BREXIT - Is This Really Still Rumbling On? 😴
Comments
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One of the other problems I've heard mentioned is that social distancing requirements have meant that training drivers had to stop just at the time new drivers were needed the most.TheBigBean said:They have had five years' notice of the possibility of change, but yes ultimately businesses need to compete, so if foreign labour was the cheapest option that was what they needed to use. Now it isn't, now they need to entice drivers out of retirement, train new drivers and treat them better.
Ultimately, I'm not sure how you can make the job more attractive when it will be necessary for any drivers doing long distance routes to have to sleep in their cabs in a layby.
Then there's the issue of where the money would come from for increased salaries - if hauliers can be believed they are struggling to make ends meet already and fluctuations in fuel price can put them out of business. Arguably, the current situation may be what the big users of haulage companies need to appreciate they need to pay more but ultimately it will add to consumer costs and then those complaining about empty shelves will complain that their loaf of bread is costing more plus the risk to inflation rates.
We have a lot of sectors in this country that rely on people accepting jobs at around minimum wage that British workers aren't interested in taking e.g. care or cleaning. I know that in the care sector it is that the funding at local or national government level is insufficient and the companies providing the service simply don't have the funding to pay more. The company my wife works for used to pay quite well above the then minimum wage but over time their income has been slashed to the point where they now have to pay the minimum. Going way off topic, they have also found that the Council now won't fund day services for their service users as, having temporarily suspended them during the lockdowns, they realised it is cheaper to pay for the service users to be in their care environment so it means that unless they can self-fund day care activities from their benefits they don't get any respite which is shocking.0 -
It’s really fundamentally simple.rick_chasey said:
You might have to spell this one out for me, as I'm fairly sure a "less resilient supply chain and problems filling supermarket shelves, reduced choice" is not being proved right?morstar said:
If you are Brexit minded, rather than being proved wrong, you are being proved right.
Is it that Brexiters want lorry drivers to be paid more? Deliberately creating a shortage so that the handful of drivers have the market over a barrel? I can think of less disruptive ways to give lorry drivers better conditions.
I'm sure they were up in arms about IR35 too, right?
You do understand that creating shortages does not improve the economy? We are all part of the economy.
However successful the national economy may have been, a large proportion of the workforce has faced hardship throughout many years of this supposed prosperity.
If you believe that your earnings capacity has been limited by overseas workers prepared to do the job for an unsustainable amount and this led to you voting Brexit…
Right now, your perspective is being proved correct.
Long term, there may be other consequences and costs but what the heck, the economy wasn’t serving you anyway. The 40% rise some drivers have seen isn’t going to be gobbled up too quickly in cost of living increases.
Post as many charts as you like. It won’t change the reality for many working class Brexit voters accessing better wages right now. They may be proportionately right back they were in x years time but if they improve their lives in the interim, you won’t convince them they were wrong.0 -
So what you're describing is populism and for the same reason it ends up ruining a nation if you follow it all to its logical conclusion.morstar said:
It’s really fundamentally simple.rick_chasey said:
You might have to spell this one out for me, as I'm fairly sure a "less resilient supply chain and problems filling supermarket shelves, reduced choice" is not being proved right?morstar said:
If you are Brexit minded, rather than being proved wrong, you are being proved right.
Is it that Brexiters want lorry drivers to be paid more? Deliberately creating a shortage so that the handful of drivers have the market over a barrel? I can think of less disruptive ways to give lorry drivers better conditions.
I'm sure they were up in arms about IR35 too, right?
You do understand that creating shortages does not improve the economy? We are all part of the economy.
However successful the national economy may have been, a large proportion of the workforce has faced hardship throughout many years of this supposed prosperity.
If you believe that your earnings capacity has been limited by overseas workers prepared to do the job for an unsustainable amount and this led to you voting Brexit…
Right now, your perspective is being proved correct.
Long term, there may be other consequences and costs but what the heck, the economy wasn’t serving you anyway. The 40% rise some drivers have seen isn’t going to be gobbled up too quickly in cost of living increases.
Post as many charts as you like. It won’t change the reality for many working class Brexit voters accessing better wages right now. They may be proportionately right back they were in x years time but if they improve their lives in the interim, you won’t convince them they were wrong.
