John McDonnell presented a radical view of the Britain he wanted yesterday. It was genuinely left wing. It was genuine. It has not gone down well with the right wing press, which is the surest evidence that Labour has stopped its failed attempts to appease those who will never find merit in anything it says. But will it work?
In my opinion the speech was classic opposition. Apart from the demand that companies work to Fair Tax Mark standards (which, I admit, I knew was coming) where John McDonnell has appointed churches, trade unions and pension funds to be his tanks on the lawn in the process of demanding change now, almost everything that has been said is about positioning and not detail. That is wise for a number of reasons.
First, shadow chancellors can't deliver on their plans. Their job is to position themselves in the public mind. The purpose of what John McDonnell said was to do just that. So he has made clear PFI is to be brought back into the public fold (which is a role for People's QE, as I predicted as long ago as 2010). And he made clear that those industries that were nationalised that were wholly unsuited for private ownership because they are natural monopolies on which we all rely will be brought back into public ownership. There will be no effective cost to doing so: saved payments of dividends will more than cover the cost of compensation. And with workers on the board and share ownership funds he made clear that business is to become accountable to all its stakeholders again.
I have reservations about some aspects of the shared ownership fund, but am not greatly concerned: this one will develop and change before it becomes a reality and I am quite sure rough edges will be polished off it. As I have already noted, this is a positioning statement at present.
In that case those obsessing about the detail have wholly missed what I see to be the point of it. This scheme is not, and very deliberately is not, a scheme to create a new shareholder economy of the sort Thatcher tried to create. The absence of direct shareholding is, in that case, not an accident, but quite deliberate. The chosen structure is not about becoming ‘mini-me' capitalists. It is about the merit of collective ownership.
I have suggested requiring that for the ownership to be transferred by share payment of additional higher rate tax charges makes sense to me as this would immediately bring non-UK owned larger companies into the fold: their UK subsidiaries can then partake and the idea that such entities might have a minority holding within them is no challenge at all to any known concept of capitalism since such things are common.
Such an arrangement would also bring a healthy and welcome focus to corporation tax liabilities: this would be no bad thing, especially if coupled with an Alternative Minimum Corporation Tax which is an idea of mine that transferred to the IPPR report to which John McDonnell gave much praise in his speech.
Workers on boards is about the same issue of collective particiaption. And the suggestion that unions nominate such directors is also made for a reason: the great decline in the labour share in GDP can be directly linked to the decline in union participation in the workforce. Encouraging people back into collective bargaining helps redress the massive imbalance in society in favour of capital.
The suggestion that wages will be set by sector based collective bargaining is also right, and something I called for in my book The Courageous State. Pay rates should not be negotiated in relationships of asymmetric power where the employer has many, if not most, of the advantages. There is an urgent, even desperate, need for a restoration of the labour share in our economy. This little commented on policy proposal, which might set minimum wages by sector, would address this issue.
So would it work? My answer is that it would. And for good reason. This is not Marx: 90% at least of the ownership of companies is left as it is in this plan, albeit with the requirement that the interests of all workers be taken into account. Rather this is the pragmatic co-operative movement at work coupled with the economic incite of Henry Ford, which was that workers not paid enough can never create demand in an economy.
And it is precisely because this model might increase wages and so demand that this model will work.
In fact, it could more than work. It could save capitalism from itself. The reason should be obvious. Through its own excesses capitalism is eating its own heart out. No one but a naive ideologue can really now believe that the model of capitalism in use in our economy is working, or about free markets. Rather it is about power, wealth and income concentration for a few. John McDonnell is tackling that head on. And whilst I could definitely offer suggestions for improving the detail (and no doubt will) I reiterate that is not the point now. That point now is that John McDonnell has signalled that the game would be over for this corrupted, corrupting and simply corrupt form of capitalism if Labour comes to power. And that was the right thing for him to do yesterday,
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Thankyou for that analysis. I feel a bit more positive about it now.
Given you present circumstances this is a great piece of reflective, calm and clear writing. Thanks.
I need moments out writing right now
Two simple and clear questions for you Richard:
“There will be no effective cost to doing so: saved payments of dividends will more than cover the cost of compensation”
Can I ask you roughly what the value of these companies is, and how much they paid out in dividends?
“This is not Marx: 90% at least of the ownership of companies is left as it is in this plan, albeit with the requirement that the interests of all workers be taken into account.”
Roughly how much would a company’s share price go down if the government took 10% of the company (without compensation), and then prevented the company paying any significant dividends, making the return for investors near enough zero?
