Impending Tube Strike and Our Champagne Socialist.......

Simster · Feb 5, 2014

Herr Tubthumper said:
Maybe the UK has missed the boat?

Haha, your Labour party POURED money into health and education which I thought was great at the time, and is a good start to building a healthy economy.

I'd be interested to know quite how you'd actually fuel a healthy economy. I agree that a reliance on financial services, and all the hooray henrys running proceedings with their snouts in the trough, then going cap in hand to the government when they get found out, is probably not a good basis for an economy. But that's easy to say. It certainly isn't going to be fixed by an influx of unskilled Romanians and middle classes saying it's all perfectly fair and pointing at the unskilled British as the thick and stupid ones.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
I'll sign up to that. What do you propose? In the meantime, lets protect OUR less skilled people from being priced out by workers who are here purely for economic reasons and will stomach a low standard of living in the short term.

A decent minimm living wage will stop un-skilled workers being priced out of work; then it will come down to who is best at the job and it will be up to the British workers to personally ensure they are better; there has to be impetus to better yourself via competition for jobs.

Simster · Feb 5, 2014

Herr Tubthumper said:
A decent minimm living wage will stop un-skilled workers being priced out of work; then it will come down to who is best at the job and it will be up to the British workers to personally ensure they are better; there has to be impetus to better yourself via competition for jobs.

But that isn't true. If there are 500,000 jobs paying minimum wage and 1m British people looking for work, then that's fair enough - the best, most willing will end up with the work. That is already healthy competition, irrespective of the minimum wage.

But when that 1m becomes 1.2m because of the unchecked immigration from Romania, all that does is reduce the chance of British workers getting a job through no fault of their own. It's not like the equivalent 200,000 Brits can say "well I'm off to Romania to earn money for my family there" is it? Actually, that's not all it does. It also fuels a growth in the job black market when some of those 200,000 Romanians can't find work and therefore work cash in hand for buttons, don't pay taxes but do increase the burden on our infrastructure.

This is my problem with the Labour party now. They didn't care enough to deal with this issue when they had the chance.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
Haha, your Labour party POURED money into health and education which I thought was great at the time, and is a good start to building a healthy economy.

I'd be interested to know quite how you'd actually fuel a healthy economy. I agree that a reliance on financial services, and all the hooray henrys running proceedings with their snouts in the trough, then going cap in hand to the government when they get found out, is probably not a good basis for an economy. But that's easy to say. It certainly isn't going to be fixed by an influx of unskilled Romanians and middle classes saying it's all perfectly fair and pointing at the unskilled British as the thick and stupid ones.

For health we need a re-balance. With government help it is not too difficult to kick-start the manufacturing base for example. And you need to ween the economy off it's reliance on finance, big business and the services sector. Too many eggs in too few baskets. The government are more than happy to prop up failing banks with billions of our money, so why not start helping (not necessarily with money) smaller to medium sized businesses or entrenprenuers? The government were quite keen to assist house-buyers so again, why not so keen to lend to small to medium businesses and entrepreneurs? There are a lot of small sectors in the UK from brewery to biotechs to digital which all could do with help as well as traditional manufacturing....as an example the Olympic stadium in Stratford was held up with steel cables from a medium sized company in Germany. This company is very successful and trains and employs a local workforce of around 200 I believe. Why on earth was there not a similar steel cable company which could make the cables instead? I have said all of this before anyway. One day maybe someone in power will have a similar view to me.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
But that isn't true. If there are 500,000 jobs paying minimum wage and 1m British people looking for work, then that's fair enough - the best, most willing will end up with the work. That is already healthy competition, irrespective of the minimum wage.

But when that 1m becomes 1.2m because of the unchecked immigration from Romania, all that does is reduce the chance of British workers getting a job through no fault of their own. It's not like the equivalent 200,000 Brits can say "well I'm off to Romania to earn money for my family there" is it? Actually, that's not all it does. It also fuels a growth in the job black market when some of those 200,000 Romanians can't find work and therefore work cash in hand for buttons, don't pay taxes but do increase the burden on our infrastructure.

This is my problem with the Labour party now. They didn't care enough to deal with this issue when they had the chance.

But my point is that you need competition. I do not agree with price competition hence my minimum wage argument. But using the 1.2m you mention as an example, with price competition removed due to the minimum wage, it comes down to a battle of who is best and most skilled for the job. There is now a responsbility on the UK worker to ensure they win the battle of skills or personality of whatever is needed for job. You need some competition for the good of the business, the overall economy, and the work force. I'm not necessarily specifying major skill sets either, sometimes you just need a smile on your face and a friendly nature to get a job. If some of the miserable ***** I encounter knew there was a friendly Czech waiting in the wings it might brighten their mood a little.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
But that isn't true. If there are 500,000 jobs paying minimum wage and 1m British people looking for work, then that's fair enough - the best, most willing will end up with the work. That is already healthy competition, irrespective of the minimum wage.

But when that 1m becomes 1.2m because of the unchecked immigration from Romania, all that does is reduce the chance of British workers getting a job through no fault of their own. It's not like the equivalent 200,000 Brits can say "well I'm off to Romania to earn money for my family there" is it? Actually, that's not all it does. It also fuels a growth in the job black market when some of those 200,000 Romanians can't find work and therefore work cash in hand for buttons, don't pay taxes but do increase the burden on our infrastructure.This is my problem with the Labour party now. They didn't care enough to deal with this issue when they had the chance.

