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One way to deal with that would have been to increase the professionalism within the industry and force non-UK plumbers to undergo exams to work in the Uk as a plumber.
And call it gas safe perhaps?
But at the same time we are a market economy and it has to function as such to some extent.
Yes, but if the government allows x100 molgrips into the country meaning you personally can only earn 2/3 of what you used to earn how's that going to make you feel?
To be honest I think the affect of leaving the EU is going to be a far great wage suppressive than competing with EU migrants but that's not so easy for some people to understand..
I wonder how the Germans viewed the influx of UK construction workers in the 80s?
auf Wiedersehen, pet?
Then complain to your government not the EU as the British government is in full control.
Other European countires have legislated to prevent labour dumping and the UK can too.
Well done for catching up, we said this over 3 years ago.
the effect of lowered wages has been shown by a few repeatable source but only at the lower end of the market.
I didn't read any references just the conclusions but this doesn't actually seem to address the issue of how many of the lowest paid jobs are real jobs in economic terms.
By that I mean the numbers of these jobs seems to far exceed the economic numbers of customers that can actually afford a service on a regular basis.
Just randomly chosen but
https://www.statista.com/statistics/755284/whitbread-costa-coffee-employment/
Just a single coffee chain employs nearly 20k employees ... our small town has numerous coffee shops from Costa to Nero to Starbucks to ... and a load of cafe's, sandwich shops and resto's but I have no idea who would actually earn enough to pay 2.50 (or whatever it is) for something worth 25p on a regular basis...
We have more taxi's than seems possible and lots of other services that equally seem to be services that only a top few percentile earner would think of in my childhood.
It hardly seems surprising if all these services are sold as regular things* to low income groups that the person performing the service must be earning less than their target market.
*It seems to me like things that were an occasional treat back in the 70's and 80's to people who considered themselves working class are now a regular part of life... but the only way those services can be cheap enough for the masses is by paying even lower wages to those that do them.
The next step in the process is to ask why these issues (if issues they are) were not discussed at length and addressed before the stupid referendum. I believe the standard answer to be ‘The PC crowd wouldn’t let us demand that migrant workers should be qualified, otherwise they’d call us racist, and anyway what about car washers, and fruit-pickers, stealing all our jobs?’... etc etc
It all sounds true if you feel it hard enough in your gut. Right?
It was always going to be this way in the UK, after half a century of tabloidism what else could it be? Makes me sick. Counter-anecdote (defers to Mrs Rider)incoming. I’ll be back.
And call it gas safe perhaps?
No, a proper charter - with the esteem that being chartered entails. Not some shitty sounding “gas safe”. Something youngsters can feel proud to achieve.
It hardly seems surprising if all these services are sold as regular things* to low income groups that the person performing the service must be earning less than their target market.
Eh, does not compute?
*It seems to me like things that were an occasional treat back in the 70’s and 80’s to people who considered themselves working class are now a regular part of life… but the only way those services can be cheap enough for the masses is by paying even lower wages to those that do them
Cafe Nero and Starbucks aren’t employing people below the minimum wage or even less than the independent cafes - they operate on the economy of scale.
But you touch on a good point, the UK working classes still have a decent amount of spending power - at least compared to the rest of the world. The bloke who was banging on about wanting £1k a week is a good example of what I consider to be quite pervasive entitlement in this country, the British expect their lives to be better than everyone else’s on the planet simply because they are British. Why does someone automatically deserve the equivalent of 52k a year in purchasing power in today’s economy?
What defines ‘the going rate’? In most businesses, the rate is set by supply and demand. How is this different?
Yes, but if the government allows x100 molgrips into the country meaning you personally can only earn 2/3 of what you used to earn how’s that going to make you feel?
Are these not basically two cheeks of the same arse?
As someone who isn't a plumber but rather may occasionally require the services of such a trade - along with the vast majority of people in the country - someone coming along and undercutting what is essentially a monopoly is a good thing, is it not?
