Large increase in migrant workers.

scorza said:
Perfectly legal if you say you'll pay a worker say 50p for each unit they produce, knowing full well that the maximum number of units it's possible to produce is 4 per hour. I believe lots of Eastern European workers got caught out with this scan for cleaning hotel rooms in central London. No doubt it's all the fault of lazy British workers though :rolleyes:
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Not legal at all - if you offer piece pay the worker still needs to earn minimum wage + holiday pay based on time worked. Employers have to top up wages of underperforming workers.
 
hood1971 said:
Not legal at all - if you offer piece pay the worker still needs to earn minimum wage + holiday pay based on time worked. Employers have to top up wages of underperforming workers.
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Not entirely true.

Employers can choose between two ways of paying 'output workers'. You must either:

1. pay the national minimum wage for every hour they work
2. pay them at least a 'fair' piece rate for each piece produced or task performed (rated output work).
 
frosty03 said:
How many natives would actually take up a 6am (or earlier) to 6pm job picking vegetables/fruit off a farm at the minimum wage? What about cleaning hotel rooms at the minimum wage? Food processing jobs? Working in abattoirs?

If we ship off all the migrants, and few natives want to do these menial jobs, guess what happens then?
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People picking vegetables and cleaning hotel rooms start earning more than the minimum wage?
 
Basher said:
Not entirely true.

Employers can choose between two ways of paying 'output workers'. You must either:

1. pay the national minimum wage for every hour they work
2. pay them at least a 'fair' piece rate for each piece produced or task performed (rated output work).
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My mistake - I am used to working under the agricultutal workers order which means you have to pay agricultural minimum wage + hol pay even for piece workers.

Though the scenario in scorza's post is not legal, as he states that the rate is set so that no-one can earn minimum wage, which is not a fair rate
 
hood1971 said:
My mistake - I am used to working under the agricultutal workers order which means you have to pay agricultural minimum wage + hol pay even for piece workers.

Though the scenario in scorza's post is not legal, as he states that the rate is set so that no-one can earn minimum wage, which is not a fair rate
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I was wrong to say it was legal, but nevertheless it was widespread practice in certain industries. The mostly eastern European workers were brought over direct from their countries and had no idea that there was a minimum wage in the UK so didn't know to complain.
 
scorza said:
People picking vegetables and cleaning hotel rooms start earning more than the minimum wage?
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As long as consumers are willing to pay more - the agricultural minimum wage has risen by 25% since 2001, whilst the price supermarkers pay for fruit/veg has pretty much stayed the same. Where I work labour constitues 60% of all outgoings, which has meant that to survive we have had to become far more efficient to keep decent profit margins, which has lead to us using less workers.
 
hood1971 said:
As long as consumers are willing to pay more - the agricultural minimum wage has risen by 25% since 2001, whilst the price supermarkers pay for fruit/veg has pretty much stayed the same. Where I work labour constitues 60% of all outgoings, which has meant that to survive we have had to become far more efficient to keep decent profit margins, which has lead to us using less workers.
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Sounds suspiciously like the way businesses and economies are supposed to work. By artificially decreasing the price of labour through immigration you are standing in the way of businesses becoming more efficient.
 
scorza said:
Sounds suspiciously like the way businesses and economies are supposed to work. By artificially decreasing the price of labour through immigration you are standing in the way of businesses becoming more efficient.
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We have always paid at least minimum wage, which has increased year on year, whist the price we get for the product has stayed the same. Supermarkets and consumers demand low prices and get them - therefore we use less workers (not as you state pay them less). We have had to become more efficient, but there will come a tipping point where realistically the profit margins will become too small and we will probably move production elsewhere, unless prices increase.
 
scorza said:
People picking vegetables and cleaning hotel rooms start earning more than the minimum wage?
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When that happens, that will be the new "minimum wage". There will always be sectors of work where the pay will be "lowest". Usually in unskilled manual jobs.

Even if you substitute picking veggies/cleaning with a.n.other job, it will be a low wage. If you pay them more, then inflation will go up, and in effect their new "higher than minimum wage" will be minimum in reality anyway.

Fact is, you will always have unskilled manual jobs. Those with no other skills, or who have no other employment will have to take them. What we're seeing now is the elective refusal to undertake these jobs because benefits are more favourable, since you dont have to work and get more money anyway.

You really cant "force" those on benefits to work, because they will do a bad job, take sickies etc, it will do more damage to the business in the long run.

The only way to "force" people to work, is to remove or reduce benefits to an extent that they will "want" to keep their employment and thus have a better work ethic (or get fired).
 
stulid said:
Simple, make people on the dole do it or they lose their benefit.

Minimum wage has to be better than the £65 a week dole money provides.
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Possibly is, but you need to take into account loss of other benefits such as housing, child etc. due to being in full time work, sometimes they will only just break even. And that's why a lot of the long time doley scum won't get jobs, and rather site on benefits all the time. Me I couldn't do it personally, if I lost my job, I'd be applying for anything and everything I could get.
 
i think only the lower class are angry on immigrants because they are taking their crappy jobs. most don't ever get any jobs beside restaurant sinks, farm pickers or hard labour. you can't blame them for making a step up
 
Mucky_Pup said:
Possibly is, but you need to take into account loss of other benefits such as housing, child etc. due to being in full time work, sometimes they will only just break even. And that's why a lot of the long time doley scum won't get jobs, and rather site on benefits all the time. Me I couldn't do it personally, if I lost my job, I'd be applying for anything and everything I could get.
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thats what ive done in the last few weeks i was on the dole 2.5 weeks ,my cv is pretty good but ive taken a job at not much over minimum wage for an agency ,the good thing for me is that its 5 days on then 5 days off and we get a break every 2 hours for half an hour in a very plush rest room with big plasmas and sky ect plus i am mortgage free ,a lot of the others are oriental or asian
the new agency laws kick in tommorow so either a lot of people are going to be sacked in 12 weeks or end up with a nice rise ,the none agency people get up to 34k for the same menial job
 
regulus said:
Tired excuse from the natives and in MOST cases, not true at all. I employ agency staff, I specifically asked for certain people back because they represent value. 90% of them are foreigners. Probably closer to 95% really. I make sure we pay them more than the going rate (which is now nearing 3 x national minimum /hour) which everyone is on, local or foreign, it makes zero difference to us where you're from. All we care about is that the job gets done and done on time. I expect it's the same at most places.

Saying that, all our managers and senior supervisors are British and we keep it that way too. Reason being is that once you promote one of the foreign guys (Eastern Euros usually) to a supervisory position, they can't seem to handle the responsibility and instantly start treating others like crap because they're now 'the boss'. Brits are more mild. Theirs seem to be a very hierarchical culture so everyone (E. Euros) is kept at the same level.
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You pay agency staff almost £18 per hour?
 
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