Strontium Dog wrote:Perhaps you'd prefer that they didn't bother, like the last, 13 year, Labour government?

Seriously, of all the stupid, synthetic objections.

Perhaps you'd care to point to examples of the wholesale abuses of ZHC under the last government. Take your time, we're a patient lot.

Strontium Dog wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

Strontium Dog wrote:

mrjonno wrote:With ZHC it's very simple , if you want to be a temp without guaranteed work that is fine just make it illegal for any company to prevent you from working for someone else.

The benefits system also needs to reform itself as it takes far too long to processs change

I find myself in a rare moment of complete agreement with a mrjonno post. As it happens, the government is already taking steps to ban exclusivity clauses.

Taking steps? After 90% of a five year term? Sounds like the government is deeply committed to this!

Perhaps you'd prefer that they didn't bother, like the last, 13 year, Labour government?

Seriously, of all the stupid, synthetic objections.

Personally, I would have preferred the Coalition had lived up to its promises on corporate tax and tax-dodging rather than looking at ways to undermine and downgrade the rights of employees and relaxing regulation in the labour market.

chairman bill wrote:Perhaps you'd care to point to examples of the wholesale abuses of ZHC under the last government. Take your time, we're a patient lot.

The increase in use of zero hours contracts started in 2004. Like a great many other things, it appears to be one of those trends that only became a problem worthy of government attention on May 11th 2010.

THWOTH wrote:Personally, I would have preferred the Coalition had lived up to its promises on corporate tax and tax-dodging rather than looking at ways to undermine and downgrade the rights of employees and relaxing regulation in the labour market.

Er, banning use of exclusivity clauses strengthens employee rights.

And happily, government has found the time to close so many of those tax loopholes that proliferated under Labour too.

Strontium Dog wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

Strontium Dog wrote:

mrjonno wrote:With ZHC it's very simple , if you want to be a temp without guaranteed work that is fine just make it illegal for any company to prevent you from working for someone else.

The benefits system also needs to reform itself as it takes far too long to processs change

I find myself in a rare moment of complete agreement with a mrjonno post. As it happens, the government is already taking steps to ban exclusivity clauses.

Taking steps? After 90% of a five year term? Sounds like the government is deeply committed to this!

Perhaps you'd prefer that they didn't bother, like the last, 13 year, Labour government?

Seriously, of all the stupid, synthetic objections.

Even if Labour were similarly negligent, that doesn't let the coalition off the hook for failing to deal with it since 2010. I'm not interested in tribalism - I'm not British and don't have a dog in this fight. If Labour did nothing about it ZHC exclusivity clauses in 13 years, then that's shitty lawmaking, too. By your own argument, spending years in government and failing to do something about this issue is not a good thing. You write like the coalition has actually done something about it? Have they? Or is it just something that they've suddenly put on the agenda as a possible future thing, conveniently close to an election?

Strontium Dog wrote:

chairman bill wrote:Perhaps you'd care to point to examples of the wholesale abuses of ZHC under the last government. Take your time, we're a patient lot.

The increase in use of zero hours contracts started in 2004. Like a great many other things, it appears to be one of those trends that only became a problem worthy of government attention on May 11th 2010.

Well the ONS says that in 2006 there were 134,000 ZHCs, whereas we're now looking at over 300,000 in social care alone (ask Norman Lamb - they're his figures), with the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) estimating just over 1 million ZHC workers.

Strontium Dog wrote:

THWOTH wrote:Personally, I would have preferred the Coalition had lived up to its promises on corporate tax and tax-dodging rather than looking at ways to undermine and downgrade the rights of employees and relaxing regulation in the labour market.

Er, banning use of exclusivity clauses strengthens employee rights.

And introducing fees for employment tribunals, which has seen a 79% drop in cases from 45710 Sep-Dec 2012 to 9801 in Sep-Dec 2013, has stopped many people from seeking, and get justice.

Strontium Dog wrote:And happily, government has found the time to close so many of those tax loopholes that proliferated under Labour too.

How many, and where?

The effectiveness of those suppose reforms is somewhat disputed, but what isn't disputed is that HMRC are currently investigating two-thirds of the UK's largest corporations, including multinationals, and many over multiple issues.

What also isn't disputed is that the Chancellor has cut the main rate of corporation tax five times over his tern from 28% to 20% and which is estimated to cost about £7.8 billion a year by 2016/17. In his first budget Osborne made much of the fact that a year-on-year cut in the main corporation tax rate would be paid for by reciprocal cuts in capital allowances, which as you know are measures that allow firms to offset capital costs against their profits, and he duly reduced Annual Investment Allowance from £100,000 to £25,000. However, in his 2012 budget the Chancellor responded to heavy lobbying by increasing that allowance to £250,000 from 1 January 2013, and now that rate has been doubled, to £500,000, until at least December 2015.

After a review of the Controlled Foreign Company rules the Coalition has opted to apply a 5.75% rate on multinationals stockpiling cash in non-trading entities abroad - a very low rate, and one a fair bit lower the much trailed and hinted at 8% rate during the review. Conservative estimates put the cost the exchequer of this at £840m year-on-year compared to the previous system. The government have done nothing address tax-free profits on share dividends either. These are just examples, but I think it gives a fair impression of where the Coalition's economic interests lie.

The government is engineering a hole in the nation's finances and presiding over a rising corporate tax gap (c.£4.1bn from total receipts of c.£42bn for 2011, HMRC) at the same time as proudly boasting that the UK is fast becoming an environment with the lowest corporate tax regime of any G8 country.