The likes of Tesco have decimated the "nation of shopkeepers" we used to have ~40 years ago, but unless you happen to be a shopkeeper it's a net benefit to everyone else. People vote with their feet, if they'd all rather pay more for their weekly shop and spend half their Saturday trailing round a dozen different shops then we'd have boycotted the big supermarket chains. But we haven't, because most people seemingly are all in favour of supporting local businesses until it hits them in the wallet.
What's the "going rate" for a plumber these days, assuming you can even get one? A quick Google would suggest £30-£50 for the first hour (here in the highly affluent North West), fixing a dripping tap comes in at £95. You could fix two dripping taps per day and pull in four grand a month, I'm in the wrong profession!
Unless you live in a marginal constituency your vote is not going to change anything.
Hmm. Have to say I disagree. Because.
The main parties (e.g. the Tories) take notice of how minor parties (say, UKIP / Brexit / Farage's next right wing disgrace) are doing and adjust policy if they think they are losing votes.
Hmm. That raises an interesting question. What defines ‘the going rate’? In most businesses, the rate is set by supply and demand. How is this different? There are lots of jobs that don’t earn enough to support a family. Why are plumbers any different?
This is partly devil’s advocate but partly not. I mean everyone should get a living wage. But at the same time we are a market economy and it has to function as such to some extent.
OK, to play devils advocate to your devils advocate.
Its easier to undercut the "going rate" if you work longer ours and accept a lower standard of living.
Its easier to undercut the "going rate" if you are supporting a family in a country where the cost of living is lower than here
its easier to undercut the "going rate" if you don't declare any of it.
Its easier to under cut the "going rate" if you do a shoddy job.
Could be any or all of those reasons. But for all of them, to shrug your shoulders and say "its a market economy" is more than a little bit hard line Tory.
Its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you work longer ours and accept a lower standard of living.
Its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you are supporting a family in a country where the cost of living is lower than here
its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you don’t declare any of it.
Its easier to under cut the “going rate” if you do a shoddy job.
But what does any of that have to do with immigrant workers? There's nothing to stop our home-grown plumbers from doing any of those things either (aside perhaps from the overseas family bit, and that's probably a fringe case). I've had plenty of substandard / cash-in-hand jobs from "professional" tradesmen over the years, none of whom looked a bit foreign, and "you could earn more money if you work more" should hardly come as a shock to anyone.
Its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you work longer ours and accept a lower standard of living.
Its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you are supporting a family in a country where the cost of living is lower than here
its easier to undercut the “going rate” if you don’t declare any of it.
Its easier to under cut the “going rate” if you do a shoddy job
While all these statements are true, are they real? Is this happening?
Certainly the British plumber wasn't declaring his earnings properly I would bet...
It hardly seems surprising if all these services are sold as regular things* to low income groups that the person performing the service must be earning less than their target market.
Eh, does not compute?
People think they earn more than their taxi driver.
But what does any of that have to do with immigrant workers?
Nothing as such. Molgrips was talking about (or I thought he was talking about) under cutting market rates and implying (or I thought he was implying) "so what?"
People think they earn more than their taxi driver.
Though I don't think I've ever heard a plumber charge by going "how much do you usually pay?" (-:
I think that’s missing the point if the work in question is not minimum wage work.
There's a "convention collective" for each type of job which includes a pay scale. Britain could do that too.
And you leavers clearly haven't understood what Britian is trying to achieve with Brexit, it wants to undercut Europe. It want's to become a low tax, low wage, low health and safety, unregulated work environment. And Barnier isn't stupid, his job is to protect the 27 from unfair competition, and that's why the deal will never be a fantastic or easy deal.
The UK construction industry is going to be revolutionised by the Brexit true believers… high quality jobs for all…
https://twitter.com/indeox/status/1178637955214299136?s=21
It's logical isn't it, once they manage to get us back to the 50s, there'll be loads of revolutionary new technologies like calculating machines and internet pipes and the like to take advantage of over the next couple of decades.
