[Closed] Low paid "low skill" workers - going forward

The point is non of those jobs are actually unskilled or unimportant (apart from middle management). Some wider social recognition of that would probably go a long way.

Suspect the workers want something more tangible than social recognition, or is that all we can offer them ?

They generally are low skilled (you don't need much training to stack shelves), but it doesn't mean they have to be low paid.

But they will be, because we'll be skint and won't want to pay more for groceries.
The care sector was going to collapse any way - totally unsustainable.

They'll eventually get stomped on again though, unless we move to a much less Tory world.

The problem is that the more you increase wages for low skilled, repetitive task type work, the faster you drive the industry in question toward automation. The only break on this are powerful unions. This is exactly the state of play in Germany. Wages are high, so are taxes, so are food prices, but state benefits and tax levels help to semi-level the playing field. The problem with this is that it can cripple any form of required change. Look at how slow Germany is responding to the change in electrification of the auto industry. They're an automotive giant, but because an electric car requires substantially less German labour to assemble, the rate of change is slow until such time as a solution can be found.

I don't see it (union strength and job protection) changing in the UK, not with the Conservatives in power. Without these....?

Time to launch the B Ark.

MCTD, you make a valid point.
I'm sure the low paid low skilled appreciate the thanks they're getting - but it won't pay the bills.
Taxes will rise as a consequence of the budget and exceptional measures that followed immediately after.
What we are now going through may force concerted uni- or bi-lateral action on tax avoidance, off-shore tax shelters and global tech companies.
Even if that were to happen I doubt it would mean anything for low paid low skilled.
A labour government would be more likely to act than tories so 5 years away - at least.
Regrettably, it's also become dismissive shorthand for a sizeable proportion of the UK workforce.

It more than pay. Opportunities to progress (if you want), flexible non oppressive work environments. A say in how things are done / change their daily job, maybe doing x before y is better, maybe not but some form of representation in the process of your job makes you feel involved. General respect.

Can be divert the pre-crisis apathy towards these workers to users of the meaningless phrase "going forward"?

If you were to start all over again and adopt a Marxist approach to a job's worth to society the pay would dramatically change. i.e. is a premier league footballer worth 100's of times more to society than a waste collection person?

The difficulty is putting that in place after years of it being as it is today.
If you pay all the people in food industry more the food prices will go up which means the people now being paid more have to spend more on food. Tax will also start to take more of the increased earnings and they may be no better off but everything now just costs more for everyone.

They generally are low skilled (you don’t need much training to stack shelves), but it doesn’t mean they have to be low paid.

Given that the majority of jobs are low skilled, you won't be able to increase their pay without increasing inflation; thus negating the rise.

The only way to raise standard of living for everyone is to either:

1) raise productivity of the whole country; which normally means replacing low skilled workers with machines.
2) redistribute wealth more evenly ie tax the rich more

Given the rich control the Tory party, I can't see option 2 happening.

Increasing pay and putting people into tax only leaves them worse off if any corresponding welfare/benefits adjustment makes that error, as parts of the current system currently do. You pay tax on earnings above a threshold, so you are always better off if you earn more money.

Though I don't know how to square the circle of the inflationary pressures that may result, as you point out.

Bumping up their pay would presumably put pressure all the way up the pay scale with inflationary consequences.

Why is this concern never expressed about rising profits and dividends?

If you were to start all over again and adopt a Marxist approach to a job’s worth to society the pay would dramatically change. i.e. is a premier league footballer worth 100’s of times more to society than a waste collection person?

just to play devils advocate on this... the bin team (driver and two labourers?) does how many households on their weekly route?

A premier league match is watched by millions of people for 90 minutes and then talked about all week. Plus it gives people a rivalry or tribe for people to get behind. Benefit to society = huge. Keeping the masses amused is as key to a society as empty bins.

job’s worth to society

Simple. Now define "value". Let's draw up some constraints, AHH but there any many people or jobs that don't fit into our boxes, let's adjust our definitions, oh no we need more exceptions as the new set of rules have caused issues else where....