RESTRICTIONS DON'T SOLVE THE PROBLEMS THE POOR OR WORKING CLASS HAVE.
Voting Tory especially won't help solve that.
It is utterly self defeating. It's degrading the nation. If poor people want a better standard of living, the solution isn't to blame the foreigners.
It is to have a political system who looks after their interests and draws up policies that help them.
The hardship has very very little to do with immigration, or 'foreign workers' and an awful lot to do with government policy over the last 40 years.
The problems at home come from home.
Saying it's "reasonable" to think that foreigners are to blame for something immigration has not caused is just giving that kind of nonsense thinking legitimacy.
It is literally degrading the country for everyone. It is so self defeating.
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A bit short term though.TheBigBean said:They have had five years' notice of the possibility of change, but yes ultimately businesses need to compete, so if foreign labour was the cheapest option that was what they needed to use. Now it isn't, now they need to entice drivers out of retirement, train new drivers and treat them better.
The real opportunity is in moving a lot of the repetitive distribution away from lorries and drivers altogether. So Autonomous motorway trucks and containerised goods on trains.0 -
Who are you arguing with Rick? You seem to be confusing morstar explaining a point of view with him having that point of view.- Genesis Croix de Fer
- Dolan Tuono1 -
The problem is Rick you are wrong in this example. The lorry driver has had a 40% uplift and this just would not have happened without Brexit and the ability of firms to hire cheap Eastern European labour. It will continue down the chain to professions such as nursing homes when Council managers are either out providing personal care which they won't like or getting sued post another care scandal which they also won't like.rick_chasey said:
So what you're describing is populism and for the same reason it ends up ruining a nation if you follow it all to its logical conclusion.morstar said:
It’s really fundamentally simple.rick_chasey said:
You might have to spell this one out for me, as I'm fairly sure a "less resilient supply chain and problems filling supermarket shelves, reduced choice" is not being proved right?morstar said:
If you are Brexit minded, rather than being proved wrong, you are being proved right.
Is it that Brexiters want lorry drivers to be paid more? Deliberately creating a shortage so that the handful of drivers have the market over a barrel? I can think of less disruptive ways to give lorry drivers better conditions.
I'm sure they were up in arms about IR35 too, right?
You do understand that creating shortages does not improve the economy? We are all part of the economy.
However successful the national economy may have been, a large proportion of the workforce has faced hardship throughout many years of this supposed prosperity.
If you believe that your earnings capacity has been limited by overseas workers prepared to do the job for an unsustainable amount and this led to you voting Brexit…
Right now, your perspective is being proved correct.
Long term, there may be other consequences and costs but what the heck, the economy wasn’t serving you anyway. The 40% rise some drivers have seen isn’t going to be gobbled up too quickly in cost of living increases.
Post as many charts as you like. It won’t change the reality for many working class Brexit voters accessing better wages right now. They may be proportionately right back they were in x years time but if they improve their lives in the interim, you won’t convince them they were wrong.
RESTRICTIONS DON'T SOLVE THE PROBLEMS THE POOR OR WORKING CLASS HAVE.
Voting Tory especially won't help solve that.
It is utterly self defeating. It's degrading the nation. If poor people want a better standard of living, the solution isn't to blame the foreigners.
It is to have a political system who looks after their interests and draws up policies that help them.
The hardship has very very little to do with immigration, or 'foreign workers' and an awful lot to do with government policy over the last 40 years.
The problems at home come from home.
Saying it's "reasonable" to think that foreigners are to blame for something immigration has not caused is just giving that kind of nonsense thinking legitimacy.
It is literally degrading the country for everyone. It is so self defeating.
You want the international market rate. I don't as I recognise each country has a different cost of living. We had nearly 2 decades of getting people on the benefits trap. Remember working tax credits. Quite why you should need a benefit when working full time is a concept that I have never understood but was widely welcomed by Labour in this period. The economy needs to realise that there is a relatively fixed pool of workers and they should all be well paid for what they do and those companies are competing with each other for those workers. If that costs you more for a service you need to either suck it up or let market demand kick in and not by the service or product. Your argument hurts those on the lowest incomes and not the other way round as you claim so often.
