Minimum Wage

[Jubal]

I personally think that minimum wages should scale by organisation size - roughly the current NMW for small businesses, above living wage for large corporations or investment banks with really high turnover. Avoid stopping small businesses hiring but push bigger ones to support their staff better. The major issue with wages IMO is that in the current system, at least in the UK, if someone is on NMW and has any kind of family they cannot reasonably support their kids, there's a big overlap between benefits and work-level pay such that essentially the taxpayer ends up subsidising corporations on their wage bills. Or even corporations paying taxes in and getting them out in wage bill subsidies, which is clearly unnecessary bureaucracy.

[comrade_general]

Minimum wage is just more government meddling and should be abolished.

[Jubal]

I guess my opinion is that if we didn't have a minimum wage we'd be even closer to general wage slavery than we already are. Given how few employers there are in many industries and the total lack of balance in competition due to entry barriers, all it takes is those at the top deciding to turn off or plug the wage tap and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. Labour pricing isn't a free market and can't be reasonably modelled as one.

[Othko97]

I'm with Jubal here, I would not trust corporations to judge how much labour is worth. People will always need jobs, and corporations will always pay as little as possible - look at  sweatshops.

[Clockwork]

If you're working for some big 'corporation' there are guys telling you how much you get paid, and you get paid a fair wage as dictated by the market, by which I mean: if you do something a monkey can do, you'll be paid appropriately, if you're 1 in 400,000 people that can do the job, you'll get paid more. If you're not, then you're working for a small business or for yourself and good luck trying to get a small business owner to pay you well, working for yourself is the best option as you see all outgoings and income but that requires more work on your part, you effectively pay corporations to make your life easier and to take off stress and worry of managing a business.

There will always be kids coming out of school that work for next to nothing because they need the experience more than the money. Once you get to professional status, then you can start getting paid something decent. Why would it benefit them to pay you more than you're worth? Getting paid based on how well you do is just sensible, definitely don't pay a half arsed worker as much as someone that turns up on time, gets everything done and has good customer service or whatever. Or if someone is just plain bad at their job their work isn't worth as much as someone that is.

Sweatshops pay what they pay and people still do the job and get paid, if it wasn't worthwhile then they wouldn't work there. It's nobodies fault they were born in a country with huge wealth disparity so they can't afford armadillo all, its just the hand you're dealt.

[comrade_general]

Exactly, it works like supply and demand.

What would you trust? A government protected by its own laws that mandates what people earn or a private enterprise that figures its employee's salaries based on the market?

[TTG4]

I'm with Jub here, I think the minimum wage is a good idea, setting a fixed price for labour ensures everyone gets a fair deal. Where I start to differ is with the pro-living wage lot, I can see why huge companies could afford to pay more, but small businesses could struggle.

[Pentagathus]

There will always be kids coming out of school that work for next to nothing because they need the experience more than the money. Once you get to professional status, then you can start getting paid something decent. Why would it benefit them to pay you more than you're worth?

Well that is why we have a separate minimum wage for apprentices.

Getting paid based on how well you do is just sensible, definitely don't pay a half arsed worker as much as someone that turns up on time, gets everything done and has good customer service or whatever. Or if someone is just plain bad at their job their work isn't worth as much as someone that is.

You realise people can be paid above minimum wage right?

Sweatshops pay what they pay and people still do the job and get paid, if it wasn't worthwhile then they wouldn't work there. It's nobodies fault they were born in a country with huge wealth disparity so they can't afford armadillo all, its just the hand you're dealt.

It is many people's fault, if poorer countries weren't exploited by wealthy ones then there wouldn't be a huge wealth disparity. But that would require humanity to be a very different breed. But the point of a minimum wage is to avoid that sort of situation occurring here, although of course workers in the UK could live off welfare instead of working for such a armadilloty wage so we have a pretty crappy back up anyway.


I like Jubs idea about a scaling system, no idea how feasible it is though.

[Jubal]

What would you trust? A government protected by its own laws that mandates what people earn or a private enterprise that figures its employee's salaries based on the market?

Neither! But I'd accept balancing the roles of both against one another, which is how I think of minimum wage regulation. I guess I come from a moral perspective that society as a whole has a duty to ensure people don't starve to death for lack of work or pay. I also live in an actual society that has structural unemployment. As such, if businesses can absolve themselves from paying their workers enough to live on, they will do. Most people's labour - even graduate skilled labour - is simply not valuable enough in the current economy that they can afford to withdraw their labour. That's a privilege currently afforded to like a few computer techs and high grade researchers and that's about it. We also in the UK (and I think in the US too) have watered down all the unionisation laws such that workers outside the public sector can no longer usually do the only effective form of wage bargaining, namely collectively bargaining for their labour.

