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Sewer work vs fruit picking

  • 02-11-2019 10:09am
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 4,138 ✭✭✭realitykeeper


    In recent years, I`ve heard it said that there are certain jobs Irish people no longer want to do. These jobs then tend to go to migrant workers because they are labour intensive and the pay isn`t great. In fact, we frequently hear of migrants being paid less than the minimum wage and asked to work very long hours.

    Normally, if an employer wants an employee to work long hours it is because he does not have enough employees and that is because there is not enough cheap labour (migrants) for the mushroom farm.

    On the other hand, ground workers who have to work in the sewers probably get paid quite well and if it were simply a case of Irish people not wanting to do the work then those jobs would not be filled for any money.

    Therefore, my guess is its all about the money and if the pay is right the Irish will do the work. This is why I am so set against the minimum wage. This may seem counter intuitive but if we had no minimum wage, the market determined pay would be less yet Irish people would be happy to do the work. Minimum pay distorts everything.

    Normally I would ask am I wrong but I am right about this so no need to ask that. Instead I must why does nobody else understand this?


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 13,365 ✭✭✭✭McMurphy


    Minimum wage is there as a safety net to prevent unscrupulous employers from exploiting their employees.

    I don't get the point you're arguing anyway, you're saying that you're against the minimum wage because people will do a job if it's dangerous or dirty if the money is right?

    My only response is Well Doh.

    Working in a sewer v manning the till in the local Deals?

    Both require unskilled workers with no qualifications, yet one is putting your life in danger by filth, disease and other hazards involved in traversing underground tunnels filled with raw sewage in pitch darkness.

    I'd do the sewerage work if the money was right, high risks = high reward and it's the way of the world.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,592 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    It's a bit counter intuitive that you're anti immigrant but want Irish people working worse jobs for less pay. You want to force Irish people down rather than bring others up


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,148 ✭✭✭Salary Negotiator


    Normally I would ask am I wrong but I am right about this so no need to ask that. Instead I must why does nobody else understand this?

    Nah, you still need to ask. It’s the only way you’ll learn.

    Anyway, I’ll answer the question you should have asked. Yes, you are wrong.




  • Normally I would ask am I wrong but I am right about this so no need to ask that.

    You are wrong, as usual.


  • Registered Users Posts: 19,802 ✭✭✭✭suicide_circus


    minimum wage is mostly a good thing.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,653 ✭✭✭✭Plumbthedepths


    Is it just me or does anyone else find the OPs username ironic?


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,592 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    Is it just me or does anyone else find the OPs username ironic?

    It's gone well beyond the point of irony at this stage


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,850 ✭✭✭✭Donald Trump


    Jesus Christ.

    OP goes on about people working long hours on mushroom farms because of labour shortage due to low wages and concludes that if minimum wage was removed, and they could be paid less, that it would be better.

    Go and offer your services to a mushroom farmer at the weekends OP. Tell him you don't need minimum wage and report back to us on how you are getting on.

    By all means try to argue that minimum wage means some roles and jobs don't exist that might otherwise exist (I'm not saying I'm against minimum wage...just that there is a smidgin of very narrow logic to that view....which means it could be debated, but the above, I don't know where to start)


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe



    Therefore, my guess is its all about the money and if the pay is right the Irish will do the work. This is why I am so set against the minimum wage. This may seem counter intuitive but if we had no minimum wage, the market determined pay would be less yet Irish people would be happy to do the work. Minimum pay distorts everything.

    Have you considered that minimum pay is exactly what it sounds like and not an upper limit as you seem to think?

    There is nothing preventing employers from paying more. Perhaps if they paid a living wage they might attract more employees ( even Irish ones :rolleyes:).


