Project Fear

gillybob, let's face it in many industries young people have been used as "very cheap labour" for many years. One example would be Coffee chains which state that their young employees are "Apprentices." However, all these people learn is how to make and serve coffee and other sundries while on pitiful hourly rates based often on zero hour contracts. In my opinion, the foregoing has to be stopped, and if legislation is required to bring that about, so be it

However, in other industries and professions employees are paid based on the qualifications they hold at any point in time. With that, the further training they are prepared to undertake in furthering their career the greater the asset they become to the business, and the higher the salary they will achieve

By example, many of our employees have their salaries based on the Insitute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) qualifications they hold. The further up that rating they achieve, the greater an asset to the company they are and higher their salary becomes.

Therefore, if a trainee were to join us on basic living wage, then those more qualified are already paid well above that due to their qualifications, and in that, the work we can give them.

No problem.

So is it morally right to employ a person who works to further your companies aims and profit but knowingly not paying that person sufficient to feed their family or live in a safe warm environment?
Or pay them insufficient to live knowing that the tax payer will pick up the tab through benefits, housing subsidies or even food banks?

That is not true at all Whitewave. I know my business. I know how much we can charge per hour for our services. Our work is all business to business so we do not make and sell to the public. The government can raise wages to any amount they choose but how could we pay them? Seriously? Our prices are already cut to the bone by our customers (the large manufacturers) and our costs are going up at an alarming rate as are pensions, rents, rates, NI, insurances.... the list is endless. there will come a point where businesses like our will not be worth running at all and we will all just give up (I know plenty others like ours).

We could make minimum wage £20 per hour but then everything (and I mean everything) will have to rise accordingly. The cost of travel, food.....everything.

gillybob I think it's "the ripple effect" the scenario you describe is never ending and factual.

My problem is that I have real difficulty in accepting that paying anyone less than a salary which enables them a basic standard of living is acceptable, and which if they cannot manage they have to seek state benefit of one sort or another.

In my opinion, we are effectively subsidising businesses to the tune of millions and millions a year because they don’t pay their staff sufficient to live on.

In many companies should legislation dictate that any young person has to be paid at least minimum or living wage then it would be that experienced and highly trained employees earn well above those rates already and therefore it should be no problem

I'm afraid I cannot agree with you there Grandad1943. We only employ skilled people therefore no-one on minimum wage, however....

Example :Person has worked for us for 10 years or more. He knows the business and what is required of him inside out. He is paid say for arguments sake £15 per hour. If a young person comes into the company knowing nothing whatsoever and has no work experience but I have to pay him say £9 per hour then I have effectively devalued my 10 years experience mans wage and he will expect (and deserve) more money, which will mean more NI and more pension which we absolutely could not afford without putting our prices up significantly which the NE marketplace will not tolerate.

GrannyGravy13 Quote [Grandad can you honestly say that a qualified person in your business would be happy to earn the same as an apprentice?] End Quote.

Saleries in our Buisness are based on the qualifications that any member of staff holds. Any young person joining us under training has to hold A level or higher educational qualifications and therefore will have a starting salary well above minimum wage on beginning employment with us.

In many companies should legislation dictate that any young person has to be paid at least minimum or living wage then it would be that experienced and highly trained employees earn well above those rates already and therefore it should be no problem.

The real problem comes with many reasonable employers would be when competitor businesses use Gig Economy employment terms, which can make those good employers uncompetitive and they are forced to use similar conditions of employment in their business.

The above is known as "the race to the bottom."

The list is of companies that HAVE ALREADY moved their assets. These will never come back.

I think that we can therefore be confident that the advise being given that there will be more leaving the U.K. post Brexit is a high risk, however, there is no evidence that companies have left because of the Corbyn factor, therefore the risk that this is likely to happen is very low.

Your DH is indeed an honourable man * gilly*

One of our major customers has already set up a full production line in Europe ready for the Brexit fallout. My DH was asked to be involved but he is a very moral man and said he would not assist in what will eventually be the loss of hundreds of jobs in the UK as they gradually cease production here. Imagine helping to dismantle a machine in full view of those currently running it? Horrible.

We were far more stable before the fraudulent referendum and the best and only way to regain stability and salvage our economy is to stop brexit.

