Workers suffer record pay slump in face of rocketing inflation

[patman post]

And just heard on the radio that FTSE CEOs have received an average 39 percent pay rise this last year.

Yet the problem is supposed to be greedy workers getting ever poorer who want their pay maintained?

That kind of disconnect from the reality of what is happening itself demonstrates part of what is wrong in this country. The millions of victims blamed for fighting back whilst the wealthy elites who are actually in charge of everything continue to take the piss witrh impunity. Yet these are very rarely ever attacked and often exonerated whilst their victims get criticised and blamed again.

For one thing I and my colleagues, keyworkers who worked when most others stayed at home, now have our relative poverty blamed on our supposed laziness by many of the very same people who didn't work when we did. Or people like Truss who wouldnt know what hard graft was if it smacked her in the face.

How many FTSE CEOs are there, and how many striking workers?

If these CEOs gave all their salaries for this year to striking workers, how much extra would each of the strikers get?

Isn't all this trading on uncosted perceptions counterproductive...?

[B0ycey]

Average real terms pay has declined by 3% in just 3 months. This is unprecedented. This will make most of us poorer, and millions are seriously struggling already. And it will surely drive us into a deep recession if this continues, especially when the expected further energy price hikes hit.

Some people really do need to understand supply and demand to have a clue on what is going on here. There are ONLY two options to curb inflation given it is all linked to energy. The first is for Europe to buy Russian gas at the level it did and for Russia to not send 20% down the pipe and to commission and open up NS2. The second option is to reduce our consumption in gas by 50%. There is nothing else the government can do. Handouts simply give people more money to spend on something that is low in supply (relatively) and the energy companies still have more demand than they can get out the ground because the continent have decided to remove 40% of their supply chain. And that is laymen to say giving people more money to spend on energy just means you are giving it back to the energy companies because of competition and nations all trying to buy the same stuff and outbidding each other.

Also, it seems people are understanding that this war isn't worth it now. And when I say that what I mean is people are starting to move their opinion to a negotiation settlement and not years of stalemate. And when I say negotiations I don't mean the one sided bollocks we were hearing in February when Western leaders were all heading to Moscow preaching the dame line but a negotiated settlement for the Donbass region and a substitute for NATO expansion for Ukraine. And until we start telling Zelensky that if he wants weapons he is going to actually need to reign back on his unrealistic ambitions of sending the last Ukrainian over the trench to push Russia out of all Ukraine and hed be better off beginning a negotiation settlement of making the Donbass autonomous (the Minsk agreement) we can expect inflation to continue to grow (sorry guys) and the latest prediction is 20% inflation next year.

[srb7677]

Perhaps we should do away with MPs and CEOs and leave the workers to sort it all out. Is that the recommendation? Oh I forgot the Unions! Just remind me - what do the Union bosses earn? Perhaps they would qualify as national leaders.

I bet the union bosses earn a lot less than CEOs, and have gotten nothing like 39 percent pay rises. They are also democratically accountable to the workers who elect them and can remove them.

And your straw man argument is risible. No one including me has suggested that CEOs or MPs should be done away with, though in the case of the latter if pay were based upon performance their pay would have been cut rather than increased. Insofar as MP pay is concerned it should be linked to the average earned by all other public sector workers and should be a full time job with no outside earnings.

As for CEOs you seem to be implicitly defending their right to recieve massive inflation busting pay rises year after year whilst attacking their much lower paid workforces for daring to resist de facto pay cuts. This is taking the piss on a grand scale and it will drive more people more leftwards if ways cannot be found to enforce or encourage a greater sense of proportion.

[srb7677]

This call for strike action is not for anyone's benefit but the strength of the Unions and their hard left Chairmen. You are kidding yourselves if you  think this action will help anyone.

You are spouting political propaganda again which you may even believe yourself. The unions as demanded by their workforces are fighting for the maintenance of their members' living standards, saying enough is enough. And the hard left label is just politically loaded nonsense. You are actually increasingly divorced from realty.

Do you actually know anyone who is or could potentially be on strike? My brother works on the railways and is a member of the RMT. Two of my friends work for the Royal Mail and are members of the CWU. Another friend works for the probation service. One of my best friends works for the DWP. 

