Northern Powerhouse or Northern Workhouse ?

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

So there's a Grand Vision > a big bass drum that the Chancellor Of The Exchequer keeps banging, but how exactly do we reckon it's going to pan out ?

What I've noticed in the job search is that a great deal of Engineering work & other trades have seen wages stagnate & in some cases fall, jobs where you have to work rotating shifts that see you in at weekends and at night but no kind of shift pay on offer ... which was always paid as compensation for the fact that you are working unsociable hours i.e. not straight day shifts, the more 'unsociable' the higher the percentage, with 6-2 & 2-10 paying different to working night shifts & then a higher amount of shift pay for the 'continental' shifts that rotated to include the weekend work such as 4 on 4 off etc.

Now my take on this so called Northern Powerhouse is that the Govt. have noticed that there are many unemployed that have skills & have served apprenticeships in the North & they have worked out that they can get them on the cheap, with contracts awarded to companies up here it will get them working again which isn't a bad thing in theory but how will it pan out for those that get the jobs ?

The job market is awash with Zero Hours Contracts & Low Paid Work & I reckon that as these contracts are awarded the job centres will start to advertise jobs in skilled trades that offer no security at all & low wages, people will then be sent along to interviews and forced to accept these positions because basically if they don't then they'll be 'Sanctioned' & all payments will be stopped. It'll be interesting to see who gets the contracts and who's on the Boards of Directors of the company's, I've already myself been at a company that was about to be taken over by a company that were basically asset strippers that transfer the work to their existing factories and shut the others down & on the board was a former Chancellor & Prime Minister that was coining it in from such occurrences... a reason that makes me suspicious tbh.

There are those in Govt. that can't help themselves & occasionally say things that arouse my suspicions again & Jeremy Hunt is a prime example, when you take into account his previous 'form' then it's easy to see why there's a huge element of mistrust, his comments recently regarding British Workers needing to be more like the Chinese certainly arouses my suspicions because there are a great many things that have already fallen into place for this grand plan of theirs to be put into action. They've recently had a bill passed regarding Strike Action, an attempt to finish off the disbanding of the Unions that was started a generation ago (or at least reduce their powers), now whatever your political persuasion you will have benefited from the work of the Unions, the prime example being when you take your annual holiday & get paid for that time off, so even though some may some may view them as Militant Trouble Makers & may well have never been a member of a Trade Union they will still have benefited from their existence.

So to me the pieces are falling into place with
Zero Hours Contracts
Low Wages & a labour force that are forced to take them 'or else.'
Board Members of the Govts. Ilk that are to reap the rewards.

This proposed Industrial Revolution Mk2 is going to be more Cultural Revolution Mk2
and what we are about to experience is more Northern Workhouse than Northern Powerhouse.

The Board Members will be the Modern Day Equivalent of the Victorian Mill Owners & Industrialists that fatten themselves off the toils of a workforce that they look down at from their follies and sneer at.


I predict that the Apprenticeships will be nothing more than a reincarnation of the old YTS schemes as well tbh with the young being exploited for pittances of pay.

 

[Groucho]

I personally think that this 'northern powerhouse' is a ruse, intended to placate the north into thinking the government wants us to succeed.

Glorified lip service.

If they were serious about it they'd link Liverpool to HS2 with a HS3, which they spoke about but clearly have no intention of doing so. Yet even that would simply mean all profit travelling to the south east anyway.

Never mind that Liverpool and Leeds have the fastest growing economies outside London.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

If these new jobs transpire to be Permanent Positions with decent pay that kick start industries again then I'll hold my hands up & say I was wrong by the way.

 

[Groucho]

If these new jobs transpire to be Permanent Positions with decent pay that kick start industries again then I'll hold my hands up & say I was wrong by the way.

I mean, apparently in their conference last week, Cameron stood in the middle of Manchester and declared London to be the greatest city in the world.

Does London feel threatened I wonder?

 

[ste d' indica]

his comments recently regarding British Workers needing to be more like the Chinese

I love me some chop suey, sweet and sour, all that stuff. Reckon I'll be OK?

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

I personally think that this 'northern powerhouse' is a ruse, intended to placate the north into thinking the government wants us to succeed.

Glorified lip service.

If they were serious about it they'd link Liverpool to HS2 with a HS3, which they spoke about but clearly have no intention of doing so. Yet even that would simply mean all profit travelling to the south east anyway.

Never mind that Liverpool and Leeds have the fastest growing economies outside London.

