To think all ages should be paid the same.

[Potterhead113]

AIBU to think that all age groups from 16 and upwards should be paid the same minimum wage as someone aged 40 for example. I know many young people aged 16-25 who are paid less for the same job as their elder coworkers but they equally pay rent and provide in some cases for children solely from their wages.
I think that all people should be payed the same for the same job. I know a girl who is 17 who has a baby and works 4 days a week for £2 less an hour than someone in their 30s that she works with who does the same job as her.

greentulips
Move companies apply for higher positions gain some qualifications.
Sorry, what ?
Do fast food companies and supermarkets and outsourcing companies have much of a management track for their NMW zero hour contract staff ?

No but you gain experience and move jobs -

First job is about attitude and willingness to work, turn up smart appearance - learn some customer care skills etc

Then you look for other opportunities- you should be paid more for experience and if your current employer doesn't appreciate your work the you love - gain more experience and training.

gain more experience and training.
Agencies do not train staff with new skills
they have no incentive to do so
nor do fast food places
nor do warehouses
nor do cleaning companies
nor do care home providers
as trained staff would have to be paid more

Then go to college -

Hygiene
First aid
Safe handling
Use of machinery

You aren't stuck - you just need to get the training you need

greentulips
then go to college
paid for how ?
If they have already done courses to 18 there is no more funding
they cannot borrow
the courses cost more than a weeks wages
and spaces are being cut as part of the austerity rules

www.virtual-college.co.uk/courses/health-and-safety-courses/risk-assessment-on-site-and-at-work

First one unfounded so not recommending it or anything - £30

You have to invest in your own career if you want to get out of either NMW trap - nobody is going to do it for you

You have to invest in your own career
Do you have much experience of working with people who scraped two C's at GCSE at their comps ?
"Career" is not a word that means anything to them.

as a parent of teens, I like the graded wage system. It gives DC a chance against more experienced applicants. If the pay is a bit crap -- so much the better. They can see what they're in for if they don't aspire to get better skills. Maybe 25 is the wrong threshold for equality, tbf.

Plenty of people do well with no GCSEs - working is different

Things don't just fall into people's laps, they have to be worked for and planned.

So many choose not to accept training or advice for that matter.

It's there - you need to push

They can't expect other people to constantly do everything for them

Everyone from 18 should be getting paid the same - I see no difference in why an 18 year old and a 24 year old should get paid differently. It's from the backward thinking that if you're under 24, your parents can subsidise you. JSA is a lower rate for U24s as well.

It allegedly is in place so that people will hire younger workers, but in practice it just means employers get years of cheap work and then let them go once they reach the age where their wages would go up.

A lot of the guys I do tax returns for earn less per hour than they did 15 years ago and have worse employment terms.

Employers have abused the tax credits system and the EU transferred workers rules and the UK legality of zero hours contracts
to grossly undermine the earnings of the majority

these are the guys who literally build and maintain the country
they will never have careers
but are often trapped on NMW rates

I agree about housing benefit. It is one that I find unfair anyway.

Also it isn't just about self stacking. It's about what happens when something goes wrong, when there's a problem, when someone is hurt, when there are disputes - maturity helps us to learn how to deal with these other aspects of a workplace.

I started at 12. I "fetched things" in a retail place. At 13 I stacked shelves and packed shopping in a supermarket. At 15 I was on the tills and entrusted with money and difficult customers. BY 16 I was in a different retail unit - but it took me two years to learn the product range and how to upsell/cross-sell. By 18 I was guiding the junior staff and Saturday staff and able to take the cash to the bank. etc etc. I upskilled. I then got an office job. Basic clerical - but by then I'd got a veneer of "professionalism", some work clothes, some customer care experience, and understanding of how organizations work. I worked my way up.

I took evening classes. I paid for them. Yes they were expensive but not that bad. I didn't spend on other things.

Ta1kinPeece - I agree with you. I am one of those earning the same per hour as 20 years ago. Replaced mainly by EU migrants who can afford to work for much less.
I also have no job - just freelance contracts. No pension, no security. And I am old!!!!

mirai
The bad joke is that its not even the EUs fault about the erosion in workers rights.
That is entirely down to Westminster - and will get much worse after Brexit when UK workers are no longer protected by the EU

I totally agree with this. I'm 24 and have been working a NMW retail job for the past 3 years and I think it is ridiculous that my colleagues who just happen to be a few months older than me are being paid more, when we do the exact same job.
I've had to train newbies at my job who are older than me, so I am being paid less than them to train them in a job I have been in for years and am very good at. How is that fair?? I'll be doing the exact same role in a couple months when I turn 25 but somehow I'll be worth more?
I also have a number of colleagues over 25 who still live at home with parents and pay a tiny amount of rent/bills to them, whilst I've been living independently since I was 18 and so have that financial responsibility, but I get paid less so it's harder.

I assume you have never employed a 16 year old, the age range probably goes on too long but 16 and 17 year olds needs lots of support and training and given the choice most employers would employ an adult.

Grannytomine can I ask in what way a 16/17 year old needs lots of support and in what role, surely most new starters need training etc. and how they cope within a new role is not predominantly based on their age?

Not all employers keep staff on lower wages for years, although my old employer would start teenagers on NMW I can't remember any that didn't progress to full adult rate by 20.

full adult rate = NMW
so still a pittance compared with what people earned 10 years ago

My dh is in his forties. His background is restaurant work, waiter/bar/supervisor etc he has over 15 years experience. He left this area and moved into retail a few years ago but would like to go back to restaurants. He applies for jobs, mainly waiter jobs or bar work but never gets the job we then see new people in the posts who are all much younger and can be paid much less.

It does make me cross. He has lots of experience, he's a people person and was great at his job in the restaurant he worked in, he wouldn't need to be trained from scratch etc. But no, the employers choose to ignore that and employ younger people who won't cost them as much money as my dh would. It is quite simply age discrimination.

So why isn't he applying for other jobs?

greentulips it doesn't matter how many young mums there are. CB should be given because it's not the child's fault if they are born to someone under 18. Every child deserves the same chances.

Full adult rate my employer paid was above NMW. We had 18 year olds on £18k a year and I retired 2 years ago so probably more now. I didn't think that was bad as I don't live in a high wage area of the country.

25 yrs ago there was no minimum wage. Heck, Germany had no minimum wage until very recently, too. You could legally get paid 5p/hour back in 1995.

I don't know how many times I've said this on MN but seems there is always room for one more: "train and get a better job" is never going to solve the problems of most poorly paid workers because you cannot have a job market in the shape of an inverted pyramid = lots of jobs at the top and very few at the bottom. A company that employed 300 managers and only 3 shop floor workers would not survive.

It follows that as long as only a few poor people pull themselves up by their boot straps it is a possibility- always assuming that they have the intellectual ability and the opportunity to do so. But if all poor people were given the ability to do so and went, there would no longer be the opportunity- because that many higher level jobs could simply not exist. It therefore seems supremely dishonest to pretend that this is an option open to everybody and that people have only themselves to blame if they don't take it. We all know that isn't true and never can be true; if we want to pretend otherwise, it's because we want to make ourselves feel better.

And that is before we start reflecting on the fact that the whole infra-structure the rest of us depend on- to get us food, keep our streets clean, empty our bins, to do every aspect of our own better paid jobs - is driven by badly paid people, and that if they all "bettered themselves", our own little world of nicely paid work would collapse in an evil-smelling heap.