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[localzuk]

Things that we nowadays take for granted, such as holidays, pensions, paid sick pay etc are not "rights", they were hard fought for by organised labour, and you can see the attrition rate at which they are now being lost, now that unions are not so powerful. Great news if you own or run a big firm, not so great if, like most of us, we are going to spend our lives working within one.

 

Huh? I thought holidays, and sick pay were all legally protected rights? (as well as things like maternity leave and now paternity leave).

[MkII]

The unions are another love them or hate them thing in my experience.

 

The do a valuable job ensuring that employers do not break the rules or take advantage, but they are over the top sometimes and rely on the threat of a strike to force the hand of the employer.

 

 

I think manglement pulled a fast one there. It is in LA constitutions that the way we deal with disputes is for people to strike.

 

Now people hate to strike for many reasons. Especially in caring professions like ours.

[srochford]

I have read alot about the Thatcher years but i was too young or not born at the time.

Thatcher is like marmite "Love it or hate it?" ? some of what she did was good some was bad.

 

This government has no balls against Europe or the USA. The UK was due to have money back from Europe what the UK invested in Europe, this was due to Thatcher. Suddenly Europe and so called poorer counties say we should not have it back.

 

does anyone know if the UK got that back or did they leave it in the pot for others to use and abuse.

 

I don't know which particular bit of money you're referring to so I can't answer directly. What I do know is that the UK gets a lot of money from the EU - the European Social Fund is one such source of money. Check out http://www.esf.gov.uk to see some of the funds that come to the UK.

[srochford]

By contrast I grew up in the 70s. I saw the electric getting switched off at 6pm at night, I saw mass strikes and a hell of a lot of poverty. Things are relitive. Things needed fixing, and yes, some of the solutions were wrong, but by the end of the 80's the UK was in a hell of a better position that it was then.

 

It might be worth pointing out that the massive strikes which led to the three day week and the regularly scheduled power cuts took place under a Conservative government (Ted Heath's)

 

By the end of the 80s, some people were definitely in a better position and more people owned houses - getting them ready for the massive house price crash at the start of the 90s which lead to house reposessions on an unprecedented scale. The millions of unemployed probably didn't think they were in a better position.

[FN-GM]

although i pay tax i haven’t yet got the right to vote

[witch]

thought better of it!

[SpuffMonkey]

Things that we nowadays take for granted, such as holidays, pensions, paid sick pay etc are not "rights", they were hard fought for by organised labour, and you can see the attrition rate at which they are now being lost, now that unions are not so powerful. Great news if you own or run a big firm, not so great if, like most of us, we are going to spend our lives working within one.

 

Huh? I thought holidays, and sick pay were all legally protected rights? (as well as things like maternity leave and now paternity leave).

 

It didn't "just happen" due to employer philanthropy - there was a lot of conflict that resulted in these "rights". And if you're complacent about them - look how quickly decent pension schemes have disappeared over the last 10 years, and at the statistics for how many people do not take all of their holiday entitlements and work many many hours of unpaid overtime - some of this is due to some misplaced idea that you should put in more hours than you are paid for (to see how silly this is - ask your garage or plumber to do a couple of unpaid hours work for you...), but a lot is down to fear of what will happen if you don't kowtow...

[Dos_Box]

By the end of the 80s, some people were definitely in a better position and more people owned houses - getting them ready for the massive house price crash at the start of the 90s which lead to house reposessions on an unprecedented scale. The millions of unemployed probably didn't think they were in a better position.

 

 

I have to say that that is quite cynical. Yes there was a price crash, there always is. Houses are a long term investment and always have been. And would those millions of unemployed be the same ones that exist today, although they are classed as being on incapcity benefit?

[srochford]

It wasn't intended to be cynical but houses used not to be bought as an "investment" - they used to be bought as homes! That changed on a masive scale during the 1980s with disastrous consequences for many.

 

There are almost a million fewer people on incapacity benefit than there were 10 years ago and something like 2 million people more in paid employment (stats from the report prepared by city banker David Freud earlier this year)

 

Of course, there are people claiming benefit who should or could be working but are basically too lazy to do it and there are some people working in jobs which barely pay enough to live but the general trend is putting more people in work and fewer people on benefit.

 

The office for national statistics produces all the official stats - you can see there details of how many people are employed/unemployed and (perhaps more useful) how many are economically active and inactive and how it's changed over the years. One of the fascinating stats is about the growth of economically inactive people over the past few decades; huge numbers of these are simply "old" people who don't just drop dead at 65 any longer :-)

 

Social Trends (available from the ONS website - http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=5748&More=N) provides some really useful data sets if you want "real" data for students to work with in spreadsheets or databases.

[localzuk]

Things that we nowadays take for granted, such as holidays, pensions, paid sick pay etc are not "rights", they were hard fought for by organised labour, and you can see the attrition rate at which they are now being lost, now that unions are not so powerful. Great news if you own or run a big firm, not so great if, like most of us, we are going to spend our lives working within one.

 

Huh? I thought holidays, and sick pay were all legally protected rights? (as well as things like maternity leave and now paternity leave).