Don't get me started on HS2 mate it's just a new Pullman Service for the elite that the vast majority won't be able to afford to use, the upgrading of the existing West Coast Main Line would have been far more beneficial to far more people. Lets build a railway costing how many billion ? that uses technology that is already decades old & by the time it's built will have been put in a museum by those that 1st had it. Branson wanted to upgrade the WCML that would've speeded the trains up, admittedly not as fast as HS2 but HS2 itself doesn't offer enough of a saving on journey time to be worth the cost, what is it ? 20 odd minutes quicker to Euston from the North, which to me aint all that. The kink in Tatton to divert away from Georgie Porgies land says it all as well as he doesn't want it in his back yard but deems it ok to be many others.

 

[degsy]

So there's a Grand Vision > a big bass drum that the Chancellor Of The Exchequer keeps banging, but how exactly do we reckon it's going to pan out ?

What I've noticed in the job search is that a great deal of Engineering work & other trades have seen wages stagnate & in some cases fall, jobs where you have to work rotating shifts that see you in at weekends and at night but no kind of shift pay on offer ... which was always paid as compensation for the fact that you are working unsociable hours i.e. not straight day shifts, the more 'unsociable' the higher the percentage, with 6-2 & 2-10 paying different to working night shifts & then a higher amount of shift pay for the 'continental' shifts that rotated to include the weekend work such as 4 on 4 off etc.

Now my take on this so called Northern Powerhouse is that the Govt. have noticed that there are many unemployed that have skills & have served apprenticeships in the North & they have worked out that they can get them on the cheap, with contracts awarded to companies up here it will get them working again which isn't a bad thing in theory but how will it pan out for those that get the jobs ?

The job market is awash with Zero Hours Contracts & Low Paid Work & I reckon that as these contracts are awarded the job centres will start to advertise jobs in skilled trades that offer no security at all & low wages, people will then be sent along to interviews and forced to accept these positions because basically if they don't then they'll be 'Sanctioned' & all payments will be stopped. It'll be interesting to see who gets the contracts and who's on the Boards of Directors of the company's, I've already myself been at a company that was about to be taken over by a company that were basically asset strippers that transfer the work to their existing factories and shut the others down & on the board was a former Chancellor & Prime Minister that was coining it in from such occurrences... a reason that makes me suspicious tbh.

There are those in Govt. that can't help themselves & occasionally say things that arouse my suspicions again & Jeremy Hunt is a prime example, when you take into account his previous 'form' then it's easy to see why there's a huge element of mistrust, his comments recently regarding British Workers needing to be more like the Chinese certainly arouses my suspicions because there are a great many things that have already fallen into place for this grand plan of theirs to be put into action. They've recently had a bill passed regarding Strike Action, an attempt to finish off the disbanding of the Unions that was started a generation ago (or at least reduce their powers), now whatever your political persuasion you will have benefited from the work of the Unions, the prime example being when you take your annual holiday & get paid for that time off, so even though some may some may view them as Militant Trouble Makers & may well have never been a member of a Trade Union they will still have benefited from their existence.

So to me the pieces are falling into place with
Zero Hours Contracts
Low Wages & a labour force that are forced to take them 'or else.'
Board Members of the Govts. Ilk that are to reap the rewards.

This proposed Industrial Revolution Mk2 is going to be more Cultural Revolution Mk2
and what we are about to experience is more Northern Workhouse than Northern Powerhouse.

The Board Members will be the Modern Day Equivalent of the Victorian Mill Owners & Industrialists that fatten themselves off the toils of a workforce that they look down at from their follies and sneer at.


I predict that the Apprenticeships will be nothing more than a reincarnation of the old YTS schemes as well tbh with the young being exploited for pittances of pay.

I hear your pain brother - in one form or another adjusted to time and place, 'twas ever thus.

I hope this does not end up as an us Vs them; rant Vs rant and a locked thread when it all gets too silly... as much sense can be said

I went to an Interview once ( well more than once ) I did the biz re quals and experience etc. all was going well until I was asked what pay rate do I want, then the penny dropped, all things being equal, the guy who comes in with the lowest rate will get the job.

told him and a few others to 'koff and stick it

Glad I'm out of it.

will be interesting to see how the recent Cammel Lairds announcement pans out.

Bosses *spits in manner of French resistance fighter to the gestapo.

 

[The Cowboy]

The whole HS business stinks. As new advances in technology come through, they should become the new norm, not an opportunity to create a two-tier system.

A HS line (open to all at current prices) from Liverpool to Leeds (maybe even all the way to Hull to create a coast-to-coast link) via Manchester could transform the North, creating one big enterprise area that could be traversed in about an hour.

 

[roydo]

The whole HS business stinks. As new advances in technology come through, they should become the new norm, not an opportunity to create a two-tier system.

A HS line (open to all at current prices) from Liverpool to Leeds (maybe even all the way to Hull to create a coast-to-coast link) via Manchester could transform the North, creating one big enterprise area that could be traversed in about an hour.