Has anyone said the company may not pay dividends?
Have you read the proposal correctly?
The MV does not change by the way – part just now belongs to the new group of months
And my suggestion re dividends is easy – the state’s cost of capital is less so my logic is obvious
“The MV does not change by the way”.. of course it does. Existing shareholders will want to sell ahead of their stock being appropriated so forcing down the price.
Why?
You think having a motivated workforce does not add value?
And no one will lose 10% in a go….
Can we stop the silly comments?
I was pretty sure you would duck the question Richard – most Corbyn/Labour supporters do.
I’ll answer them for you.
The value of the companies (water/rail/mail etc) Labour want to nationalise is about 175bn. They pay approx 2bn of dividends annually.
Which means Labour would have to borrow 175bn to fund this nationalization, or expropriate it. Which is stealing by any other name.
UK Gilt yields are currently just under 2% – but would likely go much higher under a profligate anti-business Labour government. Let’s be generous though and say yields are at 1.5% (lower than they currently are) and we can see that the cost of the borrowing to nationalise would be at a minimum 2.5bn a year. Which is more than the dividends currently pay.
That of course assumes that these companies will turn a profit, which under government (and union) control is hardly a given, and historically most of these companies ran at a loss whilst last in public hands.
So nationalizing them will not be free.
The second question requires some estimation, but your claim that equity values will not really fall is manifestly false.
“And no one will lose 10% in a go….”
Yes, they will. Equities are valued on a long term P/E basis typically, so the whole 10% expropriation by the government will immediately be priced in.
Then you have to take into account the limit to dividend payments of £500 per person.
If your dividends are limited, the yield you will receive from owning those shares is massively reduced. The current FTSE dividend yield is 4.10%. Limiting this yield to a fraction of a percent, then compounding that over any longer period is going to send equity valuations nosediving.
All-in, you are probably looking at a 30-40% drop in the value of UK listed equities, potentially more if you account for increased tax rates.
Seriously. Who in their right mind would buy or invest in an asset if they know the return they can get from it will be very low, and the government can come in and just take some of it as and when they feel like it?
“You think having a motivated workforce does not add value?”
Sure. But nothing in this policy is designed to motivate that workforce. The workers don’t get the shares – the government does. Workers representatives on boards will have to be union people.
Having the company I work for not be able to grow in size, raise capital, make less profits and be in part controlled by politicians will probably more than offset any productivity gains Labour are claiming.
Labour claim to want to destroy capitalism. They won’t, but they will certainly do a great job of destroying the UK economy with policies like these, supported by their delusional hard left supporters. I get the feeling though this is what they want. They’ll crash the economy, and in the crisis that follows cement their grip on power in the usual communist manner, through suppression of dissent and authoritarian and dictatorial control. They’ll blame shadowy conspiracies, bankers, Jews and send their mobs (Momentum) out to stifle any dissent through fear and aggression – we are already seeing what Momentum are capable of.
Every assumption in here is just make believe – inching one that markets can price assets correctly
Bit the funniest is that all dividends will be constrained by a limit of £500 er employee
There is nothing that says total dividends will be constrained by the proposal, at all
The amount payable to each employee is, which is quite different
I don’t engage with nonsense – and that is what you have written
This proposal is not a deep discounted rights issue..in the U.K. existing shareholders are protected through pre empire rights meaning if they subscribe they are identical pre and post rights..this proposal is akin to a scrip issue given “free” to a third party I.e the State or employees. The increase in the number of Shares means existing shareholders are diluted so the economic value of their holding will fall – the market value of the company will fall as existing shareholders will pre empty this by selling there shares in the market…it is dilutive end of story
Given that all company rights are created by statute what sort of nonsense is it that makes you believe that they cannot be constrained by statute (as they are already, of course)?
“UK Gilt yields are currently just under 2% — but would likely go much higher under a profligate anti-business Labour government”
Your first problem, Nick, is the government sets the bond yield. It could set it to 0% if it wanted to. Currency-issuing governments are not beholden to the markets.
And real rates are still near enough zero
It is truly frightening your logic..
I will try to simplify.,If today I own 100 shares (which I have paid a full market price – I currently have full exposure to the earnings of the company – from tomorrow I begin to suffer dilution by extra shares being issued for free where the earnings of the company will be shared by the State (who are therefore expropriating my exposure to the earnings of the company with no compensation)..ahead of the dilution existing shareholders will look to sell as there shares post dilution are less valuable..shareholders looking to sell forces down the price!!! It is a mathematical certainty that the dilution is bad news for existing shareholders for existing shareholders!!!!!!..the new shareholders (the state) get the shares for free so there is no compensating demand for the Shares!!!!!