So whilst it might be convenient for you to have a Polish trucker live in his cab for months at a time before going back with his relative riches. It is literally the polar opposite of what those working in this sector that have the fixed costs of living in the UK want. Quite often I wonder if you know anyone on minimum wage and knocking their pan in for very little gain.1 -
And the aggregate costs should level out as there will be a lower burden on tax payers funding benefits and housing costs. Plenty of labour kicking their heels, get them out from their 50" LCD tellies and working I say.john80 said:
The problem is Rick you are wrong in this example. The lorry driver has had a 40% uplift and this just would not have happened without Brexit and the ability of firms to hire cheap Eastern European labour. It will continue down the chain to professions such as nursing homes when Council managers are either out providing personal care which they won't like or getting sued post another care scandal which they also won't like.rick_chasey said:
So what you're describing is populism and for the same reason it ends up ruining a nation if you follow it all to its logical conclusion.morstar said:
It’s really fundamentally simple.rick_chasey said:
You might have to spell this one out for me, as I'm fairly sure a "less resilient supply chain and problems filling supermarket shelves, reduced choice" is not being proved right?morstar said:
If you are Brexit minded, rather than being proved wrong, you are being proved right.
Is it that Brexiters want lorry drivers to be paid more? Deliberately creating a shortage so that the handful of drivers have the market over a barrel? I can think of less disruptive ways to give lorry drivers better conditions.
I'm sure they were up in arms about IR35 too, right?
You do understand that creating shortages does not improve the economy? We are all part of the economy.
However successful the national economy may have been, a large proportion of the workforce has faced hardship throughout many years of this supposed prosperity.
If you believe that your earnings capacity has been limited by overseas workers prepared to do the job for an unsustainable amount and this led to you voting Brexit…
Right now, your perspective is being proved correct.
Long term, there may be other consequences and costs but what the heck, the economy wasn’t serving you anyway. The 40% rise some drivers have seen isn’t going to be gobbled up too quickly in cost of living increases.
Post as many charts as you like. It won’t change the reality for many working class Brexit voters accessing better wages right now. They may be proportionately right back they were in x years time but if they improve their lives in the interim, you won’t convince them they were wrong.
RESTRICTIONS DON'T SOLVE THE PROBLEMS THE POOR OR WORKING CLASS HAVE.
Voting Tory especially won't help solve that.
It is utterly self defeating. It's degrading the nation. If poor people want a better standard of living, the solution isn't to blame the foreigners.
It is to have a political system who looks after their interests and draws up policies that help them.
The hardship has very very little to do with immigration, or 'foreign workers' and an awful lot to do with government policy over the last 40 years.
The problems at home come from home.
Saying it's "reasonable" to think that foreigners are to blame for something immigration has not caused is just giving that kind of nonsense thinking legitimacy.
It is literally degrading the country for everyone. It is so self defeating.
You want the international market rate. I don't as I recognise each country has a different cost of living. We had nearly 2 decades of getting people on the benefits trap. Remember working tax credits. Quite why you should need a benefit when working full time is a concept that I have never understood but was widely welcomed by Labour in this period. The economy needs to realise that there is a relatively fixed pool of workers and they should all be well paid for what they do and those companies are competing with each other for those workers. If that costs you more for a service you need to either suck it up or let market demand kick in and not by the service or product. Your argument hurts those on the lowest incomes and not the other way round as you claim so often.
So whilst it might be convenient for you to have a Polish trucker live in his cab for months at a time before going back with his relative riches. It is literally the polar opposite of what those working in this sector that have the fixed costs of living in the UK want. Quite often I wonder if you know anyone on minimum wage and knocking their pan in for very little gain.
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Is the truck drivers wage really a significant proportion of the cost of deliveries?