I'm quite looking forward to having a few 3 day working weeks, too.
What other treats do we have in store?
Maybe some massive inflation to increase the value of our cash savings?
Yes, but if the government allows x100 molgrips into the country meaning you personally can only earn 2/3 of what you used to earn how’s that going to make you feel?
I fully appreciate it's an issue. But what's the alternative? If you allow a group of people to set their own income levels and not allow any other competition, isn't that allowing them to run a cartel? Why should plumbers make more than anyone else? Teachers, care workers, nurses? If there's demand for plumbers then why should we restrict supply to keep prices inflated?
I am in no way a hardline Tory* - I am pretty left in my sentiments, but we do need an element of market economics in general.
As for allowing 100 molgripses into the country, this is exactly what happened in my area of work which is IT. 20 or so years ago everyone realised you could offshore** work for far cheaper, so that's what they did. Projects are quite likely to fail, quality is quite likely to be low because of the business model this practice created (not because there's anything wrong with foreigners). There are still local jobs for native IT people but there is far more work for us to fill and likewise we are far too expensive for business models.
So we don't have legions of unemployed IT staff, nor do we work for peanuts, but the economy has grown to the point where it depends on the offshore workers - if we didn't have them we simply wouldn't be able to do as much stuff and our economy would shrink. And they'd have no work so theirs would too.
Not quite sure where I'm going with this but are plumbers keeping their wages artificially high by restricting demand? What about the poor sods who can't afford to get their heating fixed?
It's ironic that what plumbers seem to be asking for is protectionism, at the same time as many leavers denouncing the EU as protectionist.
* I think it would be better if everyone's heating and power were provided by a central authority from generation to point of use - pay for your usage and the state fixes everything else like telecoms used to be. Why should anyone make a profit from your basic need to drink, cook, keep warm or see in the dark? Not exactly luxuries are they?
** either the work is sent offshore or teams are hired from offshore outsourcers who pay their staff peanuts and don't give them decent worker protection by either country's standards.
I think what this is from an economics point of view is a problem with full employment. Sure, there's a shortage of plumbers, but people aren't training to become plumbers because they already have work. So we have a shortage.
Immigration has allowed our economy to grow too big to operate without it. Without immigrants we'd have the opposite of unemployment - a shortage of workers.
I spent 5 years attempting to address the skills gap by working with small employers in engineering, having secured government funding for apprenticeships but there was a prevalent 'cake and eat it" attitude with many employers, they wanted it all on a plate and more - even to the extent that they didn't want to pay apprentice wages and had a bit of a Victorian work ethic to their apprentices, not understanding that they'd have to spend a day a week at college getting an education rather than doing "stuff" - they were just paying apprentice wages so they could get cheap labour and fail to give them a job when they finished. At the other end of the scale, many large retailers re-designated employees as "apprentices" to they could get subsidised funding as well as pay them below minimum wage. Of course none of this was due to the EU, but Government policy and structural cuts made 20-30 years ago. The notion that we can re-generate / grow our industries without immigrants is laughable as we have chronic shortages in all technical skills areas approaching 50,000 year simply due to an ageing population.
The notion that we can re-generate / grow our industries without immigrants is laughable as we have chronic shortages in all technical skills areas approaching 50,000 year simply due to an ageing population.
There are immigrants at the skilled and unskilled ends of the workforce, and low unemployment. We can reduce immigration at one of these ends but not both at the same time without population growth some other way.
"House of Commons Exiting the European Union Committee"
"The consequences of “No Deal” for UK business".
If you don't to read it all skip to conclusions - though the subsequent pages (Formal Minutes) may also be of interest.
Well, that’s proving to be a delightful read....
For those skimming… please can I draw your attention to “Labour mobility‘.
