£5.80 an hour (in London)

[Forest]

okay a question from the employers side, how much would you pay someone to serve coffee and drink?

Employers should be forced to pay £7

they were saying things like that before the min wage and now its come in people want it higher and higher

think you'd rather have a comunist country (think thats how u spell it)

[Leody]

okay a question from the employers side, how much would you pay someone to serve coffee and drink?

Employers should be forced to pay £7

Then to cover the additional wages they are forced to pay, the price of coffee goes up... Every other employer that has primarily minimum wage employees is forced to do the same... so enough prices have gone up just about everywhere and the person working for minimum wage is right back to where he started. Sure his wallet has more money in it on payday, but it is spent faster now.

And let's not forget that all those other people who are on lower wages will say... "well Steve got a raise from 5.80 to 7.00... I want an extra 1.20 too!

Forced minimum wages are not going to solve the problem. That's just the tip of the iceberg. If it were that easy it would have worked decades ago when minimum wages were instituted.

Not saying I have the answer, but that's not going to do anything but make it harder for business owners to afford to keep their doors open.

[UFGN]

Employers who pay minimum wage dont respect their staff, they are paying them the bare minimum they can legally get away with

While those staff struggle to pay bills, the employers most likely have a very comfortable lifestyle, especially with a chain/franchise like Cafe Nero

Exactly and its about time people stopped finding excuses for these slave owners. A common one I hear is that businesses will close and jobs will be lost if the NMW were increased. Well f**k them. I seriously doubt Cafe Nero or the like would go out of business overnight. They just might earn a bit less for there shareholders, well excuse me while I dont give a toss.

[UFGN]

okay a question from the employers side, how much would you pay someone to serve coffee and drink?

Employers should be forced to pay £7

Then to cover the additional wages they are forced to pay, the price of coffee goes up... Every other employer that has primarily minimum wage employees is forced to do the same... so enough prices have gone up just about everywhere and the person working for minimum wage is right back to where he started. Sure his wallet has more money in it on payday, but it is spent faster now.

A large NMW increase would affect inflation but not to that extent. The UK NMW was introduced in 1999 and we didnt have big inflation then. Previously there were a lot of people earning much less.

[Leody]

Employers who pay minimum wage dont respect their staff, they are paying them the bare minimum they can legally get away with

While those staff struggle to pay bills, the employers most likely have a very comfortable lifestyle, especially with a chain/franchise like Cafe Nero

Goose, that is an ill-informed assumption perpetuated by the political class in order to provoke class-based animosity. (that's a whole different debate...)

As a member of a family that owns a small business I can assure you we are no better off than anybody else. And with the recent law being passed forcing us to now provide health insurance for all of our employees I am positive one of two things will happen. We're going to have to increase revenues by 20% next year while not increasing any other expense... which is impossible since we would then have a higher purchasing expense to stock the shelves, so we're going to have to grow the business by about 33% or more. Or we're going to be closing our doors

We own a small gas station and convenience store and have for about 20 years. Last year I our total revenues were right around $1m. Between my family and the daily manager we sold a 49% stake to about 3 years ago we only took $50,000 out of the business last year. $45,000 for her salary and $5,000 to fix our drive-way. The rest went to cover business expenses. Mortgage on the property, electricity, purchasing, wages etc... and now we're facing an additional $50,000+ in expenses to provide health insurance for all of our employees. Our employees are about 80% high school kids who when you factor in their wages (even if minimum) and heath insurance coverage it would be cheaper to fire them all and just run the store in the family. We currently employ 15 people...

There have been plenty of years where the business lost money...

Thank God everybody in my family has other jobs for income, because that's not making us anything at all.

And I have two friends that own franchises for a well known fast food chain here in the States and I know first hand they face many of the same problems, even with a well known brand that benefits from national advertising.

[Leody]

okay a question from the employers side, how much would you pay someone to serve coffee and drink?

Employers should be forced to pay £7

Then to cover the additional wages they are forced to pay, the price of coffee goes up... Every other employer that has primarily minimum wage employees is forced to do the same... so enough prices have gone up just about everywhere and the person working for minimum wage is right back to where he started. Sure his wallet has more money in it on payday, but it is spent faster now.

A large NMW increase would affect inflation but not to that extent. The UK NMW was introduced in 1999 and we didnt have big inflation then. Previously there were a lot of people earning much less.

It doesn't happen overnight... it may take years to trickle all the way down, but it will.

People working in a coffee shop are never going to get ahead working there. Its unskilled labor... there will always be somebody willing to work for less because they're not making anything to begin with and with a job like that anybody can do it.

That's what I mean when I say their minimum wage is just the tip of the iceberg.

Anyhow, I'm out... bachelor party for a friend tonight.

[UFGN]

Employers who pay minimum wage dont respect their staff, they are paying them the bare minimum they can legally get away with

While those staff struggle to pay bills, the employers most likely have a very comfortable lifestyle, especially with a chain/franchise like Cafe Nero

Goose, that is an ill-informed assumption perpetuated by the political class in order to provoke class-based animosity. (that's a whole different debate...)