If it takes a driver a day to haul an artic full of groceries across the country and his day rate goes up by £40, surely that is negligible compared to the cost of the groceries? I doubt I would ever notice if that cost was passed on to me as a consumer.Pross said:
Then there's the issue of where the money would come from for increased salaries - if hauliers can be believed they are struggling to make ends meet already and fluctuations in fuel price can put them out of business. Arguably, the current situation may be what the big users of haulage companies need to appreciate they need to pay more but ultimately it will add to consumer costs and then those complaining about empty shelves will complain that their loaf of bread is costing more plus the risk to inflation rates.0 -
I don't care about their nationality just that they have the legal right to work in the UK. You seem to be arguing that truck driving should be some sort of special skill that anyone from anywhere can do. I don't understand why truck driving is special in this regard.rick_chasey said:
You can open the market up to international competition and set minimum standards.TheBigBean said:
The international market rate would include drivers from all over the world. You could abolish the minimum wage, import workers from all over the world and give them worse entitlements like the UAE, but most people, sensibly, are against that.rick_chasey said:Why is it artificial? It's the international market rate.
Surely introducing barriers around nationality is more artificial then just opening up the market to international competition? It would be on the supply & demand chart.
You seem to want to use market restrictions to improve conditions rather than just legislate for better conditions.
Why do you care what nationality a lorry driver is?0 -
What happens when you apply this logic to the entire economy? Do you think it improves performance?john80 said:
The problem is Rick you are wrong in this example. The lorry driver has had a 40% uplift and this just would not have happened without Brexit and the ability of firms to hire cheap Eastern European labour. It will continue down the chain to professions such as nursing homes when Council managers are either out providing personal care which they won't like or getting sued post another care scandal which they also won't like.
You want the international market rate. I don't as I recognise each country has a different cost of living. We had nearly 2 decades of getting people on the benefits trap. Remember working tax credits. Quite why you should need a benefit when working full time is a concept that I have never understood but was widely welcomed by Labour in this period. The economy needs to realise that there is a relatively fixed pool of workers and they should all be well paid for what they do and those companies are competing with each other for those workers. If that costs you more for a service you need to either suck it up or let market demand kick in and not by the service or product. Your argument hurts those on the lowest incomes and not the other way round as you claim so often.
So whilst it might be convenient for you to have a Polish trucker live in his cab for months at a time before going back with his relative riches. It is literally the polar opposite of what those working in this sector that have the fixed costs of living in the UK want. Quite often I wonder if you know anyone on minimum wage and knocking their pan in for very little gain.0 -
I'm of the view that a free as market as possible is optimal, and that the solution to the negative externalities of it, like things like poor conditions, is not to restrict the size of the labour pool but to legislate to improve conditions.TheBigBean said:
I don't care about their nationality just that they have the legal right to work in the UK. You seem to be arguing that truck driving should be some sort of special skill that anyone from anywhere can do. I don't understand why truck driving is special in this regard.rick_chasey said:
You can open the market up to international competition and set minimum standards.TheBigBean said:
The international market rate would include drivers from all over the world. You could abolish the minimum wage, import workers from all over the world and give them worse entitlements like the UAE, but most people, sensibly, are against that.rick_chasey said:Why is it artificial? It's the international market rate.
Surely introducing barriers around nationality is more artificial then just opening up the market to international competition? It would be on the supply & demand chart.
You seem to want to use market restrictions to improve conditions rather than just legislate for better conditions.
Why do you care what nationality a lorry driver is?
The problem with jobs like haulage is there is limited value you can add - it's quite hard to compete on anything other than price as the nature of the work means you can't suddenly add more value by getting there twice as fast or whatever. So the employer is always going to go for the cheapest option (within reason).
I'd argue that the fact Brits don't do those jobs suggests that Brits are better suited to other jobs, and the focus shouldn't be on making low-value-add jobs more attractive by restricting supply (which has knock on effects to the rest of the economy), but focus on getting people into more value-add jobs.
I don't think there is a big advantage in getting people into lorry jobs or equivalent. I don't think there is a missed opportunity to have to pay 2x the amount for fruit picking because it's now Brits doing it over Romanians or whoever is doing it.
I'd suggest you're better off getting those Brits into jobs and careers with bigger upside.
