The ragged trousered philanthropists.

Whilst reading micky Finn's thread. That's been taken to a political financial level. I would urge all political persuasions read this book. As much relevance today as when it was written. The case of the few overlording the many. Socialism was created to appeal to the working class. My fear Is we have returned to those days. I for one believe Corbin can and will create a better society. Not looking to start a political argument. Where some will disagree with my view ...just read the book.

 

Just in addition to that... A general wondering. Do working people (sweeping statement I know) genuinely feel exploited and taken advantage of in their places of work? Are laws inadequate to protect employees, and are people signed into automatic enrolment and receiving at least minimum requirements? Are employers (and a distinction between small, medium and large is probably useful to disclose) less understanding of working people and seeking to benefit themselves, more than the employees. Are working people trained, promoted, and encouraged to fulfil roles that they are genuinely capable of doing? And how do people generally perceive the current state in the UK of business owners/ directors "vs" employees.

Genuinely curious to see what peoples views, experiences and perceptions are.

 

The company I work for mate. (Very large ex public service turned private by Thatcher.) Pay new people far less than their colleagues doing the exact same job. (Earnings protected) less hols and worse t's n c's Why. Cos they can. Thus creating a divide between the workforce.For those that think that can't happen because of equal pay laws. It doesn't. It only covers the male/female side of things. So if a new job is advertised they cannot pay a woman any Less than a man. The book covers it quite well.

 

I started with a small company that is now probably a medium company.
When I first started we didn’t really have anything regarding stated terms, never needed them, they just look after us really well.
As things have grown all official paperwork and stuff is in place, people are allowed to progress to the extent of their abilities, do discrimination with male/ female and bosses / owners are always approachable should we have a problem. If the company does well we get an extra annual bonus, so no complaints at all.

 

. Not knocking all employers mate. There are some genuinely good ones out there. But believe me the amount of bad ones far outweigh the good.when Profit is god
employees suffer.

 

But a lot of these companies, I am positive, would earn a lot more profit if they invested in the right areas - but they don't do that because, as per my comment on another thread, Excel rules.

 

Google Yorkshire water directors pay.

 

I read this book over 30 years ago & to be honest I did not know what to expect when I started reading it ,but I can honestly say that once I started reading it, I did not want to put it down , absolutely brilliant book .

 

Public service employees today know only too well that decisions taken by the hierarchy are often not in the best interests of anyone except the political ideology of this Govt. It’s laughable when Civil Service hierarchy try sell us any new practices and ideas as their own initiatives. They still try to pillock us that Universal Credit has been a resounding success, despite the ongoing hardships it has caused for so many. Ian Duncan Smith (Spits) failed to deliver this and the small parts he did deliver were well over budget and well beyond deadline.Senior Civil Servant Sir Robert Deveraux took early Retirement and apart from an obscene lump sum beyond a million, he has an annual Civil Service Pension of £86k which is at least £80k more than mine will be. Yet it is the lower echelons of public service employees who have been singled out for all the flak. Never has there been more differentials in pay for folk doing the same job as their is now. I’ve worked in Public and Private sector doing similar work and found the private sector to be better wages wise, but la king in security. However, that has quickly changed now.


pension

 

Outsourced my dept. 1999. Brought back in house 2010. Strong union membership stopped our tees and cees from being eroded. But pensions went tits up 2003 ish. (Pensions we’re not covered under TUPE) not allowed to be reinstated to old scheme. Lost 10s of £1000s compared to if we had not been outsourced. Not illegal but morally reprehensible.

 

I'm in a pretty privileged position that every year I literally see in excess of 50,000 employee opinions. Its not uncommon that heavier industries, harder jobs, less paid jobs and regions that have struggled have opinions which are more suspicious and seem to show a stronger link of the employer needing to do right by them. They seem to have a greater negativity of "the management" and are super critical of any symbol that may show they have been lesser treated. There are obviously examples which buck that generic trend, but its very much there.

There are people in very well paid jobs in finance, law and technology who may have a similar view, but their negatives are often about process, the way the company does things, rather than an us and them culture.

That's not a knock at anyone, its just an observation from seeing huge amounts of data from many regions, industries and age ranges over 15+ years.

