To think that the under 18s minimum wage is exploitative

[DaddyDavid]

My son who is 16 has been offered a job at a supermarket. The pay is £3.72 an hour. I can't und why the minimum wage is lower for under-18s it seems like age discrimination. This has annoyed me so much, as I fualt it would be good for ds1 to get a Saturday job but know I think it would be better if he worked about the house and I pay him more aibu

Please don't tell him 'it isn't worth him going to work for that'.

I teach 16 - 19 year olds whose parents won't allow them to work for the NMW. They seem to expect to walk into a job, fully fledged, ready to go, demanding to be respected, yet having no experience. They just don't seem to think that anyone would ask them to be able to do something before paying them any money at all - things like proven timekeeping, reliability, as in just getting to work on time, every time!

16 year olds have always been paid less. If you didn't work at that age then you won't understand the whys and wherefores. But I moved out of home at 17 and paid my own way on a similarly very low wage. These days, with the increased school leaving age the nmw is £5 when you can work full time - just about enough to live hand to mouth in a bedsit. Much the same level of poverty as it was when I moved out!

Nothing much changes, expect attitudes, it seems.

i started at 16 on £2.20 an hour in the 80s... as a pot scrubber..... this helped me through 3 years of college... i was living at home so that helped... i did a lot of late nights i.e. finishing about 3 / 4am and going to college next day, but at that age you have more energy... i was really chuffed to have a job

nomama i work with those children as well. OP your son should take job it will be the making of him.

i still interview university graduates who have never worked and demand above average salaries

they never get the job. always goes to the graduate has worked. a l w a y s

....who has worked

Op: your DS will learn so much more about work and life in a proper work environment rather than 'working' for you at home for more money ph.

Give him some independence and encourage him to take the job.

Do you think working in a super market is beneath him?

I lost out on a job to an under 21 and under 18. We were temps together, they got signed up permanent 2 weeks after we started.

So its not just discrimination against them, it makes way for discrimination against us over 21's too.

I think it's exploitative. I'm not encouraging my DC to get a Saturday job because of this, weighing up it's more important they spend their time studying for their A levels and having a break from getting up at 6.30am every morning. To my mind, for us, it's just not worth it for what they'd get as they're just about coping with school work/exams and other stuff like instruments and various clubs. They do work for family in school holidays luckily where they get £60 for a day's work, plus unlimited food/drinks - they do all sorts there - selling to public, dealing with other companies etc in terms of stock so they're getting some skills. I think some are good at coping with the extra workload, but I don't think mine would as they're out the house Monday to Friday 7.30am to 6pm, often later if in a concert, so to come away with £15 for a 4 hour day is just not worth the time; minus travel costs it's even less.

I find that quite shocking really. My first job paid £4.50 per hour 15 years ago.

I forgot to say... I think YABU.

As I said earlier, an 18 year old in an interview with no paid work experience and an attitude of 'I wouldn't get out my bed for that' would be getting the thanks but no thanks treatment every time. There are so many 16-17 years olds out there who have grafted and got an edge over their peers. Motivation and drive gets you places; you can have all the qualifications you like but at that age, no-one will be coming to your door begging you to come work for them. You make your own opportunities.

Don't hold him back. If he hates working for low pay it will drive him on to find something better, and at least he'll have pocket money and gaining experience in the meantime. Keeping his room tidy, doing the dishwasher and some odd jobs is what he should be doing at home for free.

I'd tell him to take the job but top his wages up to £5/6 per hour yourself. The employment will look good on his CV, and it shows him that a good work ethic is important - the more he works, the more he is rewarded financially by you.

Maels or pay that top up straight into a pension for him to start it early.

Yanbu

Actually Shakes that's an even better idea, do that OP

These days, with the increased school leaving age the nmw is £5 when you can work full time - just about enough to live hand to mouth in a bedsit

Not in London

lljkk Sun 18-Jan-15 10:02:00
Then do that? Just pay him at home?
I dunno, unemployment in this group is so high, anything to give them an advantage isn't crazy. There are employers who do not pay under 18s the under 18 wage, btw, hunt around.

Of course when someone suggested that the same tactic might be okay for disabled people, and a govt. minister agreed it was an idea worth discussing (for same reasons, hard for many disabled to even get starter jobs), the media completely blew the whole thing up to having meaning and insinuations nobody ever meant.

Really? i think they did mean it and were putting the idea out there to see whether they could get away with it and how far they could take it.