Not easy, you just replace one set of ellets with another. The administrators become the king makers.

Having spent 17 years in retail, much of that as a line manager I can sympathise with many of my former collegues right now. The general public have of late demonstrated themselves to be of two camps. Those (in the majority) are decent and grateful for the service the "low skilled" staff provide, however there is a staggering amount of frankly horrible people out there who have shown their true colours and staff are struggling to deal with these self important clowns. Now I've got that off my chest, I'll swing my attention back to the term "low skilled".
While any "fool" can fill a shelf, it takes a significant amount of skill and dedication to actually be a productive member of the team and note that it takes more than shelf fillers to maketh a store.
I saw quite a few "educated" individuals try their hand at it, and they simply couldnt cope with the varied demands of the job. Its typically why supermarket managers are recruited from within as they understand the demands of the job.
On the other hand, the drive to improve productivity and reduce costs has taken a massive toll on instore teams. What the public want is cheaper, so what the public get in effect is a watered down service. In turn, as shopfloor staff (and management) you get reduced benefits, more pressure and a lot more hassle from customers.
In the end, I got my degree (as a result of the skills I picked up in retail thankyou) walked into an amazing job with more money and way less stress than my former management job.
Retail staff - unskilled my a**e - only to the people who look down on it from their middle management chairs.

sangobegger

Brilliantly said!

People have no idea!

Just wander into their local shop and expect what they want to be instantly available without a second thought.

A big store can employ over 750 people. How many people own businesses that big? Let alone operating 24 hours a day, with any member of the public able to access, social issues, health issues and all?

Working in a store is a challenging environment at the best of times.

Power to the 'unskilled' workers!

And actually, words and gestures of thanks from the public go a lot further than people think.

Dealing with conflict and resolution in retail.
Picture this - you are duty manager (glorified shop assistant) for a store with 300 staff, its fairly quiet on a sat evening. Bear in mind I've done all the conflict management courses, I treat people as I wish to be treated etc etc, and I get a call from a member of the checkout team.
She has a young mum in tears with a very upset wee boy. The problem - well as any parent knows, our little cherubs can play up at any inopportune moment, and the wee fella had had a moment in our store. The outcome was that a rather elderly "gentleman of some breeding" had told her wee fella to shut the **** up.
I mean what the hell am I supposed to do with this situation. The old fella was old (but not ill with dementia etc), and I knew him as a regular customer anyway.
So I asked him to apologise directly to the young woman, which he did thankfully. I could have chucked him out/called the cops/ told him to **** off etc etc, but retail staff have to deal with stuff like this daily and make judgements that frankly require more than a wee bit of savvy.
I work with degree qualified "stakeholders" in government all the time and frankly I wouldnt give half of them house room. Lazy, ****less, stupid and often arrogant AND all too often frightened to make a judgment that may make them look bad on their fancy resume.
Up the workers I say and down with the inteliigensyas or whatever fancy wrd these plple use

It amazes me that people refer to carers as unskilled.
It takes huge skills to go into a vulnerable persons home, and complete personal care for them whilst maintaining their dignity; plenty of people skills needed there.

Alas I think very little will change. The public memory will be short and there is no chance of the vested interests giving up thier tax havens and avoidance methods. I would love to see a change but I dont think the political will exists to do it

Well said Sando.

Kinda related, but thought this was a good (if scary) documentary on the future of work:

Seems not many jobs are safe!

Alas I think very little will change. The public memory will be short

More likely they'll be one hell of a recession after the lock down ends with 1000s of small business folding. The plight of the low skilled worker will be well down the list of problems to deal with.........

A good read is Rutger Bergman's Utopia for Realists: And How We Can Get There. The title is misleading .. whilst I don't agree with some points made - the point about JUNK jobs is spot on.

