UKC

This posting elsewhere initiated this response.

Since we are now in a capitalist society, we are moving to a state where employees are just becoming economic units. You work for money by providing a skill / service. If your skill / service is not required, the best you can hope for is to learn a new skill that you can sell to a prospective employer.

Why do you think there is so much mental illness and depression about? Exactly because of the abovementioned. We are people with thoughts, feelings and emotions. We are not machines.

In reply to Blizzard:

Hasn't that always been the case?

In reply to Blizzard:


Indeed not, we are merely numbers.

In reply to Blizzard:
This has been the case for at least two hundred years, probably much longer.

In reply to Blizzard:

You are right, we are not machines. Machines are assets, employees are costs.

In reply to Blizzard:

And what has changed since the start of the Industrial Revolution?

Why would an employer want a resource, you, if you don't have the skills they want to pay for, that is what government and the civil service is for.

In reply to Only a hill: capitalism has become more selfish?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jan/03/comment.mentalhealth

In reply to Blizzard:

We are both people and a resource; They are not mutually exclusive.

In reply to subalpine:

Sadly that article was 2008. Have employers made any progress yet?

Do they understand mental health or are you pushed to the perihery of the organisation and get stuck doing agency short term work only?

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers: the relative worth of people is the issue..

In reply to Blizzard:

i can do "better" than that... i've heard staff in the frame for redundancy to curb costs being referred to as "project deliverables"
the project being to reduce the head count.

you can imagine how well that went down...

In reply to Blizzard:

Yeah, It was much better, back in the day when those nice mill owners used to pay people out of the goodness of their heart regardless of whether they offered any productive output. I'm sure we all, as we sit in our centrally heated offices, spouting shit on the Internet, hark back to the days of serfdom when people weren't so objectified by the wealth holders.

In reply to Blizzard: the hotel i have just left treat people as machines. the kitchen and restaurant staff generally finish about 2am and start again 7 or 8am. they are paid a salary rather than an hourly wage so their hourly rate, apart from the head chef, is below minimum. this is fairly normal in hotels round here and there seems to be nothing to stop employers treating peole like this. last week, one guy was so tired he overslept and was late for work. they sacked him

In reply to Blizzard: Listen mate, I was once a person. I then became a resource. I have now been regraded to a cost. And costs must be decreased ......

In reply to Tyler:

yeah, can you imagine what it's like being unemployed?

In reply to Only a hill: Rather longer. At least we're wage slaves these days rather than just slaves...

T.

In reply to subalpine:


When? Now or in the past?

In reply to Blizzard:

You suggest that we shouldn't treated (in the workplace) as economic units. By inference, you seem to be suggesting that you should be owed a job regardless of how useful you are to your employer. As someone who's self-employed and only able to make a living by whoring out my skills to many clients, I can't understand the attitude that employers should be retaining people with skills that they no longer have a use for just because it's 'nice'. It's ludicrous. Unfortunate if you're the one being made redundant, but that's life. You're not owed a living by anyone - go out and make your own luck.

Pre-dates 1086! The Great Survey (Domesday book) was all about listing the assets of the country so tht it could be taxed. It was a system that had been in place for many hundreds of years before that. i suppose the earliest documented example would be taxes and tithes raised during the Roman Occupation. Before THAT, Britain was a collection of tribes tithing to their various royal houses.....

Sx

In reply to Blizzard:

True,but at the end of it all were all machines at the behest of shareholders

In reply to Sarah G: can we get back to the present?

In reply to Blizzard:


I am flattered you quoted me. I couldn't agree more with your sentiments. The question is, what are we going to do about it? What can we do?

From what I can see, if you want a job, you have to go where the jobs are which may mean relocation and do what is required which may mean retraining. The days where you could walk out of school and get a job are long gone unless you are prepared to work in China for a cup of rice a day.

In reply to Blizzard:

Who are "employers"? Maybe they suffer the same issues as us, the same mental health issues, stresses etc.

I'd also say capitalism whilst not perfect is a bit better than the fuedualism it replaced.

Is there any more mental illness and depression about/ Or is it a case that we have actually moved on and understand what used to be called "taking to the melacholy"

In reply to Blizzard:

It's always been the same. Humans are units of production. Enlightened employers will however seek to keep the workers fit and well, partially out of altruism/ a social conscience & partly to maximise their productivity.

I'm amazed anyone would think otherwise

It's not just 'working for the man' that's the problem either, believe me, working for a family owned business is far more onerous!

In reply to heidi123: 'there seems to be nothing to stop employers treating peole like this'

I don't know where 'round here' is, but in the UK there's a little thing called the law - it is illegal to employ adults below the minimum wage. If you know it's happening, phone the police.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward: the lake district. is it a police matter? the police are pretty hopeless round here but if its them i should call then i will

In reply to Rob Exile Ward: yeah, uk law is coping well-lol

In reply to Blizzard:
In basic accounting terms (or at least in my experience of running a small company), production and project management staff are a 'cost of sale'; whilst administrative staff, directors and cleaners are all 'operational costs'.
It's not nice to admit, but I'm afraid businesses have to think of staff as resource - and just like the natural equivalent, some are more valuable, available or profitable than others.

In reply to heidi123: Well it is a criminal offence:

https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage/employers-and-the-minimum-wage

In reply to Rob Exile Ward: so is driving above 70mph..

