So if the Minimum Wage increases...

[missbunnyrabbit]

My own wage in a public sector job seems lower than ever. The article I read suggests the public sector pay freezes will end, but I doubt we'll get such a large pay rise!

Aibu to feel like packing my teacher job in to go and work a minimum wage job instead?

Oh my, some people really don't like the idea that the plebs might get something they're not do they?

Even if it's still less than they have already. If it's any consolation, many won't be any better off once you take into account the price rises happening and NI increase, it'll just mean we don't go totally under.

We'll still know our place, don't worry! 🙄

@Maverickess

Oh my, some people really don't like the idea that the plebs might get something they're not do they?

Even if it's still less than they have already. If it's any consolation, many won't be any better off once you take into account the price rises happening and NI increase, it'll just mean we don't go totally under.

We'll still know our place, don't worry! 🙄

Or it's that other measures would be actually more beneficial to people on nmw or those who work part time or are on benefits, but they don't make such a nice headline, and more importantly, the onus doesn't fall on the government so they don't have to do anything structural to actually make life fairer for all. It's a crappy sticking plaster for votes.

Tesco made over a billion in profit last year. That’s a huge huge huge amount of money. They can afford to reduce the shareholders profits slightly.

Oh ffs it’s not about ‘the plebs’ not getting a decent wage. It’s about everyone getting a decent wage. Why is that so hard to understand?

I don't know what the answer is but I do know that retention in teaching is a big problem.

Lots of young trained teachers leaving and plenty of early retirements.

Agree with minimum wage increase.

It's obviously up to you, but for comparison...

I work a minimum wage job in a very busy restaurant kitchen as head baker. I work 12 hour shifts 5 days a week. It's a physically gruelling job, hauling about sacks of flour and mix that weigh more than my 5yo. I'm on my feet 11hours of that shift, batch baking all morning until lunchtime service then it's chaos until closing when I have to start dragging out industrial fridges and units to clean down before the morning.

Most days I'm literally jogging around the kitchen with deserts. The minimum covers we take on a slow lunch day is 100. The maximum covers I've done in a day is 600. Every shift I get changed into fresh scrubs on my break because I'm drenched in sweat. In summer the kitchen can reach 40 degrees easily.

Now, my partner works a management position at the local University. He sits at a desk doing easy work - his own words - for 6 hours 5 days a week and earns triple my wage.

For me, overlooking my opinion that the increase will be pointless because of price hikes, but still, its about time some places were forced to pay their staff more than pennies for bloody hard graft!

Looks like public sector will increase next year so maybe don’t worry about this rise

It's quite right that the wage is increased.

The op is getting a rough ride though. People have misconceptions about teaching today. I am still paying off my training debt. I've been stuck at the same payspine for 4 years because there's no money to move me up. This year too. I've lost 17% in real terms because of pay freezes. Teaching jobs are no longer secure- older teachers, ill teachers and expensive teachers are edged out, redundant. Most jobs specify cheap nqt or ect. There are not many older, experienced teachers anymore. Turnover is massive.

My oh is in a physical manual job as a caterer. We work similar jours and cover the same amount of steps a day - averaging 16k. He worries that as he gets older he's in trouble- but knows that I am too.

My pension is better than his but not by much. Tp are not final salary anymore and are significantly reduced ftom what they were. Obviously I get more time off than him, but he's able to take it whenever. He works long hours and overtime at events but gets overtime for this and TOIL. My long evenings (parents evenings till 9, open evenings till 9.30etc) are just expected, as are residentials etc. His work can be physical and stressful around events, but there's a lot of downtime and he is never constantly observed, pressured or criticised the way I am. A visit from Public Health to check his cleanliness is about it.

In the end, with overtime, he earns just a little less than me but I did 4 years of uni for an extra few grand and debt. So I get what the OP is saying. I certainly wouldn't want my kids to go into teaching. I think there used to be very many more benefits and safeguards to a teaching job than now. I am currently looking for different work.

One of my kids is likely to start atthe bottom end of wages. I'm glad things might be better for him. It isn't a race to the bottom. But we do still need to recognise that some jobs in the public sector do need some rewards- or noone will want to do them! I don't mean huge payouts. I mean not freezing pay for a decade and underfunding them to such an extent that there is no pay rise possibility or portability (by which I mean no mid or late career teacher can move jobs now because there's only money for lower payscale positions).

@phlebasconsidered

It's quite right that the wage is increased.

The op is getting a rough ride though. People have misconceptions about teaching today. I am still paying off my training debt. I've been stuck at the same payspine for 4 years because there's no money to move me up. This year too. I've lost 17% in real terms because of pay freezes. Teaching jobs are no longer secure- older teachers, ill teachers and expensive teachers are edged out, redundant. Most jobs specify cheap nqt or ect. There are not many older, experienced teachers anymore. Turnover is massive.

My oh is in a physical manual job as a caterer. We work similar jours and cover the same amount of steps a day - averaging 16k. He worries that as he gets older he's in trouble- but knows that I am too.

