Salaries

[seeker123]

Why are people badly paid?

[incitatus]

Because employers are more powerful than employees.

[vittoria]

I think there are historic reasons as well. I remember studying the New Poor Law. One of the effects was that people had to be prepared to work for the lowest wages employers deigned to pay them, if they dared to make demands they could be sacked, end up as "undeserving, feckless poor", faced with the loss of "outdoor relief" and the provision of "indoor relief" (the workhouse). So nobody dared. I think it is a mentality that persists to this day: it suits employers to think they can play God and employees have no rights and have to be grateful for what's thrown at them...

[MistyLady]

Well some people must be earning big money. In August 2001 the average wage was �17,880 p.a. This might be the fact for London wages but I know being from a rural area people are prepared to work very hard for the minimum wage and certainly would not be pulling in that money! I think its a case of some income is better than none. In addition if these low earners took the time to review their position if they claimed off the state they would be better off.

[incitatus]

Apparently I'm not allowed to swear, so my views on employers attitudes may have to go unrecorded. The relationship between employers and employed is a classic example of a dynamic equiibrium. It swings between extremes. The unions had the upper hand in the 70s; the bosses have it now.

[allen ives]

Blimey, Inky, didn't know you were a fellow leftie. Seeker: just in case you haven't got the message yet, the answer is Capitalism, the essential basis of which is that you sell things for more than it costs you to make them. An easy way of maintaining that differential is to pay c**p wages. And all globalization means is that now you can pay even c***per wages to some poor s*d in Asia. So even nice guys like Dyson the vacuum man has had to get out of the UK and go to Asia in order to be able to compete. Join a trade union, Seeker, my lad.

[indobrit]

As the previous contributors have put it each in his/her distinct way, the basic reason is the requirement to increase capital. This is achieved by maximising income and minimising expenditure, thereby maximising net profit. However, having lived in Thrird World countries, I have seen a different force at work: sheer cussedness, i.e. "I pay you little or nothing I **can** pay you little or nothing, not because I particularly need to maximise capital." The human race is not known for kindness between its members.

[incitatus]

Leftie? I'm possibly the last remaining political Utilitarian.
Still disappointed that New Labour WEREN'T old Labour in disguise!
All this goes back to the bizarre and perverse belief of a certain female PM (Won't say her name in case she appears in a flash of flame with a stench of brimstone) that market forces were somehow benevolent. A quick leaf through Trollope, Dickens and Mayhew, not to mention Engels, would have educated her, but there was scant chance of these worthies replacing Ein Rand and Biggles on her bedside table. You know, next to the inverted crucifix, broomstick and flying ointment.