghan and his stinking Labour regime down.Instead of swallowing his wage cuts as so called ‘deferred wages’.

Yes the Arabs cut oil production to force up world oil prices.We were self sufficient by 1980 and obviously close enough by 1978 for Callaghan to have said that ‘all’ of our oil production at that time is solely for the UK market to be sold at well below world market prices.Thereby removing the inflationary pressures in the economy enough to actually make his wage policy work.

As for LHV’s more biased bs.You’d rather have less efficient trucks while at the same time telling drivers they have to be more productive to be paid more.Because you ( rightly ) think that the more productive trucks would actually be productive enough to compete with your ASLEF cronies.Yet another example of you contradicting yourself.IE the industry has to be more productive to pay its drivers more but that would make it more competitive with rail and we can’t have that.Much better to carry on with the status quo of low paid drivers driving deliberately crippled unproductive vehicles to protect highly paid train drivers jobs.An industry which means employing the few at excessively high wages,while dumping the many in unnecessarily unproductive low wage employment if not on the dole.

Then blatantly lying that we aren’t also subject to under cutting foreign competition from low cost base,including low wage cost base,competition taking an excessive amount of our import and export traffic much of it third country operations.In addition to cabotage operations.

Thatcher and Callaghan would be proud of your stinking biased,contradictory as it suits you,big business,rail transport friendly ideas.

[rjan]

alamcculloch:
IMO most of our problems are down to “His Toniness” opening up our labour market and flooding our Countries with cheap foreign labour.

It’s certainly borne out by the statistics, although the Tories have been in power 7 years now and have done nothing about it. It’s actually at a record high once you combine EU and non-EU migration (and both individually are also at or very near record highs).

With the exception of that leap in 2004 and that trough in 2013, there’s been a steady 200,000 a year non-EU migrants flowing in since 2000 (and I assume since the figures are net, it discounts those who only stay temporarily like overseas students).

It’s not shown on that graph but non-EU migration also grew substantially in the late Thatcher and Major years. That dip in 1992 was the lowest it had been since the mid 80s.

[rjan]

Carryfast:

Rjan:
[…]

If your income tax stoppage increases by 5% that’s effectively a 5% cut in your take home wage.So you’ll obviously need to work 5% harder just to stand still.

Indeed, or you can just take the hit, assuming that you’re not on the breadline. Workers are several percent worse off in wages since 2008, due to pay rises running below inflation.

Or in the case of an employer get rid of 5% of your staff and make the remainder work 5% harder to compensate for the lower workforce.

Like I say, if they could do that, why wouldn’t they do so anyway? And if you want to protect yourself against it, that’s what unions are for.

Yes unions are great.You know just like the ones who you’ve said were to blame for bringing Callaghan and his stinking Labour regime down.Instead of swallowing his wage cuts as so called ‘deferred wages’.

I don’t recall saying anything about “deferred wages” in that context, and I didn’t blame the unions at all. I blamed bosses for having created such a culture of conflict that workers couldn’t be reasoned with.

Yes the Arabs cut oil production to force up world oil prices.We were self sufficient by 1980 and obviously close enough by 1978 for Callaghan to have said that ‘all’ of our oil production at that time is solely for the UK market to be sold at well below world market prices.Thereby removing the inflationary pressures in the economy enough to actually make his wage policy work.

We probably were consuming all our own oil - I can’t imagine they’d ship ours out, only to ship someone else’s back in again. The question is who pays for the subsidy? Do you tax workers to buy it from the oil companies high, and sell it low on the street? Do you tax workers so that the state could buy the oil companies? Or do you expropriate the oil companies?

As for LHV’s more biased bs.You’d rather have less efficient trucks while at the same time telling drivers they have to be more productive to be paid more.

I haven’t said drivers have to be more productive to be paid more. I said they can be paid more regardless, but that pushing wages up does drive productivity improvements in the economy, because it makes capital investment more attractive and hobbles low-pay business models. But if there was no productivity improvement at all (an unlikely outcome on the historical evidence), then it would just be raw redistribution from those who are overpaid or who live on unearned incomes, and that can still be done.

Because you ( rightly ) think that the more productive trucks would actually be productive enough to compete with your ASLEF cronies.

No, I don’t believe the trucks would be productive enough to put lorry drivers on £40k a year for a 35 hour week. Again going back to my recollection of the DFT study, they reckoned a large proportion of wagons on the road are either empty or part-filled, and another proportion are already at the weight limits, there’d be limitations where they could be driven so the trailers couldn’t be used for general purposes, and basically all it was going to do was poach long-distance freight from rail, not appreciably improve productivity for existing (or new, non-poached) road flows.

