Current Affairs The General Election

[Bruce Wayne]

Paying Maccy Ds worker a good wage would be like a junk food tax in essence, as the end cost would be handed over to the consumer burger eater. There is hope..

Yeah but the poor are relying on the £3 meal deal to feed their 15 children so food bank usage will quadruple when the prices of that meal deal go up in order to pay Joe Hamburger like the king that he is.

 

[catcherintherye]

You just have to ignore the underlying issue that by increasing the cost of workers, it makes companies more likely to use technology to reduce costs. The reason we have particularly high rates of employment is that in many cases it's actually cheaper to employee people to do the jobs than use automation. Again, using the example of McDonalds, the staff numbers they have employed has reduced as they've brought in more automated ordering systems. It might be good for the economy and productivity, not so good for workers.

Minimum wage increases lead to faster job automation

Read new research on how increases in minimum wage lead to faster automation of jobs

www.lse.ac.uk

Automation is coming in whatever happens. The question surely has to be how do we share the benefits of it?

Do we allow shareholders and those at the top end of companies to further increase their salaries. Or do we argue that the benefits of it should be shared more equally amongst ordinary people, allowing us all to have a minimum standard of living.

I know UBI has been trialled for the Labour manifesto, it's hard to see something akin to this not being questioned in the mainstream political discourse.

 

[zzr45]

Respect from management, a living wage, and secure hours is the bare minimum an employer should offer it's staff. If you're failing on those three fronts then expect your staff to strike until it improves.

If only life was like that. I want a job with more money, so I'll just get a job with more money.

Eh?

What a staggeringly silly comment.Many, not enough but many, businesses in the hospitality trade pay fair wages and treat their staff well without going bust. Not sure what the pub comment is, though.

Respect from management, yes that should be there entirely. However, the link between wages and costs to the customers is something that cannot be overlooked. If you have to start charging more per meal, unit sold whatever to cover the increased costs (because, let's face it, companies are not going to let their profit margins drop.) then is it going to get to a point where the customer sees it as too expensive. The reason wages are so low within the hospitality industry is because of how labour intensive it is, paired with the price elasticity of whatever they sell. To say that 'many' hospitality places pay well is actually laughable and if you'd like to tell many of my former coworkers that, I'm sure you'd realise what a ridiculous statement it actually is.

We've seen similar with pubs, the running costs of them have gone up - leading to the price of a pint going up, meaning more people staying at home and drinking because there is a cheaper alternative - namely buying alcohol from supermarkets. Pubs have shut left right and centre (home town went from 21 pubs twenty years ago to 11 now as an example).

Pushing wages up might be seen as something wonderful short term, especially if we start paying for people to work when demand is low, but the reality is in the long term, especially within that industry, it would lead to closures. Maybe not in the big chains, but the smaller companies that would have to keep pace with wage demands across the industry.

If people want good wages for hospitality staff, they'd have to pay for it. I'm not sure that there's an appetite for that.

 

[dead_soft]

Respect from management, yes that should be there entirely. However, the link between wages and costs to the customers is something that cannot be overlooked. If you have to start charging more per meal, unit sold whatever to cover the increased costs (because, let's face it, companies are not going to let their profit margins drop.) then is it going to get to a point where the customer sees it as too expensive. The reason wages are so low within the hospitality industry is because of how labour intensive it is, paired with the price elasticity of whatever they sell. To say that 'many' hospitality places pay well is actually laughable and if you'd like to tell many of my former coworkers that, I'm sure you'd realise what a ridiculous statement it actually is.

We've seen similar with pubs, the running costs of them have gone up - leading to the price of a pint going up, meaning more people staying at home and drinking because there is a cheaper alternative - namely buying alcohol from supermarkets. Pubs have shut left right and centre (home town went from 21 pubs twenty years ago to 11 now as an example).

Pushing wages up might be seen as something wonderful short term, especially if we start paying for people to work when demand is low, but the reality is in the long term, especially within that industry, it would lead to closures. Maybe not in the big chains, but the smaller companies that would have to keep pace with wage demands across the industry.

If people want good wages for hospitality staff, they'd have to pay for it. I'm not sure that there's an appetite for that.

Smaller companies do pay, I have a lot of dealings with the hospitality trade and many of them pay decent wages. Not spectacular wages, but decent wages. If a business can't afford to pay a living wage it shouldn't be running. Pubs are shutting, yes, but that's more to do with a change in society rather than costs. Food and drink has exploded in the UK recently and pricing has continued going up. Many mid-level chains have gone bust paying shocking wages. It really doesn't hold that it's not possible to pay decent wages and survive.

 

[orly]

 

[Jebus_lives]

How not to do PR in an emergency.

 

[orchard]

Respect from management, yes that should be there entirely. However, the link between wages and costs to the customers is something that cannot be overlooked. If you have to start charging more per meal, unit sold whatever to cover the increased costs (because, let's face it, companies are not going to let their profit margins drop.) then is it going to get to a point where the customer sees it as too expensive. The reason wages are so low within the hospitality industry is because of how labour intensive it is, paired with the price elasticity of whatever they sell. To say that 'many' hospitality places pay well is actually laughable and if you'd like to tell many of my former coworkers that, I'm sure you'd realise what a ridiculous statement it actually is.