What I can also say, is that typically the businesses i've seen at close quarters have always wanted to balance looking after their people with commercial success. I've not seen an intent to do over the workforce or punish them or exploit them. Undoubtedly there are businesses who may take that view and drain the workforce of everything it can, but I don't think that's the norm at all.

 

It's a book on my future reading list.

The answer in most cases must be a resounding 'yes' compared to pre-neoliberal days. This is the research I've been undertaking at university , having been lucky enough to talk to a couple of folk on here. The miners' strike was a pitched battle in which those who went on strike and those who opposed it were conscious that they were fighting for the right to set their own terms of employment through collective union action or have them dictated to them. The defeat instigated a decline in workers' rights that we still experience today.

To take my own industry- teaching- Michael Gove's policies meant that it is no longer mandatory for teachers to have a professional qualification to teach a class which weakens the status of the role. Cuts to education funding means that if you have been teaching long enough to climb the salary ladder (which doesnt formally exist any more, either) You are vulnerable to bring replaced by cheap young staff paid at the minimum rates due to the pressure school budgets are under. Workloads are increased to unsustainable and stressful levels So more staff go off sick and unqualified staff are brought in to cover. I've worked in a lot of schools and seen this pattern very often.

The book in the thread title is on my list of books to read in the future btw. Another good one that is a social history and an interesting summary of the battle over employment rights is The History of the Working Class by Selina Todd.

 

If you're looking at employment and workers rights, you must segment that research. As touched on earlier, the raw first hand data I've had access to over time suggests a clear distinction depending on the type of business and the skill level of the individual/job role.

I've not had much insight first hand into public sector roles, but due to their nature and high unionised numbers historically I can certainly understand and increased militancy and expectancy.

The other point i'd suggest combining or at least touching on, is the changing nature of business and the aspect of employment rights and agility in a dynamic working environment.

In many businesses in London, there has been a huge surge in organisations seeking to increase their diversity, and as such, changing working practices, hours, styles and contracts, not to mention physical environments to allow more diverse groups to feel engaged and part of the organisation. I've seen much less of that outside of London, and I therefore wonder if their are not only sector and job role variances, but also regional.

 

Just an addendum. Business need also has to be considered. Take retail as a prime example. Over time, there has been a consumer push to drive down costs and have cheaper goods. That means less manufacturing, clothing and textile in the uk. SR Gent a very good example of such decline. The effect has been shoppers keen to bag bargains (irrespective of need) and buy at cheaper levels. Retailers, faced with increasing property costs, a surging minimum wage and huge competition from online sources, has shifted to highly inexperienced managers, minimum training, and trying to operate without managers in some instances to keep costs as low as possible.

You could therefore argue that its not necessarily government that has pushed to change workers rights, but ultimately people and there choices that are making businesses review their way of operating, their cost bases and how they serve the demand they generate.

 

Imo low prices aren’t driving down wages at the lower end but unsustainable salary’s and golden pensions for the top people of these conglomerates plus outrageous profit demands to pay dividends to shareholders .
This in turn puts pressure on smaller businesses to compete and have to cut jobs and wages etc

 

There are in the region of 3.6m businesses in the UK. The vast majority of workforce is made up by SMEs. In the scope of things, the huge salaries are a tiny proportion of overall pay. Yes, some are obscene and completely excessive, but I find it really unhelpful that Labour are painting this picture that all businesses are corporately greedy and exploiting unionised employees. It's just not the case on a wide scale.

What I would also say is that an owner, a CEO or managing director has massive pressures that are unlike that of a general employee. Run a business where you are responsible for its financial success, sustainability and the livelihoods of every man and woman within, not to mention the relationships with customers, suppliers, legal requirements, cashflow, indebtedness to institutions, morality, processes, technology and general market volatility from internal and external factors.

Those taking the risk and the weight of pressure absolutely should be allowed reward without vilification and attack. They should also be fair and they should also pay their fair share of tax. And that's where I see the balance out of kilter. But attacking businesses, the vast majority who look after jobs and are keen to create jobs, is completely counterproductive and if Brexit is extreme, it is likely to create considerable unemployment in the UK... and a greater push to technology to remove jobs permanently.

