McDonalds workers due to strike for £10 an hour...

When I was a student I worked a couple of different minimum wage jobs. Be they in bars, restaurants or supermarkets. It was just a bit of pocket money really but they were always contracted to hours. Usually 12 or 16 with the option for more.

Zero hour contracts just weren't a thing then and it wasn't a problem.

I'm sure there are situations where a student might prefer a zero hour contract. I'm fine with that. My problem is that employment rights are being dodged by companies using zero hour contracts or employing people on a subcontract basis to do a job that a few years ago was a fully employed job (think delivery drivers etc).

Same.

When I was at uni I worked at Tesco for years and had contracted hours I think of like 12... something like that 6hrs twice a week.

If I wanted more hours i'd agree to work on Sunday / Saturday or evenings / nights.
 
When I was younger I worked at McDonald's for a couple of years and it's as bad you might imagine. The hours were long, pay was low and they worked you hard but when your 18 it's not that big deal IMO, I only ever worked a few shifts a week so I could earn a bit money to spend down at HMV or Next while I was at College. Reading the OP though it sounds like things have moved on since I left, when I was working there hours and shifts were fixed and it was hard to get them changed but now that seems like a luxury with zero hour contracts. I would think the biggest reason for the rise of zero hour contracts is so that employers can dodge employment rights etc rather then actually saving money (trust me places like McDonald's have big issues when it comes to staffing on weekends as youngesters are either to hung over from Friday to come into work or they don't want to work the evenings).
 
They have actually said it won't lead to a reduction in staff, just the staff will be utilised in different ways

Believe that as you will

Not much need for a cashier when the customer can do it themselves using a touchscreen kiosk.

They'll just need people behind the scenes preparing the food, even that could be party automated.
 
The problem we have in this country is that there are approx 4 people for every job vacancy so we are always going to end up with someone in a job that is not ideally suited to their needs.

Sure burger flipping is an entry level job. It's great for students to build up their CV with some valuable work experience and it's not a highly skilled job so anybody in that business can expect to find themselves at the bottom of the pay scale.

But we can't all be brain surgeons, we need someone to empty our garbage and to clean our sewers. I'm sure none of us here begrudges any of them a respectable day's wage.

I don't turn my nose up at anyone who finds themselves in a low paying job. Well, unless of course they took a degree in Mickey Mouse Studies. Then I'm ruthless.

Bahahahahahahahaha!!!!


iirc gunmen pays pretty well
 
haha binman bizzare my phone changes that to gunman
My wife used to work for the council before she got sick.

Some of the guys who started out as leisure attendants moved onto the bins. It paid a bit better and obviously you get the triple lock, chocolate dipped, golden pension plan with the council.

You sacrifice a bit on your hourly wage compared to private sector workers but you sure make up for it in the pension plan.
 
that would be complete madness.

you would then need to increase the cost of everything in London and then decrease the cost of everything up north too also.

for example petrol could now be cheaper in the north than it is in the south. as would supermarket prices and everything else. because aldi in london would now need to pay more per hour to their staff yet aldi in the north could now pay less per hour to their staff.

also by doing what you suggest it's just going to make the london bubble even bigger faster when what they really need is the london bubble to stop expanding at it's currently stupid high rate.

It doesn't really work like that, increasing the minimum wage doesn't get directly cancelled out by an increase in inflation, it could be slightly inflationary but it certainly isn't self defeating.

When I was a student I worked a couple of different minimum wage jobs. Be they in bars, restaurants or supermarkets. It was just a bit of pocket money really but they were always contracted to hours. Usually 12 or 16 with the option for more.

Zero hour contracts just weren't a thing then and it wasn't a problem.

I'm sure there are situations where a student might prefer a zero hour contract. I'm fine with that. My problem is that employment rights are being dodged by companies using zero hour contracts or employing people on a subcontract basis to do a job that a few years ago was a fully employed job (think delivery drivers etc).

zero hours contracts have been around for years, Tony Blair once promised to get rid of them prior to the 1997 general election

it is much more efficient to subcontract delivery drivers and couriers rather than pay per hour, that's simply part of the gig economy - don't like it then don't work as one, it is entirely optional to take up that sort of role
 
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My son works for McD's, started at 18 after 6th form, and has just taken the first rung on the management ladder as a shift manager, £9.10 an hour and just turned 20 years old.
He's on a zero hours contract through choice, although he has never worked less than 39/40 hours a week, any member of staff can choose to go on a 'full time' contract, and he has always been able to specify what days he wants off. Not terrible.
 
My son works for McD's, started at 18 after 6th form, and has just taken the first rung on the management ladder as a shift manager, £9.10 an hour and just turned 20 years old.
He's on a zero hours contract through choice, although he has never worked less than 39/40 hours a week, any member of staff can choose to go on a 'full time' contract, and he has always been able to specify what days he wants off. Not terrible.

that's exactly my point made earlier, I think these sorts of jobs are undervalued by people's perceptions, given the large number of people using them as something temporary or part time while studying then someone actually wanting to make a career of it has a bit of an edge... it is a big company and if you really wanted to start climbing the ladder and had the drive to do so then there is quite a lot of earning potential depending on the individual - there will inevitably be senior people within corporate who started on the shop floor and there are franchise owners too who started off in the restaurant chains then took a big financial risk
 
My son works for McD's, started at 18 after 6th form, and has just taken the first rung on the management ladder as a shift manager, £9.10 an hour and just turned 20 years old.
He's on a zero hours contract through choice, although he has never worked less than 39/40 hours a week, any member of staff can choose to go on a 'full time' contract, and he has always been able to specify what days he wants off. Not terrible.

I know of 2 friends from school who due to getting their other halfs pregnant during sixth form dropped out and ended up working there, they've both done very well for themselves and have been managers of one sort or another since their early to mid twenties.
As with most things you get out what you put in and desire to achieve.
 
They wouldn't be expendable if everyone did it, but yes thats the gist of it.

You won't get everyone doing it though as there are always people who'll be prepared to undercut the wage somewhat just to get a job. Ultimately many of these people are expendable - or seen as expendable to a business (often a somewhat flawed perception).
 
I know a lot of people who barely earn more than £10 an hour and they're highly experienced, skilled and work bloody hard, yet some burger flippers demand to be on £10 a hour? It's pretty hilarious really.

Not saying they don't work hard but it's not a skilled job and neither does it require any experience.
 
Can't have everyone doing it because the more in debt they are, the more fear they contain about unemployment.

So rather convenient then that almost everyone at that age has some sort of debt then ;).
 
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