For one thing, you need to wait and see which companies actually do set up shop in another country as opposed to saying they may do, and for another it has been widely reported that fear of a Corbyn government will lead to some doing so.
Because everything to do with Brexit is in flux, businesses are planning for every possible eventuality ......what we need is some stability so the sooner things are sorted out the better.

Not one of you is able to provide concrete evidence of your argument.

However here are some reports providing evidence of the result of the threat of Brexit which we must remember has not yet happened.

“From CNN
Banks and other financial services have so far moved £800 bn. to Europe.
The amount represents so far 10% of the total assets in the U.K. The numbers only represent what has already been announced, there are firm plans afoot for more movement in the event of a no deal.

It is considered that the fallout from a no deal scenario will be worse than the 2008 banking crash and financial institutions are keen to avoid what to them would be an absolute nightmare.
The U.K. economy has already suffered from the Brexit effect. Inflation spiked and consumer confidence has dropped.
Business investment has fallen drastically, and large manufacturing industries are warning that they will be forced to quit the U.K.

Lots more where that came from.

gillybob ditto to your post.

I have already vowed I will never take another apprentice GrannyGravy.

This is yet another one of JC's crazy and ill thought out ideas and a bribe to win younger votes (and it is a bribe there's no other way of looking at it). It will make all companies large and small think very hard before taking on a young inexperienced person.

We have had a few apprentices over the years, a couple who were very good and have gone onto great things and one ( the most recent and the nail in the coffin) who almost drove me and DH to distraction . None have stayed with us after qualifying as we cannot compete with the wages offered by the likes of Nissan and the grass is always greener (or is it?) although one did ask to come back but we refused.

Grandad can you honestly say that a qualified person in your business would be happy to earn the same as an apprentice?

GrannyGravy13, of course business like ours will still employ Trainees and Apprentices should their minimum wage rate increase under legislation. In that, the legislation will be the same for all in business and therefore fair to all.

Many young people are having a difficult time at present with not being able to get on the property ladder etc. Therefore if you increase the wealth of that section of society, it eventually feeds through to the benefit of all society as they then spend that extra wealth.

When the minimum wage was being brought in, we were told thousands of jobs would be lost, instead, thousands of additional jobs were created as people spent that extra money.

gillybob we also fear a JC (momentum) led Government more so than Brexit.

If his "hairbrained" scheme to put sixteen year old apprentices on the same "living wage" as a qualified worker, surely it doesn't take a lot of brainpower to realise that small businesses will no longer take on apprentices.

gillybob, we have always been told prior to any General Election that Businesses will leave the UK in their droves if a Labour Government is elected.

Doubtless, our business and yours will still be trading in Britain after the election of a Labour government. In that, I also started this business in 2003 under a Labour government, and we are still trading and very much grown. However, with all the Brexit uncertainties created by this useless conservative government, we have been engaged huge amounts of work in recent months with so many companies opening additional warehouse facilities etc for stockpiling.

All of which will have to be paid for by the British consumer.

As a lifelong Tory (except for Tony Blair) I do not fear a Corbyn Government as much as I fear Brexit.
However, and correct me if I am wrong, Brexit looks like something with a terminal illness with the end for it looming on the horizon.

GabriellaG54, in regard to us remain supporters having nothing else to do but search out links etc, can I state that in my own case that I worked in our offices until 9pm last night and similar the previous evening.

I came in again at around 10am this morning, but now have some spare time due to an industrial accident case we were involved in on the employers side being settled prior to the court hearing.

So, it is perhaps Brexit supporting people who look to the no policies, no answers one man Farage Party who have all the time on their hands and still cannot address posts in any considered manner.

As the owner of a small business and a remain voter. I am now much more afraid of JC getting into power than leaving the EU (which scares the hell out of most small businesses).

How many times does it need to be said.....

We are NOT a failing country.

I just find all this negativity from some so depressing.

Some people (naming no names but we all know who they are) are determined to stuff their views down the throats of leavers, calling us naive and unread.
You are not superior.
Your views are not leavers views.
Your diatribes are boring.
Anything we need to clarify, we can find out for ourselves.
The amount of time you must spend digging out links, lists of companies and all the tripe posted daily which is meant to show leavers the folly of their ways, shows that you have nothing better to do.
What a way to exist live.

Apologies, I forgot to place link in my above post. :-
www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-politics-44618154