The story is the same everywhere. Angry workers getting poorer whilst those in charge get richer and profits grow fatter, their terms and conditions under constant attack. Rock bottom morale. Staff constantly leaving. Others overloaded with work. Morale at  rock bottom. Anger widespread. The conviction amongst most that enough is enough and a stand needs to be made. The unions are their only weapon, their only means of organising, their only defence. The workers are pushing from the bottom. No strike can take place without a ballot. Most ballots are demonstrating massive backing from workers.

You should try stepping out of your ivory tower enamoured of gormless soundbite propaganda like a Daily Mail bot, about the hard left or union barons or  malicious intentions and all the rest of it and start actually speaking to ordinary workers. Will help you to reconnect with reality on the ground

[T00ts]

Perhaps we should do away with MPs and CEOs and leave the workers to sort it all out. Is that the recommendation? Oh I forgot the Unions! Just remind me - what do the Union bosses earn? Perhaps they would qualify as national leaders.

In 2016 this is how much they earned I expect it has risen since. Is it ok for them? 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/629448/Appendix_5_Cert_Off_Ann_Rep_2016-2017.pdf

[T00ts]

MPs? After the state they have reduced this nation to? Or perhaps CEOs who have suddenly worked 39 percent harder?

To be honest you need to wake up and stop serving as an apologist on behalf of those taking the piss. You won't of course but enough are going to start doing so to create all kinds of political and social turmoil. Eyes are being opened.

Perhaps we should do away with MPs and CEOs and leave the workers to sort it all out. Is that the recommendation? Oh I forgot the Unions! Just remind me - what do the Union bosses earn? Perhaps they would qualify as national leaders.

[srb7677]

Is that worse than vilifying others who earn more on merit?

MPs? After the state they have reduced this nation to? Or perhaps CEOs who have suddenly worked 39 percent harder?

To be honest you need to wake up and stop serving as an apologist on behalf of those taking the piss. You won't of course but enough are going to start doing so to create all kinds of political and social turmoil. Eyes are being opened.

[srb7677]

Yes nothing like looking down on workers who are nothing more than half wits.

MP's earlier this year awarded themselves a £2200 pay rise......not bad eh?

And just heard on the radio that FTSE CEOs have received an average 39 percent pay rise this last year.

Yet the problem is supposed to be greedy workers getting ever poorer who want their pay maintained?

That kind of disconnect from the reality of what is happening itself demonstrates part of what is wrong in this country. The millions of victims blamed for fighting back whilst the wealthy elites who are actually in charge of everything continue to take the piss witrh impunity. Yet these are very rarely ever attacked and often exonerated whilst their victims get criticised and blamed again.

For one thing I and my colleagues, keyworkers who worked when most others stayed at home, now have our relative poverty blamed on our supposed laziness by many of the very same people who didn't work when we did. Or people like Truss who wouldnt know what hard graft was if it smacked her in the face.

[T00ts]

Yes nothing like looking down on workers who are nothing more than half wits.

MP's earlier this year awarded themselves a £2200 pay rise......not bad eh?

Is that worse than vilifying others who earn more on merit?

[T00ts]

Nonsense. The pressure for action is coming from a workforce being shafted.

And responsibility for that lies with the wealthy elites in charge of everything.

You are engaged in victim blaming on a typically epic scale, seeking to attack the only organisations capable of leading the workforce in a fightback, just for doing what they are paid to do and defend their workers.

It is not the 1970s anymore, though given where inflation is going, we might be forgiven for thinking that.

There might be some truth to the idea that union leaders have agendas, but workers being played? As against being  slowly subjected to a devaluation of earnings potential . A situation that has been going on for years, now exasperated by inflation and general cost of living increases. And it is in fact a case of a long time coming, but as with all things there is that moment when enough is enough of being played.
The workers are constantly played by the government ,and extremely profitable employers .
What's laughable is the present calls for the maintenance of wage values, is across the board, not like the bad old days of  the mass production industries, appearing to be the problem. Many of your present day strikers ,are or have been committed Tories.

You are both looking at this from one side only rather than in the round. I would agree that the CEOs etc of large companies have got to the point of ridiculous pay and often not justified as far as we can see but their pay wouldn't pay the workforce what they want. All employers large and small are facing the same inflations as the workers, many will hit the wall. This call for strike action is not for anyone's benefit but the strength of the Unions and their hard left Chairmen. You are kidding yourselves if you  think this action will help anyone.

