Minimum Rage

Browsing Twitter this morning, two of my followers tweeted this link: here. I’d like to just go through it outlining why I think Dr Eamonn Butler is so wrong on this occasion, hopefully without getting too vitriolic, but you never know.

“I want to see the pay and conditions improve for the lowest-paid workers… But it is now obvious that the minimum wage is keeping out of work those – like younger people, unskilled workers, women and ethnic minorities – who need job opportunities the most.”

Really? You want to see pay improve AND scrap the minimum wage? As I understand it, the minimum wage was set up precisely to improve pay… how is it possible that scrapping it would be a Good Thing? The difference between £3.50 an hour to £5.25 is nothing to be scoffed at. And speaking as a young, unskilled female ethnic minority, you sound rather patronising.

“Of course, there is an economic downturn, so jobs are harder to get and unemployment is higher. But where is it highest? Yes, precisely among these groups.”

Excuse me if I’m being crass, but hasn’t unemployment always been highest among young, unskilled female ethnic minorities? How will scrapping the minimum wage change this?

“They (trade unions) wanted to elevate the entire wage scale by raising the wages of their lowest paid members.”

I think there’s a big difference between elevating the wage scale, and narrowing the pay gap. Just because you start paying your cleaner an extra £2 an hour, it does not follow that you have to increase the significantly higher salary of your CEO in line with this. Those bastard trade unions, doing what they can to improve the standard of living for workers.

“We can devise any number of costly New Deal programmes to help train up those who have few work skills. But where can you get the best possible training for a job? Yes, in a job.”

So what you’re saying is that employers can’t afford to employ people at the measly sum set by minimum wage, therefore lowering the minimum wage would mean that at least people who really wanted to work can do so for a few pennies. Right?

Wrong. What you’d end up with is a lot of people working AND claiming benefits to make up the difference. In South London, where I live, to qualify for income support and housing benefits, you have to be on £16k a year. Is that a good thing? Yes, more people are getting experience, but the government is still having to subsidise it. Surely it’s better all round to close the pay gap, than ignore it completely? Also, it’s putting rather a lot of trust in employers to employ more people at whatever rate they can get away with, rather than just valuing a fellow human being by ensuring that they can afford to feed themselves and, heaven forbid, keep a roof over their head.

Minimum wage is just over £10k (depending on your age and location I think). Try living on less than this after tax. Go on, I dare you.

I’ve just discovered Flickr!

A bit slow on the uptake but I’ve just discovered Flickr and spent my mild insomnia last night uploading photos from my phone (like the one above, my most recent tattoo).

If you’re looking for high falutin, high quality, or high brow, visit Kelly’s page right here but for low brow, high jinx and average to poor photography skills, visit my page:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carmenego/

And “friend” me! My mate Dave did. He’s the coolest of the cool kids today. Nice one Dave. I didn’t even know you could have friends on Flickr.

Cx

A box with a view

It was a very quiet day in the office today, save for a giant box of paper cups finally realising its true potential of fitting me into it.

Part of my culture

The receptionist and I were having a chat this morning when, out of the blue, she said

“You can get away with dressing like a tramp to work*. I couldn’t.”

To which I replied

“Just tell them it’s part of your culture, they’ll never say another word.”

Oh how we laughed.

*Today I’m wearing black jeans and a black shirt with a 3ft string of pink pearls, tripled up to look one better than Coco Chanel. I neither a) look like a tramp or b) get away with it, as the dress code is very relaxed. Don’t worry.

I’ve got a few tidy blogposts lined up but have been hella busy recently. I’m moving house in a few weeks (again), starting a new job, and possibly taking my former landlady to court. That last one is especially important, and I’m very much looking forward to writing a blog post on property litigation, a subject which is unfortunately neglected! Know your rights!

Cx

Nerds of Earth Unite!

I am incredibly impressed to hear of new Skeptics in Pub groups springing up all over the place. For a full list of all the Skeptical groups all over the world, check here. If you live somewhere that isn’t close to any of these, and there’s a demand, why not set up your own one? It’s really easy, and you can get tons of support very quickly by joining Twitter and sending a message along the lines of:

“I’m thinking of setting up a #SITP in [your gaffe], any ideas of how to start?”

The # symbol is a simple way of identifying a topic that a lot of people are talking about, enabling you to join a conversation. Programs like Tweetdeck enable you to set up an entire column for a discussion topic under a hashtag (#). Someone, perhaps a complete stranger will see it and reply straight away. It’s great.

The basic things you need to start your own SITP are:

• A pub
• Some skeptics or like minded people

Getting a speaker is always fun, and you need to consider things like setting up microphones and amplifiers, maybe a projection screen if they’re doing a presentation via a laptop, and you will need permission from the pub.

Depending on the size of your group, it is always advisable to book the pub in advance. Another event that I co-run (Reclaim The Pub)  is small enough that we don’t book an entire pub, just a couple of tables is usually enough. We don’t have speakers yet, it’s just a comfortable space for us to meet up and discuss things that are important to us. Ladies Who Do Skepticism is a similar affair.

I’m not sure it’s a good idea to look at Skeptics in the Pub as a movement. We’re not a political group, or lobby, or sometimes even organised. We’re a bunch of nerds in a pub who have a wide range of interests. If that sounds like your bag, then get thine posterior to your next local event.

Cx

Bits and Bobs

Hi all,

1. Inception
   Saw it yesterday and I really wasn’t as impressed as I feel I should have been. It wasn’t complicated, it’s about levels of consciousness. Anyone who’s ever played a multi-level video game or experimented with drugs will get it. I found the non-stop soundtrack and constant drama kind of irritating. Beautiful, but irritating. Like a part-time-modelling film student boyfriend with a lisp.
   As for the end, that was just (highlight following text for spoiler:) silly. You have one of two possibilities that were pretty much a given from the first 10 minutes: Either the whole thing is a dream or it isn’t. End of. You want proper beautiful complexity? Read some Baudrillard.
   Maybe I missed the point of the film, I’d love it if someone could try to enlighten me without just telling me it’s amazing because they saw it and it was amazing. Granted, it was enjoyable (especially the bits with Jason Phwoardon-Levitt) but amazing? Unless by “amazing” they mean it had a lot of mazes in it. That doesn’t even make any sense.
2. Am trying to take a break from serious blogging, as a woman in a shop told me off the other day for being too Westernised and I bought a weird book about African diaspora and am now insanely confused about a lot of things. Basically, I’m trying to listen a bit more in the hope that maybe I’ll learn something. Problem is, people have been telling me how great I am recently and it’s totally going to my head. For this and other reasons, I’m moving back in with my grandparents to gain some wisdom from my wonderful Grandad, who tells it like it is, whether I look like a cow’s arse or not (true story). The man is a legend. Plus it means Granny’s cooking. Epic win!
3. Can anyone recommend any decent introductory books to Indian History btw? It’s starting to annoy me that I don’t know anything about it other than my family’s history. I’d love to be able to put that into perspective and actually see why it is important that my great grandfather was awarded the Victoria Cross, or why India is one of the world’s emerging superpowers yet has no welfare system in place to prevent millions living in extreme poverty.
4. My hair has now grown to that annoying level of being slightly too short to tie back, but long enough to get in my eyes. Gah! Luckily, in a few week’s time it’ll be long enough to cut into a sharp little bob. I’ll look like Mathilda from Leon but grown up. But I’ll still dress like her, don’t worry.

Cx