There are many comments I could make about this, and I could fill in a bit more background so that it makes a bit more sense. But I think there's enough information here for it to be clear what the implications of this are, and I thought it would be interesting to just post an image and invite comments and observations from people here:

I hope it's clear that this is an advert from the Internet, and that I'm not trying to hire anyone myself!

You're joking???? Jobs are now being given out on a bid for the work basis?

So the individual tenders their hourly rate??????? Tell me I interpreted that wrong please.

dubmeup wrote: This is not uncommon, it's a freelancing website, they pretty much all work like this. What is more significant is that people are applying to work for 56 cents per hour.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
Does this show how desperate people are? or being accepted as the norm?

wake_up_bomb wrote: I'm used to tendering for contracts but not quite like that I'm staggered that people use sites like that and glad I didn't know about them. Another sign of just how desperate things have become for many

jhado wrote: Well, I would suggest that the person in question is from somewhere like India or Bangladesh. It has yet to become the norm in the West, and it may take some time. But increasingly we are going to be up against these people, as the economy becomes more and more globalised, who have lived in many cases in appalling conditions for decades, if not centuries. There are 300 million people in India with no electricity, so if you say to them, "here you go, have electricity", already you've greatly improved their quality of life. Plus obviously the cost of living is far less in these places.

Not that overnight everyone in Britain will have to start working for pence per hour, but it already is having an effect. Corporations are already, and have already, shifted production to the 'newly industrialising countries', or 'third world' (there's a thread about this here). I heard an item on 5Live where graduates were merrily discussing the fact that they were going to have to move to Hong Kong to get a job. And it was going to be about $400 a month, but they were happy with that, after all it's so much cheaper to live out there.

This is just one little job posted on the 'net, and quite often these people get hired and the employer finds out that they can't write English to a sufficient level (that's not a prejudicial statement - my Urdu is pretty shaky - its merely a fact). But it does have implications for all of us. And this is the world the social controllers envisage, where labour is completely expendable and mobile, and trade takes place multinationally and globally without any barriers or protectionism. That's what the EU is all about, and NAFTA, and the GATT agreement, and all the rest of it.dubmeup wrote: I use them and you can, and I do, actually get well paid work through them. Not every employer is on the lookout for the cheapest person. But obviously by the very nature of capitalism, many are.

I can see it wouldn't be a huge leap for ads like that to become common place at Reed/Job Centre websites and the like.

But what would it take to do away with minimum wage completely?

Cheers wub.

Ab Origine wrote: Well, what you're seeing instead is minimum wage jobs being done away with. Of course, if jobs are created in the UK, they are almost always minimum wage. But most industries in which working-class males would have worked traditionally have already deserted the UK. Any sort of job which involves assembling electronics or textiles or anything like that is also never done in the UK. The only production line jobs in the UK are for food companies, but even this industry employs more illegal immigrants than any other. There's a book by a writer called Felicity Lawrence called "Not on the Label" which documents this, and she wrote for The Guardian, so it's the last sort of person who would write about the negative effects of illegal immigration, but it's quite an eye opener. And that book is ten years old.

So you're really left with service sector for the most part, but even they're pushing to take people off the dole to do those jobs, and trying to replace the checkout staff with machines. I mean, the employment outlook for the UK is fucking terrible. It is not going to get better. It is going to get worse.

wake_up_bomb wrote:
This is what I wanted to say, but you elucidate so well WUB

As for the food factories, even they are getting more automated by the day, and more and more agency slaves doing the peripheral jobs ,on lower and lower wages.

jhado wrote: Thanks, this is why I get paid marginally more than 56 cents per hour!

Interesting what you said about factories. In my hometown, where I thankfully don't live any more, the biggest employers are frozen food factories and chemical factories. You might have guessed it's not a particularly attractive place! But unemployment is absolutely rife there already. There was an article in the Daily Telegraph stating that it was one of the three hardest towns in the UK to get a job. There are thousands of kids there who come out of school with no hope. So more automation in factories, which I guess is totally inevitable, is not good news for the place. And it's already dying on its arse.

Great - presumably in the future we can expect to see vast armies of disaffected, unemployed young men & women, all looking for someone to blame for their predicament - and taking advantage of this will be the likes of the National Front and the EDL. I gloomily predict more riots, too.

Mandy

quietgirl wrote:
"What we need is bloody good war!"

Ab Origine wrote:
Well, I wouldn't go that far...maybe they'll raise the school leaving age to 25?

Mandy

I wasn't suggesting you'd say anything like that, QG, but many would and probably will.

Ab Origine wrote:
S'ok, abs - I didn't think you were suggesting I would have that opinion! But you're quite right - I bet many will say it, alas.

Mandy

My daughter's just completed her A levels, and was talking about looking for an apprenticeship. When I looked on the internet, I was disgusted to learn that they get around minimum wages today, by sticking the word, "apprentice" in front of anything at all, such as lavatory attendant for example.

As we've discussed and predicted many times .....

Wage? Who needs to pay some schmuck a wage!?


JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson Wants To Eliminate The Person Standing At The Cash Register
businessinsider.com


JCPenney CEO and former Apple retail guru Ron Johnson is speaking at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, and he revealed a bit of what his strategy is for store checkout.

He wants to eliminate the employees who stand at cash registers and get rid of traditional checkout by the end of 2013.

Instead, he's pushing mobile checkout and self checkout. The stores will be 100 percent RFID (radio frequency identification) and wi-fi enabled.

JCPenney would reinvest those savings in customer service, he says.

If JCPenney can pull this off, customers won't have to wait in lines anymore, making things more convenient and reducing their time in stores.

This also suggests that there will be more job cuts, since those workers won't be needed anymore.



I predict a Neo-Luddite movement will start to form soon.

feather wrote: This has been coming for a while, but it's up to people to say "no". If these retailers and machines were boycotted, they would simply drop the idea like a hot potato. We have to exercise responsibility in our choices. Obviously many people are rather failing to do this, but I remain hopeful (God knows why) that one day people will begin to show some form of personal responsibility and ethical behaviour.

Speaking of race to the bottom, here's one I saw today:

wake_up_bomb wrote:
I'm not one for judging people or casting scornful looks at complete strangers...generally...but, as part of my personal crusade to show the shoppers of Britain the error of their ways, I have been annoying people whenever I can, particularly where there is an automated machine and rows and rows of empty tills available.

On a positive note, my local small business killer seems to be suffering. I don't begin to pretend it has anything to do with my efforts, but I noted with some glee recently, that they installed several more machines, which the majority of people promptly ignored. They now employ some of those poor souls who once were on check outs to 'marshal' shoppers into the machine lanes...or at least try.

Interestingly, these machines seem only to be used by the very young, at present. I am working on a cunning plan to disable a few more (machines, not young people) and will keep you updated. Just wanted to share my positive news anyway, although I'm not sure how long it will last.