Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Stan
The bulk of zero hours contracts are in retail. The rise in online sales has increased price and therefore cost pressure on retailers. Sports Direct hasd 90% on zero hours. There are many others such as Boots, Weather spoon, Cineworld.

Most jobs have been deskilled and create low wages as the supply of workers exceeds demand. A lot of businesses only survive on low wages. If you want higher wages then expect to pay much higher prices. No government can legislate to pay wages that are much higher. You can up the minimum wage and that is what people will be paid. There is only one route to better pay and that is a successful economy where workers are in demand. As we have too many people in the UK now, market forces are unlikely to create a shortage of workers. That will mean low wages.

Usualy non union shops that have zero hours contracts.

Unions obviously against them and you usualy find where their is no union low wages are the norm.

When will the working class realise Unions are good for them.

Usualy non union shops that have zero hours contracts.

Unions obviously against them and you usualy find where their is no union low wages are the norm.

When will the working class realise Unions are good for them.

The workers can join a union, but the employer doesn't have to recognise the union.

34309 - such a shame that you torpedo the thrust of your intelligent questions and comment with the customary political soapbox claptrap ..... but to extract the various intelligent bits .....

pay them at least the market price for those hours worked ..... the living “hourly rate” ...... surely the market rate by definition is the price that someone will accept for doing a given job ..... which in some ways links to "the living hourly rate" ..... however, i would certainly accept that some or even many people feel compelled, perhaps through economic circumstance, to accept a certain rate for a job even if they feel (rightly or wrongly) that it is actually worth more

GDP and other statistics .... there is no right way of compiling these as all are inevitably open to different interpretations ..... however, if you keep switching the methodology, it quickly becomes impossible to make comparisons with history ..... nevertheless, it was certainly a fair comment that hours-worked per capita would be a useful addition to certain statistics, but even that is not watertight, for pretty obvious reasons

productivity .... in the 60/70s uk productivity across nearly all industries was appalling, for all sorts of reasons ..... the result of this was that industries relocated elsewhere in the world, crudely but not entirely accurately put "because labour was cheaper"

in fact, even today, there are certain countries in the world where employing "too many" to do a certain job is a legal obligation - again for fairly obvious reasons

An example for me of weaknesses is that a company or factory can produce and “unwanted” or “unnecessary” piece of crap .... what unbelievable arrogance! ..... what right do you have to determine what should or should not be produced and sold, if a market can be found?

PRICE of housing, (not actual intrinsic value of the property) the value of a house is what someone will pay for it .... as an awful lot of people have discovered in the last 5 years, to their great economic discomfiture, is that (even) house prices can fall, and significantly too

certainly more affordable houses need to be built, but where and how? .... there's the added problem that far too many young people - at whom i guess this grouping is aimed - have champagne tastes and beer incomes and are unwilling to cut their coat according to the cloth and thus buy something "adequate", even if not in the favoured area, just to get themselves on the ladder

Hays what you mean is the boss is a skin flint and will only pay the minimum wage.

Wheres the incentives for the workers ala sports direct, waitrose etc.

It is nothing to do with being skinflints. It is market forces. Labour is a resource and cost like any other such as electricity, premises, rent, rates. That is is basis of economics. There has to be a good reason to pay higher wages, which might be that it instills loyalty, better work. If those attributesvare not important to a business then expect low wages.

34322 - and what do you do with your sub-group and how many sub-divisions of that sub-group would you then create and would you have groups and sub-groups according to their most recent ethnic origin? ..... reductio ad absurdum or even sub-group ad nauseam :-)

unfortunately hays, there are very few companies indeed who recognise that their workforce is their lifeblood and to replace good staff is incredibly expensive, and in fact, a downright inefficient way of running a biz

Google is a very honourable exception, though they assuredly have the wherewithal to pursue this course

When I employed a large number of staff, I paid them way over the market rate with bonuses that could double their pay. It was good business as they all worked harder. If I ran a business that needed no skill and there was a large pool available then I might pay the minimum wage. Not to do so would decrease my competitiveness in the market.

My business was akin to Google in that I employed IT professionals who worked on projects for banks, insurance companies etc. I would pay them a high salary, 10% of the gross price of their part of the project, health insurance, flexible hours and a company car.

If I had a different business then I might pay them £7 an hour.

I agree 100% with cyners, you need good staff they are worth their weight in gold. A good workforce can do the job without management. Well a small amount of management compared to the shop where the staff dont give a s-it and are clock watching all day.

All comes down to 2 things I have found.....

1. and foremost good solid training right from the off and regular back ups with staff appraisal and a target to be met.

2. Incentives, firstly promotion, secondly financial.

Some twitter comments of spoof mistaken identities

RIP Ronnie Biggs. Glad I got to see you at Hyde Park.

Sad news about Ronnie Biggs. Is there only one of the BeeGees left now?

it's a lot more than training, and it starts and pretty much finishes with management ..... i accept that we have never needed to employ many people, but despite having to put up with me and my very non-pc ways, a newbie was someone who had only been with us for 3-5 years, so that surely says something polite about me and my style :-)

Respect from managers towards the people who work for them is a necessary ingredient, people will not give of their best if they don't like/respect the management. Managers need to lead by example.

Cynic
Have a job for me?

Cyners talking of big business in general above where DELEGATION is a must.

A good delegater is usualy a good reliable manager or supervisor.

ALL the WAY down the chain.

Hays,

Post 34324

I partially agree with that argument and recognise "expectations" probably have to be reduced, or changed.

However, there also needs to be a readjustment of the elitist expectancy present in society and a redistribution of reward to the "labour" which actually produces the wealth.

That means reducing the expectancies of some greedy biggers at the top of the "pile".

[[[[[[[[[[[[[

Aside, I would like to know how many of the proudly boasted 30 million working force
are past the age of 65 years of age, who have worked honestly and consistently for 40 or more years and hope for and promised a reasonable retirement, to see it being destroyed by a bunch of self interested Old Etonians, who will spend more on their Xmas dinners than the many pensioners and unemployed will have as weekly income.

But I forgot "we are all in it together". I think the current tory leadership a nasty dysfunctional bunch.

========
Manuel,

Ask your family to give you a brain for Xmas.

(Or at least a manual on how to use the one you already have.)

i take it that you didn't like my answers - but i wouldn't expect you to as they don't coincide with your view of how the world should be let alone how it is in real life ..... shame you cannot share the same fate as the author of utopia, though he did not deserve that

it never ceases to amaze me that you choose to continue to live in what you regard as a total cesspit of corruption and vile political practices and rampaging greed throughout all levels of society and everything else which you find so despicable ...... i'ld vote for you to emigrate to north korea, but am surprised you don't choose to live in france with its currant (sic!) fruitcake socialist loonies at the helm and confiscatory tax system