East Dulwich Picturehouse and Caf?

[titch juicy]

StraferJack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Well well well

>

> http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/curzon-cinem

> as-agree-to-pay-staff-living-wage-in-landmark-move

> -9825124.html

Was about to post the same thing (Curzon cinemas to pay staff LLW)

[Earl Aelfheah]

My understanding is that the LLW is based on a combination of a 'Basic Living Costs' calculation and 60% of the median salary (the average of the two I think). So yes, if everyone were to introduce it then there would be continual wage inflation. There are many factors which lead to problems with cost of living in London and they need to be addressed in a more sophisticated way in my opinion.

[????]

And right now they'll be looking at ways of reducing the payroll and people on it ( by say increasing automatum and less customer facing staff) overall=less employment.....them's the 'unintended' consequences of such well meaning 'interference' with businesses. Still, far less harmful than capping energy prices in the grand scheme of things.

[StraferJack]

That was always the problem when cineeorld bought picture house

Spreadsheet cinemas.

[????]

yup, but it'll happen....

[alice]

so the cool local cinema is part of a big chain

try this http://peckhamplex.tumblr.com/ the real independent

[bawdy-nan]

The Minkey Wrote:

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> The idea that large corporates are able to operate

> on the back of tax payer subsidies - by which I

> mean welfare payments to their minimum wage

> workforce - whilst posting vast profits for their

> directors and shareholders seems really curious to

> me.

quite

[snowy]

So Ritzy / Cineworld backed down: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ritzy-cinema-in-uturn-on-job-cuts-bosses-back-down-in-row-over-london-living-wage-9827867.html

[StraferJack]

What is most dispiriting reading threads like this is not seeing comments like ?yeah it?s a shame but what can you do? ? which is already fatalistic enough

It?s reading comments like ?no, they shouldn?t have more money. It would be wrong to give them more money?

I understand (bit not necessarily agree with ) it from the perspective of those running a business, but seeing relatively well-to-do people telling badly paid people to lump it really sticks in the craw

[Rolo Tomasi]

StraferJack Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> What is most dispiriting reading threads like this

> is not seeing comments like ?yeah it?s a shame but

> what can you do? ? which is already fatalistic

> enough

>

> It?s reading comments like ?no, they shouldn?t

> have more money. It would be wrong to give them

> more money?

>

> I understand (bit not necessarily agree with ) it

> from the perspective of those running a business,

> but seeing relatively well-to-do people telling

> badly paid people to lump it really sticks in the

> craw

Yep. Agree with all that.

[Earl Aelfheah]

@StraferJack - I don't think that anyone is saying that (I haven't read through the whole thread mind). It's just that suggesting that everyone must receive 60% of median salaries, doesn't make sense (as the median is always a moving target). I do feel for people being paid wages which they can't live on and I think it's ridiculous that we subsidise employers through tax credits and housing benefit payments - it's not sustainable. But, the answer is not the LLW in my opinion. There needs to be a huge investment in social housing first off - something which should have formed part of our recovery plan post recession and may have seen us come out of it more quickly and on a better footing. There needs to be better, more affordable public transport, education and a number of other things - but instead we privatise everything, sell of public assets wherever we can, cut benefits and shift government subsidies away from social enterprises towards private corporations, (who then payout huge figures to executives and shareholders). We're becoming a more and more unequal society and to address that we need a more sophisticated response.

[StraferJack]

Rahrahrah ? as ever, I agree with so much of what you say

Is LLW ?Utopia?? No of course not ? but it is a very immediate solution to a very specific here and now problem. And as with the minimum wage introduction it is being opposed by vested interests and ideologues

The more structural changes you suggest are all very much to be supported ? but realistically it will take a lot longer (if ever?) to see any of them materialise. And between now and then are we supposed to just sit on our thumbs?

[Earl Aelfheah]

Fair enough. I am slightly ambivalent about the Ritzy campaign. On the one hand I feel for the workers and my gut instinct is to support them. On the other I am slightly dubious about the way the LLW is calculated and feel a bit for Picturehouse being singled out when they are far from the worst offenders in the sector. I am perhaps not quite decided where I stand on it.

