So disappointed in the Labour manifesto and SME

[flyingvisit]

I feel like the policies are designed to destroy very small businesses. All the focus is on brick and mortar businesses , which are outdated.
If anyone knows any better, please explain it to me?

Raising the minimum wage and having it apply to all adults, regardless of age

This is the problem and OP raises a legitimate point. Lots of small businesses can't afford it. The real issue that should be addressed is housing. Better to have more social housing than increased minimum wage (that highly likely still won't be enough without benefits top-up) which leads to job losses and businesses going bust, so no wage

However I do agree with equalising the minimum wage for all ages. Current setup fails both the young and older jobseekers. Young people deserve the same wage for the same job. Also no wonder age discrimination for older jobseekers has got worse. Employers will choose a cheap young person over an older candidate.

This is the problem and OP raises a legitimate point. Lots of small businesses can't afford it.

No - but the alternative seems to be to pay a wage that somone cannot live on. Labour are linking NMW reviews to the cost of living. It cannot be right that someone can work full time and still not earn enough for a basic, safe life. This current situation where people with full time jobs still need foodbanks just to survive, is not right.

Now, I also strongly believe in good quality, safe, comfortable social housing with reasonable rents. I'd very much like to see that! And yes, that could help control NMW increases - but I cannot see anyone offering that as an option

The main issue with "pro business" policies of both parties is that they're usually pro "big" business, i.e. multinationals employing hundreds/thousands etc that can actually afford extra costs and burdens of employment on one hand because the government of the day is shovelling grants, subsidies and incentives their way. Genuinely small businesses don't get that kind of "help" but suffer the same costs imposed on them, hence why they're squeezed out. Just look at the identikit High Streets of the 80s and 90s and now the identikit retail parks - leaving genuinely small/independent businesses to scrat around for the scraps.

Is your business in the care sector? It sounds like it may be.

I agree in theory with what Labour is proposing but this will impact many SME providers in that sector. A lot will fold and as a side note many of these SME companies are immigrant owned and employ immigrants.

The effect will be that the larger national companies will take more of the market share (some of these larger companies have parent companies registered in tax havens) because they have larger profits and in a lot of cases already pay above NMW + benefits and have the infrastructure in place to absorb costs.

LA's and the NHS already struggle to fund care packages at current prices. Once larger companies have them over a barrel the care costs will increase because a depleted market, especially at a local level, makes financial contract negotiation that is favourable to the public sector harder.

There are ways to compensate but that won't be popular because it would probably mean people having to fund a larger component of their care via assets and/or the NHS and LA's having to spend more per head on care.

Most LA's are already deeply in the red on care budgets if not bankrupt or near to. If Labour plan to also better fund LA's then maybe it will work or at least break even. I feel like this could only be achieved with some sort of tax hike.

@TheWriteStuff I agree. Everybody should have enough income for a sufficient and safe life (that includes people unable to work. Carers, disabled, elderly, and anyone else struggling).

I see the answer as housing though rather than increasing minimum wage, especially as the increase still won't be enough in many cases to make much difference and will probably lead to more job losses.

More social housing isn't a panacea but it would go a long way towards addressing the issues, much more so imo than a slightly higher wage that's still low compared to cost of living.

I think employment rights are completely essential and under the Tories there has already been considerable erosion. It's great to hear that Labour are going to reverse this.

And as others have said, if you can't offer decent pay and conditions for your staff, you shouldn't be in business. Yours is clearly not viable.

@pointythings I agree employment rights are essential. But with minimum wage, don't you think it's better to have more social housing instead of some businesses going bust (leaving people with no wage)? Housing is one of the main expenses for people, perhaps even the biggest. Slightly increased minimum wage won't address that. More social housing would.

This isn't a zero sum game. We need both. The earnings divide between the lowest and the highest paid in the UK is insane - that needs to narrow, and fast. I have nothing against people getting rich, but the wage multiple between the lowest and highest paid has increased so much in the last 40 years that it has completely skewed the economy. Some people earn so much money every year that it becomes meaningless - and other people work all the hours God sends and still can't make ends meet. It has to stop. Social housing is part of that, but so is wage uplift for the lowest paid.

Honestly I'm a single mum working FT on 35k a year, small amount of UC and I just don't see anything that will benefit me significantly. I might be missing something though. I need a YouTube video or something to explain it all to my dyslexic brain.

This.

I’m a business owner and I’m also cautious about this. We pay over MW so that won’t affect us, but I am nervous to see the effect on rights from day one. We have taken on staff in the past who have performed well in interview and have been utterly hopeless in real life and we have let them go within their probation period quickly and easily.

iIf this could lead to claims for unfair dismissal we would simply not hire more people, or look overseas for contract work.