In reply to subalpine: Yes but a hotel can't drive away... If employers are paying below the minium wage, shop them! There's a helpline number on that link I gave. I have to pay it, don't see why anyone else shouldn't.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward: make sure you shop some illegal immigrants while you're at it..

In reply to subalpine: IIRC it's illegal to employ those as well.

In reply to Blizzard:

People are a resoruce to be exploited....

Ridge is on my list for organ harvest and Darren Jackson is the human draught excluder.

In reply to Pursued by a bear: Tell that to IDS.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


Unfortunately, the law as we know is far from perfect. It is fairly well known that some restaurants pay less than the minimum wage and then top up with tips which go untaxed. I used to work for a large chain of pubs where the full timers regularly put in over 60 hours a week despite being paid for 40.

In reply to Fat Bumbly2: No, pissing in the wind isn't my style. You'll have to tell him yourself.

T.

In reply to EeeByGum: Don't know what to say really - there's been enough talk about minimum wage over the years, any employer not paying is building up a nice little liability if and when they get caught. Any employee who has been paid less is entitled to the difference, surely one of them - after they leave - has the gumption to claim it?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward: would you like to see a maximum wage?

In reply to Rob Exile Ward: i think this is the trouble- none of them do, so employers get away with it

In reply to davidbeynon:

Not necessarily. The best companies I have worked for see the employees as the assets (as it’s how well we do our jobs is what makes the company successful) and ‘machines’ are the depreciable assets, although I accept that probably isn’t necessarily the case in ‘production line’ jobs.
Best summed up as a resource is something to be exploited, hence the term Human Resources instead of Personnel Dept.

In reply to EeeByGum:

"It is fairly well known that some restaurants pay less than the minimum wage and then top up with tips which go untaxed"

That used to be legal, but is now in itself a criminal offence.

Neil

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Agree.

I wonder if they're also opted out of the European 48 hour thing? If they're not there is a requirement to keep an audit trail of hours worked, normally that's obvious for waged staff as you need it for payroll but for salaried staff it would be extra admin. If they're not doing that they're also breaking the law.

If they are opted out, there is the implication that the law is being broken in itself - paid 8xminimum wage per day, say, but opted out, over 5 days a week comes in at 40 hours, not 48, so why would you opt out...

Neil

In reply to Rob Exile Ward: surely the working hours are illegal too? 5 or 6 hrs off in a 24hr period?

In reply to subalpine:
Present? You have a present for me? Is it lego?

Sx

In reply to Blizzard:

Eh, by gum. I used to dream of being a resource when I were a lad. Ah,there were twenty of us worked down pit, paid pit owner 2p to let us work, used to get up half an hour before we went to bed ' n when we got up we had to lick road clean w' tongue.

In reply to Blizzard:


+1 We are valuable regardless of our ability to earn someone else money (by working for or buying stuff from..).
Also I think everyone can be a valuable member of society even if their contribution doesn't fit neatly into a paid job. Like everyone has something to contribute even if they can't work (eg health etc) or find work. Annoys me that we don't act like it a lot of the time
Hope things are OK with u!

In reply to another_alex:
Plus yes- of course it's better than feudalism but that doesn't mean it's the best thing we can come up with ever again so we should stop trying for improvements....

In reply to another_alex:

Socialism.

In reply to GudrunEnsslin:

Is a good concept

It goes tits up when we add





People

In reply to John Rushby:

It has been done successfully in the past even with added people and with a few wee tweaks here and there it can be again.

In reply to John Rushby:

Fixed that for you.

In reply to TryfAndy: the greedy far outweigh others, so why not just call them people?

In reply to Blizzard:

Work is a 2 way exploitation.

They pay you as little money and offer you as little respect as they can get away with, for the most output they can force out of you, whilst you do as little as possible for as much money as you can get.

The reason they don't find someone else, is that that they suspect that person might do even less, and the reason you don't go anywhere else is that you suspect that you'll have to do more.

Is mental illness linked to work ? Yes.

In reply to GudrunEnsslin:

Where has socialism been done successfully in the past?

I do think something has to change with our current system as it's increasingly unfair. According to a study by International Labour Organisation workers have progressively been getting a smaller share of the profits generated. Their findings suggest that productivity has risen at twice that rate of wages since 1999 in developed countries. basically more money is being taken as profit and less and less is going to the people actually making the profit, which is damaging to the economy as money is pooling at the top and strangling the rest of the economy.

Info here
http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_192902/lang--en/...

In reply to Neil Williams:


Indeed, but I would bet my bottom dollar that it still happens, and in a cash rich business like a restaurant, it is difficult to prove.

To put the boot on the other foot, I don't believe tips are taxed which given that they can sometimes double a waiter's income makes it a rather grey area.

My boss has renamed customers RGU = Revenue Generating Units

In reply to EeeByGum:

Tips are taxable. The IR will take a view on how much they would expect someone to earn from tips and then tax them accordingly, if they decide to investigate someone who has not declared any.

In reply to Dave B:


You will be telling me that Customs and Excise deport illegal workers next!

In reply to doz generale:

It hasn't. Socialism - which will be a classless, stateless, moneyless and global society has never existed. So-called socialist societies have been, in fact, state-capitalist societies.

This is the only way in which capitalism can function. It's an economic system based on the accumulation of capital. And it can only go one way - the concentration of capital in fewer and fewer hands. Which is why the rich get richer and the poor - in relative terms - get poorer.