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    Fruit picking is not a great example - it's highly seasonal in nature and therefore suits people who are young and have somewhat peripatetic working lives. Immigrant harvesters can bounce from north west Europe to southern/eastern Europe depending on seasonal demands.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 17,822 ✭✭✭✭silverharp


    apparently vineyards in california are more labour intensive than in Europe meaning that the European ones are more efficient. ideally the more unpleasant the work, the more it should pay more relative to a cushy job in a heated office or shop floor all things being equal, the employer will pay more if labour is scarce or innovate using technology. the lazy approach is turn a blind eye to illegal workers or encourage a grey economy where blue collar jobs are subject to having their salaries hammered by open border desire for cheap labour.

    A belief in gender identity involves a level of faith as there is nothing tangible to prove its existence which, as something divorced from the physical body, is similar to the idea of a soul. - Colette Colfer





  • silverharp wrote: »
    apparently vineyards in california are more labour intensive than in Europe meaning that the European ones are more efficient. ideally the more unpleasant the work, the more it should pay more relative to a cushy job in a heated office or shop floor all things being equal, the employer will pay more if labour is scarce or innovate using technology. the lazy approach is turn a blind eye to illegal workers or encourage a grey economy where blue collar jobs are subject to having their salaries hammered by open border desire for cheap labour.

    Saw a programme recently about illegal immigrants in California and their working and living conditions. They work hard for low pay. They live in illegal dwelling with dodgy sources of water. These dwellings were proper houses.

    Then a uk program a farmer was bemoaning having to leave his apples unpicked due to lack of labour. He wasn’t willing to pay more as it wasn’t worth his while.

    It seems to be a worldwide problem. The countries that turn a blind eye to the exploitation of illegal immigrants are ruining the business of others.


  • Registered Users Posts: 23,455 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    I’m seriously conflicted on this one because I remember my time picking strawberries, and it’s only now I think of the unfortunate sewer worker who had to deal with the unmerciful load I unleashed on the toilet after been eating more strawberries than I was picking in a day :o


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 418 ✭✭high_king


    Minimum wage is a double edged sword, yes it creates an artificial low playing field, but it also offers a little protection, in theory, against exploitation. The so called gig economy is the work around for less scrupulous employers.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭Oasis1974


    Minimum wage is €11 something now? That's handy money for the work.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,653 ✭✭✭✭Plumbthedepths


    Oasis1974 wrote: »
    Minimum wage is €11 something now? That's handy money for the work.

    9.80.




  • Oasis1974 wrote: »
    Minimum wage is €11 something now? That's handy money for the work.

    €9.80 rising to €10.10 in May.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 418 ✭✭high_king


    Oasis1974 wrote: »
    Minimum wage is €11 something now? That's handy money now.

    handy for what ? raising a family on and ever owning a small roof above your head and a small patch of ground beneath your feet ? . . . you must be joking . . and wtf are you getting the €11 from in this detached reality ?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭Oasis1974


    9.80.

    Minimum wage is €9.80 now? That's handy money for the work lol.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 418 ✭✭high_king


    Oasis1974 wrote: »
    Minimum wage is €9.80 now? That's handy money for the work lol.

    ever had a real job ?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,653 ✭✭✭✭Plumbthedepths


    Oasis1974 wrote: »
    Minimum wage is €9.80 now? That's handy money for the work lol.

    If you think so, I believe there are lots of vacancies. You should have no problem getting a job.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,077 ✭✭✭Oasis1974


    But all these people who worked those wages probably do 60/70 hours a week handy money that?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,586 ✭✭✭ Houston Tender Goose


    Min wage is very useful to prevent exploitation, even the growing army of gig-ers are getting new forms of employment protection as they increase e.g. holidays and so on.

    The simple elementary soloution to someone not doing x, because of (P) cash-money, is to pay more to increase the supply (Q)
    The basic law of price-supply-demand.

    0fhGCJ8.png

    The 'keeper of reality' should be more worried about what the great unskilled will do with themselves
    - when automation snatches roughly 44% of their typical roles from their hands, as we head towards the 2030s.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,653 ✭✭✭✭Plumbthedepths


    Oasis1974 wrote: »
    But all these people who worked those wages probably do 60/70 hours a week handy money that?