Also, I seem to recall that last time you very much advanced the point of view that it would enable poaching.

Yet another example of you contradicting yourself.IE the industry has to be more productive to pay its drivers more but that would make it more competitive with rail and we can’t have that.Much better to carry on with the status quo of low paid drivers driving deliberately crippled unproductive vehicles to protect highly paid train drivers jobs.An industry which means employing the few at excessively high wages,while dumping the many in unnecessarily unproductive low wage employment if not on the dole.

As I say, there is no contradiction. My support of the £10 minimum wage is not based on there being productivity improvements - I simply mention in passing that, yes, higher wages do drive increased productivity.

And like I say (and I’m sure I said this 12 months ago last time we had this discussion), if lorry drivers are on £40k a year for 35 hours, job security and a final salary pension, then we’ll talk about whether they can compete with rail on productivity. The evidence otherwise suggests that LHVs will not drive any increase in productivity, and as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now I don’t support poaching and undercutting of workers based on driving pay down.

If you think the train drivers have it stitched up for themselves, and that too few are doing too many hours and they need to take on a larger share of workers, then fine make that argument, but it’s not the argument you’re currently making.

Then blatantly lying that we aren’t also subject to under cutting foreign competition from low cost base,including low wage cost base,competition taking an excessive amount of our import and export traffic much of it third country operations.In addition to cabotage operations.

I haven’t said we aren’t subject to foreign competition. I said I’m against foreign competition, unless they are paying the same wages, working under the same conditions, and paying the same taxes, otherwise there has to be a tariff at the door to keep undercutters out.

Thatcher and Callaghan would be proud of your stinking biased,contradictory as it suits you,big business,rail transport friendly ideas.

It was lorry drivers that broke pickets in the miners’ and print strikes, not railwaymen. The working class is stronger together than competing for work.

[carryfast]

Rjan:
I blamed bosses for having created such a culture of conflict that workers couldn’t be reasoned with.

Your words were ‘’ the workers basically refused to pay a single penny of the increased oil cost flexed their muscle to make it so which is why inflation took off ‘’.Then to add insult to injury going on to make the case for how moderate the German unions were.Yes because they could afford to be with their better wages to start with among other sweeteners they’d been given in the post war sell out of the Brits.Giving them our own oil to help them to wipe out our own industry while Brit workers were given wage cuts to pay for it being the final insult.

Inflation took off because of the ( needlessly in our case ) increased oil cost as you’d said yourself.Before yet again contradicting yourself.

As for the rest it’s about as credible as what you’ve said there.When what you’re really saying is look after the chosen few rail transport elite and zb everyone else.When not selling out the country’s interests to foreign ones.Just like Callaghan and Blair.

As for truck driver solidarity that’s a bit hypocritical bearing in mind the way in which ASLEF cut their RMT guard counterparts loose to get a good deal for themselves.

thestandard.co.uk/news//tran … 66331.html

The idea of truck drivers never refusing to cross picket lines,while other industries are supposedly a model of 100% solidarity,is just an unrealistic convenient stereotype used to confirm your own contradictory arguments.

[newmercman]

Carryfast, you know that feeling you get when you read a post from Rjan?

That’s the same feeling the rest of the world has when they read one of your posts [emoji1][emoji1][emoji1]

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

[papermonkey]

Mickey mouse:
The race to the bottom is well underway here fellas. Works out at £8.55 per hour. Don’t all apply at once. I despair. I was earning this twenty years ago.

If I was offered that pittance, the second word in the reply would be OFF . What an insult.

[tiredandemotional]

newmercman:
Carryfast, you know that feeling you get when you read a post from Rjan?

That’s the same feeling the rest of the world has when they read one of your posts [emoji1][emoji1][emoji1]

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

Neither of them can take a hint!

[commonrail]

newmercman:
Carryfast, you know that feeling you get when you read a post from Rjan?

That’s the same feeling the rest of the world has when they read one of your posts [emoji1][emoji1][emoji1]

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

I always wondered what would happen if you put a humidifier in the same room as a dehumidifier.
Let battle commence

[newmercman]

commonrail:

newmercman:
Carryfast, you know that feeling you get when you read a post from Rjan?

That’s the same feeling the rest of the world has when they read one of your posts [emoji1][emoji1][emoji1]

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

I always wondered what would happen if you put a humidifier in the same room as a dehumidifier.
Let battle commence

It’s like a perpetual motion machine designed by an evil villain

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

[big_truck]

They can talk some PISH