 

It didn't "just happen" due to employer philanthropy - there was a lot of conflict that resulted in these "rights". And if you're complacent about them - look how quickly decent pension schemes have disappeared over the last 10 years, and at the statistics for how many people do not take all of their holiday entitlements and work many many hours of unpaid overtime - some of this is due to some misplaced idea that you should put in more hours than you are paid for (to see how silly this is - ask your garage or plumber to do a couple of unpaid hours work for you...), but a lot is down to fear of what will happen if you don't kowtow...

 

I know they didn't just happen - the point was that you said they were being lost. I can't see any being lost, and you haven't provided any evidence that they are being lost...

[beeswax]

although i pay tax i haven’t yet got the right to vote

 

No taxation without representation. Let's have a tea party!

 

Want Labour out? Vote here.

[torledo]

It wasn't intended to be cynical but houses used not to be bought as an "investment" - they used to be bought as homes! That changed on a masive scale during the 1980s with disastrous consequences for many.

 

There are almost a million fewer people on incapacity benefit than there were 10 years ago and something like 2 million people more in paid employment (stats from the report prepared by city banker David Freud earlier this year)

 

Of course, there are people claiming benefit who should or could be working but are basically too lazy to do it and there are some people working in jobs which barely pay enough to live but the general trend is putting more people in work and fewer people on benefit.

 

The office for national statistics produces all the official stats - you can see there details of how many people are employed/unemployed and (perhaps more useful) how many are economically active and inactive and how it's changed over the years. One of the fascinating stats is about the growth of economically inactive people over the past few decades; huge numbers of these are simply "old" people who don't just drop dead at 65 any longer :-)

 

Social Trends (available from the ONS website - http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=5748&More=N) provides some really useful data sets if you want "real" data for students to work with in spreadsheets or databases.

 

The country is in a far worse situation now than it has been in the last 15 years. The 10 years of blair and brown have been a backward step.

 

Record numbers on incapacity benefit - most of them can do some sort of job, a large number are merely work shy. BTW they've traditionally used jobseekers allowance to prove their getting people off benefits claim.

JSA isn't the problem that's why they use the figures. It's incapacity and income support that are the problem areas.

 

A tax credits and benefits system that encourages women to become single mothers because of the payments they receive. A single mother with a child under the age of 11 will receive over £400 a week!! made up mostly of tax credits. The MILLIONS on incapacity benefit get hundreds of pounds a month for doing nothing, all the while undertaking cash in hand jobs.

 

A tax credit system that is too convuluted, and has been administered miserably.

 

A benefit and taxation system that forces both couples to work and will pay for childcarers to look after other peoples children full-time.

It's bad enough that the baby boomers are more than happy to let strangers look after their elderly parents, the under 40's are now doing the same with their children.

 

All the while not acknowledging the role of stay at home mothers and grandparents in the benefits/tax system.

 

And a benefits system that penalises the traditional working family i.e one partner works, the other stays at home to bring up the children.

 

Record house prices 5 to 8 times average salary. Completely unaffordable for most people on these forums.

 

This government helped create the buy-to-let timebomb partly because

of immigration and therefore creating pent up demand. People who you wouldn't lend £5 to becuase there's a good chance they couldn't pay you back 'owning' multiple properties.

 

Record consumer debt. Large numbers making regular mortgage payments on their credit cards.

 

poor levels of illiteracy and numeracy despite record levels of public spending.

 

PPI.

 

On a personal level there are three things I noticed more than anything else with a short period of labour gaining power;

 

Started noticing more and more people of somali origin (this was early on).

Which became a common sight and indicative of a new period of immigration (asylum and economic migration). I'm a second generation immigrant btw.

 

House Prices beginning to take off. Then rocket

 

Ugly, expensive 'building projects' everywhere you look. Admittedly that has more to do with the council planners. But every bit of land is now an opportunity for 'regeneration' in this country. Which basically means building flats for young professionals who don't even know how to change a light bulb and so are blown away by the neutral colors, modern interiors and low maintenace of city centre apartments.

 

Rip-off britain where we've completely lost touch of best value. Just look at the middle-classes driving up house prices to atleast 25% overvalued levels.

 

BTW Brown inherited a strong economy and economic stability from ken clarke, his social investment agenda in the nhs and education hasn't worked (a lot of people can't get a nhs dentist and I have to wait DAYS to see a doctor who spends more time typing into his computer than talking to me when I visit him - plus the insane amount of money down the toilet NHS IT project anyone ?) And the acadmies project has been a joke.

 

As for the unemployment figures all that means is more people in even more meaningless work - being wage slaves and giving over a quarter of their salary to a government that has made sure those people can't afford a house in the areas they grew up in.

 

Plus the smoking ban and the nanny state.

 

rant over.

[ReverentCreature]

Gordon Brown said he would freeze the tax on fuel for a year to help us through the credit crunch. Guess what its going up by 2p. But its not public knowlege.

[Dos_Box]

Wow!! Way to resurrect a thread!!

Now where's that vampire smiley?