I know you get frustrated at times trying to explain the obvious to elements of your readership – this is a rare occasion where you are completely on the wrong side of the debate
As I have made clear, I wo9uld prefer that this transfer take place by settling a higher rate of tax in shares
Let’s make three things clear: tax is not expropriation. It is the exercise of a property right
Second, this will only happen wiuth a democratic mandate
Third, boosting the labour share in the economy will tackle the Robles of capitalism failing and falling in on itself
But your greed means you cannot appreciate anything beyond the parameter of your greed
And that is why it has to happen, because that is precisely the attitude that is crushing our economy and society
@ Simon
The government does not set bond yields. They are market prices.
The DMO can set the coupon of the bond, but as everyone SHOULD know the coupon means nothing, and is not linked to the yield of a bond.
If a government comes in and starts expropriating assets (which will likely reduce growth, definitely reduce inward investment and weaken the currency, causing inflation) and then begins a huge spending spree as Labour are promising then you will see bond yields go much higher.
@ Richard Murphy
Real yields might well be near zero at the moment, but that does not mean they always will be. As I say above, if Labour do what they are claiming to want to, you are likely to see inflation and yields climb significantly.
Which of course is significant in an of itself, but if you cap dividend payments and expropriate 10% of companies you are not likely to see those dividends from those nationalized companies keep up with the interest payments on the borrowing needed to pay for them.
On top of that, those dividends are also affected by inflation – so real yields are not really the point here and you can directly compare nominal bond yields and equity dividend yields either pre or post inflation adjustment. What you are trying to do is compare post inflation bond yields with pre inflation dividend yields.
I still haven’t seen you admit that you were wrong to say that nationalizing utilities will be cost free – as you say the original article – when it is manifestly not true.
Two letters
QE
Now enough of your drivel, because that is what it is
Responding to having your shareownership appropriated is not a silly comment. For you to suggest it is deems you completely out of touch with how financial markets work. Markets put a near zero chance of this taking effect. That said diminishing property rights is a red flag to business investment and that’s what we should fear.
It’s about equivalent to a rights issue at a deep discount
And let’s be clear, almost no companies raise equity capital: the trend is ti reduce it
There is almost no links between new equity issue and capital spending
So, I ask, do you know how markets work?
How can it be equivalent to a deep discounted rights issue? Assuming shareholders have pre emptive rights and take up their rights then there is no dilution on their holding as although the price goes down but number of shares they own goes up..,when on the other hand there is appropriation of shares or a free scrip issue to a third party (employees and the State) then my ownership will be DILUTED!!!!!! Please read a textbook on this it is standard.
I am very well aware of what I said
And equally well aware that over ten years the impact on MV will not be noticeable and given the increase in productivity likely to be positive
Either you are a misguided fool who isnt very bright or you are just lying through your teeth (when you say the MV is unaffected),..it must be the latter
There is no reason for the MV to change
Who shares it has
Johnny says:
“Responding to having your shareownership appropriated is not a silly comment.”
There’s scope there for a profound disagreement, Johnny. I for one would question, did question and still do question, the right of a government to sell off the public estate which it owns only as trustee in effect on behalf of ‘the people’ who make up the country. For forty years we have been selling our birthright bequeathed to us by our parents and grandparents for reasons excused by very suspect dogma; both economic and political dogma which seem to me deeply flawed.
Presumably you think you, or others like you with the spoils of other people’s lives in your asset portfolio, have a right to buy absolutely anything you can afford to pay for. I disagree.
And increasingly I hate your ilk and what you have collectively been doing and continue to do without any signs of bad conscience.
When it all goes belly up in the near future you’ll be expecting to be saved by the government again I expect.
Its disgusting. Self. Self. Self. Snouts and front trotters in the trough of the public purse. And you’ll get away with it again I expect.
Must be nice up there in Benefit Villas. And no, I don’t want to join. I’d rather live next door to real with humanity.
It maybe on the technical detail of this argument you are correct. I doubt it, but I simply don’t know and don’t care. With pound signs in you eyes I wonder you can see to shave. You have started shaving I presume? So many of Thatcher’s philosophical progeny seem so very, very young.