Institute of Fiscal Studies, 2013 wrote:Corporate tax revenues fell sharply in the recession. Receipts were lower in 2011-12 than previously expected and they are not forecast to rise again until 2016-17. This is the result of a combination of discretionary cuts to the main tax rate and weak expected growth in taxable profits. By 2017-18, revenues are forecast to be at their lowest level as a share of national income and total receipts since 1984-85.

There has been renewed attention on corporate tax avoidance. The UK attempts to tax profits that are created in the UK. These can be hard to measure and firms have an incentive to manipulate ‘UK profit’ to avoid tax. How much is lost to corporate tax avoidance is not known.

Not only that but Mr Cameron pledged (we don't say 'promised' any more do we?) in this autumn's party conference speech to raise the threshold on the 40p income tax rate to £50,000 as well as raising the income tax threshold itself to £15,000 iff he wins power at the next election - which the IFS estimate will cost the UK a further £7.5bn a year.

I don't think banning exclusivity clauses in ZHC is going to achieve very much in the way of an overall benefit to Britain in the face of this kind of thing - other than perhaps encouraging more employers to further erode the balance of employment rights by downgrading the status of many positions from 'employee' to 'worker'.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-29433919
http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05945.pdf
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hmrc ... g-business
http://www.ifs.org.uk/budgets/gb2013/GB2013_Ch10.pdf

OlivierK wrote:

Strontium Dog wrote:

OlivierK wrote:

Strontium Dog wrote:

I find myself in a rare moment of complete agreement with a mrjonno post. As it happens, the government is already taking steps to ban exclusivity clauses.

Taking steps? After 90% of a five year term? Sounds like the government is deeply committed to this!

Perhaps you'd prefer that they didn't bother, like the last, 13 year, Labour government?

Seriously, of all the stupid, synthetic objections.

Even if Labour were similarly negligent, that doesn't let the coalition off the hook for failing to deal with it since 2010. I'm not interested in tribalism - I'm not British and don't have a dog in this fight. If Labour did nothing about it ZHC exclusivity clauses in 13 years, then that's shitty lawmaking, too. By your own argument, spending years in government and failing to do something about this issue is not a good thing. You write like the coalition has actually done something about it? Have they? Or is it just something that they've suddenly put on the agenda as a possible future thing, conveniently close to an election?

They held a consultation which closed last month and is yet to report.

The tories fuck Britain and then claim it is everyone else's fault. Just before the by-election and before the general election. Who do they think they are kidding?

"Dont vote for that other guy. It may effect the value of your house. Just saying..."

Tossers!

Don't mind me, I'm just waiting for SD to post about the damning report on the ToryDem tuition fees policy.

chairman bill wrote:Don't mind me, I'm just waiting for SD to post about the damning report on the ToryDem tuition fees policy.

They do have one?

I thought it was a free for all.

The great political geniuses in Britain should be thinking about a government of national unity or a grand coalition.

William Hill and PaddyPower still have Labour over the Tories, for the moment. Pretty crap odd on both though.

Scot Dutchy wrote:The great political geniuses in Britain should be thinking about a government of national unity or a grand coalition.

Doesn't that need a people are nationally united, there are significant % of the British population I wouldn't want to share a room with never mind a government

mrjonno wrote:

Scot Dutchy wrote:The great political geniuses in Britain should be thinking about a government of national unity or a grand coalition.

Doesn't that need a people are nationally united, there are significant % of the British population I wouldn't want to share a room with never mind a government

Quite so. Of course the same % of the population probably have a similar negative opinion of you, so it goes not only 'both ways', but in multiple directions, depending on various issues. The whole economic issues axis of opinions not being the same as the social issues axis thing.

guardian.com wrote: Record numbers of working families in poverty due to low-paid jobs

Insecure, low-paid jobs are leaving record numbers of working families in poverty, with two-thirds of people who found work in the past year taking jobs for less than the living wage, according to the latest annual report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The research shows that over the last decade, increasing numbers of pensioners have become comfortable, but at the same time incomes among the worst-off have dropped almost 10% in real terms.

Painting a picture of huge numbers trapped on low wages, the foundation said during the decade only a fifth of low-paid workers managed to move to better paid jobs.

The living wage is calculated at £7.85 an hour nationally, or £9.15 in London – much higher than the legally enforceable £6.50 minimum wage...

http://gu.com/p/43hf7

Full JRF report (pdf): http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/M ... 4-FULL.pdf

I wish people would define poverty in the UK as being relative poverty. Using the same umbrella term as applies to absolute poverty is highly offensive IMO. Ooooh, shock horror, us poor brits are living in poverty! That's right- plain old poverty! Fuck that shit jesus wept.

Poverty is general scarcity or dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money.[1] Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the deprivation of basic human needs, which commonly includes food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter, health care and education. Relative poverty is defined contextually as economic inequality in the location or society in which people live.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty

Surely we should keep using both terms.

A term like absolute poverty enables us to separate out those relatively poor people in this country for whom poverty means only being able to afford a budget smartphone, as opposed to the absolute poor who constitute more than a billion people on this planet, for whom every day is a struggle to survive.

Strontium Dog wrote:Surely we should keep using both terms.

A term like absolute poverty enables us to separate out those relatively poor people in this country for whom poverty means only being able to afford a budget smartphone, as opposed to the absolute poor who constitute a majority of people on this planet, for whom every day is a struggle to survive.

That way I suppose Cameron and his yellow Tory supporters can pretend there is no poverty in this country and those that complain are just lazy scumbags worried about buying expensive shiny crap. We can ignore the selfishness of the few at the top and ignore the figures showing an increase in child poverty and use of food banks. How typical. How convenient. How Liberal.