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May 7th | UK General Election 2015 OT - Please go vote!
- Thread starter Volotaire
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CyclopsRock
Member
Awful policy tbh.
Edit: this refers to the 35 hour and the volunteering policy.
Edit: this refers to the 35 hour and the volunteering policy.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
Plus I don't really see the value of it? Does anyone care?
I'd do it. Nice change of pace for a day and there's a charity shop closer to me than my office is.
Won't that mean I earn less? Why would I want that?
Are they planning to fund that disparity with that £72 a week they were going to give everyone?
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
You don't think that kind of job is better suited for young people looking to get work experience?
Totally, but it's only for 3 days a year and doesn't even have to be consecutively, so it would just be helping out on a busy day.
well they want to make minimum wage £10ph by 2020 too. so I assume so.
Kinky John
Member
That kind of headline would be aimed at those south of the border, so it'd have to be something like "Salmond forces Ed to remove Balls"
£10 per minute?
sorry typo
Ohhh, I thought it was just a silly exaggeration! Yeah, £10ph is a little over the top and limiting to 35 hours makes it worse. I agree with the Greens a lot but at times they do tend to show they don't know how economics works.
Still, WORK LESS FOR MORE MONEY might snare a few extra votes from people who don't realise that the cost of goods would go up to compensate.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
The point isn't that these precise things will occur. The point is to shift the other parties more towards these sorts of ideas; to get them talking more about minimum wage and raising it. In the same way that you start negotiations with higher demands than you expect to receive.
It is exactly what UKIP have done with immigration.
CyclopsRock
Member
I'm not sure it'll have the desired effect though (unlike UKIP with immigration). It's functionally very similar to the EU Working Hours directive to which we have an opt-out, but the existence of that hasn't really stimulated much debate about it. I can't imagine this will either.
I get that, but your actual ideas have to work in tandem. A higher minimum wage with a limit on hours seems pretty bad overall even if the limit was say 37.5 and £8ph. There's no way we could have both without having a pretty big knock on effect.
Visualante2
Member
There's a lot more to volunteering than working in a charity shop :/
Practicality is limited because so many volunteering opportunities require background checks (vulnerable people, children). The check is free but it takes so much time and effort, for three days some charities won't bother. Hell some of the volunteering things I went for demanded two references.
Practicality is limited because so many volunteering opportunities require background checks (vulnerable people, children). The check is free but it takes so much time and effort, for three days some charities won't bother. Hell some of the volunteering things I went for demanded two references.
Maybe young people can have 3 days paid work once a year in lieu of this big society shake up.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
I don't think it will either. But, talking about the minimum wage has had a noticeable effect. Not enough of one yet, but a start.
I do think the limit to working hours is, well, unworkable, which limits its potential. It just seems intuitively wrong to people.
Technically you are correct. But again, not the point. It introduces both ideas into the political dialogue. People won't remember it to that level of detail.
Plus everyone knows the Greens are a fantasy/idealist party so their expectations are set accordingly.
Billy_Pilgrim
Member
Tories are floundering
IdreamofHIME
Member
It shows how naive they are. They've got caught up in the "anything can happen" election hype and over played their hand.
These smaller parties are in for a shock come election day, ukip tracking for less MPs than they already have (stole?) And I'd be surprised if the greens can hold their on to their one.
Lucas seems very nice when interviewed, but her party leader is an idiot and ruins most opportunities.
It and the Rail fare 'freeze' (I thought centrally enforced price freezes are Stalinist?) are 'positive' policies.
The fact that the Tories dragged them out and delayed the launch of their manifesto leads me to expect a whole heap of unfunded policies next week.
Miles Quaritch
Member
I might have missed it, but did the Tories ever detail the funding for the rail freeze policy?
And now we have this volunteering policy that they haven't properly costed either.
And now we have this volunteering policy that they haven't properly costed either.
CyclopsRock
Member
They've been doing it for the last 2 years. I don't know what the implications of it are funding-wise, but it's not a new thing, so presumably it'll have the same implications it has currently.
Miles Quaritch
Member
That's the rail policy?