What we could do with is less of the well off feeding off their plight, my nephew works in a care home for dementia patients and pays £500 a month for a studio flat so someone else can have a nice income/pension. We need more cheap housing and less profiteering by the well off.

More likely they’ll be one hell of a recession after the lock down ends with 1000s of small business folding. The plight of the low skilled worker will be well down the list of problems to deal with………

Perhaps, but it's worth noting the current lot in government didn't get there without having convinced at least some of the "low skilled" working classes that they are in their corner.

Boris will be a one term PM if in five years time unemployment is up and standards of living and incomes are down. He simply won't be able to blame any downturn caused by CV19 on CV19 by then, he is one of those that helped demonstrate that the voting public's memories are very short.
So I fully expect the current lot to do what they accused Blair and Brown of and borrow to the hilt in order to try and maintain the nations standard of living and keep power for the remainder of the decade...

Speaking to people I know who work these types of jobs the biggest improvement in their working lives would be to be respected by their customers. The amount of abuse they take off the general public every single day is unreal!

So if everyone could just appreciate that they're all fellow humans that are trying their best to put money in their pockets they would be a massive change.

What we could do with is less of the well off feeding off their plight, my nephew works in a care home for dementia patients and pays £500 a month for a studio flat so someone else can have a nice income/pension. We need more cheap housing and less profiteering by the well off.

The best way to get fairness via government is a socialist government and it appears people don't want that. The current government was certainly not the right one to select for this as the power in society will find out over the next 5 years when they get hit by new austerity measures and this time instead of blaming Labour they will be blaming Covid19

Right now everyone that has to come to work should be given a temporary high risk pay bonus. Especially if it’s public facing. Governments across the eu are making sure with their wording that this is very hard to negotiate.

you don’t need much training to stack shelves

You would think that but you'd be wrong. I'm an online shopper and loads of products are just not put in the right place. Its also quite physically demanding. We take 15-17k items off the shelf each morning and that has to be replaced.

Why is this concern never expressed about rising profits and dividends?

Because proportionally billionaires have very little impact on inflation of normal everyday stuff. Ferrari might push the record for the worlds most expensive clunge magnet up another few hundred thousand, but it has negligible impact on the price of bread.

It's not an argument for doing nothing, just not a valid criticism of the status-quo.

The problem with socialism at a national level (I had to be careful there not to call it national socialism) is that's it's completely at odds with globalization. If you increase the minimum wage beyond a point then those jobs are lost and production moves overseas. It would be nice if we could pay people at HebTroCo in the UK a living wage to make t-shirts for Primark, but it's not going to happen, because they can pay a sweatshop in SE Asia to do it cheaper.

I suspect the actual result of all this will be Tesco et' al' will invest to meet the new demand for home delivery which can be met from centralized warehouses staffed by robots, and there will actually be less people stacking shelves.

Which brings the argument back to socialism, you actually need much higher tax rates to suppress inflation, and you then have to find ways to employ all these people in the NHS or councils.

But then that ruins your ability to export as to employ one person, means paying two wages.

There isn't going to be some magic bullet that simultaneously solves inequality and keeps the country in the manner to which it has become accustomed.

It would be nice if we could pay people at HebTroCo in the UK a living wage to make t-shirts for Primark, but it’s not going to happen, because they can pay a sweatshop in SE Asia to do it cheaper.

Or not pay as the case would seem; Primark have just cancelled all out standing orders claiming force majeure....

Anyone who thinks there will be any change after all this is deluded IMO

Take social care and care homes. Yes we would all like to see the shop floor staff paid decently and more importantly decent terms and conditions. Does anyone really think a tory government will increase funding to do this? It would mean a huge boost in funding - probably several pence on income tax>

Care homes. those without money get a place in a care home paid for by the local authority. It depends on the area just how much this is but if you staff the home to the minimum levels, pay the shop floor staff minimum wage the actual costs of the care home are around 20% more than the council pays. Because its council funding the central government would blame them. Currently if you run a care home you have a choice - overcharge those self funders and use this as a cross subsidy or cut corners / understaff.

