What's going to happen when essential workers can't afford to get to work?

[noblegiraffe]

I was just reading another thread about cutbacks people are making to deal with the price increases, and some people mentioned WFH or WFH more often to save petrol money on going into the office. Petrol and diesel seem to be going up in price daily with no end in sight.

Public transport isn't cheap either, and prices go up in line with inflation.

Not that public transport is always an option - my school has very poor public transport links.

Obviously everyone is affected by price increases, but with real terms pay cuts promised by the government for several key public sector areas, how are they going to be able to guarantee a workforce that can actually afford to get to work? A couple of teachers leaving my dept for other schools cited cost of commute as a factor.

Thinking of the keyworkers - those who were so essential to the running of the country that they had to go out to work during a pandemic when everyone else had to stay at home. What is the plan to enable them to keep going out to work during this cost of living crisis?

Nobody has said it's acceptable, but it's the truth. Either employers (including the government) start paying more, or people will quit.

That's already started to happen in my school, especially with lower paid members of staff such as TAs. We previously had a good reputation for going above-and-beyond for children with SEN or from disadvantaged backgrounds. Now it's all down to the legal bare minimum, and much of that being done by very inexperienced young TAs.

Making broad statements actually doesn't do anything to further discussion. And it seems to me you're also ruminating over potential worst case scenarios.

Solutions are out there. For me, I looked at finances closely a month or two before the pandemic hit and found a wedge of savings to make. Two years later, I'm benefitting from that, so new car time which will be previously owned too.

Shopping every week in Tesco, Sainsbury, Asia and Morrisons is more expensive than doing so in Aldi and Lidl. I switched and save a lot last 2 years. Points at the big ones are nowhere near enough. That's one possible solution.

I guess the government would have to get off their arse and stop giving million pound contracts to their mates to do fuck-all, make corporations pay more tax and stop stuffing their pockets so that people can be paid better and put that money back into the economy instead of some billionaire’s super yacht.

But it’s the Tories we’re talking about so they’ll probably blame the strikers, the poor, those on benefits and immigration.

hm.

In fairness, people do choose to live a distance from work.

They might have good reasons for doing so but it is still a choice.

Was talking to a colleague about this, we work for a care agency. The home care industry will end up collapsing.
we are already struggling, we got a pay rise then petrol went up again.
a lot of our staff including myself are using food banks. And we are one of the highest paying companies in our area. Shocking really.

I assume lots of people will move jobs/sectors as there is a skills shortage & then wage rises will be inevitable to attract new staff.

Many working in central London don't have a choice but to commute. rental prices are extortionate, house prices extortionate. Same in many other large cities.

Thinking of the keyworkers - those who were so essential to the running of the country that they had to go out to work during a pandemic when everyone else had to stay at home. What is the plan to enable them to keep going out to work during this cost of living crisis?

Who is everyone else who stayed at home? Keyworkers covered a huge range during the pandemic both public & private. Plus not all key workers who worked had to go out to do so.

DH was classed as a key worker & got a 10% pay increase due to shortages so

some industries will/have seen increases.

But it is still a choice to work there and live elsewhere, @Babyroobs .

Of course, expensive areas need teachers but I’m not sure in itself fuel costs can be used as leverage for demanding more money.

Some NHS trusts have announced temporary (3 months then review) increase to 50p per mile. But still haven't agreed a pay increase from April 2022....

I live an hour's drive from the school I work in. That's because we bought a house 20 years ago when I worked in a school close to here. My younger DC are still in schools in this catchment area.

My original school closed down and I got a job in one an hour away. We are very rural here. There aren't any jobs advertised in my speciality closer to here. I quite like the school I'm in. It's not so much a choice in teaching, but where there is a vacancy or whether you get the job. Those suggesting car share don't really understand rural living. There is no one who works at my place who lives within 15 miles of me. We come in from all directions and from different villages and towns. There is no way of 'sharing a lift'.

To airily suggest "Get a job closer to you" isn't really a practical solution for lots of people. I'm not going to sell my house and move closer to work for a shit load of reasons such as "Stressful. Kids are in school near here and I'd have to move them. Moving closer to my work would mean I'm moving into a more expensive area (as noble has suggested).

Meanwhile I'm having to suck up the fact that my commute costs have soared and look like being even more. I'm wondering about just coming out of teaching and getting a lower paid job with no commute - such as the lady in the coffee shop who was mentioned earlier.