I thought I heard something along those lines during a Newsnight earlier this week, but wasn't sure it was definitely in relation to the rail freeze.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
It is uncosted because nobody will actually use it so I guess it is rude to complain
EDIT: oh wait did you mean the rail freeze?
Kiever Sher
Member
This sounds like a threat
Yes we'll give you what you deserve, we'll give you all exactly what you deserve *evil laugh*
Yes we'll give you what you deserve, we'll give you all exactly what you deserve *evil laugh*
This sounds like a threat
Yes we'll give you what you deserve, we'll give you all exactly what you deserve *evil laugh*
Good job it wasn't the front page of the Daily Mail. That readership would be shitting themselves!
CyclopsRock
Member
Yup, sorry, the rail freeze. It's been one of those "we're halting the planned increase on fuel duty" type deals in the last 2 budgets; Rail faires were meant to be allowed to go up by X but now they're only allowed to go up by Y.
Edit: given that it's the government that sets those rules on ticket increases in the first place, I've no idea where the extra money comes from; Franchise profits or does the government subsidise the rail firms loss? The latter seems to make more sense, as it seems unreasonable to offer franchises and then change how much money they can charge post hoc.
I think we need to limit working hours to 35 hours a week as an absolute minimum (I'd say we need to go even lower in the long-long-long term), with any extra hours worked classed as overtime. Firstly, people are working too much when life is for living. Secondly, as automation increases we need to get used to the idea of working less (and being paid more to do it) while sharing jobs with others.
If we cling on to the idea that we have to work long hours, then we're going to reach a point where human labour has to be cheaper per hour than getting a machine to do it. And I'm not just talking about just minimum wage stuff here, but a lot of skilled jobs too. The social ramifications doesn't bear thinking about.
Looking at the 35 hour per week policy on its own can be alarming, because the first instinct to people working long hours for shitty pay is where they'll make up lost earnings if their working week is slashed, but you have to remember that the Greens also support the Citizen's Income and the proposed 35 hour working week is supposed to go hand-in-hand with that.
As a principle I think limiting the working week and Citizen's Income is great and necessary in the near future. Pragmatically, I don't think the Greens' proposed idea for CI is particularly beneficial (running the figures, it looks like people on the lower end of the income scale would lose out under it, and the point of CI is to replace most welfare and make everyone better off), though there are thinktanks that are coming up with fairer and more workable solutions.
Even still, having a blanket 35 hour working week is crazy when you need people to pick up the slack, as King_Moc described in regards to doctors. They are not dime a dozen, so the policy would have to be introduced very slowly, and at staggered rates depending on the industry.
At any rate, it's too complex an issue to really distil into an electoral slogan, which is why it looks bad. I also fear the Greens may not have a workable way of introducing it, even if I agree with it on principle.
If we cling on to the idea that we have to work long hours, then we're going to reach a point where human labour has to be cheaper per hour than getting a machine to do it. And I'm not just talking about just minimum wage stuff here, but a lot of skilled jobs too. The social ramifications doesn't bear thinking about.
Looking at the 35 hour per week policy on its own can be alarming, because the first instinct to people working long hours for shitty pay is where they'll make up lost earnings if their working week is slashed, but you have to remember that the Greens also support the Citizen's Income and the proposed 35 hour working week is supposed to go hand-in-hand with that.
As a principle I think limiting the working week and Citizen's Income is great and necessary in the near future. Pragmatically, I don't think the Greens' proposed idea for CI is particularly beneficial (running the figures, it looks like people on the lower end of the income scale would lose out under it, and the point of CI is to replace most welfare and make everyone better off), though there are thinktanks that are coming up with fairer and more workable solutions.
Even still, having a blanket 35 hour working week is crazy when you need people to pick up the slack, as King_Moc described in regards to doctors. They are not dime a dozen, so the policy would have to be introduced very slowly, and at staggered rates depending on the industry.
At any rate, it's too complex an issue to really distil into an electoral slogan, which is why it looks bad. I also fear the Greens may not have a workable way of introducing it, even if I agree with it on principle.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
In 2010 the objective was to move towards a 35 hour week, which presumably means setting up structures for covering such shortfalls. Which is a long, long term project.