Many people ‘think’ that freedom of movement of workers is more beneficial for countries with less advanced economies than it is for countries such as ourselves and Germany. But any advanced country with a significant service sector needs freedom of movement to successful ‘export’ services at any significant volume. So restrictions on working across borders will hit our economy hard. Very hard. Because we are so reliant on exporting services for our balance of payments. And yes, when the economy gets spanked, you will be as well. If you work in construction, you will not be immune.
Now, go back to talking about plumbers. But, oh, if anyone local can recommend someone reliable to service our boiler… we’ve had another guy let us down. Cheers.
But any advanced country with a significant service sector needs freedom of movement to successful ‘export’ services at any significant volume.
Do you have a source/examples for us? (serious question)
My experience is of working in Switzerland. Took several days to get a work permit, and cost £1500 (for the service). Then I could only do limited things and I only had about 10 days or something. Longer required a different permit with more justification and expense. Some colleagues ended up falling foul of tax treaties and such as well. It was annoying and costly but not a huge blocker in that particular circumstance. But then, I work for a global company with a presence in Switzerland.
Meh....utter nonsense according to “Mary (Brexiteer) on recent LBC phone in”, that’s nothing but project fear shouted from the rooftops by remoaners who wish to ignore the democratic vote of leavers who knew they voted for no deal...leave means leave.
So I guess we should just leave and accept the will of the people?"..............
.....aye that’ll be ****ing right🤬, I’ll personally hound every ****ing dickhead leaver till they either admit they were wrong or till they exit this mortal life. Utter ****ing idiots who deserve to be dragged out of their insular existence and tarred/feathered/thrown in a ****ing pit.
As an aside the brother of one of my closest mates (sadly died last year due to osphegeal cancer) has spent his entire adult life (30+years) in the civil service from international trade to deputy/high commissioner postings and he is now in one of the most dangerous Middle East posts you can get, but I can’t mention where obviously as it’d jeopardise his career and the talks we have had over the past 3odd years would terrify you as to his opinion of what is coming/planned for this country if no deal passes, he’s moved his family out of the UK in preparation.
We are ****ed if no deal comes to fruition ☹️
Then I could only do limited things and I only had about 10 days or something. Longer required a different permit with more justification and expense.
Switzerland isn’t in the EU.
We are **** if no deal comes to fruition
Johnson will get to play at being King of England for 5 years though, so you know, swings and roundabouts.
The likes of Tesco have decimated the “nation of shopkeepers” we used to have ~40 years ago, but unless you happen to be a shopkeeper it’s a net benefit to everyone else. People vote with their feet, if they’d all rather pay more for their weekly shop and spend half their Saturday trailing round a dozen different shops then we’d have boycotted the big supermarket chains. But we haven’t, because most people seemingly are all in favour of supporting local businesses until it hits them in the wallet.
It's not a net benefit if we lose in other ways like cheap supply chains from supermarkets suppressing suppliers; more pollution from out of town drives, broken communities from travelling further afield, lower wages due to anti competitive practices of the supermarkets, exploitation of non-local labour etc.
It's a race to the bottom driven by the consumer and yes we are partly in control of that because we can choose not to shop there.
But there is no point pretending it's a net benefit when there downsides are more than just the price saving. Perhaps not always as tangible.
Until we find the end-game (the collapse) of a 'market' we might be in favour of them but time and time again we shown how a market can distort things and get carried away and ultimately serves less and less people in their best interest as we push for lower and lower prices.
Also given the cost of living in this country and specifically house prices - how do the wages of the average supermarket keep that afloat - more debt? Well we know where that it is always heading don't we.
It's fine being competitive (and I'm a great believer with tradesman you generally get less not more when you pay a lower price) but you always have to ask at what cost to the broader economy. And is it truly competitive or is there a distortion in the price you are comparing.
Soooo Johnson's long gestating plan is some custom posts 5 miles either side of the border
Which will never fly
So no deal it is?
Esther McVey is the perfect demonstration of Dunning-Kruger in action.