This is an issue and I agree. If there is a minimum wage then there needs to be suitable safe-guards to ensure businesses cannot circumvent the rule. I see this as a seperate argument and one which is removed from nationality of workers though.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
But that isn't true. If there are 500,000 jobs paying minimum wage and 1m British people looking for work, then that's fair enough - the best, most willing will end up with the work. That is already healthy competition, irrespective of the minimum wage.

But when that 1m becomes 1.2m because of the unchecked immigration from Romania, all that does is reduce the chance of British workers getting a job through no fault of their own. It's not like the equivalent 200,000 Brits can say "well I'm off to Romania to earn money for my family there" is it? Actually, that's not all it does. It also fuels a growth in the job black market when some of those 200,000 Romanians can't find work and therefore work cash in hand for buttons, don't pay taxes but do increase the burden on our infrastructure.

This is my problem with the Labour party now. They didn't care enough to deal with this issue when they had the chance.

I'm sure about Romania but I imagine there are opportunities. There are certaintly plenty of other places offering opportunity if this is what you want. I know a heap of people who have moved abroad for work or to start a business.

Simster · Feb 5, 2014

So do I. But not from Romania which is where this imbalance stems from.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
You're a paid up member of the Labour party and can't see it - no wonder some people feel that today's Labour party have no interest in the British working man.

I trust you are not suggesting, by extension, that I also have no interest in the working man?

Simster · Feb 5, 2014

Indeed. I think you have good intentions but are refusing to see what's in front of you.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
So do I. But not from Romania which is where this imbalance stems from.

Is it an imbalance? Romania are well down the list of immigrants at present. I have said before, it is topped by China, Australia and the US.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
Indeed. I think you have good intentions but are refusing to see what's in front of you.

Refusing to see, or have a different solution to you?

Simster · Feb 5, 2014

Well I'd say you are refusing to see because I don't see a solution to an increasingly marginalised semi skilled class from you.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
Indeed. I think you have good intentions but are refusing to see what's in front of you.

And one final thing, as I really need to do some work today, I understand it will take at least until 2018-19 to stop EU movement of labour (the 2017 referendum then 1 or 2 years to walk away) . So your solution is not really dealing with the here-and-now either is it?

Simster · Feb 5, 2014

Herr Tubthumper said:
Is it an imbalance? Romania are well down the list of immigrants at present. I have said before, it is topped by China, Australia and the US.

Yes an imbalance. China is made up of an influx of students and the need to tap into their huge markets. Australia and the US we have reciprocal agreements with. Hardly the same as Romania!

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
Well I'd say you are refusing to see because I don't see a solution to an increasingly marginalised semi skilled class from you.

Have I not just explained my long term solution over the past posts? My theory does involve an element of competition as I have stated, but it is down to the individual if they see this a marginalisation or not. I do not.

Herr Tubthumper · Feb 5, 2014

Simster said:
Yes an imbalance. China is made up of an influx of students and the need to tap into their huge markets. Australia and the US we have reciprocal agreements with. Hardly the same as Romania!

Show me figures of how many of these Chinese are not working in the UK, and the net migration of Aus and US and I will reconsider my position. At the moment I have no evidence to see an imbalance.

cunning fergus · Feb 5, 2014

Herr Tubthumper said:
I feel we both want the same goal, but we just have very different ideas on how it will be achieved; I prefer proactive methods as opposed to reactive ones. If you want to help the British working class then create a healthy economy with real skilled jobs and then train people to undertake these jobs. It stands to reason if you have a vacancy for a blah-blah job and some local lad has been trained to be a blah-blah then he stands a very good chance of getting it over someone else. This is a much better way than the lazy and unimaginative "lets-legislate" approach. And hey, if a Romanian turns up who is better than the local lad then fair play and the boss gets a very good worker and his business flourishes; ce la vie. This to me seems a much more sensible approach all round.

Maybe we do, but I would rather achieve the goal by applying sound socialist principles as oppose to a tory wet dream inspired approach of free and open markets.

This laissez-faire governance approach you advocate for the British labour market was used to regulate the financial services industry a few years ago by the previous Govt and it caused a financial disaster for the British people which we are still paying for. I am at a loss to understand how anyone in the light of that disaster would credibly consider that the same method of governance will benefit British workers, and not least in the current environment where there is oversupply of unskilled labour in many area, falling wages, diminishing employment rights and increasing youth employment.

All of these facts are unequivocal signals that there is an imbalance in the labour market, and yet you seem to want to trust the very capitalists who are benefitting from the oversupply of labour to resolve the problem?

I am no supporter of a big state, however this is not a choice between all or nothing, if we need skills then workers are welcome regardless of where they come from, and to that extent I would not want to limit our choice to the EU workers, there is a bigger world beyond the borders of Europe.

If, however, we do not need more capacity in areas of the labour market then we should have limits on workers ability to migrate to the UK. This kind of very fundamental management is what voters used to elect UK Governments to do, and it should include creating initiatives with business to develop employment opportunities. Now-a-days they throw their hands up in the air in Parliament and say we cannot manage our affairs because of EU law.

This situation is not acceptable.

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