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Love the idea that Local Authorities would be afraid of being sued for failure to provide care. As if the people who rely on LA funded care are in a position to fund a civil claim anyway.john80 said:
The problem is Rick you are wrong in this example. The lorry driver has had a 40% uplift and this just would not have happened without Brexit and the ability of firms to hire cheap Eastern European labour. It will continue down the chain to professions such as nursing homes when Council managers are either out providing personal care which they won't like or getting sued post another care scandal which they also won't like.rick_chasey said:
So what you're describing is populism and for the same reason it ends up ruining a nation if you follow it all to its logical conclusion.morstar said:
It’s really fundamentally simple.rick_chasey said:
You might have to spell this one out for me, as I'm fairly sure a "less resilient supply chain and problems filling supermarket shelves, reduced choice" is not being proved right?morstar said:
If you are Brexit minded, rather than being proved wrong, you are being proved right.
Is it that Brexiters want lorry drivers to be paid more? Deliberately creating a shortage so that the handful of drivers have the market over a barrel? I can think of less disruptive ways to give lorry drivers better conditions.
I'm sure they were up in arms about IR35 too, right?
You do understand that creating shortages does not improve the economy? We are all part of the economy.
However successful the national economy may have been, a large proportion of the workforce has faced hardship throughout many years of this supposed prosperity.
If you believe that your earnings capacity has been limited by overseas workers prepared to do the job for an unsustainable amount and this led to you voting Brexit…
Right now, your perspective is being proved correct.
Long term, there may be other consequences and costs but what the heck, the economy wasn’t serving you anyway. The 40% rise some drivers have seen isn’t going to be gobbled up too quickly in cost of living increases.
Post as many charts as you like. It won’t change the reality for many working class Brexit voters accessing better wages right now. They may be proportionately right back they were in x years time but if they improve their lives in the interim, you won’t convince them they were wrong.
RESTRICTIONS DON'T SOLVE THE PROBLEMS THE POOR OR WORKING CLASS HAVE.
Voting Tory especially won't help solve that.
It is utterly self defeating. It's degrading the nation. If poor people want a better standard of living, the solution isn't to blame the foreigners.
It is to have a political system who looks after their interests and draws up policies that help them.
The hardship has very very little to do with immigration, or 'foreign workers' and an awful lot to do with government policy over the last 40 years.
The problems at home come from home.
Saying it's "reasonable" to think that foreigners are to blame for something immigration has not caused is just giving that kind of nonsense thinking legitimacy.
It is literally degrading the country for everyone. It is so self defeating.
You want the international market rate. I don't as I recognise each country has a different cost of living. We had nearly 2 decades of getting people on the benefits trap. Remember working tax credits. Quite why you should need a benefit when working full time is a concept that I have never understood but was widely welcomed by Labour in this period. The economy needs to realise that there is a relatively fixed pool of workers and they should all be well paid for what they do and those companies are competing with each other for those workers. If that costs you more for a service you need to either suck it up or let market demand kick in and not by the service or product. Your argument hurts those on the lowest incomes and not the other way round as you claim so often.
So whilst it might be convenient for you to have a Polish trucker live in his cab for months at a time before going back with his relative riches. It is literally the polar opposite of what those working in this sector that have the fixed costs of living in the UK want. Quite often I wonder if you know anyone on minimum wage and knocking their pan in for very little gain.1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
So complete freedom of movement of labour for anything?rick_chasey said:
I'm of the view that a free as market as possible is optimal, and that the solution to the negative externalities of it, like things like poor conditions, is not to restrict the size of the labour pool but to legislate to improve conditions.TheBigBean said:
I don't care about their nationality just that they have the legal right to work in the UK. You seem to be arguing that truck driving should be some sort of special skill that anyone from anywhere can do. I don't understand why truck driving is special in this regard.rick_chasey said:
You can open the market up to international competition and set minimum standards.TheBigBean said:
The international market rate would include drivers from all over the world. You could abolish the minimum wage, import workers from all over the world and give them worse entitlements like the UAE, but most people, sensibly, are against that.rick_chasey said:Why is it artificial? It's the international market rate.
Surely introducing barriers around nationality is more artificial then just opening up the market to international competition? It would be on the supply & demand chart.
You seem to want to use market restrictions to improve conditions rather than just legislate for better conditions.
Why do you care what nationality a lorry driver is?