    You on a windup lad, like the OP?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 418 ✭✭high_king


    - when automation snatches roughly 44% of their typical roles from their hands, as we head towards the 2030s.

    We've been through forms of automation many times before, from industrialisation to computerisation. Work doesn't disappear it evolves.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,586 ✭✭✭ Houston Tender Goose


    high_king wrote: »
    Hysteria from the usual sensationalist media.
    Usual dismissal from the ignorant masses, harking back to 'ah sure look back in ye olden times, was grand'.
    Also, this is from various global studies and think-tanks.
    It's not a guesstimate by some dude at a desk, for some red-top media outlet, looking for clicks and page lifts
    high_king wrote: »
    We've been through forms of [ *different* ] automation many times before, from industrialisation to computerisation. Work doesn't disappear it evolves.
    *This next evoloution competes more directly with human mind, a self-learning, ever-improving, thinking type of ai-robotic automation.

    Sure, most studies show 'some' new roles will be created (only for the very highly skilled), but there is less certainty surrounding this, compared to the more certain expected job lossses.

    Thus, UBI and further credits will have to introduced along with increases in min wage for the reduced hours available. The OPs question of 'sewers vs picking' will become largely irrelevant.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 418 ✭✭high_king


    Usual dismissal from the ignorant masses, harking back to 'ah sure look back in ye olden times, was grand'.
    Also, this is from various global studies and think-tanks.
    It's not a guesstimate by some dude at a desk, for some red-top media outlet, looking for clicks and page lifts


    *This next evoloution competes more directly with human mind, a self-learning, ever-improving, thinking type of ai-robotic automation.

    Sure, most studies show 'some' new roles will be created (only for the very highly skilled), but there is less certainty surrounding this, compared to the more certain expected job lossses.

    Thus, UBI and further credits will have to introduced along with increases in min wage for the reduced hours available. The OPs question of 'sewers vs picking' will become largely irrelevant.

    lol . . . you can pretend what was posted instead of what was . . but you will find other people are not as ignorant as you like to think.

    The simple fact is humanity in recent centuries has been through various forms of automation many times before, from industrialisation to computerisation. Work doesn't disappear it evolves.


  • Posts: 5,121 Myla Icy Junkie


    In recent years, I`ve heard it said that there are certain jobs Irish people no longer want to do. These jobs then tend to go to migrant workers because they are labour intensive and the pay isn`t great. In fact, we frequently hear of migrants being paid less than the minimum wage and asked to work very
    You have set the whole thing up with these assertions and then continued on without questioning them.
    Where is your proof Irish people don't want these jobs. Where is you proof of migrants being frequently paid less than the minimum wage.

    The main point where your thesis falls down OP is that our unemployment rate is relatively low OP. If employers are struggling to recruit it is because their prospective employees have better (better paid, better hours, easier work, closer to home or whatever people consider better) opportunities elsewhere, not because there are forced to pay too much.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,890 Mod ✭✭✭✭shesty


    There are a lot of veg pickers round us.Honestly I always think its a very hard job....they do very long hours, although these may be somewhat dependent on the time of year.You see teams of them bent double in fields picking whatever the crop is...scallions, cabbages, onion, potatoes, leeks come to mind.There are days when I'd say they are up to their knees in muck, in oilskins (basically) with the rain battering down on them and the wind storming in straight off the sea and they'd still be there if it was the right part of the year....you see then when you're driving past.I remember one particularly large field of scallions I drove past daily last year and there was a team of them clearing the field, must have gone on for weeks....I remember thinking it must be a bit soul destroying.Personally I hope they are paid a bit better than just minimum wage, because I would not be lining up to do that it'a a tough job.Then once it's all picked it's the packaging and then the planting of the next crop.

    It's marginally better than sewers but not by much.And definitely not in the climate that we have.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 13,570 ✭✭✭✭Thelonious Monk


    I worked jobs picking avocados and kiwis in the past, back breaking stuff! It must be a tough one for the loony right wingers on here as they don't like cheap imported unskilled labour but upping the minimum wage goes against their beliefs too.


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