So no deal it is?
I am going for Extension signed by someone on Johnson's behalf.
and spend half their Saturday trailing round a dozen different shops
It’s a small disagreement in the grand scheme of things. But I don’t t think most/many/some would see the shop taking longer. I can do all of my food shopping on the local high street which includes greengrocer, fishmonger, bakers, butchers, hard wear store, post office, and a Co Op (no genuine general store corner shops left) for everything else. We can get round these quicker than by going to the nearest supermarket including travel time. It helps being a small town.
no it’s not a rich place full to bursting with middle class elites and hipsters. If you view where I live on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation map, I’m in a big patch of red.
Expensive way to shop when an option for a supermarket is Lidl/Aldi.
The likes of Tesco have decimated the “nation of shopkeepers” we used to have ~40 years ago, but unless you happen to be a shopkeeper it’s a net benefit to everyone else. People vote with their feet, if they’d all rather pay more for their weekly shop and spend half their Saturday trailing round a dozen different shops then we’d have boycotted the big supermarket chains. But we haven’t, because most people seemingly are all in favour of supporting local businesses until it hits them in the wallet.
I am just back from the netherlands where they have used local planning to prevent the spread of large supermarkets and out of town shopping centres. The result - the town centres are still full of useful shops and losts of footfall of shoppers. Tesco does ot even operate in the netherlands and their monoplolistic tactics do not work there
Supermarkets / out of town shopping are only advantageous for those with cars. the dominence of them destroys town centres and high streets hence to continual bleating about empty shops on the high street.
Switzerland isn’t in the EU.
I know mate that's why I posted it as an example of the red tape we might face in the services industry post-Brexit.
I'm in Spain today, and all I had to do was book a flight and hotel.
kerley
I am going for Extension signed by someone on Johnson’s behalf.
Possibly Nobile Justicium?
The Brexiteers are just going to love Scotland if that happens...
Sorry @molgrips, I thought you were pointing out that the barriers, cost and hassle already exist. My misunderstanding.
Anyway, the point still stands that freedom to work across borders benefits our service based economy, and all of us living here… too many people view it as a cost rather than a major benefit for the UK. Depressing that Labour as well as the Conservatives are sticking to their redline of ending that freedom, rather than explaining why we need it.
Joris Bonson (as Mrs Binners has now taken to calling him) was just interviewed on radio 4.
Its quite clear that any border proposals (which he still refused to give any details about) Are the same unicorn based nonsense that they were when David Davis was spouting 'because...erm... technology'
The EU will throw it straight out, of course, which is exactly what they want, obviously
Another worrying addition to the toxic narrative being espoused by Mr Cummings this morning is the statement that if the EU grants an extension, the UK will behave in a 'mutinous' manner. So trying to get the EU to reject an extension if they are legally forced to request one
I really do just despair at their pathetic world war 2 rhetoric
I saw Cummings drawing a picture of the prophet Mohammed and doing a poo on it.
Esther McVey is the perfect demonstration of Dunning-Kruger in action.
Yep. Those new fangled 3D architects building houses in 3D is a revolution.
It does, however, beg the question...can 2D architects only design flats?
I am going for Extension signed by someone on Johnson’s behalf.
'Nob off' action all ready underway in Scotland, funded by a renewable energy company owner and represented by Jo Maugham's legal group.
He's here all week folks!
Utter * idiots who deserve to be dragged out of their insular existence and tarred/feathered/thrown in a * pit.
Idiotic comment TBH. How terrible that others don't share your lofty enlightenment, and how very dare they!
It's all very well you being so enlightened and comfortable with our cosmopolitan and outward looking place in the world, but would you disagree that this is enabled by your own personal circumstances? Many who are ignorant to the facts about brexit are not that way because of their own laziness, but because of their upbringing, education (or lack of), employment status, and other personal circumstances. Maybe some empathy would be a better idea than getting out the pitchforks?