UK Politics: Rwanda Rehash

[Maltaran]

Starting off with the immigration minister resigning because he thinks the new deal doesn’t go far enough 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67640833

[The Anti-Targ]

From the previous thread re care / health workers. It seems to me that the notion an increase in pay and conditions is what will fix the worker shortage problem by attracting more UK people into the jobs is, to put it charitably, naive and simplistic. If you consider how labour markets work, the price setter for labour is the government, it sets a universal labour price in most countries (minimum wage +/- some other minimums like a youth wage), and then it sets prices for work it directly funds (MP salaries, public servant salaries, public sector wages and salaries, military salaries etc). The private sector then establishes wages and salaries against those benchmarks. Then, once the market has been established and functioning (i.e. now) there is a see-sawing of wage and salary setting because the govt and private sector are competing in the same pool of potential employees. If the govt re-sets public sector care worker wages from, say, 25/hr to 30/hr then other public sector jobs that were worth 25/hr will rise, and private sector jobs that were worth 25/hr will also rise. The lower the unemployment rate the faster the other jobs will catch up in pay rate to the care worker rates (simple supply and demand economics). There is also the flow on effect that jobs that previously paid 30/hr will go up in pay rates, because, say, teachers will not accept a pay rate that is the same as care workers (I've no idea what the difference between teachers and care worker pay is, but teachers are name dropped here for illustrative purposes only).

If there are 1 million unemployed people in the UK then that's a low unemployment rate, so rates of pay across the board would go up quite quickly if care worker wage rates were substantially bumped. Also among that number of unemployed is a lot of people who are not going to make for very good employees in any job, let alone one that is best suited to people for whom the work is a calling not just a way to get paid.

Put simply, you can't just improve pay and conditions in a single sector with the intent of increasing employment in that sector without flow on effects to the rest of the labour market that negate, to a greater or lesser degree, that intended outcome.

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

Problem we have in UK isn’t so much unemployment as underemployment. Ie people not making enough to live on, and so either having to claim benefits or work multiple jobs.
 

 

[A wilding]

While I agree care workers need to be paid more (why be a care worker when you can earn just as much working in a supermarket?), I doubt that it would lead to a rush of people going into it resulting in general upwards wages pressure. Care work has its own challenges.

For anyone not aware of what is involved, it is not just a matter of spoon feeding unattractive people and wiping their bottoms. You need to cope, for example, with clients who shout for help whenever they are left alone for more than a few minutes; who continually spout paranoid conspiracy theories at you and sometimes even try to act on them; who bang things together just to make a noise for hours at a time; who throw food around (and sometimes even their own sh*t); etc, etc.

This is of course an increasing problem much more widespread then just the UK. I am not sure what the solution is, though possibly some of the stuff around automation they have apparently been trying out in Japan might help.

 

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, A wilding said:

For anyone not aware of what is involved, it is not just a matter of spoon feeding unattractive people and wiping their bottoms. You need to cope, for example, with clients who shout for help whenever they are left alone for more than a few minutes; who continually spout paranoid conspiracy theories at you and sometimes even try to act on them; who bang things together just to make a noise for hours at a time; who throw food around (and sometimes even their own sh*t); etc, etc.

You're forgetting to include physical and sexual assault and regular accusations of theft from dementia patients.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Which Tyler

[A wilding]

I was sort of covering that under "sometimes even try to act on <their paranoid conspiracy theories>", but you are right, my list was not comprehensive!

[Which Tyler]

44 minutes ago, A wilding said:

I was sort of covering that under "sometimes even try to act on <their paranoid conspiracy theories>", but you are right, my list was not comprehensive!

Fair, but they're fairly important aspects.

Caring for a loved one is hard, very hard.
Caring for someone's else's loved one is much harder (and you do learn to care for them, and then they die, rinse and repeat).
Also those accusations stay with you, however unfounded, for plenty, so do the assaults (I've done my time there, and seen others as patients).

Edited December 7, 2023 by Which Tyler

[Derfel Cadarn]

It’s similar (albeit not as bad) for nurses.

While the pay isn’t bad (band 5 Inthink makes about £38k basic at top of band but also get allowances) but it’s low for a graduate job. 
Also hard work, dirty, with long hours, stressful. Risk of harm from patients, needlestick injuries etc. It’s a vocation rather than a job you take because it’s well paid.

 

[mormont]

Referring back to the links from the previous thread, it's worth noting that of the reasons given for not wanting to work in care, while it's true that pay and conditions was the biggest reason (42%), that's only just true. At 41%, we have the fact that the work is 'emotionally challenging'. 

That is just inherent to the work and it won't change. You can and should give support to workers who do emotionally challenging work, but you can't change the fact that a lot of people just don't want their job to be emotionally challenging to that extent. If you're not up for that, putting you in that job anyway will be harmful to everyone involved. 