I don’t know the full details yet though. Surely there has to be some room for businesses to easily hire and fire?

We are dealing with a claim against us at the moment which has basically no chance of success but it’s still costing us thousands to defend and yet there is no incentive for our ex employee to settle or withdraw (even though we have emails which refute her claim) as there are no costs penalties in Employment Tribunals.

Yes, agree with day 1 rights. We employee people who work with the vulnerable and we need to be very watchful with how they are with service users. Our first responsibility is to the vulnerable and we need to see how the staff are with them early on and to see if the job is a good fit for them.

Exactly @flyingvisit - day one rights supposes that everyone is always right for the job and that if they’re laid off it’s because of a terrible boss.

We also had someone go off sick after a fall. We were really understanding (and concerned) and paid them full pay for 26 weeks to help out, then SSP and then when their SSP time was up, and they got the all clear to work, they quit ! They had been telling people locally they always planned to stop working anyway and that we , as a business, would have been claiming the SSP back from the government so it was "no problem". Thats not true, the SSP comes from the employer. So that was a bit naughty, we paid all that with concern and to help them while they recovered but they always planned to leave (not for another job, just to stay home and do a few cash jobs here and there).

Actually typing this I realise its not relevant to the conversation but just showing people can be a bit naughty.

Anyway, I think when people make statements about "shouldn't be in business" etc , I see your point but there are different business models so this is a bit simplistic. We can be as generous as we can be for some things ( like we pay people even if they aren't needed for a day they would have worked, they get to use all our resources personally etc ) and we try so hard to be but the nature of the business is such that we are on fixed prices from the end user (NHS, UK Govt) for a period of 4 years at a time.
Our solution will be using subbies and laying some people off as the employment law stuff is £££.

This is a BIG bugbear of mine that people always go for the "employer is the bad guy" option first.

Anyway, I need to understand more so I'm popping into the local Labour office today to ask , so I really understand.

Levelling the minimum wage might disadvantage young people, as if there isn’t a cost saving the employer might choose an experienced older worker. The reduced wage is supposed to reflect the fact they do less work because they receive more support and training.

I agree with banning zero hour contracts. In fact if you want to register as a B Corp you have to offer proper jobs not zero hour contracts. The problem is that ZHC are being used to remove people’s employment rights.

Making flexible working the default from day one is a bad idea. So basically employers aren’t allowed to hire for an office based contract any more? Hours and location are something to be negotiated between employer and employee, not enforced by the government.

And I absolutely disagree with employment rights from day 1. People will purposely get jobs then immediately go off sick or on maternity. It will lead to more discrimination because employers will start assessing if you’re likely to do this. If you have health issues or even a suspiciously fat tummy they won’t hire you. There will be loads of unfair dismissal cases and employers will have to become very careful about who they hire because they can’t dismiss easily during the probation period.

I’ll be interested to hear what they say. I’m supportive of employee rights but not on day one - we’ve had so many experiences over the years where we’ve had to not keep someone on after probation - for things like turning up repeatedly hung over or just not turning up for days on end. I know we could still lay them off but you then run the risk of them saying it’s unfair and even defending vexatious claims takes time and money.

@Blimpton there are many NMW jobs where the 'young people need more training and support ' rationale just doesn't stack up because the job doesn't require it. And tiered minimum wage means employers can hire a cheap young person and make them work their arse off for peanuts. My DS works as an admin in a care home. He's 21 and gets full adult NMW. Everyone starts there. It can be done.

The different NMW for younger people is ageist and what message does it send to young people starting out on their working life. If you do the same job, you should get the same pay, allowing for experience and time in the job. So new starters get the same wage no matter their age.

Is the lower NMW due to the fact that under 18's are supposed to be in some form of education/training?

Good news for you @flyingvisit : https://www.halborns.com/labours-laws-unfair-dismissal-from-day-one/#:~:text=Labour's%20proposal%20does%20not%20quite,their%20'contractual%20probationary%20period'.

Is that not an appreticeship - which has a different NMW setting to full time employment?

Surely there has to be some room for businesses to easily hire and fire?

Looks like there is - contractual probation periods (if you have them) look to still apply.

Yes it is. We just need a robust and longer probationary period. We don't want to dismiss anyone but DBS checks are NOT that good these days.. If any of our staff are aggressive, short tempered or violent in any way or have a non police reported previous misdemeanor involving kids (which happened to a similar business) we cannot risk this and need to be able to let people go without a huge legal battle.