Campaign for Real Jobs

The latest government figures indicate that unemployment is now under 6%, at just under 2 million. The trouble with these figures is that the rules by which the figures are calculated have changed significantly, many times, over the course of the parliament. Trying to work out the true comparison from four and a half years ago to today is almost impossible. It is like trying to compare apples to bananas.

One significant change was that that of a definition of a job. Almost any form of occupation, even that which is hardly paid at all, or is wholly unpaid, is counted as a job. Many “jobs” are part time, short-term contracts or zero hours contracts. Worst of all are exclusive zero hours contracts, where  the employee is paid by the hour but not guaranteed any work or wage, while still not being allowed to seek other employment.

Meanwhile the cost of living has risen while wages have stagnated.  At the same time, Britain is the only country in the G7 group where the gap between rich and poor has significantly grown during the 21^st century. The Prime Minister’s solution to our economic ills is to reduce spending on welfare while reducing taxation for the richest.

I might believe the existence of real jobs if they had some link to a living wage. This is currently estimated at £14,400 p.a. for a single person. The legal minimum wage for persons 21 years and over is £6.50 per hour, a figure which has remained the same throughout this parliament.  This wage does not allow for having dependents.

What I suggest is that a job should be based on this rather inadequate figure, and that a part time job of 50% of a full time wage should be regarded as half a job. For all part time jobs the percentage of a full time job should be used on the statistics. As for zero hour contracts, they should also be regarded as half a job, unless proved to be otherwise.  I do not possess the figures, the computer models or the analytical skills to produce my own statistics, but surely someone does.

Until these figures can be produced the statistics provided by the government are wholly worthless and unbelievable. There are lies, damned lies, statistics and government statistics. It is time to start a campaign for Real Jobs.

What is a Real Job?

The Budget was delivered by Chancellor of the Exchequer this week and I saw Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander on Question Time last night. Such quaint and historical names for finance ministers. Both men were banging on about how many jobs were created by the coalition government in the last four years. The main trouble with these figures is that the vast majority of these jobs do not pay a living wage. The coalition spokespeople bang on about how a job is a job. But with many jobs being part-time, on zero hours contracts or other loopholes allowing employers to pay a small fraction of a living wage, how can we regard them as being proper jobs?

We already have a measure of what the minimum wage should be, £6:31 per hour. It is estimated that a living wage should be £8:80 ph in London and £7:65 elsewhere. Prosecutions for failing to meet the current level of minimum wage are almost zero. In fact the instructions appear to be not to prosecute. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) is responsible for enforcing the minimum wage.

‘The approach previously taken by HMRC was not to pursue criminal prosecutions as enforcement powers and penalty notices available under the legislation have in the past been seen to provide sufficient sanction. However, upon investigating employers found to be paying less than the minimum wage, approximately 45,000 since the act came into force, it has been discovered that a small number of employers failed to comply with the penalties enforced. As a result of this research HMRC reviewed its default position of non-prosecution.’ (Solicitor’s site, 2007, bold done by me. This figure is way too low now, and prosecutions are virtually unknown)

The result is that bad employers are only forced to change in very rare cases where there is pressure from the Trades Unions in regulated industries. Outside of these, well, forget it.

Real Jobs

What I suggest is quite simple. We take a living wage to be 40 hours per week at the minimum wage. 40 x £6:31 = £252:40 per week. Let us call this a Real Job. If a job pays less than that, it is regarded as a percentage of a job, so £126:20 would be 50% of a job. It would be more accurate if the improved minimum wage were used.

With this simple measure it would be possible to determine the true value of the government ‘Jobs’. With a cost of living crisis affecting many poor families to the extent that they are having to make use of food banks, to suggest that because they have one earner on 15% of a Real Job they are fully employed is an added insult. I have nothing but contempt for politicians who spin and dissemble when the poor are going hungry in a supposedly civilised country. Shame on you.

Wealth and hypocracy

Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osbourne has just announced that he would like the minimum wage to rise to about £7 per hour. At a full time rate that works out about £11k per year. Since coming to office the Tory dominated coalition has failed to raise the minimum wage by a single penny. Only two companies have been prosecuted, under pressure from trades union, to pay the old rate. This is in nearly four years. Under pressure from millions who have been suffering inflationary rises in food, fuel and rent while wages have stagnated the Chancellor makes this announcement. To be charitable it could be regarded as an act of political expediency. More likely it is a cynical exercise in PR. I accuse you, rich twat George Osbourne of being a dissembling git. To sit on the sidelines and watch while the rich bankers who got us into this situation get richer while the poor workers get poorer suggests only one thing to me, that this career politician and patrician is a liar of the very worst kind.

Oh, and many firms in the agricultural sector pay about £1 per hour using exclusively foreign labour to pick fruit and veg. If these jobs were open to British workers this scandal might be highlighted. Same old story for the tory – fu*k the poor!

Back two hundred years

Ho, hum, another Tory Party* conference.

Our blessed Chancellor of the Exchequer made a speech to the conference. I have imagined what he really meant if in a private conversation, strictly off the record of course. This bears no resemblance to his actual opinions and policies, of course. The fact that he’s an Old Etonian, ex Bullingham Club and rich posho has nothing to do with it (probably).

JW: So, Mr Osbourne, just between us, what is your policy on unemployment and benefits, strictly off the record of course.

Osbourne: We have spent the last three and a half years frigging the figures to take out numbers from the registered unemployed. We have systematically disenfranchised millions of people from their right to benefits. Let’s be bulls-pizzle honest about this, there are no new jobs except zero hours contracts, endless internships and Mac Jobs. This is despite us never prosecuting for failure to comply with the Minimum Wage laws. We have cut benefits or set them below the level of inflation, yet the unemployment figures remain stubbornly high. Something must be done about this.

JW: So, what are you going to do about it?

Osbourne: As no-one is entitled to something for nothing we are determined on a new policy for a new age. The long term unemployed will be put to work. To ensure that this work is carried out with the proper degree of supervision we are creating a new type of manufacturing facility, which are to be known as Workhouses. The claimants, those feckless and often immoral leeches will be housed in the most basic accommodation. Men will be separated from women. They shall be put to work for twelve hours a day unpicking old rope and converting it to that most useful of products, Oakum. They shall receive two meals a day of thin gruel, just enough to keep body and soul together. Their moral welfare will be undertaken by violent hell-fire preachers. They shall be dressed in the coarsest of old clothes, marked with a ‘S’ for Sponger on the front and back. Family visits will be no more than ten minutes per month. They shall stay until they have paid back all the benefit they have claimed, which will at the rates set will take something over fifty years.

JW: Isn’t that a rather brave policy?

Osbourne: I prefer to call it a radical new policy for a new world. After all, we can’t have these spongers being a drain on the economy.

JW: But won’t you be voted out at the next election?

Osbourne: They are more concerned with the ‘X’ Factor and Big Brother than politics. Most people won’t notice. In fact we’ll make it so boring that the majority won’t even bother to vote. When we get back in properly we intend to have a property qualification for all voters. This will mean that only the rich and those of good family will be able to vote. This is the Conservative way.

JW: Thank you, Mr Osbourne.

Osbourne: Call me Squire, and tug your forelock, you damned impertinent peasant.

* Tories are the Conservative Party. The name comes from a gang of 18c Irish Highwaymen, rather appropriate for the robbery which is taking place