I wanted to run my own care home and looked into all this a few years ago. It is simply impossible to have a decent ( not even good) standard of care and conditions for staff within the amounts of cash you get.

Cost per bed to the LA needs to go up 50% to allow this.

Or home care. Home care staff are usually on zero hours contracts and do not get paid for travel time between visits ( there has been a huge ongoing legal battle over this). The result is your half hour visit turns into 15 mins and workers still get less than the minimum wage - and its very difficult to recruit and retain good staff. to change this to decent terms and conditions - again at least a 50% boost in funding.

TJagain - simply put it needs to be viewed differently by all in society. All of us if we are lucky .. or presently .. unlucky enough to live to an old age; will need a care package of some sorts. If these people are disrespected by only paying minimum legally allowed then the cleverest and most motivated will look elsewhere that respects their contribution by paying more.
I will argue that the majority of carers are fantastic at their job, but there are others doing the job who are only doing so to fill the void until a better job comes along .. and these are the people who are unmotivated, probably hate their jobs, and this is reflected in the standard of care they give to our most vulnerable loved ones.

I am to be redeployed to buddy up with care agency staff providing packages of care. This is because the need to free up hospital beds will mean more POC required .. but there not enough carers now to provide this; add in those isolating too .. and we are very shortly in crisis. Hence LA are redeploying myself and my colleagues to fill the gaps in the care agencies ability to provide care at home. Unfortunately it's wishful thinking because not many of my colleagues are happy to do this .. carers do a very difficult job which not many can do, so the pay should reflect this.

My experience the good ones are not that common - and do not last long in home care because they can get better jobs in the NHS or even care homes. I had a pal who was dependent on home care. It was not good in general but the one or two good carers were very good indeed.

I guess Edinburgh may have a more acute issue tho as minimum wage jobs are plentiful

Have you been actually out on the road doing care before? I can't remember what area you are in but I think you might have your eyes opened if you have not done it before. What is said to be happening and the reality is often very different.

Presently I am mental health social worker, but was in team prior to this in general social work team, so only commissioned POC not ever worked as carer.
I have on occasion helped carers during a visit .. so getting hands on experience is something I am looking forward to - and dreading in equal measure!

To be completely frank, and in my opinion not much will change.

The inconvenient truth of supermarket work is that there are few or no barriers for entry, few roles requires tangible / certifiable skills, even back in the 90s when I worked in Tesco you could learn to work a till in about 30 mins, you don't need a special driving license for the delivery vans etc. It's safe / clean work and secure, they're rarely lay people off so unless we suddenly have a labour shortage it's never going to be much more than min-wage work.

That's not always a bad thing, you don't have to work there forever and plenty of people who didn't work very hard in school or are not academically gifted need jobs. I don't know what camp I fall into, but I got my start in life working for Tesco, the money and benefits were a lot better back then, but it was still bottom of the rung work. I did it for a few years so when I applied for my next shit job they could look at my CV and say "well, he's not got a lot of qualifications, but he can at least turn up for work on time and not do anything stupid."

Care workers do deserve a lot more than they get, but 'the market' won't pay it, most Brit think it's their unwavering right to carve up their parents estate once they've gone, not being left hundreds of thousands of pounds they didn't earn unthinkable. So when your parents get very old and need care, do you sell their assets now so the carer can earn crazy money like £10 an hour to wipe bottoms and feed people, or keep hold of them "until the time comes" and get the carers who earn £8 an hour 'on paper' but in actual fact get less because they can never do all the calls their given in a day in the time they're given.

This crisis has shown how much we rely on so called low skill, low paid workers to keep us ticking over – shop staff, care workers, bin men, delivery drivers.

keep us ticking over, yes. But long term.