CyclopsRock
Member
I, for one, am glad the Green Party are here to fill that "political parties telling me what life is really about" void I've been feeling lately. Even better when they legislatively force me to live it that way; it takes from me the burden of having to think about it myself tbh.
You can joke, but they're right about working hours. Our culture has been saturated with protestant work ethic bullshit for too long. Shorter weeks, higher productivity. Mandate it!
CyclopsRock
Member
Right, but to someone like me - who generally quite likes deciding for themselves how much they want to work - this is the left wing equivalent of bringing back national service because the younguns these days don't know what respect is. To the people who are already on board, they think they're doing everyone a favour. To everyone else, they wonder why they're being told what's good for them by someone who hasn't ever lived a day in their life.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
This is precisely why it doesn't work. It just feels wrong.
It may, increasingly, need to become a reality for many professions but people will not like it.
JonathanEx
Member
I dunno, my life would clearly be better if I went down from 37.5hrs to 35hours! I'm working myself to death right now. If it was changed, well, that's my life saved.
This sounds like a threat
Yes we'll give you what you deserve, we'll give you all exactly what you deserve *evil laugh*
Instantly thought of this.
CyclopsRock
Member
We already have huge numbers of jobs being made, partly because our productivity is lower than most of the developed world. Of all of our employment problems, the creation of more jobs isn't actually one of them.
Visualante2
Member
Seems like we have a lot of zero hour contract jobs being created.
And the theory that people will spend more time contributing their family, community, local economy etc in the remaining hours.
CyclopsRock
Member
Depends how you define a lot, really. Approx 4/5 new jobs created last year were full time.
This sounds like a threat
Yes we'll give you what you deserve, we'll give you all exactly what you deserve *evil laugh*
That's rich considering Desmond has been bigging up UKIP in exchange for a possible peerage...
This sounds like a threat
Yes we'll give you what you deserve, we'll give you all exactly what you deserve *evil laugh*
That can't be the Express. There's no Princess Di cover.
StealthGoblin
Banned
I'm at my desk at 7 and leave work at 5:45. I do that five days a week and then work between 5-7 hours at the weekend. Limiting my hours would actually damage children's education.
That doesn't include the 1-2 hours I do when I get home.
I don't mind the hours I do, I love my job. We are all just criminally underpaid.
I guess the fact that so much of what's made our lives demonstrably better over the last two centuries has been tied to reductions in hours worked as technology reduces the intensity of labour... just kind of makes hour reductions sensible.
If anything it's perverse that HUGE increases in labour saving technology recently *haven't* brought about shorter working weeks. If capitalism isn't going to deliver it, government should mandate it.
Shorter school days (do we really think Children benefit from the length of the school day?) and more teachers would solve that; not putting you in a situation where you're sacrificing your free time to cover an excessive workload.
QuicheFontaine
Member
"You're going to get what's coming to you "
StealthGoblin
Banned
We'd have to sacrifice huge swathes of the national curriculum. We don't even have time at the moment to fit it in. We'll need to lower our expectations for the foundation subjects quite dramatically as the core subjects are taught in the mornings.
Shorter school days wouldn't get a parent vote IMO. We are already treated like free childcare.
I'm open minded.
A lot of my time taken working isn't actually to do with my class. I'm in charge of computing e-safety, the school website and our science curriculum.
CyclopsRock
Member
The reason why that hasn't happened is because there's still lots of stuff to do - if there weren't companies wouldn't be hiring people. I'm not sure why you think that now, in 2015, is the point at which we need to stop utilising the technology to continue making our lives better, but rather down tools (relatively) and say "this is the point at which we stop" and use the improvements in technology to reduce our work hours rather than improve things. An obvious example is why we're all here - video games. The reason games have crunch and why there's a constant churn of new consoles is because people want the technology to get better and make their games better, rather than us still be playing NES games but with less and less people being required to make it (or, rather, as many people working for less time but earning the same amount). This is the case for cars and aeroplanes and websites and computers and estate agents and basically everything; They continue to work hard because consumers reward them for being the best. What is it about 2015 that makes you think this is where that technological dialectic must be broken?
Or, put another way, what part of your argument is true today but wouldn't have been true in, say, the mid 80's?
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