[StraferJack]

Depends what you mean by singled out tho?

Many is the person asking why not cafe X, Y or Z. Or pub A, B or C

But timing is a big part of it ? at the same time Dulwich finds out it?s getting a cinema, staff at another branch are very publically on strike about this specific cause. So in that sense there is no other comparable business. So it is a good time to ask ?the new neighbours? if the new staff will be getting what the strikers are protesting about

Now, if the staff are successful, that does raise expectation for other businesses ? so people ?singling out? PH are more likely using them as a test case. I expect if Greene King staff were to unionise and strike, places like the Bishop might find themselves under similar scrutiny

[DaveR]

"What is most dispiriting reading threads like this is not seeing comments like ?yeah it?s a shame but what can you do? ? which is already fatalistic enough

It?s reading comments like ?no, they shouldn?t have more money. It would be wrong to give them more money? "

Can you point us to a comment where someone says "it would be wrong to give them more money"?

[StraferJack]

?worldwiser October 28, 10:19AM

How many times have we been over this. If minimum pay increased to the LLW tomorrow across London, the economic impact would be cataclysmic?

?V511 October 28, 04:48PM

Increasing wages would lead to reduced or no profits if nothing else changed. Redundancies are therefore one of a variety of legitimate options they could've used?

?LondonMix Yesterday, 10:06AM

those advocating for the LLW should keep in mind that when unskilled labor increases in cost, the cost benefit analysis of investing in labor saving technology changes. Fewer unskilled jobs is often the corollary. ?

?strae Yesterday, 03:15PM

Re the LLW, am I missing something or is the premise for this idea that all must pay more so that some can have a payrise? Doesn't this all end up being circular? Cost of living in London is X, so the basic pay rate must be Y. Y is achieved which means that cost of living goes up by some amount related to Y? Is this just not an endless cycle of inflation, except that at some point the employer is incentivised (when the cost per hour is high enough) to consider some other alternative to labour, i.e. automation and/or making people do more for the same wage??

And that?s even before we address your anger management and people issues Dave

[DaveR]

This was my first post on this topic, and i don't think I've posted anything different since:

"If the staff at Picture House want to strike for more pay, that's a matter for them. To observe that they are not poorly paid comparatively for the job they do is relevant. To suggest that the LLW is a benchmark below which any pay for any job is not just inadequate but somehow immoral is just nonsense. Equally, to suggest that the fact that a company makes profits is somehow indicative that they should inevitably pay their staff more is ludicrous.

FWIW, I am in favour of decent pay because I think it is the long term interests of both businesses and wider society, and I would support a London specific increase in the minimum wage, but the ultimate judgment lies with employers."

I don't read any of the posts quoted as saying 'it would be wrong to pay people more', but I guess you see what you want to see.

I'm not going to bother to respond to this:

"And that?s even before we address your anger management and people issues Dave"

Other will make their own (slightly more rational) judgment about who has 'issues'

[david_carnell]

None of those posts use the phrase but all attempt to justify reasons, many spurious, about why they shouldn't pay this salary or why the salary is a bad idea.

I think you can use the term immoral for an employer that sets its wages at a level below which it is sensibly deemed "liveable" on. Perhaps they could say they pay a London Surviving Wage?

[StraferJack]

This was my favourite "rational" Dave post on the thread so far

"In short, you might do a bit more than adopt a stupid knee jerk reaction to some load of old sh!t you read somewhere that naturally played to your incoherent vaguely lefty feelgood man-of-the-people approach to every damn thing. "

And all because I was saying Cineworld could pay the staff the LLW - a fact that Cineworld appear to have come around to as well.

[LondonMix]

I can't see how SJ can say that. The LLW is flawed in many ways including as a mathematical calculation.

People pointing that out in no way are suggesting people shouldn't earn more or have a better quality of life. In fact most people have explicitly said that the issues surrounding this are more complex than the LLW is equipped to address. And that is exactly what I personally said before.