At some point my teaching salary/hours of work/cost of commute will become unsustainable and I'll think 'Fuck it' and get out. As will a lot of us.

I have 2 DDs in nursing. They are beginning to think the same.

Do you use so little fuel that a full tank lasts you all month ?
Some of us are doing upwards of 100 miles commute a day , 6 day weeks

This equates to 3/4 tanks of petrol a month minimum , currently costing around 480 pounds just to get to work

Some jobs are not available locally , some people are told where they need to work for work reasons , ie ; on site projects etc.

It infuriates me - NOT everyone can work from home - fuel prices going up and up is going to cripple us.

When I was looking at home care jobs (have only worked in a care home) it didn't make much sense to me that multiple agencies covered the same area so that carers were driving here there and everywhere to visit clients rather than having calls closer together. It was one of the things that put me off taking the job.

@MadMadMadamMim that’s pretty much what I said. People have reasons, good reasons, for the choices they’ve made. They are still choices.

If they won't give us a pay rise and the cost of living is largely being driven by fuel prices, how about government staff get a percentage off the tax on fuel. Even just removing the VAT from fuel would save 30p per litre.

The private sector is different as market pressure and performance drive pay. Speaking to friends in the private sector who have hit targets as a company and individual they are getting decent pay rises.

@manysummersago Yes, I get that.

However, our original choice now makes no sense. And so the choice I'm likely to make next is to give up teaching as it's not worth it any longer.

I think @noblegiraffe 's point is that that is going to be the case for a lot of essential/key workers. That the original 'choices' they made are no longer practical and the government needs to be aware that they may soon not be able to staff essential services due to rising fuel costs.

I work part time and am a community mental health worker , but also a carer . I get paid milage but everytime I claim, UC see it as income even thought I have paid for fuel out of my own pocket . They then deduct from next months UC...bloody nightmare.

Some of the suggestions on here are surely satire. Yes, people can make cuts here and there but the whole point is, those cuts all have a domino effect and the outlook is quite bleak. All these little cuts also have no impact when the prices are increasing so significantly, so quickly. If you can't save at the same rate as the increase, it's almost pointless.

It’s massively stagflationary. Delayering the economy by reducing discretionary spending will spiral into a crisis for businesses that require people pay for such goods and services. Given we have an economy that is 70% services, a good chunk of them being outside the financial sector, we’ll be seeing far more people have pay issues like when the lockdowns killed off eateries and other public amenities that people would go to as a treat.

There are many people in the private sector on low wages. If they were going to give discounts (and work out how to stop people cheating the system) it would be fairer to give them based on income like under 25k.

I work with health care professionals, and right now, many NHS trusts are not paying the agreed agenda for change mileage rate for community nurses etc who have to use their own cars to travel to care for patients. Public transport isn't an option as they have so many patients to see in such a short time frame. These are skilled, experienced, valuable professionals and many are leaving the profession because they simply can't afford to stay.
So that's the answer to the question: people leave the profession and the public suffers.

This! Some of the comments sound so out of touch. It's all well and good saying people should just not take the jobs that don't pay enough or that employers should pay more. But the reality is that for many people it's a choice between taking a low-paid job or no job at all when it's literally all that's available in their sector. Getting further education or training doesn't help either, there are lots of people with degrees and specific training stuck in low paid sectors. Employers are also not always able to increase wages either, a lot of small businesses and charities are only just managing to exist as it is and the government has done a great job outsourcing contracts to private companies. I used to work for a charity that received £30k pa statutory funding from the NHS to provide a service... You can only just hire one employee for that, along with covering other core costs.

And without a lot of these jobs, vital services just can't run. It will affect everyone, one way or another.

I think a blanket fuel discount is a terrible idea. We desperately need to shift away from burning fossil fuel for several reasons. If the government is going to spend large amounts of money cushioning people from fuel shock (which I agree they're going to have to) then as far as possible that should be done in ways that move us in a useful direction rather than propping up the status quo. So subsidising public transport, bicycle purchase, electric car charging infrastructure, car pool schemes, and finally, additional cash mileage allowances to people who need them to do their job.

That way everybody stays as motivated as possible to minimise their fuel use.

No, it’s a perfectly sensible suggestion. If you can’t cope with the uncertainty of petrol maybe going up or down 10p per litre then filling up at the start of the month will help.