Most of us are sat in our warm houses with indoor plumbing looking at this thread on a computer or phone, and we've eaten hot food today that we purchased from a nearby supermarket, and put the waste in the bin which will be emptied for us from our front kerb. If I did need to travel somewhere, I can put diesel in my car very easily, and drive on a road that while it isn't billiard smooth, is more than adequate for 2wd city car.

All of this is facilitated by the "low skill, low wage".

In a few months, while everyone still wants a warm house and indoor plumbing, with some electronics to work and play with, and hot food to eat; my car needs a service, the roads need patching, boiler needs servicing, electronics need replacing, the town dump needs expanding and the food that is on the shelves then is being grown/prepared right now, and shipped through a complicated logistics network.

That's being done by skilled trades, specialised/trained salesmen and technicians and "business professionals"

In a few years, I need a new car, new houses and road networks are needed [as y'all keep reproducing and divorcing], a non negligible chunk of the current working age population will be retired and want to claim their pension.

Designed, calculated and administrated by the useless deskbound pencil pushers, who maybe aren't so useless afterall.

Mooman - good luck.

ayjaydoubleyou

And none of those things can be done without the army of low paid "unskilled" workers.

It will never happen, but I think a few things need to happen in the housing market...
No second+ homes in the UK, closing all dodgy loopholes such as house #3 is "owned" by second son Jack, aged 6
No private renting of complete UK homes and getting an income/living off other people's need/right to have a home over their heads, with the exception of spare room bedsits in the same home as landlord
Almost all UK higher education students must be accomodated in student halls of residence provided by the uni they are enrolled with, with exception of those in bedsits

Just in Southampton alone, the number of available basic but liveable and really affordable homes for keyworkers would go through the roof.

Yes but in a supply and demand model there will always be more supply than demand for low skilled (due to the obvious fact that anyone can do it).

If supply dried up because the people moved to do more skilled work or just less people to do the work then the wages would rise.

As they say, in a town where everyone is a billionaire, the best paid person is the sewage man because nobody else wants to do it...

I really don't think magic bullet political solutions can work, as Kerley says it's basic supply and demand. Government is there to curb the excesses of a pure market state but can only interfere so much. Set the minimum wage too high and economics kicks in and jobs move offshore, try and be protectionist and your economy will tank. We're all far too inter connected and in reality probably have been for the last 200 years.

This problem is going to get worse as automation becomes more sophisticated and cheaper, we haven't had people lugging boxes around in warehouses on trolleys for years, FLTs are slowly being phased out in favour of fully automated lights out warehouses, we've had the technology for 30 years.

Like social care the ever growing number of people in basic jobs who may have no job at some point is something governments know about but can't face dealing with.

I'd also like to say that attitude to employment and work is actually more important in lower skills roles than qualifications or perceived skills. A good attitude is what will open up opportunities for individuals, skills can be taught if people are willing to learn.

People who were in employment used to be proud to have a job, they had earned it, due to the law of unintended consequences the extension of the welfare state and (laudable) drive to improve peoples living standards peoples expectations have raced ahead of what society can provide.

Not sure what the answer is, grand social reform schemes at a population level are fine, having a chip on your should about being minimum wage on an individual level isn't going to open doors to you.

Affordable, good quality social housing is the biggest issue at the moment - fix that, and a lot of other pressures will ease, but sadly it's a long term project.

so unless we suddenly have a labour shortage it’s never going to be much more than min-wage work.

Something to look at there. Again I can't see it happening but looking at an overhaul of the pay and benefits system so the minimum wage is actually enough to live on. Universal basic income etc.

kerley
Member
Yes but in a supply and demand model there will always be more supply than demand for low skilled (due to the obvious fact that anyone can do it).

If supply dried up because the people moved to do more skilled work or just less people to do the work then the wages would rise.

Unless there is a supply of cheap labour to import.

And none of those things can be done without the army of low paid “unskilled” workers.

Not untrue, but in many cases, the more expensive manual labour is the greater the chance it will be automated.