Johnny said –
“when on the other hand there is appropriation of shares or a free scrip issue to a third party (employees and the State) then my ownership will be DILUTED!!!!!! ”
Hmm. We’re talking about energy and rail companies here. Things that people need in order to live. Under a private regime, the public have seen a drop in standards of service (ask anyone who’s ever travelled on Southern Rail) and a huge hike in prices. It’s costing more and more to just keep the lights on or get to work.
You’ll forgive me if I say I don’t give a single flying one about the dilution of YOUR shareholding, you poor little thing.
You’re not investing when you buy these shares… you’re not an entrepreneur or a business angel, you’ve just paid for a right to the profits generated by other people. That type of shareholding contributes nothing, it create nothing, it simply looks for a financial return for no effort. Really, the chances of the share value dropping and staying dropped are next to nothing, so you’re not losing the value of what you put in… and the dividends keep coming as long as you hold them in any case. And for what? Because at some point you were lucky enough to be in a position to acquire those shares.
Other people do the work and you take the rewards. And you’ve got the barefaced cheek to refer to nationalisation as theft…?
Now your golden goose is under threat. Boo bloody hoo.
Given the massive levels of inequality in the UK today, I reckon you’d get the same response from around 99% of people.
Also to Andy and Geearkay we are not talking about utility companies being nationalised we are talking about and company based in the U.K. employing 250 people., so for e.g a group of individuals put up their own capital, grow the business, employ people (and may incentivise by offering stock)..anyway the state comes along and appropriates 10% of the company..err that isn’t pro business I don’t care how you dress it or what classwar rhetoric you throw around
Oh come on…..out up their capital????
Please….they bought second hand shares in an index fund
Many will not even know they own shares
But the staff sure as heck know that they have all their eggs in the basket
Johnny says:
“Also to Andy and Geearkay we are not talking about utility companies being nationalised we are talking about and company based in the U.K. employing 250 people.,”
I would say it’s all part of a continuum, but I can see how you think it so unfair.
One way or another the government needs to recoup its input into the successful small and medium sized business. The physical and social infrastructure spending by government is being siphoned off in to private profits. I’m talking here about, underpinning regulation (laws etc.) transport infrastructure education and health care of the workforce, state pensions, safety net welfare payments to subsidise wages and provision of pensions. Private sector businesses take all this for granted.
We need a better balanced mixed economy.
Maybe the proposal we’re discussing here is not the best way to go about it, but go about it we must. A country cannot continue to survive economically if it is being systematically robbed of the wealth generated from utilising its resources.
I think you are living a bubble which misses, entirely, the bigger picture.
What the government obsesses about as the national deficit is principally the figure that equates to pillage of the public estate. Some of that figure is legitimately held as savings against future liabilities and some is merely squirrelled away and effectively lost. Or as I think of it …stolen.
As a 65-year-old, I’ve heard many speeches like this, but never seen them implemented…
…I won’t believe a word until I hear an accompanying plan for reforming the governance of the UK.
Robert Pennington says:
“As a 65-year-old, I’ve heard many speeches like this, but never seen them implemented…
…I won’t believe a word until I hear an accompanying plan for reforming the governance of the UK.”
You’ve been disappointed a couple of years longer than me, Robert, but I share the sentiment. I made a similar comment to yours elsewhere earlier today.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
Fortunately I have better place to put my vote when its asked for. My credibility is exhausted.
Governance of the UK ? No thanks, I want Scotland out , which will very effectively reform UK governance as it will have ceased to exist.
That’ll do me.
“And the suggestion that unions nominate such directors” – another approach could be selection by lot – or perhaps selection through a vote with any worker-director sitting for a max of 3,4,5? years. I support the need for unions – but I’m not convinced that at a shop-floor level the best people are selected as, for example, shop stewards and ditto further up the chain. Discussions with some unionised work forces (the postmen) lead me to believe that there needs to be a “turnover” of workers representatives. just saying.
I broadly agree Richard, though for an oldie like me it all smacks of the 70’s and much ignored here on the German system of industrial relations and industrial strategy. You have the patience of a saint above btw. I suspect many invested in the industry-sectors better under nationalisation will be relieved to be bought out. What worries me is the price to be paid. The change from private to national is no worry in book-keeping. Years of under-investment and potential holes made by creative accounting (share buybacks, dividends paid by loans, best assets boxed-off etc.) may mean that the share price is no indication of worth. I don’t want to see the public buying into nationalisations of already hollowed-out businesses at far more than they are worth as the likes of Fred the Shred did in bank purchases. It may already be perfectly fair to take over rail and other utilities for a pound. Without the accounts and inside knowledge I can’t be sure, but imagine this thought experiment – specify investment needed to bring such as rail up to scratch and put the companies up for tender. It could well be that no viable business plans could be put forward if the companies had to be bought at market cap. It is already clear private money has not been available to give us good services or even such as winter supplies of our own gas from storage. I’d like to see the companies we might takeover valued by other than the big four or taking share price at face-value. Someone needs to walk-the-walk with a blackhole detector.
