are our labour laws so lax that they beg to be taken advantage of, rather than providing a delivery service at a price that the retailer NEEDS to deliver the product and still make a profit?

Officers of a company are required to run their business to its most profitable, nevermind due to shareholder demand…

Therefore SHOULD take advantage of anything that exists, as they know that their competitors will – which is why we need laws to protect us.

As said we only have ourselves to blame. “Free” postage is simply passing the cost on to someone else. The hypocrisy is everywhere, you only need to scan through this site to see the amount of hand wringers who love to feel outraged about everything and anything and then in the next breath cream themselves over a PSA for cheap sunglasses imported from god knows where.

I think its fair to say that the majority on here are more than comfortably well off enough to pay their own way but people choose not to because at the end of the day they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The amount of times I’ve heard the argument trotted out that “theres nobody else” is ridiculous. There is. It just doesn’t suit your wallet or morals.

If we all care that much wheres the campaign to replace the site ads with non google alternatives? Or is it easier to sit on the moral high ground, ban Daily Mail links but happily accept offshore “taxed” money.

On work ethic – treat an employee like shit and they’ll respond in kind. Its not hard, people very quickly get sick of working for no thanks and when effort fails to reward they’ll divert their energies elsewhere.

The problem with the “devil take the hindmost” attitude is that these jobs need to be done by someone. It is no answer just to say that those on minimum wage should have “aspired” higher, worked harder at school, or in their job. Checkouts still need manned, shelves need stacked, bins need emptied, parcels delivered. Somone’s got to do it. How should we treat these people, and why? Cleaning a hospital is an absolutely essential task, vital for hygiene.

FWIW the staff in the local booths are great, all really friendly, helpful, professional. Min wage or not, I don’t know why. I assume there is more to a job than the salary alone.

they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing

Hence, why Planet-X and Sports Direct do so well.

The trouble is companies are avoiding minium wadges via the zero hours and “self employed” method of payment. On top of that I think wadges are not just about skill level, but also effort, stress, danger, resonsability. While delivering pasels is not particauly dangerouse, there is a fair amount of stress if the work is based on pasels delivered and you ar consantly in traffic and it reuire more effort than holding up a “golf sale” sign.

Yep, but all those things (stress, danger, etc) are things you could do to get out of minimum wage too. Or any other wage.

You could be a welder, and weld trailers in a nice warm shed somewhere.

You could be a welder, and weld bits of oil rigs back together in Nigeria and probably retire at 30something.

Any wage is going to be a function of skill, danger, stress, location, and even ethics/morals, hence why jobs in the oil industry generally pay more than the equivalents elsewhere, no one wants to work on an oil rig and live in Aberdeen, which is why the pay is probably 50% more than similar jobs even in the Oil industry in London. Then the oil jobs in London pay better than the charity jobs (you could drill water wells in Africa), because you lose something morally/ethically too.

It’s counter productive though, if you have too many people earning too little, you don’t have enough purchasing power in the economy to create domestic demand. A higher mininum wage, which means even the lowest skilled jobs have disposable income, is better for the economy.

I agree, but I don’t necessarily think that a lowest common denominator raising of the minimum wage is the way to get there. A more skilled workforce get’s you the same rise in wages, without shafting those who’ve already worked their way up the ladder. If you’re earning £9/hour doing something involving a skill (or more stress, in a worse location, whatever justifies the minimum wage + a bit) and the minimum wage goes up to that level then you may well think **** it I’ll go work for yodel rather than deal with this.

Serious question: Who’s going to change it?

The Bolsheviks comrade.

Crazy thing was the reported 80% satisfaction rating (a huge improvement).
If I ran such a business, 98% satisfaction would be giving me cause for concern.

Interesting business area though, where the likes of Amazon, CRC, etc. are technically the customers, but we are the ones that are really the effective customers, and expect the service. And beyond checking the Royal Mail or Express Courier option, have little choice as to who gets our custom.

Would be curious to know what sort of service level agreements those big online warehouses have with couriers. I certainly get the impression that they trade cheaper courier costs and self-insure for what you’d normally expect to be courier failures.

You could increase delivery prices 10 fold and there will still be plenty companies out there taking advantage, pocketing the extra, and still pay and treat employees like shite.

A lot of not very nice ‘business’ people out there getaway with such a poor attitude to the lowest members of staff because they do it in the name of ‘business’ so its ok. These same people think ‘business’ is the most important thing on the planet and it must take priority over everything else.

Yep, but all those things (stress, danger, etc) are things you could do to get out of minimum wage too. Or any other wage….

That is my point. Delivering stuff is more xyz than holdign a gold sign (simplest job I can think of) so deserves a little more.

When we did maintance at care homes the staff wher on minimum wage, and any increase was hated by the mangement as they then had to increase wages to everyone to keep the differential in pay between carer and senior carer and others higher up the chain, or they would all ask to be demoted.

Somwe also got annoyed at us for charging more, to pay for transport costs, tools materials and other stuff us self employed had to buy, which they got for free.

A lot of not very nice ‘business’ people out there getaway with such a poor attitude to the lowest members of staff because they do it in the name of ‘business’ so its ok. These same people think ‘business’ is the most important thing on the planet and it must take priority over everything else.

It always amazes me that the phrase ‘its just business’ is some catch all justification for pretty much every type of severe ****ishness know to man.

The neoliberal system we’ve now got has legitimised doing everything possible, no matter how morally, ethically or legally dubious to further enrich yourself at the expense of everyone else. The attitude of business (hey… its just business!) is to meet the absolute legal minimum you can get away with. On wages. On workers rights. On regulation. On conservation and the environment. Because to do anything more than this marks you out as a mug.