My pension is better than his but not by much. Tp are not final salary anymore and are significantly reduced ftom what they were. Obviously I get more time off than him, but he's able to take it whenever. He works long hours and overtime at events but gets overtime for this and TOIL. My long evenings (parents evenings till 9, open evenings till 9.30etc) are just expected, as are residentials etc. His work can be physical and stressful around events, but there's a lot of downtime and he is never constantly observed, pressured or criticised the way I am. A visit from Public Health to check his cleanliness is about it.

In the end, with overtime, he earns just a little less than me but I did 4 years of uni for an extra few grand and debt. So I get what the OP is saying. I certainly wouldn't want my kids to go into teaching. I think there used to be very many more benefits and safeguards to a teaching job than now. I am currently looking for different work.

One of my kids is likely to start atthe bottom end of wages. I'm glad things might be better for him. It isn't a race to the bottom. But we do still need to recognise that some jobs in the public sector do need some rewards- or noone will want to do them! I don't mean huge payouts. I mean not freezing pay for a decade and underfunding them to such an extent that there is no pay rise possibility or portability (by which I mean no mid or late career teacher can move jobs now because there's only money for lower payscale positions).

I think people are annoyed with OP as she's basically said she deserves more money and those in unskilled but physically exhausting jobs don't deserve a rise in wages. I have no doubt teaching is a hard job but it's better paid than a lot of other jobs which are also hard work. In my previous job I did over 2 years of training then gained 5 years experience but was still on minimum wage. How is that fair?

@Bucanarab

It's sad to see so many people here would begrudge someone on nmw a pay rise because of a misplaced sense of superiority. That's exactly the sort of attitude that's got us into the situation we're in now.

Broadly speaking we have accepted pay structures of something like the below

CEO/Director - £3000
Senior manager - £100
Manager - £15
Team leader - £9.
Worker- £8.91

What those objecting to a nmw rise apparently want to see happen.

CEO - £4000
SM - £125
Manager - £18
Team leader - £10.
Worker- £9.50

And this what we should be striving to see happen.

CEO - £500
SM - £125
Manager - £35
Team leader - £20
Worker- £15

We need to bring the bottom up and the top way way down, not just move everyone up a few % more.

Your middle example is a strawman. Nobody is suggesting a raise for the richest, but a huge rise to the minimum wage and fuck everybody else is just reinforcing the spiralling cost of living.

As it stands I know a lot of people like your hypothetical team leader who've worked hard to be able to get the security of a slightly higher pay bands which will now be swallowed up by minimum wage while their cost of living increases dramatically to pay for these minium wage hikes.

@Bucanarab

It's sad to see so many people here would begrudge someone on nmw a pay rise because of a misplaced sense of superiority. That's exactly the sort of attitude that's got us into the situation we're in now.

Broadly speaking we have accepted pay structures of something like the below

CEO/Director - £3000
Senior manager - £100
Manager - £15
Team leader - £9.
Worker- £8.91

What those objecting to a nmw rise apparently want to see happen.

CEO - £4000
SM - £125
Manager - £18
Team leader - £10.
Worker- £9.50

And this what we should be striving to see happen.

CEO - £500
SM - £125
Manager - £35
Team leader - £20
Worker- £15

We need to bring the bottom up and the top way way down, not just move everyone up a few % more.

Your sums simply don't work. Reducing the pay of the few top management won't finance the wage increases for the masses at the bottom. All it will do is make you feel better for "punishing" the people at the top. Typical Labour politics of jealousy and envy.

@Dishwashersaurous you’ve just totally hit the nail on the head! Which is why the preschool I run will most likely have to close. I would love nothing more than to pay my staff the wage they deserve. But my hands are tied by the funding rate from the local authority. If the rate does not increase in line with the new minimum wage it won’t be a few nurseries closing it will be literally hundreds and before anyone says lobby the government for more funding early years settings have been for years with no luck.

If the rate does not increase in line with the new minimum wage it won’t be a few nurseries closing it will be literally hundreds and before anyone says lobby the government for more funding early years settings have been for years with no luck Its not a campaign winner- no one cares about childcare settings, there has been a decades long campaign to demonise those that have children to say "pay for them yourselves", whilst every government trips over themselves to protect the assets of the aging baby boomers. It was evident on a recent thread where an OP asked why don't we protest over childcare costs and the overwhelming response was "why didnt you think about this when you reproduced"

@LittleBearPad The argument does work for others though. My own DD has been working in a role for some time, and was on a wage a fair bit higher than the minimum. The last two occasions the NMW has gone up, hers hasn't. The next time it goes up, it will be 3 pence an hour less than her current hourly rate. So instead of earning more due to her experience and supervisory skills she will be on almost exactly the same minimum wage as junior new starters. How is that fair? To say she is pissed off is an understatement.

@CherryHug we've had to close over lockdowns meaning we couldn't sell anything; our suppliers have increased everything by at least 15%, and we are literally just keeping our heads above water.

Do we sell a kidney each to pay our staff what they're worth

What a stunningly ignorant comment to make.

So instead of earning more due to her experience and supervisory skills she will be on almost exactly the same minimum wage as junior new starters to be fair this sums up the UK wage structure entirely, you are paid well if you can look down on others so best to keep people down.