The problem with jobs like haulage is there is limited value you can add - it's quite hard to compete on anything other than price as the nature of the work means you can't suddenly add more value by getting there twice as fast or whatever. So the employer is always going to go for the cheapest option (within reason).
I'd argue that the fact Brits don't do those jobs suggests that Brits are better suited to other jobs, and the focus shouldn't be on making low-value-add jobs more attractive by restricting supply (which has knock on effects to the rest of the economy), but focus on getting people into more value-add jobs.
I don't think there is a big advantage in getting people into lorry jobs or equivalent. I don't think there is a missed opportunity to have to pay 2x the amount for fruit picking because it's now Brits doing it over Romanians or whoever is doing it.
I'd suggest you're better off getting those Brits into jobs and careers with bigger upside.0 -
If it was politically possible, with reasonable exceptions, yeah, that's what I would want.
It isn't, of course.
I liked that in the EU, as it was that for at least the EU 28.0 -
The thing here is we are generally not miles apart (with the notable exception that you believe the country can accommodate infinite residents).rick_chasey said:
I'm of the view that a free as market as possible is optimal, and that the solution to the negative externalities of it, like things like poor conditions, is not to restrict the size of the labour pool but to legislate to improve conditions.TheBigBean said:
I don't care about their nationality just that they have the legal right to work in the UK. You seem to be arguing that truck driving should be some sort of special skill that anyone from anywhere can do. I don't understand why truck driving is special in this regard.rick_chasey said:
You can open the market up to international competition and set minimum standards.TheBigBean said:
The international market rate would include drivers from all over the world. You could abolish the minimum wage, import workers from all over the world and give them worse entitlements like the UAE, but most people, sensibly, are against that.rick_chasey said:Why is it artificial? It's the international market rate.
Surely introducing barriers around nationality is more artificial then just opening up the market to international competition? It would be on the supply & demand chart.
You seem to want to use market restrictions to improve conditions rather than just legislate for better conditions.
Why do you care what nationality a lorry driver is?
The problem with jobs like haulage is there is limited value you can add - it's quite hard to compete on anything other than price as the nature of the work means you can't suddenly add more value by getting there twice as fast or whatever. So the employer is always going to go for the cheapest option (within reason).
I'd argue that the fact Brits don't do those jobs suggests that Brits are better suited to other jobs, and the focus shouldn't be on making low-value-add jobs more attractive by restricting supply (which has knock on effects to the rest of the economy), but focus on getting people into more value-add jobs.
I don't think there is a big advantage in getting people into lorry jobs or equivalent. I don't think there is a missed opportunity to have to pay 2x the amount for fruit picking because it's now Brits doing it over Romanians or whoever is doing it.
I'd suggest you're better off getting those Brits into jobs and careers with bigger upside.
You blame national policies for the plight of the working poor and I 100% agree with you.
However, when assessing Brexit, you are confusing economic theory with practical considerations. The fact is we have had working poor under both colours of government while in the Eu.
The economy has let people down and whilst lots voted Brexit for lots of different reasons of which I disagree with many, the working poor (some anyway) have actually been better served by Brexit than any other domestic policy in my lifetime when they are seeing significant wage jumps.
Do you think less choice in shops is a price worth paying for a small wage being converted into a living wage? Many will.
1 -
The less choice in shops presumably puts lots of smaller producers out of business.
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morstar said:
Do you think less choice in shops is a price worth paying for a small wage being converted into a living wage? Many will.
This right here is the crux of the argument innit...Jezyboy said:The less choice in shops presumably puts lots of smaller producers out of business.