 

Thanks for that, mate. My thesis is centred on the Dearne Valley and mining, so focuses on this industry but of course given this disappeared then I am interested in the industries that replaced them. I'm wary of over-simplifying a picture of work and workers' experiences, and I know there are plenty of people who have adapted and done very well for themselves. But on the whole I think we have a pervasive climate in which labour markets are open and flexible and centred on profits with the consequence that workers have unstable and precarious working conditions. 60,000 jobs in mining around Manvers Main for instance were replaced by a similar amount of jobs at the call centres and distribution warehouses that largely replaced them. There is a stark contrast in employment terms between these two sectors.

In terms of consumers having a role in this, I'd argue that this is in large part due to the disposable consumer culture which has been carefully nurtured by businesses through marketing so that people are manipulated into buying things they don't need, and that don't last in the interest of creating constant new streams of revenue for capital to flow into.

There's an entertaining introduction on the origins of this, for instance, from Adam Curtis here:

I'd be really interested in being able to look at your data and knowing more about what you do mate if you fancy PM'ing me, thank you!

 

Labour are not saying all buisnesses are excessively reaping all the rewards .
Wages and conditions for the so called bottom end of the scale is a national and international disgrace and exploitive at the very least.
Almost Every economist and their father agrees that reward should follow hard work and responsibility but always exclude the ordinary worker who also has responsibilities to providing for his family to pressures on the top floor.
If you are ignoring the excesses of a very large number of boardrooms and shareholders as trivial and insignificant then your study is flawed and imo biased

 

Its an interesting point of debate as to whether markets create perceived need, or perceived need changes markets. Or if there is a co-dependency between the two or whether one starts a product/service curve and cedes dominance to the other once a critical mass is delivered.

Theres also certainly a difference between mining and a call centre and the necessary rights and safety needs of the respective workforces. Miners faced physical risk and dangerous conditions, and as was found latterly, conditions that caused disease and shortened life expectancy. A call centre may be exposed to posture issues in due course, or impact on eyesight. I've usually found such attempts to protect against these are commonplace.

I think the point about instability of working conditions is an interesting one. Lets take Brexit as an example. At this stage, businesses genuinely don't know what will happen in just 6 months time. As a business owner, I can tell you the thing that causes you most sleepless nights is uncertainty. Not just simple uncertainty, but the sort that you have zero to minimal ability to control, change or ration with. Brexit could be less impactful than expected. It could be 20 times worse and its impact could last months or decades. Does a business have the absolute responsibility to generate jobs? Or sustainability, profit and longevity? At every turn, I'd try and preserve jobs to deliver the best possible service for clients and the most robust and ethical business operations. Success should be shared to a degree and when deserved. But there should always (in my view) be reserves to fall back on when external factors dictate and performance is impinged. For most companies, salaries and employment costs are the biggest proportion of outgoings. As such, employment will always be the first thing to be cut to preserve a businesses future, and surely, that has to be the right thing?

Finally, sadly, I can't share the data. It's confidential and bespoke for clients. And in most cases we have some form of NDA ensuring that data is secure (that's before GDPR), and the organisations we work with stay anonymous. Annoying, as it would hugely help our marketing to be able to name them.

If you need any input or a different view, I'm more than happy to help if you want to PM. I can't promise I can give every insight you might need from a different side of the fence, but happy to try if it helps.

 

I haven't done a study. Merely shared samples and an overview of tens of thousands of opinions captured. But your latter statements compound the problems ethical fair SME's face. Its all too common that all businesses are tarred with the brush of excess and success could easily become a dirty word.

I'll repeat myself, that some rewards are obscene and excessive, and tax avoidance of huge businesses is unhelpful. However, the vast majority of businesses in the UK are SME's (employing under 250 people) and a growing number are microbusiness with less than 5 people. There is a constant noise of antibusiness coming from labour, or even worse, a complete lack of understanding of modern business structures and pressures. I recall a labour QT participant suggesting all business owners, including microbusinesses, should have more parental leave to be with their kids. This included one person businesses. Obviously while having a year off in a one person business, Labour just come in and do your job for you!!!

I firmly believe in balance. Businesses should pay fair tax. Successful entrepreneurs and job creators should be encouraged, incentivised to do so and not be vilified for it. Employees should be rewarded for above and beyond behaviour, but are subject to limits depending on performance of the company. In SME's owners and directors are often the first to give up way more than an employee to ensure business continuity in a downturn.

But it shouldn't be the case that a company has all the benefit, nor that employees become the enemy within as conditions of trade become more and more punitive..