Usually pal you put up a decent counter argument, this time I do not even see a point.
I consider myself a student of RW viewpoints, I read voraciously so that i can understand why. All you have done my friend is parrot the Mail etc etc
The classic RW attack is hypocrisy , usually around the things that the owners of capital want to attack the working class on the behalf of the owners of capital.
Majoritism, BTW is classical Fascist speak, its a base assumption based on ones own feelings and ones echo chamber. Speaking for the silent majority is now in our political lexicon, the problem is lots of people in this country are disengaged and that saddens me, but its no accident. Keep the working class uneducated and they are no threat, its feudalism.
The left never moans about high pay, the right always moans about high pay for the poor
We need a revolution... now
Apologies mate. I was queuing at the cinema rightfully getting evil eyes from Mrs MB so it was a rather rushed post ;)
My point is a number of kids are going to be impacted by this - to discount that, whatever the actual numbers is not acceptable nor is it what I would expect from the left. I think, from your post, we agree on that - so my central premise of I have no issue with the strike itself, just the timing - remains.
Principally I don’t really like national pay deals nor the minimum wage - not the ideas but rather the execution and how the systems are abused. I would very much prefer to see free market economics at play where train companies, schools or hospitals genuinely compete against one another for staff where the going pay isn’t a “pre-known” this will create wage inflation naturally. I accept it might not be that practical due to geography, it’s not like hospitals are 10 a penny in any given area so what…you move areas? Thats hardly practical. That said the private sector is a poster child of free market economics and very few have seen real pay rises in the last decade and those at the bottom have seen pay cuts in real terms. For this I think the minimum wage bears some responsibility- a great idea being exploited where we have supermarkets no longer have to guess what their competitors pay their staff as the minimum wage largely sets the bar for them. This should come as no surprise as supermarkets have used their size to suppress prices they pay for years now - but we all pop along and buy their shit so they are under no pressure to change.
Tax credits and tax cuts cover up most of the real terms pay cuts people have seen in both the public and private sector. We do need a complete overhaul of the system and we need to wean people off working tax credits by getting them fairer pay. A revolution is probably a bit strong, maybe we can just bring in some new legislation rather than burn the world down? I don’t have the answers to what that legislation is, nor the platform to implement it, but I’d probably be fairly supportive with something like:
1. Abolish minimum wage for over 21s and bring in a social responsibility bill wherein national companies will pay a fair wage to staff removing the burden on the tax payer - this will have independent oversight with huge fines to anyone who breaches what is deemed fair - it’s far less transparent for the companies and retrospective that should keep them on their toes and pay people what they are worth to them, not what they can get away with.
2. Huge penalties for firms and prison sentences for CEOs where collusion on pay between rival organisations is uncovered - purpose here is to keep them blind to what others see as fair pay and use their own judgement on what is fair.
3. New law and oversight body on strike action that concerns pay or safety. Where that body agrees that the strike action falls below corporate responsibility on pay or safety staff that strike will be given full pay. Where it doesn’t staff can still strike but as now on no pay. If we look at one of the reasons for strike from a train strike a while back was about removing guards on trains and how it was unsafe - I wouldn’t expect this body to find in favour of the train staff as it’s perceived with no firm evidence (just subjective). But crucially the train staff can still strike if they feel that strongly about it.
4. No government can bring in legislation like that when it’s own house isn’t in order so a thorough review of all public sector take home pay using 2010 as a benchmark - and using that report and inflation to get everyone to 2010 take home pay + inflation since 2010. That is the absolute minimum. I’d even probably use that “2010 take home + inflation” as a starting point for supermarkets and the such as well. Take home is important rather than headline wages as it takes into account the huge reduction we’ve seen in tax thresholds that has left more money in most peoples pockets.
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