To be honest I don't see how you solve this problem without revealing an obvious political bias in either direction. In fact, the response to this question almost defines each bias.We're in danger of confusing passion with incompetence
- @ddraver0 -
We've had working poor since the ice sheets retreated. The idea that the income from any full time job should automatically tally with the cost of living is the stuff of unicorns. In John's fantasy Britain, there is full employment; lower earners all get paid more and all that extra money just appears in employers' bank accounts without causing any inflation or increase in the cost of living.morstar said:
The thing here is we are generally not miles apart (with the notable exception that you believe the country can accommodate infinite residents).rick_chasey said:
I'm of the view that a free as market as possible is optimal, and that the solution to the negative externalities of it, like things like poor conditions, is not to restrict the size of the labour pool but to legislate to improve conditions.TheBigBean said:
I don't care about their nationality just that they have the legal right to work in the UK. You seem to be arguing that truck driving should be some sort of special skill that anyone from anywhere can do. I don't understand why truck driving is special in this regard.rick_chasey said:
You can open the market up to international competition and set minimum standards.TheBigBean said:
The international market rate would include drivers from all over the world. You could abolish the minimum wage, import workers from all over the world and give them worse entitlements like the UAE, but most people, sensibly, are against that.rick_chasey said:Why is it artificial? It's the international market rate.
Surely introducing barriers around nationality is more artificial then just opening up the market to international competition? It would be on the supply & demand chart.
You seem to want to use market restrictions to improve conditions rather than just legislate for better conditions.
Why do you care what nationality a lorry driver is?
The problem with jobs like haulage is there is limited value you can add - it's quite hard to compete on anything other than price as the nature of the work means you can't suddenly add more value by getting there twice as fast or whatever. So the employer is always going to go for the cheapest option (within reason).
I'd argue that the fact Brits don't do those jobs suggests that Brits are better suited to other jobs, and the focus shouldn't be on making low-value-add jobs more attractive by restricting supply (which has knock on effects to the rest of the economy), but focus on getting people into more value-add jobs.
I don't think there is a big advantage in getting people into lorry jobs or equivalent. I don't think there is a missed opportunity to have to pay 2x the amount for fruit picking because it's now Brits doing it over Romanians or whoever is doing it.
I'd suggest you're better off getting those Brits into jobs and careers with bigger upside.
You blame national policies for the plight of the working poor and I 100% agree with you.
However, when assessing Brexit, you are confusing economic theory with practical considerations. The fact is we have had working poor under both colours of government while in the Eu.
The economy has let people down and whilst lots voted Brexit for lots of different reasons of which I disagree with many, the working poor (some anyway) have actually been better served by Brexit than any other domestic policy in my lifetime when they are seeing significant wage jumps.
Do you think less choice in shops is a price worth paying for a small wage being converted into a living wage? Many will.1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition1 -
On this, I'd argue that the bigger producers/companies generally have a greater chance of managers where their take home pay is taking the proverbial. I don't have an issue per se with high salaries, on the other hand the wealth that Bezos has accumulated off the back of reasonably poor warehouse workers doesn't seem like a very efficient sharing of resources, let alone what the moral arguments are.ddraver said:morstar said:
Do you think less choice in shops is a price worth paying for a small wage being converted into a living wage? Many will.
This right here is the crux of the argument innit...Jezyboy said:The less choice in shops presumably puts lots of smaller producers out of business.
To be honest I don't see how you solve this problem without revealing an obvious political bias in either direction. In fact, the response to this question almost defines each bias.
The slightly bizzare thing about the HGV drivers is that a lot of the complaints are beyond just poor pay. It's not like you can blame the EU for there being fewer nice places to stop is it.0 -
I agree it’s a fantasy. But I don’t see why it shouldn’t be an aspiration.rjsterry said:
We've had working poor since the ice sheets retreated. The idea that the income from any full time job should automatically tally with the cost of living is the stuff of unicorns. In John's fantasy Britain, there is full employment; lower earners all get paid more and all that extra money just appears in employers' bank accounts without causing any inflation or increase in the cost of living.morstar said:
The thing here is we are generally not miles apart (with the notable exception that you believe the country can accommodate infinite residents).rick_chasey said:
I'm of the view that a free as market as possible is optimal, and that the solution to the negative externalities of it, like things like poor conditions, is not to restrict the size of the labour pool but to legislate to improve conditions.TheBigBean said:
I don't care about their nationality just that they have the legal right to work in the UK. You seem to be arguing that truck driving should be some sort of special skill that anyone from anywhere can do. I don't understand why truck driving is special in this regard.rick_chasey said:
You can open the market up to international competition and set minimum standards.TheBigBean said:
The international market rate would include drivers from all over the world. You could abolish the minimum wage, import workers from all over the world and give them worse entitlements like the UAE, but most people, sensibly, are against that.rick_chasey said:Why is it artificial? It's the international market rate.