It was a conservative counsellor at a Tory conference who posed the question, so I guess it could have been a coordinated plot to moot the idea to their supporters.

Bit conspiracy theory for me, or indicates a much greater degree of planning than I thought the Tories were capable of.

It exploitation.

I would not let my children work for that money either as it barely covers transport, clothes and meals at work. Internships and working for benefits is also exploitation. Work with no pay is not valued and is slavery.

I feel very strongly about this. NMW should be £10/hour and tax and NI free and for anyone under 18 on a proper apprenticeship it should be £5.

Basically immigration holds down wages at the bottom and business loves it because it feeds straight into profits.

These 16 yr olds are worth the same as an adult doing the same job.

No idea how we as a society came to be conditioned to believe that a business can pay a 16 year old £1500 per year and the chief Executive £15 million.

Its sick an out of whack. I used to work in the City and earn many time NMW now so I can say that with a clear conscience.

Its wrong and bad for society that we have so much inequality.

I agree with Shakes. And we all have to start somewhere.. you have to prove you are employable..that you can get up, be reliable, do the tasks required and more..... low pay should inspire to do well and go on to better things otherwise where is the incentive? I always believed in 'starting at the bottom' - it's how you learnt. In my case I worked hard, observed and often quickly progressed e.g. being a manager aged 22 (youngest in the company) after taking £2.10 an hour job in a photo lab for at least 12 hours a day; there wasn't minimum wage back in the early 90s (and lots of unpaid overtime). What about volunteers (of all ages), they don't get paid anything yet it's worthwhile. I'm 43 and volunteered for much of last year so I wouldn't have a big gap on CV whilst job-hunting. I'm not too proud to say I won't get out of bed to work for free. I never expected it to have it easy as a teenager and was grateful.... even then £2.20 an hour wasn't great but it helped me through college, it gave me nights out and new clothes etc that a lot of my peers couldn't afford ...it also taught me what hard work was. It was a valuable lesson.
Most of my working life has been in retail management but I'm struggling to find a new job as competition is so fierce. I've just applied to local pub for bar work and possibly to do pot washing again. It won't be fun at my age but I'm not too proud to scrub pots again...
There are of course some young people being exploited but many expect things to be handed to them on a plate. In my last job (retail charity) I had Duke Of Edinburgh teenagers... some were great and some were atrocious. Many would come in, faff around for 20 minutes eating a Subway and having a figgie out the back, then ask if they could go home and if I'd sign them off for having completed an hour's work! We got in some donations that werent the cleanest... as all charity shops do...and some of these kids would freak and refuse to touch them even with gloves on. I blame it on many of the parents for pampering their offspring and mollycoddling them... they would come and tell me that darling little Bertie could not possibly touch old socks because of 'germs' and they'd though he'd be on the till the whole time (umm, no, even paid staff had to wait a few months for that)

Amicissima... I agree. Some of the kids I had were not 'young adults' but really not more than 'big children' (even though I always tried to treat them fairly and as adults...) because they were not allowed to grow up. I would have parents ringing asking if they could come in late as 'he can't get up that early, he's not used to it' . I would spend so much time 'nursing' some of these kids I couldn't do my own job or even leave them unsupervised for more than 30 seconds (and I was on minimum wage as a charity shop manager! I don't get paid enough to nurse!)... and then they'd let me down by not turning up or when they did trying to spend the whole time on their mobiles or asking if they could pop to Subway (or just going without asking). We stopped taking them for a while as was distracting to our own work. Got to say..that the ones from a certain ethnic and fairly strict background.. were worth their wait in gold and I gave them glowing references and am still in touch, watching them go from strength to strength.

And we all have to start somewhere.. you have to prove you are employable..that you can get up, be reliable, do the tasks required and more..... low pay should inspire to do well and go on to better things otherwise where is the incentive

How naive.... That is exactly what those at the top want you to think. Tug your forelock, work like a dog and beg for scraps...

Not naive... I 've worked for 27 years, I've been an employee and an employer for many companies.
I don't believe in exploitation
I do believe in giving someone a chance
I do believe in proving that you are employable
Have you been an employer?

(and believe it or not, I've always been told I was a soft touch)

Can you not prove yourself as an employee whilst receiving a fair wage?

I've never made anyone work like a dog though I have done so myself
I just believe in decent, honest employment
Most teens still live at home... they don't have the costs that adults do