Soo.. what proportion of Boots retail staff claim benefits and use the NHS?

[vinegarandbrownpaper]

Sick of 'business leaders' with businesses propped up by tax breaks, working tax credits and people propping up contracts with benefits when there is no work.. making sure those workers can still come back despite zero hours. Pay your staff properly before you complain about a supportive society you dolt.

Er .....where is your evidence? Do you have a grudge? What is you point about the NHS - of course staff use it. You sound very bitter, just because the boss of Boots has said he disagrees with Labour policies.

Boots is a pretty good employer in the scheme of things and employs some 70, 000 people.

so what proportion in retail earn a qualifying amount for working tax credits do you think?

Shop work is famously low paid because it's often entry level, low skill and there's a big pool of workers willing to do it. The wisdom of Working Tax Credits propping up low pay and subsidising employers has been morally debatable since Brown dreamed the system up in the first place, but doing away with it would cause more hardship.

I don't think he's complaining about a supportive society. He's just saying he thinks Labour would not be good for the economy. It is possible to believe both things.

Er yes, labour policies allow huge retailers to pay lower than the living wage and take away the profits to shareholders. Its a subsidy to business as are all the safety nets and healthcare. For a low-paying heavily part time and temporary employer to bleat like this either shows his blinkered drive to pledge Tory allegiance, or breathtaking misunderstandings of economics, labour characteristics in his own firm, and the extent to which his job is made much easier by the interventions of government. I know its dog whistle 'tory = success values' bullshit but its a dangerous glass house to throw stones in.

Not to mention the fact that the retail arm is overwhelmingly female staff.. and employers like Boots bring the wage gap figures right down. I hope this is his Ratners moment.

Walgreen.. Us discounter wants market set up for it to low-wage our economy. Terrific

Is there an actual new report or is this just random rambling?

I really have no idea why Boots staff using the NHS is so shocking

Tax credits were around long before Brown, under other names but the same principle.
So many people need tax credits to survive, if companies paid a better wage then there would be no need. If the cost of living wasn't so high there would be no need.
You don't have to be Einstein to be able to see this.

"It's a subsidy to business as are all the safety nets and healthcare"

I don't understand this. What do you mean by saying healthcare is a subsidy to employers?

Has a man who has built multi million pound buisnesses really a "breathtaking misunderstanding of economics"? i don't know the man at all, but I find your attitude ridiculous.

I'm sure he understands all the benefits of government interventions and all the disadvantages. He simply has a view that you disagree with. That does not mean he is a "dolt" or a bullshitter or pavlov's dog or blinkered.

Do you have evidence that Boots is running lots of zero hours contracts/paying lower than the going rate?

For anyone else confused about this news story, here is a link to it.

Morethan
Tax credits were around long before Brown, under other names but the same principle.
Evidence please?

To my knowledge, Broons eejit idea was the first time that benefits were paid through the tax systems of HMRC rather than via the DHSS in the UK at least

TalkinPeace the Tories introduced Family Credit in 1986. Labour then revamped it in 1999.

Andrea
Family credit was administered by the DHSS, it was not linked to the tax system
so employers had no idea who was on it or not

the minute Broon made it visible on pay slips the rot started

that and HMRC was never geared up to giving money out - and has royally ballsed it up in all of the intervening years

Under Labour and prior to his 'leadership' Boots was doing a lot better than it is now. Sadly he doesnot 'build multimillion pound businesses' what he does is weaken businesses, expose them to takeover, then collects on the share options. There is a big difference between taking money from a business, and making a business work.

but that is off the point. He wants reduced labour rights, as do walmart so that walgreen can turn boots into a periphery operation. Our retail market has protections for the workforce that don't fit a US model of poor disadvantaged workers without education or healthcare. Of course he wants the tories rather than labour. Its not an objective report, its polemic. I still suspect Boots has higher than average part time low waged staff leaning on the state rather than their employer because the employer has become more adversarial to its workforce...

Do WTC appear on pay slips, then? because CTC don't.

ouryve
Yes, because the tax codings are odd and any employer with half a brain looks them up to check for correctness

Not sure if the link will work, but evidence I think.

[]

loving the fashion of the day
I think we first got this about 1995, we had forms sent back with our SA return.

vinegarandbrownpaper I take it you don't shop in Boots, then?!

This is all rather simple, Labour (and the EU) always talk about how "we must have ‘growf", but have STILL not fathomed that only Business/Private Sector growth pays all the country bills and pay our way in the world via world trade e.g. the UK cannot IMPORT Mangos and EXPORT UK government Quangos.

Labour governments have a terrible record of building unsustainable economies with wasteful government spending, funded by over taxing small, medium, and large businesses, so AT BEST they don’t invest/hire, at worst, they contract/fire.

While everyone talks about higher wages through a great recession, here are the other costs BUSINESSES have to plan several ahead for & absorb, that tend to go one way under Labour, UP.

Higher Corporate Tax.
Higher Business Rates (local).
Higher Income Tax compensation (via salary) for senior staff, using international remuneration scales.
Higher regulatory/red tape costs.
Higher National Insurance costs.
Higher raw material costs.
Higher Fuel Escalator costs,
Higher costs of government controls i.e. tobacco, food, energy and god knows what else.
Higher Interest Rate/Borrowing Costs as they ‘normalize’ + a political risk premium?

And Boots is not the only business cacking themselves Labour (and SNP) will be running the UK, and the affect will be THE SAME AS IN THE EU, businesses will scale down investment and hiring plans.

“Ed Miliband is like Francois Hollande, business leaders warn”
uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/ed-miliband-francois-hollande-business-105324762.html

“Business leaders warn that Ed Miliband will prove to be 'anti-business' if he wins the General Election”

“Ed Miliband will be like Francois Hollande and damage the economy with a series of "punitive" tax rises if he wins the next election, business leaders have warned.”

“Writing in the Financial Times, they warned that a future Labour government will prove to be "anti-business" and deter investors.”

Labour could not cut the size/waste in the Public Sector in 2010, as public sector and other trade unions were funding around 90% of their General Election campaign, to similar to countries like Greece and France, the weight/cost of the public sector, drags down the private sector - which then has to slash government spending whether voluntary, or via the IMF, Labour last called in to bail us out in 1976.

Businesses saw Brown was going to keep their tax rising plans until AFTER the 2010 general election, and Miliband is doing the same, bar a few ideological ones for votes, that won't raise nearly enough money for their spending cut promises.

Businesses are not run as a social experiment for government, they are accountable to their shareholders e.g. our pension funds.

So until socialist governments remain oblivious to the facts if they keep putting all the costs of DOING business up, there has to be an investment/hiring/wages negative reaction = less tax receipts to fund their bloated States.

Thanks intern!

Well he's not going to be the last business leader to come out and criticise Labour before the election, is he?

We've also heard that the Universities have joined the fray today .

These are all put-up jobs. Conservative central office have been asking business, and probably university leaders to make anti-labour statements and keep a database of compliant or aligned leaders. They must have thought boots would seem like a solid british name but forgot we might notice he's a tax exile...