Not necessarily a bad thing. I work in the construction industry. The last 50 years has seen mechanisation and prefabrication drastically reduce the proportion of unskilled labour doing dangerous and exhausting work. (Although as a separate argument, the lack of career progression for those who do fill the unskilled jobs is potentially worse).

No private business is really big enough to care that employing more people and/or on a higher wage = higher number of customers for them. Providing a bigger/better/faster/cheaper service to anyone who wishes to be their customer is their aim.

n0b0dy0ftheg0at
Member
It will never happen, but I think a few things need to happen in the housing market…
No second+ homes in the UK, closing all dodgy loopholes such as house #3 is “owned” by second son Jack, aged 6
No private renting of complete UK homes and getting an income/living off other people’s need/right to have a home over their heads, with the exception of spare room bedsits in the same home as landlord
Almost all UK higher education students must be accomodated in student halls of residence provided by the uni they are enrolled with, with exception of those in bedsits

Just in Southampton alone, the number of available basic but liveable and really affordable homes for keyworkers would go through the roof.

You'd get my vote sir....

I recently looked at the local council housing list. 22 properties available to cover the whole county..... Unbelievable..

It will never happen, but I think a few things need to happen in the housing market…
No second+ homes in the UK, closing all dodgy loopholes such as house #3 is “owned” by second son Jack, aged 6
No private renting of complete UK homes and getting an income/living off other people’s need/right to have a home over their heads, with the exception of spare room bedsits in the same home as landlord

I don't think that is the answer. Some folk do not want to buy or are unable to buy. I think the answer is back to controlled rents and secure tenancies like we had in the 80s. We have already moved to a more secure tenancy in scotland and controlled rents with proper fitness inspections takes a lot of the dodgy landlords out

Build more social housing as well council or housing association.

ayjaydoubleyou

And who builds the prefab bits in the factories? Who moves them on site?

Push to end low pay may have to be scrapped, UK government warned

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/mar/31/uk-minimum-wage-rise-of-6-to-go-ahead-despite-coronavirus-pay-freeze-call

And so it starts. the inevitable tory pushback against the public desire for fair pay. NO surprie there. No hint of taxing the rich more.

Low pay commission is of course not independent in any meaningful way and the right wing "think tanks~" are pushing hard to stop pay rises.

Tj, the factory workers are probably higher skilled and more importantly computer literate. The site workers will be telehandler qualified or probably crane operators, again not basic labouring jobs for many.

Speaking to people I know who work these types of jobs the biggest improvement in their working lives would be to be respected by their customers.

This. These jobs are seen as shite and so youngsters in particular, refuse to do them. Wealth redistribution should be more effective through taxation - just increasing lower earner wages will change little. As a teacher for years, we fought for increased pay (though for many this was seen as recognition of hard work and commitment to the job). When pay rises came, they were always accompanied by higher expectations and worsening of conditions and generally morale.
How many low wage earners struggle and save to buy overpriced branded clothing and luxury goods - why do we think these make us happy?
Improved conditions/contracts, health care, pensions and public recognition at least as important as increased pay. One of those has improved, for a while at least.

Tj, the factory workers are probably higher skilled and more importantly computer literate. The site workers will be telehandler qualified or probably crane operators, again not basic labouring jobs for many.

Yes, to really oversimplify it: New way = Skilled factory worker, skilled delivery driver, skilled crane operator; skilled installer. Vs the old way of one skilled carpenter/brickie/whatever + 3 people fetching and carrying for him.

And don't forget earthworks. What took 10 men with shovels and barrows a week of backbreaking labour can be done in a morning by 2 men who don't even have to stand up.

And who builds the prefab bits in the factories? Who moves them on site?

Other have said it but skilled labour. Sounds like you have a image of factories of the past in your head with loads of unskilled labour, most modern factories have more and more skilled labour these days and less and less unskilled. There are some unskilled jobs, particularly in smaller factories but it's reducing all the time.