Spain OMG!

[Old Hack]

Leaving me to compare it to table salt: if you could buy table salt at 5p per tonne, how much more would you buy?

Depends how much I could sell it for...

[doomage]

Why not let people scavenge for it?

As the article states, for health reasons. I'd be saving lives.

[darmstadt]

Why? Do you buy the idea that it would lead to more jobs? Who told you that, employers who want to pay lower wages? MRDA: well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

Scrapping the minimum wage puts no more people in work, it just makes less income for the working poor and more profit for the employers. If there is any kind of welfare state it then supports the poor, so the net result is employers becoming richer at taxpayers' expense.

Why do you think it would be acceptable to employ someone and pay them less than a living wage?

Germany has no minimum wage agreement....

[DodgyAgent]

The question is whether labour, at the bottom of the wage scale, is in fact one of those cases that does not respond to price. If all (or most of) those potential employers already get all the labour they need at a price they can afford, they won't take on any more just because it gets cheaper.

You can argue that the demand does respond to price, and that making labour cheaper will create jobs. Go ahead, argue that. But so far you haven't argued it, you have just stated it as a "fact".

Leaving me to compare it to table salt: if you could buy table salt at 5p per tonne, how much more would you buy?

So whilst you may have a point the question is then why are so many jobs taken offshore? And also why is the minimum wage an arbitrary amount with little consideration of local circumstances (cost of housing, education, employment rates, crime etc etc). It is because like so many other things it is mainly political.

As the only person on this site that actually employs people at a relatively low level( ) I find that employment legislation is hugely onerous. There is no point for example in investing in long term training as employees can up and go at any time. If you are black, female and pregnant and want to damage your employer you can do what you like.
I hire temps from eastern europe and if they develop then I put them on the payroll.
Now I may be a mean and sh*t employer but this is hardly an environment for small businesses to create jobs. It is far easier for me to get an Indian company, give them a service level agreement and tell them to get on with drudge work rather than manage a team of people here.
So yes this is not necessarily about minimum wage it is to do more with complying with employment laws.

[BlasterBates]

The effect of employment legislatiion is to create a privileged class of protected workers and an underclass, if you do away with it things even out, what it doesn't do is elevate working conditions for all.

Understandable but a huge mistake in a modern world. The Swiss have much weaker employment protection but compensate with generous unemployment benefit. In fact apart from the fact that it is easier to get rid of you wages and working conditions are generally better than anywhere else.

Far better to be able to pick up the phone and get a job Monday, as you could have done in the 1950's, relying on a thriving job market than longwinded recruitment processes with employers in fear of lawyers and trade union officials.

[Old Hack]

Germany has no minimum wage agreement....

Don't they have some kind of industry specific min wage rules though? I am sure I had a chat with an ex pat about this last year?

[Robinho]

Supposedly they're all contracted with trade unions.

[Old Hack]

Interestingly, yesterday, in the news, if you are German, and a Catholic, you have to pay an extra 9% of your wages to the church, at source. The only way you can stop, is by declaring you are not a catholic, but then you lose the right to holy communion, etc.

Be interesting to see how many Scots would decline their faith over a 9% tax hike...

[BlasterBates]

There are minimum wages for certain jobs under trade union agreements eg train drivers, skilled factory workers, but a lot of low paid jobs excluded, eg Postman, Cleaner, farm labourers and Bar staff.

[eek]

Germany has no minimum wage agreement....

which confirms my comment above

The real issue is rarely employing people its employing them legally in such a way that you can get shot of them if you have to.

And that is the problem with most EU countries. You don't want to employ more staff because you can't get rid when the times get tough (unlike the US and to a slightly lesser extent here).