I'm baffled. What decision? Most of this is in the Employment Rights Act 1996 (Tory Government) with Labour amending it to allow employees to request flexible working. You'll have to cite this supposed Labour change in the law to force you to work bank holidays. It sounds like you exchanged 4 bank holidays for 5 days extra annual leave.
And it is just not true that every company reduced wages to the minimum wage. Of course that's why the CBI opposed it.
I'm still not sure how you can be working 40 hours a week and only be on £9300 a year (and not consider yourself poor).
Because i'm not working 40 hours a week.
It's shift work, meaning an average of 24 hours a week. Sometimes it's more, 32, 35 sometimes it's less, 16, 14. That was all that was on offer. I was earning a guarenteed 40 hours as a supervisor but the company decided to get rid of them. All I know is one year bank holidays were optional, the next they were mandatory, you were no longer paid time/half minimum and it was during the Labour government of Blair/Brown. I don't have to cite anything, i'm just aware of when the change in circumstance happened.
You want my circumstances? Okay. South Manchester lad from a working class south Manchester, Labour voting family. High school level education ( 9 GCSE A-C), left school to learn a trade. My rent is £250 a month, I cycle to work on days to limit the costs of owning a motorcycle and improve fitness. Insurance is low, i'm not earning enough to pay tax, my food budget is modest, I don't spend money on holidays abroad and never have, I have modest hobbies that don't cost the earth, supporting City can be done via radio, tv or internet. You think it's impossible to live on £10,000 a year? It's not, that's why I find it bizarre when people say they need food banks, or that the Tories have made life impossible for them. The major difference is that I don't have children.
I don't consider myself 'poor' because i'm not struggling. There's a lot of wants, needs and haves attitudes amongst many people today, most of the time buying expensive items they don't really need in their life but feel like they need them. The number of conversations at work where people at work complain about having no money, then when pay day comes they spend over £100 in one night boozing. Now it's up to them to spend their money however they wish, but maybe think about where that money keeps going? That's why i'm slightly suspiscious of their lifestyle choices of people who say 'I'm not earning enough'; are they of the "i want it all/keep up with the joneses" or have they just endured a run of financial bad luck, which can happen I admit. But can poverty also be attributed to poor financial choices? One lad at work takes on so many shifts, often working 14 day stretches and tiring himself out. When I asked him what position he was in that forced him to work himself ragged he replied "I want to go backpacking in America". Personal need, not necessity causes him to work so much. I'm not suggesting its the cause to dismiss their plights, I simply consider it a possibility and you can't blame governments for that.