Spot on that.

It is dead easy to get up and down the country. Pain in the neck to get across it.

Except into London, of course.

 

[SpurtingLesbian]

you're an idiot if the think the Tories give a [Poor language removed] about anything in the North, we've never going to vote for them so they'll never do anything other than suck what little money we have out of us to give it to those who do.

 

[Whistlin' Dixie]

Northern powerhouse?

Southern sh1thouse, more like

 

[The Cowboy]

If the Northern Powerhouse wants to become a reality, then a political party needs to be borne out of it, which would work in the North's interest.

Unlike other minor parties which have pockets of support across the country and thus never achieve much due to the nature of FPTP, a regionalised party could garner support from large groups of the local populus, and could deliver a fair few MPs if it worked together across the north to come up with strong common goals.

 

[Reidy's Bottle Of Grecian]

If the Northern Powerhouse wants to become a reality, then a political party needs to be borne out of it, which would work in the North's interest.

Unlike other minor parties which have pockets of support across the country and thus never achieve much due to the nature of FPTP, a regionalised party could garner support from large groups of the local populus, and could deliver a fair few MPs if it worked together across the north to come up with strong common goals.

Let's dangle a devolution carrot in front of regional authorities then when it's accepted we'll freeze the amount of funding they receive so that it is THEY who have to implement the cuts to stay in budget and receive the criticisms. It's already been done with Local Authority funding.

 

[kev]

So there's a Grand Vision > a big bass drum that the Chancellor Of The Exchequer keeps banging, but how exactly do we reckon it's going to pan out ?

What I've noticed in the job search is that a great deal of Engineering work & other trades have seen wages stagnate & in some cases fall, jobs where you have to work rotating shifts that see you in at weekends and at night but no kind of shift pay on offer ... which was always paid as compensation for the fact that you are working unsociable hours i.e. not straight day shifts, the more 'unsociable' the higher the percentage, with 6-2 & 2-10 paying different to working night shifts & then a higher amount of shift pay for the 'continental' shifts that rotated to include the weekend work such as 4 on 4 off etc.

Now my take on this so called Northern Powerhouse is that the Govt. have noticed that there are many unemployed that have skills & have served apprenticeships in the North & they have worked out that they can get them on the cheap, with contracts awarded to companies up here it will get them working again which isn't a bad thing in theory but how will it pan out for those that get the jobs ?

The job market is awash with Zero Hours Contracts & Low Paid Work & I reckon that as these contracts are awarded the job centres will start to advertise jobs in skilled trades that offer no security at all & low wages, people will then be sent along to interviews and forced to accept these positions because basically if they don't then they'll be 'Sanctioned' & all payments will be stopped. It'll be interesting to see who gets the contracts and who's on the Boards of Directors of the company's, I've already myself been at a company that was about to be taken over by a company that were basically asset strippers that transfer the work to their existing factories and shut the others down & on the board was a former Chancellor & Prime Minister that was coining it in from such occurrences... a reason that makes me suspicious tbh.

There are those in Govt. that can't help themselves & occasionally say things that arouse my suspicions again & Jeremy Hunt is a prime example, when you take into account his previous 'form' then it's easy to see why there's a huge element of mistrust, his comments recently regarding British Workers needing to be more like the Chinese certainly arouses my suspicions because there are a great many things that have already fallen into place for this grand plan of theirs to be put into action. They've recently had a bill passed regarding Strike Action, an attempt to finish off the disbanding of the Unions that was started a generation ago (or at least reduce their powers), now whatever your political persuasion you will have benefited from the work of the Unions, the prime example being when you take your annual holiday & get paid for that time off, so even though some may some may view them as Militant Trouble Makers & may well have never been a member of a Trade Union they will still have benefited from their existence.

So to me the pieces are falling into place with
Zero Hours Contracts
Low Wages & a labour force that are forced to take them 'or else.'
Board Members of the Govts. Ilk that are to reap the rewards.

This proposed Industrial Revolution Mk2 is going to be more Cultural Revolution Mk2
and what we are about to experience is more Northern Workhouse than Northern Powerhouse.

The Board Members will be the Modern Day Equivalent of the Victorian Mill Owners & Industrialists that fatten themselves off the toils of a workforce that they look down at from their follies and sneer at.


I predict that the Apprenticeships will be nothing more than a reincarnation of the old YTS schemes as well tbh with the young being exploited for pittances of pay.

Great post, and unfortunately a spot on analysis.

 

[Blue 1]

They also seem to think "the North" ends at Manchester. One of the bellwipes thought Teesside was in the North West this week.

It's lip service, nothing more.