So much is wrong in the gig economy, welfare paying for work and so on that I want to see a much wider plan for systemic reform including such as worker dividends. I favour sortition over union place-people.
I agree: market value is far too often pure nonsense – and right now simply reflects the benefit to shareholders of poor regulation
Something much more realistic is required for compensation
That, or change the regulation first to knock the value into reality
Let’s not forget that that market could not value the Royal Mail properly when it went private. Or many other previously public utilities which were undersold.
Now – why might that be?
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“…….. many other previously public utilities which were undersold.
Now — why might that be?”
Because the people who trumpet the merits of markets don’t walk the walk. They are the ones with asymmetrical information advantage. ?
Because markets are always rigged ?
Because government interference in the market is only ‘fair’ if it advantages the pillagers?
Because pro-market politicians are liars who do not believe in the merits of competition. ?
Other suggestions on a postcard please to……
archytas says:
“I don’t want to see the public buying into nationalisations of already hollowed-out businesses at far more than they are worth as the likes of Fred the Shred did in bank purchases.”
To have been robbed once in the selloffs of public assets only to be robbed agin when buying-back the hollowed out remains would be inexcusable.
Market rationality works both ways. If these former nationalised infrastructure industries are worth nothing…then nothing is the fair price for them.
I can’t imagine they are entirely worthless yet, but take away the government subsidy which pays for the share dividends and I don’t believe they are worth very much. As you imply fair valuations will be difficult to assess if we are to trust the big four to work them out. Their only real concern is how much they can extract from government for doing the sums.
Re sortition for worker board representation, I can see a powerful logic in that, as it means all workers need to understand, or at least care, something about the company they work for.
I can also see merit in workers/unions being able to nominate persons of appropriate experience (who will not easily be bamboozled) to represent their interests at board level. Maybe we need some of both…(?) One thing’s for certain, if workers don’t wish to participate actively, the schemes will work about as well as democracy works in a society where it is deemed acceptable to say ‘Oh! I’m not interested in politics’. Without fear of being thrown in the village duck pond, or whatever the modern equivalent would be.
I can’t see why this policy proposal will ‘destroy capitalism’ at all. That’s just ridiculous.
It’s about trying to restore the balance that was once there and which enabled capitalism in the end see off communism. That balance was about the fairer share of the spoils from production or provision. That was enabled by the inclusion of unions and the workforce being involved with the Board and a regulatory state acting as the balancing agent – the referee.
It’s about repairing capitalism – not destroying it. Capitalism works (although the environmental price is far too high and needs to urgently addressed), but since the Wall came down and the threat of revolution went with it, my view (shared by others) is that Western capitalism just got greedier and greedier and more extreme to the point that it could actually start to sow the seeds of its own downfall again (as seen by the BREXIT vote where EU membership has been blamed for the UK’s woes and not the real culprit – the over -financialisation of the economy). Contemporary capitalists have failed to learn from history. Period.
We know what one of the problems is in capitalism at the moment and it is short-termist rent seeking – something Will Hutton mentioned in his book ‘The State We Are In’ back in the 1990’s. We have not moved on from that very much – in fact it has got worse. The short term-ism is turbo charged by the financial markets into a competitive race to the bottom with firms competing to offer higher returns in shorter periods (why do you think there is such a thing as ‘day trading’ on the stock markets?).
New Labour came up with the idea of stakeholder capitalism and this to me was a superb idea but it quickly got forgotten about because it was seen as too radical (I ask you!?). The Labour party of today seems to be trying this idea again in my view with this policy proposal.
Those of you who insult Richard here need to read Tom Brown’s book ‘Tragedy & Challenge: An Inside View of UK Engineering’s Decline and the Challenge of the Brexit Economy’ (2017).
Brown is no Leftie – just a sensible man like Richard who sees something wrong and calls it as it is. His description of how the Finance sector undermines manufacturing in this country is required reading.
Brown spent a lot of time working (not just studying) in Germany whose economy is much more less unstable than our own because of a stronger manufacturing base and who have a closer working relationship with their workers. He also recounts that our class-based labour relations were very poor and blames both unions and managers for not sorting it out.