So we're down to "the market". I guess my own feeling is that if market forces declare that the price of labour is to be lower than the amount needed for a human being to survive, the price of labour is the thing that's wrong. There's no reason why we can't and shouldn't collectively declare as a society the principle that a human's work and life is worth a certain minimum amount. Beyond my feelings there are sound economic reasons though too - less minimum wage legislation leads to a bigger wealth gap, which is bad for the economy as more money ends up being saved rather than spent (leading to less employment opportunities as a whole) and also an unbalanced economy where production is geared towards less sustainable luxury production, driving down the cost of luxuries and keeping the cost of living inflated.

[Clockwork]

Getting paid based on how well you do is just sensible, definitely don't pay a half arsed worker as much as someone that turns up on time, gets everything done and has good customer service or whatever. Or if someone is just plain bad at their job their work isn't worth as much as someone that is.

You realise people can be paid above minimum wage right?

I was talking about the market price of labour, not people being paid minimum wage. Here I mean that generally setting a standard wage means that service quality goes down because why the hell try when you get paid the same for half arsing it? Bonuses are good, better workers getting paid more is good. That was all.

Well that is why we have a separate minimum wage for apprentices.

We do, but straight out of school with A-Levels or straight from Uni, you still don't have the skills and experience that someone who has been in the job for three years even does (three years after getting a-levels/uni, not arguing uni/school is a waste at all) so they're paid less. Apprenticeships are usually different as people go on them either while acquiring level 1/2/3 qualifications or are learning a trade directly and are also usually coming straight onto them at 16/17, pay is reduced by the cost it takes to train a person. Although when I was going for apprenticeships, the pay was pretty decent most of the time, £300 a week or thereabouts but it did go down to £160 or probably less for other ones I saw.

EDIT: In reply to a bit of what Jub said, the problem is that we have too many people. Over-saturation of unskilled labour. Which is why I like Canada/Zealand/Straya system of points to get into a country depending on how much the country values you and your profession.

[comrade_general]

Split into separate thread.

[Jubal]

I don't think anyone's arguing that all wages should be flat. There aren't many *actual* communists on this site, as much as it may feel that way to you I think it's entirely right that as people gain experience and are working more efficiently or doing a more responsible job, they should be paid accordingly, if that needs clarifying. Though I think it would be ideal if the worker/manager differentials were lower as more money being injected into the base of the economy is healthier than it being collected up among the top earners where far more of it just sits in savings.

Honestly, migrant labour really isn't the issue IMO. Most migrant labour goes into sectors that bluntly Brits refuse to work in or don't have the skills to anyway, either very manual jobs in agriculture or specialist roles in healthcare. We do need to remobilise our labour forces and somehow get more unemployed Brits into seriously manual jobs, but that is going to take a fair bit of work in terms of people's perception of those jobs.

[Clockwork]

Hehe, naw I was just clarifying a point as there was a little contention with my meaning.

In northants (decent case study for looking at high employment rate), we have a large portion of immigrants (illegal or otherwise) from middle east and generations thereof which are more the problem in terms of unemployment. In general they don't work manual, lack skills, sometimes lack the language and lack decent education. Only the cab driver and corner shop trade gains anything and we have so many of both anyway.

Generally the migrants from the EU come here for college/uni and go back after a short term in the UK creating a nice supply of cheap manual labour to supplement the mainly IT businesses we have here. Not that I'm advocating that either by the way but I'm not ignorant as to how it's helpful as well.

[Pentagathus]

Ah sorry, no I'd agree that a flat wage policy would be utter bollocks.
As for the the immigration thing I'd say I'm somewhere between the two of you, what Jubs says about migrant labour is only really true in certain areas nowadays (can't remember the last time I met a gang of british beet pickers back home) but I don't think curbing immigration would really have much effect, areas with high unemployment generally have a problem with the native population (including 2nd generation migrants) not the migrant population.
Out of curiosity, how many EU students are there in english unis now? Besides those on exchange schemes I can't see too many folk jumping at the chance to pay £9000 a year. Its pretty different up here though, they still don't have to pay for education in scotland, seems like most EU students who want to study in the UK come here now. Not that my city is particularly relevant to this discussion, it must have the lowest unemployment rate of any city in the UK at the moment.