Source: HERE The above chart shows the number pf people employed in a contract where they have NO guaranteed number of hours but are instead paid only for the hours they actually work. A somewhat larger number than claimed by the Tories. Big businesses, large corporations and a handful of powerful business people have decided to jump onto the bandwagon and throw their weight behind Cameron and the Tories. We believe this Conservative-led government has been good for business and has pursued policies which have supported investment and job creation. Five million people classed as being in jobs but drawing working tax credits because their total income falls below what is considered a living wage. An increase of two million since 2010. Are those the kind of jobs that these businesses are happy to have the Tories create. We believe a change in course will threaten jobs and deter investment. This would send a negative message about Britain and put the recovery at risk. A recovery that seems to have overwhelmingly benefited corporations and big businesses while not reaching millions who would under normal times be called middle class and many millions more who are the worst paid or living in poverty. What message does it send about Britain when a million go hungry in one of the richest nations on the planet. Deter investment, in what may I ask? Threaten jobs, what those minimum wage or zero hours subsistence level jobs that seem to make up so many people’s only source of income? I have heard reports that the big businesses who signed the letter represent half a million British workers. That’s nice. But do they speak for those workers or do they instead speak for the senior management, the board of directors and those who profit financially from lower corporate taxes, an open door to evade tax by the government and by working laws and conditions that openly allow them to exploit their own work force. Hundreds of thousands of Small and Medium businesses create and maintain many millions of jobs, countless people who are classed as self employed and struggling to earn money for themselves, all of those big businesses dependent on SMEs for the goods they sell, millions of people who work or eat or have a home or clothes because of those SMEs and the many millions of jobs they create. Where are the tax cuts for them, the companies too small to be able to afford tax avoidance accountants or to have the ears of politicians? Do they feel that the Tories are best friends of business? Or is it that only those big enough to fund the big political parties get something in return and those small and medium businesses are just made of of people struggling to pay the bills just like the rest of the population. Part of this concern is how the two main parties are considered to be Pro or Anti business, the most recent sign of this has been statements by both parties on the dreaded Zero Hours Contact. Cameron was left struggling to answer and avoided the question of zero hours contracts anumber of times during his recent grilling. Both Cameron and now Vince Cable have said that many full time students value Zero hours contracts. Would they care to point to a few? A zero hours contract is one in which the employee is considered to be employed but with no control over the work hours which can be as few as zero. A flexible contract is one where an employer says I need you for six hours a week, there may be overtime and I may ask you to work at a different time or day if needed but its entirely voluntary. One is an exploitative method of having workers on call when the company needs them without regard to the huge negative effect on those workers. The other is a decent employer working with their employees to arrive at a working pattern that suits both. Students who want a regular income from a job will be looking to fit it around their education, not knowing week by week or even day by day if your ‘Job’ will have any work and pay for you hardly allows anyone student or otherwise to plan their lives. Or are students supposed to be feckless people with chaotic lives who work a few hours here or there when they can be bothered. The Tories promise to set a twelve month limit onto zero hours contracts. Excuse my French here but, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT GOING TO ACHIEVE! Twelve months of uncertainty, of not knowing week by week if you will earn any money the next week, an entire year of not knowing if you can pay the bills, buy food, heat the house, pay the rent. Fifty two weeks of fear and stress because landlords or banks are the kind of people that will understand that you cannot afford to pay for the house because you had no work one or two weeks that month. A Year of living with stress and uncertainty, a year of living, no, not living, a year of surviving on the bread line, of existing from pay day to pay day never knowing how long it will be until the next payday arrives or how much it will be. Anyone who thinks people would willingly work under exploitative zero hours contracts and the soul destroying uncertainty they bring is either a completely out of touch elitist self serving scumbag who doesn’t give a flying duck about people, or they are a politician! F Labour promise a twelve week limit. Hello, get your heads out of your backsides and try walking in the real world for a while. If you restrict it to twelve weeks all that will happen is that people will be taken on under a twelve week contract at zero hours then dumped before they are entitled to move to a proper contract. Look at the job papers or talk to the agencies, there are huge numbers of people employed in rotating three month contracts where the contract is extended for another few months at the end of the existing one, or the laughably called temp to perm jobs where the perm never seems to arrive. Any company that is decent, honest and considerate of their staff will work out some way of being flexible to suit both its own needs and those of the employees. The ones who deliberately exploit the law to have staff available only when the company wants them to avoid paying them during those slow days will not care about a twelve week limit. Or any conditions at all, they will continue to exploit their workforce as they have always done. A twelve week limit will simply see the big businesses and exploiters rotating staff, hire them for three months then let the contract expire, hire some other desperate sod while the one who just lost their job has no choice but to crawl into another companies zero hours exploitation. Nice try Labour but if you put loop holes into something they will be abused and exploited. Can do better! C Trickle down economics DO NOT WORK. The wealth doesn't trickle down at all, which is why the old millionaires are now nobodies and it is billionaires who are the new rich. Injecting wealth into a society at the bottom and allowing it to trickle UP allows every part of a society to benefit, yes people can make profits and get rich but they are doing so as part of the economy where everyone has money and stability. Zero hours contracts are simply one part of the problem in our economy and a clear sign of the exploitation that is a key part of the failure of trickle down. They are not the root of the problem, they are simply another way in which the greedy exploit the poor. The fact is that for all their words and promises the Tories don't give a damn and Labour are simply trying to be a nicer version of Tory light. Country: A region identified as a distinct entity in political geography, an area of land that is controlled by its own government. Nation:A large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language A nation is its people, not its big businesses or its government, not its political parties or its political class. A nation is the men and women and children. A nation is a collection of people who self identify, who have created a shared culture and society, a shared language and history, a collection of people with hopes and fears, bills to pay, families to protect and lives to lead. The path from leader to ruler to tyrant is easy to follow, simply stop caring about the nation and replace it with the country. Care more about big business than the people that make those corporations possible. Place agenda's and profits before peoples dreams and lives. How few politicians we have left that care for the nation of people instead of the country of businesses. |
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