Sunday\’s Opinium/Observer poll asked people if they would be prepared to pay slightly more for goods and services if they knew that the companies they bought from paid their staff the living wage. A total of 47% of respondents said that they would probably or definitely be prepared to pay more, against 37% who said that they would probably or definitely not be prepared to, while 16% said they did not know.
That\’s interesting. Looks like it could be a viable business move for some to increase the wages for the PR glow and extra custom.
Great if it is: although I have my doubts. What people say and what people do can have fairly large gaps between them at times. You know, revealed preferences and all that.
However:
The campaign to pay a \”living wage\” to all public sector workers gained momentum as two more government departments indicated that they hoped to introduce it.
We don\’t actually have the option to vary our payments to our Lords and Masters, do we, fuckwits.
You want to campaign, through consumer pressure, for higher wages, you go right ahead. You want to extort more from the taxpayers then you can bugger off.
Paying slightly more? Great, that will please those on benefits and pensioners. Or those on higher than living wage per hour (so no extra pay) but plenty of bills already.
Now if the people questioned were asked if they also didn’t mind paying more in taxes so the pensioners and those on benefit would be able to afford the higher prices….. may be a slightly different answer.
Simple solution for companies if switching to living wage levels of pay per hour – is to use more part timers and switch existing staff to lower hours. So no increase in wage bill.
Like happened when minimum wage came in.
How many of those prepared to pay extra are on minimum wage. And who will be hardest hit by the price increases, erm, those on minimum wage?
Yeah, lets help the low paid by increasing their tax bill and their cost of living.
Fine, put a big fucking sticker on it saying “we pay our staff the living wage”, I’m proud of you, I’ll look at it when in Asda and feel a nice warm sensation in my tummy.
Then I’ll buy the item next to it that’s 40% cheaper and feel even better,
An opinion poll revealed today, 97.2% of those consulted were in favour of Mom & apple pie.
In other news: Shock revelation! Kittens are cute.
It’s always the public sector leading the way isn’t it? And at what cost to the taxpayer? Services are being cut and jobs lost in the public sector but it’s somehow acceptable for one group of workers (who we have no shortage of) to get a 20% increase in wages for no other reason that they are not paid very much.
I’m assuming that the living wage is for the over 21’s; if so it creates a perverse incentive to hire 18-20 year olds to keep wage costs down since you only have to pay them £4.98 an hour. If it’s for everyone of working age, i.e. 16+, then you’ve just screwed the young as no one will hire them when they can bring someone in more experienced at the same cost.
Another stat. 90% of shoppers don’t care who or what or how their purchases are made. So long as its at the price they can afford that’s all they care about.
I think Pretturmonjay already do this, or at least claim to.
Saw that Frank Field in Pret in Westminster a few weeks ago, so it must be a right hon [sic] place to be. He kept the receipt for his sandwich and coffee.
There’s a lot of people on doing crap work for crap wages …
What I’d like to see is wages in the public sector fall until they can’t attract sufficient people to fill the vacancies, then raise them by a penny. Clear the market and all that.