If you think advocating for the LLW across all firms will make unskilled workers better of in real terms rather than just causing inflation and technology substitution then explain why. Vilifying people who disagree with your position In such a lazy and unfair way is beneath you.

[KidKruger]

Can't they just automate the place - it'd save a lot of grief.

[StraferJack]

cinemas have automated quite a lot already - you no longer have a projectionist for example, and many tickets are sold via machines these days. If a job can be automated it will be

"If you think advocating for the LLW across all firms will make unskilled workers better of in real terms rather than just causing inflation and technology substitution then explain why."

I think this is horse before cart - I think you should be saying why it will cause inflation. Wasn't the minimum wage meant to unleash a wave of inflation AND job cuts? Why will this be different?

In short I think anyone stating that inflation will rocket is wrong

Ditto "the ultimate judgment lies with employers." " - left to just employers, unskilled wages wouldn't even be at minimum wage

As for me "vilifying" people, I think it's me getting called most of the names on here, thanks for asking

I'm being scolded for summarizing one side of the argument as " ?no, they shouldn?t have more money. It would be wrong to give them more money? " but how exactly are these people going to actually get more money if the only proposal on the table is the (admittedly imperfect) LLW.

I understand you are arguing against the LLW as a mechanism, I'm just not seeing any argument for how people working in London in these jobs get more money. If I don't see an argument for them getting more money it's not unreasonable to conclude it's not dissimilar to they shouldn't have more money surely?

How do we get from LondonMix saying "People pointing that out in no way are suggesting people shouldn't earn more or have a better quality of life. " to people actually earning more? And if they DO earn more (via some mysterious non LLW mechanism), why doesn't THAT cause this cataclysmic inflation some are so worried about?

[LondonMix]

Assuming the eventual cost of the LLW is passed on to consumers across all industries not just cinemas or the Ritzy, this will increase the cost of living in London. That again will lead to an adjustment in the LLW in an endless loop.

Moreover, assuming the same number of people want to live in London, unless more homes are created, the increase to the LLW will just cause housing costs to increase without making it more affordable for the working poor.

Lastly, automation will increase as the cost of unskilled labor increases putting unskilled workers out of jobs perversely.

The right answer- besides of course building more housing to make London itself more affordable- is to get more people into skilled work. I and most people as youngsters have done unskilled work and honestly as a student you don't need the LLW. However, no one should be trapped in life-long unskilled work which is when this really becomes a problem. Much earlier in this discussion I outlined this as did others- might have even been the other thread on Picture House.

There is no quick fix beyond making the worker more valuable. The vast majority of people earn more than the legal minimum wage and it's not because their employers are benevolent. It's because the skills they have create at least as much value to their employers as their wage.

Obviously it's not as sexy to start a campaign on social media about skills training and affordable housing but that is what is needed.

[StraferJack]

" the LLW will just cause housing costs to increase without making it more affordable for the working poor. "

housing costs have spiralled beyond all hope long before the LLW - I wouldn't be so quick to pin that on the LLW

As I've said automation will happen anyway where possible - pretending it won't if we keep wages down is fallacious (and with costs of everything shooting up without an increase in wages what's the benefit in not paying people more?)

Housing costs have been debated many times - I have said many times that people who simply say "build more" are simplistic. Even if a million homes were magiced up tomorrow, the starting price would be beyond a lot of the people we are talking about. They would instead be bought by speculators and rented to the badly paid, with government topups

Actually if a million homes were built overnight there wouldn't be speculators, there would be a crash and a lot of people with a lot more earning s than minimum wage would be making a lot more noise, but I digress

You can get as many people into skilled work as you like, but unskilled jobs will remain and need doing.

I'm not arguing for minimum wage to be on a par with qualified jobs - just a recognition that the market has spiralled and the gap between unskilled and the rest has reached a point where something needs to be done. None of the suggestions you come up with are likely to happen in the next what - 10, 20 years? Ever

So in the meantime...

[LondonMix]

Saying we should give up in what will actually work because it's hard is silly.

The LLW is designed to deal in part with housing so you can't take that out of the discussion of the sense of the LLW