Supersize My Pay! - Thursday 14th February 2008

Alternatively, with unemployment in the UK at its lowest level since 1975 (5.5%. ILO standards) and total employment at 29.4m (the highest since records began in 1971), rather than complaining about having a low paid crap job, why not move to another job?

not everybody is bright enough to get anything other than the most menial jobs. This is the great unspoken statement that everybody likes to avoid. Some people are just not that clever and flipping burgers in McDonalds or other low skills jobs are about as much as they are going to achieve therefore we who are fortunate enough to have done better owe them a duty of care to ensure they have fair and reasonable working conditions, an honest pay amount and some level of protection.

Norman, perhaps because there aren't any better jobs? Maybe you are in the privileged position of having far more educational opportunity and a better start to life than those you condemn?

Unemployment has decreased but it is an erroneous indicator of both wealth and quality of life. The real issue is of wealth disparity, which has increased significantly since 1979. This accelerated even more rapidly from 1997 onwards when the Labour government came to power as demonstrated by research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies:-

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7193904.stm

In these few years the income of the super rich grew by 8% per year, whilst the income of the poorest 15% have seen their income increase at below average rates or decrease in real terms. A report from the Roundtree foundation indicates that one third of children in the UK still live below the poverty line, which again has been increasing since Labour came to power. Poverty is not just about lack of wealth but lack of opportunity and quality of life, both of which are widely acknowledged to be considerably worse than 30 years ago. If you think the wealth disparity in the UK is bad then you should look at how poor countries fair, globally over 90% own 10% of the wealth. The more wealth is distributed equally, the better the opportunities and quality of life for the poorest. This can be achieved through unions, campaigning, and direct action.

Workers are the people who create wealth, and we should all be able to benefit from it in an equitable manner. The government puts the increasing wealth disparity down to the "rising stock market". If you peel back the veneer of this spin you will find this means corporate profits have increased, but their owners and shareholders have taken the share by cutting the share of wealth paid to their core workers, those who create these profits. A useful analogy is that the richest people are like poker players; they do not spend their time doing anything which actually creates wealth or improves the quality of people's lives, they spend their time finding ways to increase their share of which others have created. They can play this game because they are in the privileged position of already having control of wealth. Just because this is the status quo it does not mean it is anything but anti-social, the majority of people who are exploited by this system have no say in it's existence.

Global wealth disparity has increased over the past 30 years because the governments of the richest countries have conspired to make the conditions for expropriating wealth far easier, especially in poor countries. Undemocratic institutions such as the WTO, IMF, and World Bank have held poor countries to ransom by building a cartel of multi-national corporations and rich governments which refuse "investment" in poor countries unless sweeping economic reforms are implemented which effectively damage the livelihood of the poorest. These reforms include barring workers rights, environmental protections, cuts in corporation tax, smashing of workers unions, cuts in public spending, cheap access to natural resources, and the forced privatisation of publicly owned assets such as water and electricity. In other words, the perfect economic climate for the richest to get even richer. Poor countries government's have generally complied due to corruption or ignorance, and the results for the poorest are devasting. This is what the term "neo-liberalism" refers to. The latest tactic for implementing neo-liberalism around the world is less about political coercion, and more about violence and "shock therapy" as it is known. Not suprisingly the groundwork for these policies were laid in Iraq before "power" was even handed over, and those resisting it (most notably the Iraqi Oil Workers Union) have become the victims of state violence and torture.

This is a global struggle for fair wealth distribution and equal power which will be more successful by joining the dots globally, showing solidarity, and recognising that we are all intermeshed in this system of global capitalism.

Pay people properly for the work they do. Many so-called unskilled people are desparately under-paid. Yet they do work that the rest of society would never do. A fair day's pay for a fair day's work.
It's called fairness and it's bloody obvious.