Surely introducing barriers around nationality is more artificial then just opening up the market to international competition? It would be on the supply & demand chart.
You seem to want to use market restrictions to improve conditions rather than just legislate for better conditions.
Why do you care what nationality a lorry driver is?
The problem with jobs like haulage is there is limited value you can add - it's quite hard to compete on anything other than price as the nature of the work means you can't suddenly add more value by getting there twice as fast or whatever. So the employer is always going to go for the cheapest option (within reason).
I'd argue that the fact Brits don't do those jobs suggests that Brits are better suited to other jobs, and the focus shouldn't be on making low-value-add jobs more attractive by restricting supply (which has knock on effects to the rest of the economy), but focus on getting people into more value-add jobs.
I don't think there is a big advantage in getting people into lorry jobs or equivalent. I don't think there is a missed opportunity to have to pay 2x the amount for fruit picking because it's now Brits doing it over Romanians or whoever is doing it.
I'd suggest you're better off getting those Brits into jobs and careers with bigger upside.
You blame national policies for the plight of the working poor and I 100% agree with you.
However, when assessing Brexit, you are confusing economic theory with practical considerations. The fact is we have had working poor under both colours of government while in the Eu.
The economy has let people down and whilst lots voted Brexit for lots of different reasons of which I disagree with many, the working poor (some anyway) have actually been better served by Brexit than any other domestic policy in my lifetime when they are seeing significant wage jumps.
Do you think less choice in shops is a price worth paying for a small wage being converted into a living wage? Many will.
When an economic model simply doesn’t give a fuck about it or even recognise it’s an issue, you will eventually get stuff like Brexit.
The Brexiteers managed to convince the working man, the problem was Europe.
Much to my surprise, they are now pursuing policies that re-in force that belief by passing costs to business.0 -
So the problem with Europe was that food was cheaper?0
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Slightly naughty comment, but some of you are making all the same arguments used against ending slavery. Sugar prices will increase, the locals won't do the job, someone has invested a lot of money, think about the rest of the economy etc.
No one has a right to free labour, they also don't have a right to labour at a certain price.0 -
I don't think anyone is saying anything like that.TheBigBean said:Slightly naughty comment, but some of you are making all the same arguments used against ending slavery. Sugar prices will increase, the locals won't do the job, someone has invested a lot of money, think about the rest of the economy etc.
No one has a right to free labour, they also don't have a right to labour at a certain price.0 -
Oh come on, slavery was about people as property, let's keep it sensible.0
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Which of those arguments haven't we had?kingstongraham said:
I don't think anyone is saying anything like that.TheBigBean said:Slightly naughty comment, but some of you are making all the same arguments used against ending slavery. Sugar prices will increase, the locals won't do the job, someone has invested a lot of money, think about the rest of the economy etc.
No one has a right to free labour, they also don't have a right to labour at a certain price.0 -
Has anyone said that there is a right to labour at a certain price?TheBigBean said:
Which of those arguments haven't we had?kingstongraham said:
I don't think anyone is saying anything like that.TheBigBean said:Slightly naughty comment, but some of you are making all the same arguments used against ending slavery. Sugar prices will increase, the locals won't do the job, someone has invested a lot of money, think about the rest of the economy etc.
No one has a right to free labour, they also don't have a right to labour at a certain price.0 -
No, but they have said the four arguments I included from which I inferred that. So that one is on me.kingstongraham said:
Has anyone said that there is a right to labour at a certain price?TheBigBean said:
Which of those arguments haven't we had?kingstongraham said:
I don't think anyone is saying anything like that.TheBigBean said:Slightly naughty comment, but some of you are making all the same arguments used against ending slavery. Sugar prices will increase, the locals won't do the job, someone has invested a lot of money, think about the rest of the economy etc.
No one has a right to free labour, they also don't have a right to labour at a certain price.0 -
In what possible way is lorry driving in any way like slavery. Its just a nonsense argument.0
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It isn't.Jezyboy said:In what possible way is lorry driving in any way like slavery. Its just a nonsense argument.
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