@ArtfulScreamer

YANBU. I absolutely don't begrudge anyone a decent wage but whilst I remain more or less wage static in my public sector job were I'm often in confrontational and dangerous situations I do wonder how long it'll be before the financial implications of obtaining a minimum wage job aren't great enough to prevent me from jumping ship. Admittedly I'm only one person so the country won't fall on its knees but if I think like this there'll certainly be others.

I think that's a very valid point.

I work in the voluntary sector. Public sector cuts have meant that wages haven't come close to meeting inflation for more than 10 years (all the projects are funded by social care or health money).

When I started there, the hourly rate for the job I did was 2.5 times NMW. Now, that job starts at £9.37 per hour, less than the new NMW.

Why would people do a job that is difficult, demanding, stressful and challenging for the same rate of pay that they could get for stacking shelves in a supermarket?

On the flip side of this are you suggesting the NMW shouldn't go up so that people with "skilled" jobs don't feel under compensated?

Because making pay rises mandatory through different jobs would be unsustainable. You might have a higher salary but you better believe we would all be paying £3 for a loaf of bread. Multiple businesses would fail to remain profitable, only option being increase service/goods costs. Then us (aka Joe public) will be the ones to absorb that cost. Suddenly NMW needs to increase again > rinse and repeat.

@Marelle

Hopefully someone who's been to uni will get a job with prospects and progression, probably earning far nore than NMW after a few years and likely to have a good pension with tax free lump sum on retirement You obviously don’t understand what’s been happening in teaching, especially FE and HE. In my FE college the pay scale was completely removed a few years ago. We were re-categorised as Teacher A (£23k) and Teacher B (department heads etc with extra responsibility, £25k). The only progression available was from Teacher A to Teacher B. So you start as Teacher A and your salary remains the same forever, someone with ten years experience earns the same as someone who started last week. If you get promoted to Teacher B you earn slightly more but that’s the most progression you can ever achieve.

If you work out the salary for Teacher A, 60 hours a week for 39 weeks means you get paid less than £10 an hour. That’s before you add on hours worked during the holidays. They also reclassified us as self employed so they didn’t have to pay sick pay or maternity or pension. There has been a huge amount of unsuccessful opposition from the unions, but basically there was no way round it because the government had cut FE funding by 20% and the only place they could save that money was on salaries. Unsurprisingly there has been a huge exodus of FE teachers. The HE sector is experiencing similar issues.

It’s the same in local government too. Maximum of 4 years to the top of the grade and then you can sit there for ever on the same grade.

But it happens in private sector too. Most jobs don’t have careers internally. You have to change jobs etc

@Clocktopus

Of course they should earn enough to live, no one is disputing that. Please don't make things up.

Literally your whole thread is about how people in "low skill" jobs shouldn't be paid as much as people in professional jobs and that this NMW increase will put their wages too close to some professional wages.

My concern isn't that people in some sectors shouldn't be paid as much as those in others, it's that differentials are shrinking to the point where it will be difficult to recruit and retain staff to work in areas like homelessness, mental health support, social care etc.

An organisation whose work I am familiar with is currently looking for someone to undertake group work with clients with addiction issues. The pay rate equates to £13.00 an hour and you have to be a qualified counsellor/psychotherapist.

I think someone who has studied for years and is prepared to work with some of the most challenging and vulnerable people in society deserves a bit more than 1.5 times NMW, tbh.

I've worked with clients with addiction issues before and would want at least double that salary to do it again.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

So instead of earning more due to her experience and supervisory skills she will be on almost exactly the same minimum wage as junior new starters to be fair this sums up the UK wage structure entirely, you are paid well if you can look down on others so best to keep people down.

So everyone should be the same level without any supervisors etc? I'm sure that would work well, everyone can sort their own HR stuff out, no one have overall responsibility for stuff so it's a free for all and everyone can fend for themselves training wise.

@Wife2b

It’s not about not wanting people to earn a decent living. It’s about making the really stressful jobs that are essential to society (teachers, doctors, social workers etc) more attractive otherwise why would anyone bother? The hours I put in is ridiculous, most weeks I feel like I live to work, I have poor work life balance and the workload is unrealistic. If the pay gap is reduced - where is the incentive for people to continue putting themselves through jobs like this? It’s not about superiority at all that some have suggested - I don’t think I am any more important than anyone else but I need a decent pay otherwise I’m killing my self in my job for nothing. I suspect a lot of people feel this way.

There are lots of jobs that are stressful and essential to society that only pay minimum wage.

Oh come off it you know exactly what I mean. Obviously a lot of jobs are essential to society that are NMW, of course they are otherwise the country wouldn’t run. Why would someone become a social worker or police officer to receive abuse daily if they’re barely paid more than other lower paid jobs? There has to be an incentive otherwise no one would want to do it. Dealing with abuse is no ones idea of fun.

So everyone should be the same level without any supervisors etc? I'm sure that would work well, everyone can sort their own HR stuff out, no one have overall responsibility for stuff so it's a free for all and everyone can fend for themselves training wise not at all but justifying poor wages by saying but this person earns less is a depressing race to the bottom. Defend your right to earn more dont just keep others down.