And to achieve what? Where has all Googles tax avoidance got it? It has tens of billions of quid just sat in an offshore bank account. Doing what? Achieving what? Is that it? Is that the ultimate goal of everything? To amass an enormous pile of cash, that just squats there in the middle of the sea, talking to itself?

And yes… I blame Thatcha

The neoliberal system we’ve now got has legitimised doing everything possible, no matter how morally, ethically or legally dubious to further enrich yourself at the expense of everyone else.

Somebody else was arguing (maybe with you ) about this the other day.

Company directors too often overlook the rules defined in the companies act in favour of the bottom line

6.2.2. Duty to act for the benefit of the company (1st October 2007)
Sec172 (1) A director of a company must act in the way he considers, in good faith, would be most likely to promote the success of the company for the benefit of its members as a whole, and in doing so have regard (amongst other matters) to-
(a) the likely consequences of any decision in the long term,
(b) the interests of the company’s employees,
(c) the need to foster the company’s business relationships with suppliers, customers and others,
(d) the impact of the company’s operations on the community and the environment,
(e) the desirability of the company maintaining a reputation for high standards of business conduct, and
(f) the need to act fairly as between members of the company.

The rules are there – perhaps an activist group with deep pockets could bring a private prosecution against the Yodel directors.

I said the same thing when people complained about the working conditions at Amazon in Swansea.

Whilst we might all like to live in an idyllic utopia where everyone gets paid £50k, 90 holidays a year and needs only work 4 hours a day, but we don’t and if we did it wouldn’t last long.

We need “crap jobs” – the employment market is the same as any other market, prices on in this case wages are subject to supply and demand – we have, supposedly 1.7 million people out of work and looking for a job.

So I guess no one grows up dreaming about marching around a warehouse being tormented by an electronic overlord who’d replace you with a robot in a heartbeat if it was cheaper or driving a van for £7.50 an hour or whatever – but if you’re trying to break into the job market at 18 or life has pissed on your chips and thrown you on the scrap heap at 45 and you a need a job, as long as you can drive a van or carry a box you can have one, do it for a year or two and someone might trust you to do something a bit more complex for better money – it gives you a start.

Now with unemployment at about 5% and confidence slowly coming back people will be a bit braver and prepared to move jobs a bit more freely – and that’s what’ll drive up wages, not moaning about it, or forcing them up with higher minimum wages – large companies don’t have morals, or emotions – they are profit driven sociopathic organisation – once it becomes more profitable to pay people more to reduce staff turnover, and the costs associated with it – they’ll put wages up.

That is my point. Delivering stuff is more xyz than holdign a gold sign (simplest job I can think of) so deserves a little more.

The “deserves a little more” is true, but the counter argument (devils advocate, I don’t really believe this is the solution) is that without a minimum the jobs that deserve the minimum wage would be paid that level regardless, the “golf sale —->” holder would be paid less.

There’s a difference between a minimum/living wage that prevents poverty. And a minimum wage that reflects the worth of a person. The former is a very good thing, the latter is a futile debate because there’ll always be someone who thinks it should be higher and you move from socialism and into comunism. After all, why is an IT consultant worth more than a bin man, they’re both human?

With the oil price at rock bottom a friend went for an interview as a process control engineer and got asked the stupid question “and what do you think you would be worth to the company?”, to which he could actually produce a spreadsheet showing he’d added something daft like $100million profit in his last role (it was a metric used to gauge performance at his last job, so it was a real, audited, number). Quite clearly he’s never going to be paid anything reflecting what his employer makes off of his expertise either.

I think the more interesting part of the article Binners linked to was the title; “Quarterly capitalism’ is short-term, myopic, greedy and dysfunctional”

IMHO, this is, in a way, the more salient issue; everything is about (relative) short-termism. If you look at recent scandals like the various Tesco accounting issues or the VW emissions case, they all hinge around executives ‘working’ short-term incentives for their own benefit.

It’s not just a big businesses issue though, look how governments jigger about with changes in business grants, taxes and employment legislation and expect SMEs somehow navigate all this nonsense whilst still maintaining growth and a long-term strategy. I am also convinced that we are at a disadvantage, especially compared with places like Italy, in terms of capital write-downs (for those unfamiliar; the amount of tax reduction firms are allowed from investment in new machinery) and that this, in is a major cause (along with our our useless road network) of the productivity growth conundrum.

The trouble is companies are avoiding minium wadges via the zero hours and “self employed” method of payment.

Exactly. Yodel only exists because it circumvents minimum wage requirements by formally using independent contractors, and pushing the cost of labour, fleet, maintenance, insurance etc onto them, in return for a tiny flat fee per drop. Yet in reality and in substance we know that those drivers are really employees: they mostly spend all day delivering whatever volume of parcels is given to them by Yodel.

No matter how hard they try, it is impossible to make a living wage from delivering parcels at 60p a drop – and everyone else subsidises those low-earning “self-employed” people through the benefits system. We are all paying to maintain Yodel’s profit margins.

The neoliberal system we’ve now got has legitimised doing everything possible, no matter how morally, ethically or legally dubious to further enrich yourself at the expense of everyone else.

Your conning yourself if you think that only happens in neoliberal systems, it will happen in any system, as there are always people out there who make dodgy decisions for a variety of reasons.

In fact there is probably more protection than ever for workers in terms of minimum wage, H&S, flexible working etc. than there has ever been, but that doesn’t mean that we live in some kind of utopia and more can’t be done.

In fact there is probably more protection than ever for workers in terms of minimum wage, H&S, flexible working etc. than there has ever been, but that doesn’t mean that we live in some kind of utopia and more can’t be done.

and despite the efforts of UKIP, a lot of this has come from the EU!

activist group with deep pockets could bring a private prosecution against the Yodel directors.

You’re overstating the meaning of “having regard to”.