Wages...

"Anonymous Remailer (austria)" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@remailer.privacy.at...

companies should have been giving their employees a cost of living raise I thought that was the rule of thumb.

wage demands ????

"Anonymous Remailer (austria)" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@remailer.privacy.at...

No - Wage demands are unlikely to be granted in a depresssion. People will need to learn how to live on the money they make.

Neb

Not really. If a firm is in a declining industry it often can't pay cost of living increases. Then if workers want more money they have to leave to get it and lose all their employment rights related to years of service.

That's If they can.

derek

I wonder about the need for expensive urgent repairs to houses, cars etc.that might have been paid on a credit card previously.

What if you need a new roof, new drains etc ? Houses bought on credit weren't being built all that well 15 or so years ago.

There's an old financial maxim concerning blood and stones.

Derek.

"Nebulous" wrote in news:gfsp5j$3090$ snipped-for-privacy@energise.enta.net:

What if people don't earn enough to even pay for the basics, ie: mortgage, water, basic food, heating, lighting...?

"Anonymous Remailer (austria)" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@remailer.privacy.at...

A mortgage is not compulsory and people can rent and/or share and that will help with the other items on your list also.

"\(!\)" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@bt.com:

If you have low paid employees who no longer have access to credit to 'keep themselves afloat', then they will look to their employers for wage increases...

They can "Look" all they like. If the business is not generating enough money to pay them any more they will "Look" in vain.

Derek

"Yellow" wrote in news:gfuj6d$tv5$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.org:

Where I currently live, it's (currently) more cost to rent than to to have a mortgage...

You can go on housing benefit immediately if you are renting.

Derek

and they leave thus forcing the company further down hill................

Yes, the best ones (with prospects) go first.

You only get one life, and that's too short to spend fart-arsing about in a company that's on it's last legs.

Derek

Very true. I worked at a place which no longer exists, which decided to "restructure" and had a few rounds of redundancies, with very generous terms. The people climbing over each other to volunteer were the best ones who knew they could walk into another job. By the end, all that was left was the dross who knew they couldn't get another job because they were useless at the one they'd got. So they finished up with just a load of rubbish and went pop!

That's why I was one of the first ones out!

BobC

At 14:10:45 on 18/11/2008, Anonymous Remailer (austria) delighted uk.finance by announcing:

Then they will have a difficult time. What if the company doesn't earn enough to even pay for the basics?

Only if you are on a *very* low income.

Only if there are viable alternatives.

A company does not have to be on it's last legs to decline to give decent pay rises.

Like if your salary is the only income you've got and the job goes breasts uppermost ?

A circumstance scarecely without precedence nowadays.

Derek

"Anonymous Remailer (austria)" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@remailer.privacy.at...

Many things that people regard as basics are not basics at all - they are lifestyle choices.

I have been in the situation where we voluntarily took a huge drop in income, and it is amazing what you can do without.

Most people are protected in that there is a minimum wage and top-ups in terms of tax credits etc for low paid people, particularly those with families.

What you are describing is someone whose lifestyle had run ahead of his/her income by borrowing, which was always going to be a short-term fix. Many people have developed a 45k lifestyle on 25k money. For many of those people a wage rise is not the answer - it's getting rid of the debt. Whether that means throwing themselves on the tender mercies of their creditors, selling any property which still has equity in it, or declaring bankruptcy doesn't really matter (though it may to the person!)

Neb

Indeed.

There isn't really any such thing as a minimum wage, there is only a prescribed minimum *hourly rate of pay* for those hours for which you are paid. There is no prescribed minimum number of hours per week anyone is obliged to employ you for, and therefore your (weekly) wage can be as low as circumstances require - the employer simply cuts your hours.

Then there is the additional possibility that you might be expected to "volunteer" to work more hours than you are paid for, if that's what it takes to safeguard what's left of your job. This means that if your official rate of pay is already near or at the NMW, and if the number of voluntary hours is at all significant, then your effective hourly pay could, quite legally, be below NMW.

I don't understand on what grounds employees should expect an easy ride. After all, many self-employed (particularly those who also employ people) are effectively below NMW, if not even at times on a negative wage.