Anyway, Sunak now seems to have given Tory rebels the green light by saying they will not be disciplined for rebelling on the legislation. So look forward to a massive rebellion.

[Which Tyler]

7 minutes ago, mormont said:

Referring back to the links from the previous thread, it's worth noting that of the reasons given for not wanting to work in care, while it's true that pay and conditions was the biggest reason (42%), that's only just true. At 41%, we have the fact that the work is 'emotionally challenging'.

Worth noting that the emotional challenge is part of the "conditions" bit of "pay and conditions" - and often gets overlooked in these discussions.

It's not just anti-social hours, it's also the hazards of the job.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Which Tyler

[mormont]

Notable, perhaps, that none of us are even commenting on the COVID enquiry evidence even with Johnson testifying today. Possibly because absolutely none of it is coming as a surprise? 

[Heartofice]

 

30 minutes ago, mormont said:

Referring back to the links from the previous thread, it's worth noting that of the reasons given for not wanting to work in care, while it's true that pay and conditions was the biggest reason (42%), that's only just true. At 41%, we have the fact that the work is 'emotionally challenging'. 

Worth pointing out that this is based on the perception of the work by people who hadn't done it.  It doesn't mean that people wouldn't consider the job at all if that perception was changed, and that is possible to do. 

If you look at the reasons people leave the role its mainly problems to do with low pay, lack of being valued by their employers and lack of secure employment. I think people are willing to put up with hard work if they are being rewarded in other ways. Just looking at this link from the last thread:
https://www.totaljobs.com/recruiter-advice/overcoming-the-challenges-facing-social-care-employers
The number one way social jobs could be enhanced is by feeling valued by an employer. At the very minimum that is something care homes can do to improve the situation for workers. 

Of course the job is not for everyone, but I also don't think you can just eliminate whole swathes of the population and say they couldn't or wouldn't do it. These things change, and it's possible to make jobs more attractive.

The whole point is that this isn't really a vocation for people coming from abroad either. I doubt many of them dreamt as a child of travelling across the globe to wipe old peoples arses for low pay and shit conditions. They do it because they have to, and because we can all abuse the fact they are so desperate. 

[kissdbyfire]

6 minutes ago, mormont said:

Notable, perhaps, that none of us are even commenting on the COVID enquiry evidence even with Johnson testifying today. Possibly because absolutely none of it is coming as a surprise? 

The exchange about the 5K missing WhatsApp messages was pretty painful to watch. 

[Which Tyler]

Could someone please remind me the definition of a dictatorship?

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by Which Tyler

[Spockydog]

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

The exchange about the 5K missing WhatsApp messages was pretty painful to watch. 

And they are just going to let him get away with it. There will be no IT expert called to tell everyone what we already know. Those messages were deliberately deleted. 

[kissdbyfire]

1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

And they are just going to let him get away with it. There will be no IT expert called to tell everyone what we already know. Those messages were deliberately deleted. 

Yup, exactly that. I watched some 40 mins yesterday and felt like banging my head on a wall of broken glass. 

[mormont]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67656220
 

Quote

The UK has given Rwanda a further £100m this year as part of its deal to relocate asylum seekers there.

The payment was made in April, the Home Office's top civil servant said in a letter to MPs, after £140m had already been sent to the African nation.

Sir Matthew Rycroft said another payment of £50m was expected next year.

The revelation came hours after Rishi Sunak vowed to "finish the job" of reviving the plan after the resignation of his immigration minister this week.

Meanwhile we put forward 'emergency legislation' (there is no emergency here) that directs judges to ignore facts and ignore international law, wrecking the principles of our legal system and compromising the independence of our judges. And why are we doing this? At this point, solely because the Tories said they'd do this and now refuse to back down for political reasons. Not because it is a good idea, or because there is any shred of evidence that this policy will even do what it's supposed to do. Just pure bloody-mindedness and internal Tory infighting.

It's emblematic of what this government has become: they value nothing except their own power.

Edited December 8, 2023 by mormont

[Derfel Cadarn]

40 minutes ago, mormont said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67656220
 

Meanwhile we put forward 'emergency legislation' (there is no emergency here) that directs judges to ignore facts and ignore international law, wrecking the principles of our legal system and compromising the independence of our judges. And why are we doing this? At this point, solely because the Tories said they'd do this and now refuse to back down for political reasons. Not because it is a good idea, or because there is any shred of evidence that this policy will even do what it's supposed to do. Just pure bloody-mindedness and internal Tory infighting.

It's emblematic of what this government has become: they value nothing except their own power.

Close to £300million to swap 100 people for another 100 people from Rwanda. And so far no one’s been sent.

How many doctors and nurses could that have trained?

[BigFatCoward]

Fair play, the Rwandan Govt have played an absolute blinder so far. 

[kissdbyfire]

"The new Tory austerity will be like nothing we’ve seen before. Here is its human cost."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/08/tory-austerity-jeremy-hunt-cuts-public-services