Living Wage

Not necessarily bluebell if it just gets knocked off their housing benefit
Depends really who the workers are - if they are younger people living at home it might translate into more spending. If people trying to run a household in poverty, probably not.
And why are you "butting"? You mean it is easy?
More jobs, of reasonable quality, are what gets more money into circulation.
Suspect Germany does well because they have a long tradition of technical expertise and high leveltechnical training. There has been a lot of enthusiasm for a low wage "flexible workforce" amongst larger businesses in this country's service economy and politicians of all colours have supported it.

I know the problems, JessM. I have had two businesses myself, a cafe and a guest house. I made sure the staff were paid enough to qualify for NI so they actually got the benefits, i.e. sickness and pension contributions. I never paid less than the prevailing living wage, which is only £7.65 an hour now. When I had the cafe, there were wage bodies for farmers and shopworkers, which were done away with by the Tory government.
I did not know such things existed, but found out I was paying above the wage anyway.
At the guest house we used organic vegetarian produce, but I could not charge more than my competitors because otherwise we would have been empty most of the time. So I know about businesses being between a rock and a hard place.
However, I do not believe it is in the country's interests to exploit poor people.
I have just heard on the radio that Nissan might pull out of the northeast if Britain leaves the EU. Various people have been saying we should call their bluff. My ex daughter in law's father worked for Ford, finding the best places in Europe to open up new factories, places where the government actually encouraged manufacturing. How many Ford factories are there in this country now? More to the point, how many ex-Ford workers are on minimum wage or unemployed?

Nissan are always threatening to pull, out of the North East Jendurham. Only this morning I was chatting with one of the first tier suppliers about the latest threat. We agreed between us that Nissan call the shots here in the North East. If they say "jump" we all ask "how high?" Nissan is one of the most productive car manufacturers in the world. They have the most hard working and productive workforce and they call the shots with all of their suppliers, whom they screw into the ground on pricing (and I should know because I am one of them). In my opionion the biggest threat to Nissans security in the North East is Renault, who seeing how succesfull it is, must want to move it to France. However they know if they did, the high productivity and tranquility within their workforce would diminish (if not disappear) altogether.

Ford were the victims of a largely lazy workforce positively encouraged by the unions (IMHO).

The rich industrialists of the past realised that their workforce worked better if they were looked after. If ever there was a lesson to be learned from the past it's that. They didn't do it to be 'nice'; they did it because it made sense. I still can't get over the fact that I was working alongside girls earning less than £3 an hour [and doing the same job].

Tegan - did they Or did the unions force them into taking care of their workforce? I think there were a few shining exceptions, usually quakers but they were in the minority.
Gillybob I think the british car industry was a victim of both the unions and appalling management.

I quite agree, Tegan. The interesting thing is how many of them were Quakers. In fact the Tax Research UK site I keep quoting is run by a Quaker as well.
One of my mother's cousins and her husband worked for Rowntrees in York. The Rowntree Foundation still have to research into poverty and malnutrition in this country which I find quite appalling.

This was before unions existed I think; I'm thinking about places like Port Sunlight and Saltair.

Agreed JessM

I don't think the cars were very good, either .

Yes so was I tegan shining examples. But also the terrible exploitation that was going on in mines and mills across the land. The unions had a long, long fight in most places.

Just checked out Timpsons [because of the thread about shoe repairs; I'm sure that I heard that the company made a point of employing people with criminal records as they wanted to give people a second chance]; they, in fact, treat their workforce incredibly well. Wouldn't surprise me if Wilkinsons were the same, being a family run business. I know that, over the years, when I have worked for people that have been good to me I have been prepared to almost lay down and die for them, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that respect. Several memebers of my family have been victims of bulying in the workplace [me included] and I'm sure that was partly responsible for the breakdown of my marriage; my husband being on the point of a breakdown at one point..his boss eventually ended up in prison. Then again a lot of people abuse their terms and conditions at work, pulling sickies all the time and never being caught out [and not much that can be done anyway].

Employer/employee loyalty works two ways. I look after my staff, pay over the minimum wage, pay bonus and holidays etc. the only person who does not get paid holiday is me! But. what do you do when someone goes sick after working for you or 8 weeks and 2 days ( 8 weeks as employee to qualify for ssp), calls in sick and is then seen sipping coffee in Waitrose Cafe, then sends a text to ask is this bonus week?

I stand by what I intimated, better a job, than the dole.
Unless of course you are getting more benefits than you would get by going to work. Vote catching statements by Milliband threaten our power supplies and this is on top of the stupidity of "a living wage" catchy title but not based in any way with reality.

"Paying the London living wage is not only morally right, but it makes good business sense too."

Who said that? Not Ed Miliband (name spelt correctly) but Boris Johnson, Mayor of London.

Gilly Copied and pasted from my Facebook page.

"From our latest BT bill - how on earth did that happen?? :-))
Fri 04 Oct 13 13:04 01661871347 Ponteland 1:06 £0.340
Fri 04 Oct 13 10:36 084561129700845 Numbers 4:35 £0.260
Wed 02 Oct 13 16:44 HMRC B*ST*RDS Special Svce 28:23 £2.760
Wed 02 Oct 13 16:44 08459000444 0845 Numbers 0:28 £0.170"

Strangely, I have just looked again at the bill online and the reference to the B*st*rds has disappeared

Message deleted by Gransnet for breaking our forum guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

You are funny, deserving!

Actually she is incredibly rude and I cannot be bothered any more on this site.

Child support payments are not taken into account when calculating housing benefit,income support and tax credits and even if they were surely a father (or mother) should support their children and not the government. Paying child support does encourage non resident parents to have a continuing relationship with their children .

Hey just tried to PM Jendurham and she has left the site.

Saying some gets 10/10 for stupidity and the same for self-satisfied pomposity is incredibly rude. I have reported Deservings post. It seems she can't get her point over with offending someone to the point of their leaving.

Admit to being incredibly thick now , taking into account my pensioner position, but surely a 'living wage' only works for full time employment. As I mentioned before this is actively discouraged by local councils who should be paying housing benefit on a sliding scale rather than have a cut off point once the recipient works more than 16 hours.

It is not just single parents who find themselves in this trap, having been made redundant during the recession many people only managed to gain part time employment. They come off the Government's unemployment figures but a 'living wage' is still totally inadequate without help.

The theory is good but £7.64 per hour paid even for full time work in this part of the country would not bring in enough money to feed and clothe a single parent family,plus ensure an adequate roof over their heads. I should like to see Government members give it a try.

Good luck to the Archbishop but I don't think it's possible.

It seems I can't get my point over without some.... pointing out a spelling mistake, I remember a well loved late member saying "we wouldn't do that on GN" well some do it now. Point out anytime I have instigated a tart remark, other than as a retort to another s jibes.
Then tell that to teacher.

Thank you Aka I hope Jendurham comes back it would be sad to loose her.

Prior to Greatnan going missing, I was beginning to feel disenchanted with the unpleasant tone of some contributors to gransnet discussions. I haven't had much enthusiasm for threads this week, as the news about Greatnan has left me heavy hearted.
This morning, I hoped to enjoy catching up on some of the discussions. My enthusiasm was knocked on the head by reading the negative, opinionated, cold, self centred, anti life comments posted on this thread by Deserving. I am sorry to read the Jendurham has left, but I'm not surprised.