Why else do we think that Britain won the war but lost the peace?
In the meant time ‘Johnny’, stop calling names and bloody read will you?
Well said Pilgrim. I’m drawing pension now. Part of the issue as an oldie is having heard it all before. I was on both siders of industrial relations (at different times) and it felt like a Brian Rix comedy-farce in which you couldn’t drop your trousers for laughs. Unions were sexist and blinkered and management – er – sexist, blinkered and peevish. One set of ideas put forward to sort out the swamp was human resource management, which had something to offer before today’s corruption of the worker side and such as profits per employee evaluations. Analysis in terms of espoused theories has never been much good – one needs to get at the theories-in-action that are often hidden deep and framed in managerial babble and media gossip. in a sense the left needs to talk over this babble-gossip direct to the public – not unlike management cutting out the unions to do so. The left doesn’t scare me, but rather its operation against embedded propaganda and the lack of social-technical structure – the ‘first contact with the enemy capital flight’ scare,
archytas says:
“Unions were sexist and blinkered and management — er — sexist, blinkered and peevish.”
The left needs to get back on track with a beefed up WEA-type organisation. Not just political awareness-raising, but making good on some of the depredations we’ve seen to mainstream education.
‘Life long learning’ was great slogan…it needs a resurrection I feel. Bean counters wrecked much of the adult education system by becoming obsessed with testing and examination of participants who neither wanted paper qualifications, nor were prepared to suffer the stress of obtaining such useless scraps.
Industrial relations will always be fraught as long as both sides feel they are in competition and the protagonists are human beings.|
….but they could sure as hell be better. And need to be.
Great idea
I totally agree about the problems with Unions in terms of being an ‘old boy’ networks as much as the City ever was.
When I was in retailing in the 1990’s I was invited (expected!) to join a union and remember having an argument with the union rep where I told her in no uncertain terms that union intransigence and disloyalty to the Labour government had helped to get Thatcher into power and that I would never forgive them.
As for the sexism issue, I always felt that had the ‘blokes’ in the union hierarchy listened to a woman (Barbara Castle – bless her) and took on board ‘In Place of Strife’ things might be different to what they are now.
The fact that the Left had answers to industrial relations’ problems and the unions did not listen is a huge tragedy that sometimes – when you think of how badly unions have been undermined – they were actually ‘asking for it’ in some perverse way.
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
When I was in retailing in the 1990’s I was invited (expected!) to join a union …
The only union I ever belonged to was Equity. In those days a very tight closed shop……..something the political Right objects to vehemently except where they call it a professional association and hide under its skirts to protect them from responsibility for their mistakes and misdemeanours.
Union ‘blokes’ would do well to take a good look at some of the terms of the old Equity contracts (I’ve no idea how much they have changed in thirty years) . Performers contracts were fought long and hard for, and were specifically written to take account of the easy exploitation of a work force which enjoyed its work and was inherently casualised.
The twelve hour minimum overnight break is something that we would well see applied in the arena of health and social care work. I know of someone, who thinks her employer in this field is one of the better ones, who finishes work on some shifts notionally at 10pm has to travel home, unwind, sleep eat maybe, and be back on shift the following morning at 7.30. Travel times of an hour or more are not unusual and the DWP Jobseekers agreement assumes, nay insists, that is a perfectly reasonable travel time.
Workers in this burgeoning industry are treated like robots who don’t need sleep, and have no family commitments. Shift patterns are produced periodically as if out of a hat allowing little or no scope for planning ahead. Most of the people working in this care field are women. Employers, often appearing to be charities, are (IMO criminally) neglecting their duty of care to their staff. No wonder this attitude sometimes gets passed on to the victims of this care and the occasional shocking incidents come to light. The wonder is these rare exceptions do not become the norm as overtired stressed, poorly paid workers try to meet the needs of people who need care, time and understanding.
I’m damn sure I wouldn’t put up with these conditions of service for very long, but then I have only myself to answer for and have walked out of quite a few jobs in my time. I was told in one case I ‘was not allowed’ to withdraw my labour. Harumph! A person with choices can do what he likes with his own body, and take it out of harms way when he sees fit.
A Universal Basic Income would go a long way towards breaking the employers stranglehold over labour and create some sort of level, free market, conditions in employment.
The DWP acts as the government’s rottweiler in maintaining the current very uneven playing field; possibly the vilest and most oppressive arm of government in our modern society. Yet another example of the way the welfare state has been subverted entirely towards the interests of the better off.
Signed.
Disgusted, (but not of) Tunbridge Wells.