[cromwell]

Yes nothing like looking down on workers who are nothing more than half wits.

MP's earlier this year awarded themselves a £2200 pay rise......not bad eh?

[Good old]

The Unions have been waiting a long time to wreak havoc on the Government and even on Starmer. They have been planning and saving into the strike war chests too. Workers once again are being played.

There might be some truth to the idea that union leaders have agendas, but workers being played? As against being  slowly subjected to a devaluation of earnings potential . A situation that has been going on for years, now exasperated by inflation and general cost of living increases. And it is in fact a case of a long time coming, but as with all things there is that moment when enough is enough of being played.
The workers are constantly played by the government ,and extremely profitable employers .
What's laughable is the present calls for the maintenance of wage values, is across the board, not like the bad old days of  the mass production industries, appearing to be the problem. Many of your present day strikers ,are or have been committed Tories.

[srb7677]

The Unions have been waiting a long time to wreak havoc on the Government and even on Starmer. They have been planning and saving into the strike war chests too. Workers once again are being played.

Nonsense. The pressure for action is coming from a workforce being shafted.

And responsibility for that lies with the wealthy elites in charge of everything.

You are engaged in victim blaming on a typically epic scale, seeking to attack the only organisations capable of leading the workforce in a fightback, just for doing what they are paid to do and defend their workers.

It is not the 1970s anymore, though given where inflation is going, we might be forgiven for thinking that.

[T00ts]

So you don't think the fact that workers are being offered pitiful pay rises well below the rate of inflation - massive de facto pay cuts - has anything to do with it then or is that mere coincidence?

Why do those of you on the right always seek to portray those fighting for survival as motivated by greed and malice when the real greed is at the top?

My friend works for the DWP processing Universal Credit claims. With inflation already in double figures and now projected to hit 18%, the highest rate since 1976, she and her colleagues have been offered an utterly pitiful 2%, which is in real terms a massive pay cut. Morale is at rock bottom and there is much talk amongst staff of wanting to initiate mass walkouts. The unions are responding to and reflecting this demand rather than leading reluctant workers by the nose.

I also have several friends who work for the Royal Mail. It is the same there. The call for action is coming from ordinary frontline staff and the unions are simply responding to and reflecting that call.

In seeing the unions as malicious operators you are stuck in a 1970s mindset.

The Unions have been waiting a long time to wreak havoc on the Government and even on Starmer. They have been planning and saving into the strike war chests too. Workers once again are being played.

[srb7677]

Steve and friends sit at their supermarket till, demanding a better deal and ignoring the automatic checkouts that will soon replace them.

There are still many customers who refuse to use them which is why most stores cannot do what they'd like and switch to them entirely. The first store that does will lose a huge chunk of it's customer baseto rivals, and they know it. So they are engaged in a process of gradually weaning customers onto using them, a process that will take a fair few years.

For those of us in the know, it is also understood that self service checkouts are not really any money saving panacea. Yes they require less manpower per checkout. But people spend much more time getting through them because they tend to be far slower because they have to do it all themselves. This considerably reduces the man hours per custiomer transaction gain. Then there is the fact that such checkouts tend to be a shoplifters paradise and any savings on staffing tend to be cancelled out by increases in so-called "wastage", mainly due to greatly increased levels of theft. So the financial incentive to go down this route is far less than you might think.

And many seem to think that all we do is sit on checkouts and that if such roles disappeared we'd all be out of a job. But the fact is that there are many other roles in supermarkets and only a relatively small minority of staff man checkouts at any one time. I for example also work in the petrol station, collect trolleys, stack shelves, check dates, and undertake stock control tasks. I actually spend the majority of my working time not sitting on a checkout. Any need to cut hours due to some roles disappearing tend to be achieved initially just by reining back on the overtime, then letting natural wastage shrink the workforce. Staff turnover in retail is very high so people are constantly being taken on just to replace those leaving. In effect all they ever have to do to reduce staffing levels is stop hiring for a while and the size of the workforce shrinks quite quickly, with overtime cuts perhaps for a short time until it does so.