We've seen similar with pubs, the running costs of them have gone up - leading to the price of a pint going up, meaning more people staying at home and drinking because there is a cheaper alternative - namely buying alcohol from supermarkets. Pubs have shut left right and centre (home town went from 21 pubs twenty years ago to 11 now as an example).

Pushing wages up might be seen as something wonderful short term, especially if we start paying for people to work when demand is low, but the reality is in the long term, especially within that industry, it would lead to closures. Maybe not in the big chains, but the smaller companies that would have to keep pace with wage demands across the industry.

If people want good wages for hospitality staff, they'd have to pay for it. I'm not sure that there's an appetite for that.

It's not quite that simple Sherlock, imo like, people ought to be paying more for food AND labour, if they cba.

I think what we have in the UK is fairly unique and nor can the 'industry' be treated as a whole, as a franchise/corporate burger flipping and shake pouring business model differs wildly from owner-establishmemts.

 

[Tubey]

View attachment 71446

About right. Would be mad to be betting against a Tory majority the way things are at the mo.

Might change though, who knows, but I think Momentum/Corbyn fans are going to finally realise just how much of a bubble they've been in.

Or just blame the media as usual, either/or.

 

[orly]

About right. Would be mad to be betting against a Tory majority the way things are at the mo.

Might change though, who knows, but I think Momentum/Corbyn fans are going to finally realise just how much of a bubble they've been in.

Or just blame the media as usual, either/or.

6/4 for under 195 seats - albeit that's a far broader range than the other options - is a bit scary

If the fav wins in every market:

336+ for the Tories
Less than 196 for Labour
Less than 31 for Lib Dems

Withdrawal Agreement Bill flies through. Won't be bettting but for me, those lines are really wrong.

 

[zzr45]

It's not quite that simple Sherlock, imo like, people ought to be paying more for food AND labour, if they cba.

I think what we have in the UK is fairly unique and nor can the 'industry' be treated as a whole, as a franchise/corporate burger flipping and shake pouring business model differs wildly from owner-establishmemts.

The cba is the very relevant part in my opinion. I know I generally try to leave a decent tip because I know how crap the wages are/were.

I’d tend to disagree, the ‘lower’ end of the market is more dictated by the big boys especially when it comes to things like prices and the going wages - again as you said and catcher alluded to in another post, in this country we prefer low price crap service.

 

[dwightschrute]

6/4 for under 195 seats - albeit that's a far broader range than the other options - is a bit scary

If the fav wins in every market:

336+ for the Tories
Less than 196 for Labour
Less than 31 for Lib Dems

Withdrawal Agreement Bill flies through. Won't be bettting but for me, those lines are really wrong.

Wasnt the 2017 betting pretty much the same though? And Leave in the brexit vote was still 7/1 an hour before final results were coming in

 

[Tubey]

6/4 for under 195 seats - albeit that's a far broader range than the other options - is a bit scary

If the fav wins in every market:

336+ for the Tories
Less than 196 for Labour
Less than 31 for Lib Dems

Withdrawal Agreement Bill flies through. Won't be bettting but for me, those lines are really wrong.

Believe it or not such a result is a relatively minor swing to the Tories.

The assumption is 2017 Corbyn peaked and Johnson is the much more appealing prospect than May was when attacking the pensioners.

I can easily see that projection as being correct. My guess as of now would be 350 Tories, 195 Labour. A landslide, because I think Corbyn's Labour is that unappealing. But strangely it wouldn't take much to swing it the other way.

 

[dwightschrute]

Believe it or not such a result is a relatively minor swing to the Tories.

The assumption is 2017 Corbyn peaked and Johnson is the much more appealing prospect than May was when attacking the pensioners.

I can easily see that projection as being correct. My guess as of now would be 350 Tories, 195 Labour. A landslide, because I think Corbyn's Labour is that unappealing. But strangely it wouldn't take much to swing it the other way.

Hope you're wrong just dont see it. 350 would mean they win all the north marginals with Labour and hold on to the south marginals from the Lib Dems to offset the seats they'll lose in Scotland.

Tactical voting, over 200k mainly young people registering to vote this month, tories poor campaigning and the head to head debates to go that Johnson is awful at fills me confidence it will be a hung parliament

 

[Tubey]

Hope you're wrong just dont see it. 350 would mean they win all the north marginals with Labour and hold on to the south marginals from the Lib Dems to offset the seats they'll lose in Scotland.

Tactical voting, over 200k mainly young people registering to vote this month, tories poor campaigning and the head to head debates to go that Johnson is awful at fills me confidence it will be a hung parliament

Yeah I was estimating solely on the election being tomorrow. If Corbyn gets his arse into gear and Johnson makes errors, then it can all swing - I just can't see how it can swing enough for a Labour win though.

 

[orly]

Wasnt the 2017 betting pretty much the same though? And Leave in the brexit vote was still 7/1 an hour before final results were coming in

Oh for sure. And Trump was about 12/1 in a two horse race the day before the polling. Politics betting is still one of the weirdly badly researched areas.