As a member of a family that owns a small business I can assure you we are no better off than anybody else. And with the recent law being passed forcing us to now provide health insurance for all of our employees I am positive one of two things will happen. We're going to have to increase revenues by 20% next year while not increasing any other expense... which is impossible since we would then have a higher purchasing expense to stock the shelves, so we're going to have to grow the business by about 33% or more. Or we're going to be closing our doors

We own a small gas station and convenience store and have for about 20 years. Last year I our total revenues were right around $1m. Between my family and the daily manager we sold a 49% stake to about 3 years ago we only took $50,000 out of the business last year. $45,000 for her salary and $5,000 to fix our drive-way. The rest went to cover business expenses. Mortgage on the property, electricity, purchasing, wages etc... and now we're facing an additional $50,000+ in expenses to provide health insurance for all of our employees. Our employees are about 80% high school kids who when you factor in their wages (even if minimum) and heath insurance coverage it would be cheaper to fire them all and just run the store in the family. We currently employ 15 people...

There have been plenty of years where the business lost money...

Thank God everybody in my family has other jobs for income, because that's not making us anything at all.

And I have two friends that own franchises for a well known fast food chain here in the States and I know first hand they face many of the same problems, even with a well known brand that benefits from national advertising.

Sorry to take a bit of an attitude on this but im sick of hearing excuses for paying people poverty wages. Inflation would be affected but not that much, and to address your situation, it is absolutely right that you should have to pay for healthcare. Those who recieve healthcare support through the NHS in this country, and through the new system in yours, are simply being provided with what they should rightfully have in a developed country. Your business will continue to function despite your difficulties and your employees will have better terms and conditions. That is a good thing.

[Goose]

Leody, businesses lose money, but I was talking about the Cafe Nero franchise the guy works for, not a small business, its like saying McDonalds or KFC cannot afford to pay their staff £1-£2 more per hour.

Anyway, a $45,000 salary is still quite generous and a lot more than a person earning minimum wage could earn, probably more than double.

[Galls]

. They took so long over my JSA application that I went something like 30 days without a penny. Luckily I wasnt out of it for long.

Last July my hubby was made redundant, he was usually paid weekly and hadn't been paid for 3 weeks as it was, he got not redundancy pay and had to apply to the govt for his wages he hadn't got, including the fact that he was given about 30 mins notice of redundancy. I was on unpaid maternity leave so I wasn't receiving any money either. My hubby received nowt for about 5 weeks, so we were without wages for about 8 weeks. We lived off Child benefit and tax credit (which I think was 140 quid) with a 9mth old baby while those in their ivory towers didn't give a toss that we'd both poured taxes into the country for however many years and were now penniless thorugh no fault of our own.
Thank god for parents.
Luckily we'd had the foresight to move our money around abit to cover the fact I would be 3 months unpaid before going back to work so we had a bit of money squirreled away as well. But it was bloody hard and I have every sympathy for people who have to live like that long term.

[UFGN]

Stories like that are too common. In my case I complained to a very high level (The Permanent Secetary of the DWP, no less) and basically got told to f**k off and die quietly. They just dont believe you when you tell them you have no money at all. They dont compute that that could be possible.

[SE13]

They don't! The amount of time I was waiting for money when I lost my job defies belief. The fucktards at DWP can't compute that in the meantime rent needs paying, 5 kids and 2 adults need to eat, I need to heat the house and have running hot water and that I also need to cook the food I can't actually buy because I have no money.

Thankfully my sisters bailed us out with food hampers. My complaint won't even be entertained, and I'm still waiting for the appeal against their decision to tell me that I am suitable for any job, even though DVLA class me as disabled and took my driving licence away.

Perhaps I should drink a few pints of water when I have the appeal, then wet myself in front of them, and claim I have incontinence......

Flip side of that is the amount of people, even just locally, who have never done a stroke of work in their lives, yet have everything dished up on a gold plate. Or the asylum seekers around the corner that had absolutely everything, including a brand new car given to them, not to mention her breast job and complete teeth overhaul done on the NHS.

*Sighs*

[UFGN]

Amen, brother

[gooner90]

5.80 an hour for serving coffee...its not exactly the hardest of jobs is it, if the wages went up at these places then everyone would be applying as serving coffee etc is the same as working as mcdonalds or burger king etc, another thing is these people dont have to take the job or carry on there so it must be the same everywhere and with a huge population in london they're probably happy to have a job at the moment

[Leody]

UFGN

You missed the point I was making with my story about my family's business.

If it costs that much to employ a person, it gets to a point where we can't even afford to hire them and then we just cut people. Providing health insurance to every person that works at our store, even part time costs a minimum $5,000 a year even if they only work 8 hours a week..

So with our current model of about 12 young people working part time we would be facing about $60,000 a year to provide their insurance. Now does it make sense to keep this model anymore? We can and probably will fire 10 of them and find 2 that will work 40 hours a week each. That will save us $50,000 a year in expenses.

So is the situation better with 10 kids making enough to go out and fill their car, get dinner with friend, save for college, etc or for them to have nothing at all because we cannot afford to employ them? Because that's exactly the situation that has been created.

We can't magically pull money out of the sky to pay people more...

And Goose, I know people that own large chains like McDonalds or what have you are in the same boat. They are each independent location. Each and every location has to make a profit on their own. And they have to charge a set price and pay a set price for their product. If they don't sell a high volume at that location they don't make anything because the margins are very thin. I have a friend from high school that is a franchisee and a fraternity brother that is also.

[UFGN]

Leody 2 or 3 full time jobs instead of X number of part time is fine by me. Its full time jobs that really bring money in, not part time ones. Healthcare reform in the US appears to me to be so absoltuely necessary that a few students not having (no offence) crappy part time jobs that barely pay for a tank of petrol is not such a major issue. Now if some poverty mongers do go out of business over the heathcare reforms then frankly, good. It has been the case for far too long that poverty wages are justified by suggesting that many jobs will be lost if employers cant get their own way.