PowerSwitch

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/ ... ired-staff


Call centre staff fired and replaced with prisoners earning £3 a day. I'm all for rehabilitating prisoners and getting them used to work, responsibility, and getting up in the morning, but this is a new low. It was entirely predictable and I fear it will get worse.

Currently 12 are being paid just 6% of the minimum wage.

The language is interesting and rather misses the point that they are prisoners. Typically prisoners aren't paid anything and have their freedoms severally limited. The concept of 'minimum' wage just doesn't seem to apply here. I'd be quite happy for prisoners to be offered all sorts of activities; education, sport, artistic, answering phones etc. Individuals would be free to partake or not, but 'wages' should never come into it.

A prison officer friend of mine tells of several repeat, regular offenders who are so because they see the alternative as...? There are no jobs, accommodation is hard to secure, there's harassment from the dole officers etc etc.

But a roof, warmth, friends, food, something to do, free library, tv, newspapers etc etc, all for nothing! What's not to like?

clv101 wrote:

Currently 12 are being paid just 6% of the minimum wage.

The language is interesting and rather misses the point that they are prisoners. Typically prisoners aren't paid anything and have their freedoms severally limited. The concept of 'minimum' wage just doesn't seem to apply here. I'd be quite happy for prisoners to be offered all sorts of activities; education, sport, artistic, answering phones etc. Individuals would be free to partake or not, but 'wages' should never come into it.

Sure, but isn't the real problem here the fact that non-prisoners are being denied work? We could get the entire prison population doing jobs of one sort or another, but if they are simply replacing people who would otherwise be earning at least the minimum wage then you are not actually solving any long-term problems. What happens when these prisoners are released? Well, they now have experience of working in a call centre, but they won't be able to get jobs because those jobs will be taken by the next lot of prisoners.

How is this actually helping anybody but the call centre?

But a roof, warmth, friends, food, something to do, free library, tv, newspapers etc etc, all for nothing! What's not to like?

Mr "Big" in the showers?

lol

Screw that then.

UndercoverElephant wrote:

clv101 wrote:

Currently 12 are being paid just 6% of the minimum wage.

The language is interesting and rather misses the point that they are prisoners. Typically prisoners aren't paid anything and have their freedoms severally limited. The concept of 'minimum' wage just doesn't seem to apply here. I'd be quite happy for prisoners to be offered all sorts of activities; education, sport, artistic, answering phones etc. Individuals would be free to partake or not, but 'wages' should never come into it.

Sure, but isn't the real problem here the fact that non-prisoners are being denied work? We could get the entire prison population doing jobs of one sort or another, but if they are simply replacing people who would otherwise be earning at least the minimum wage then you are not actually solving any long-term problems. What happens when these prisoners are released? Well, they now have experience of working in a call centre, but they won't be able to get jobs because those jobs will be taken by the next lot of prisoners.

How is this actually helping anybody but the call centre?

Exactly.

Moving deckchairs.

That's what we seem to be reduced to on so many levels and in so many ways.

Call centre either a) Lowers prices due to lower costs, hence leaving more money in consumers pockets which is spent on something else creating other jobs

or:

b) Call centre makes more profit due to lower costs, that money is then reinvested to create more jobs (via expansion) or given to shareholders to spend thus creating more jobs etc etc

or:

c) I just made (a) and (b) up lol

Totally_Baffled wrote:Call centre either a) Lowers prices due to lower costs, hence leaving more money in consumers pockets which is spent on something else creating other jobs

or:

b) Call centre makes more profit due to lower costs, that money is then reinvested to create more jobs (via expansion) or given to shareholders to spend thus creating more jobs etc etc

or:

c) I just made (a) and (b) up lol

Or d) Possibly an opportunist 'entrepeneur' sees latest get rich quick scheme after failing loft insulation sales. Realises can make more money faster buy 'employing' prisoniers. Money skimmed into tax avoidance schemes. Lavish lifestyle funded at expense of the people he used to employ.

SleeperService wrote:

Totally_Baffled wrote:Call centre either a) Lowers prices due to lower costs, hence leaving more money in consumers pockets which is spent on something else creating other jobs

or:

b) Call centre makes more profit due to lower costs, that money is then reinvested to create more jobs (via expansion) or given to shareholders to spend thus creating more jobs etc etc

or:

c) I just made (a) and (b) up lol

Or d) Possibly an opportunist 'entrepeneur' sees latest get rich quick scheme after failing loft insulation sales. Realises can make more money faster buy 'employing' prisoniers. Money skimmed into tax avoidance schemes. Lavish lifestyle funded at expense of the people he used to employ.

If he spends on a "lavish lifestyle" then that creates demand for products and creates more jobs.

If he puts the money in a bank its lent and spent.

If he invests the money, then the reciepient creates jobs via the business he/she creates from investment!

And yes I am taking the p*ss! lol

reminds me of the film -The Shawshank Redemption
quote from Wiki

In 1963, Norton begins exploiting prison labor for public works, undercutting the cost of skilled labor by skimming the profits and receiving kickbacks. He has Andy launder the money using the alias "Randall Stevens".

The prisoners replace the existing workforce, or non-prisoners in the search for work, so they (the workers and job seekers) lose out. Taxpayers have to fund their benefits, so they lose out too. For the prisoners it's neutral. The only winner is the company. They don't have any employees to pay, so their profits increase, and those in charge, or shareholders, benefit.

Trickle-up economics.

Let's be brutally honest here: as long as you have the sort of capitalist system which puts the profit motive ahead of all other considerations, what else can you expect, but for for-profit businesses operating within that system to reduce costs any way that is open to them? These businesses are not charities or social concerns: they are there to make money. End of story.

This is not to say there is no inherant greed that props up the system and uses it for its own justification, but I think on a world scale, most of us in countries like this one have some of that- requiring lifestyles far beyond what is necessary and demanding far more than we need as a basic minimum standard.

Nor is it to suggest that profit-making in itself is always a bad thing, or that state socialism is a viable alternative. Simply that we need more motivators than profit alone.

Not only is profit the motive but ever increasing profit. At some point the only option is aquiring more businesses OR massively reducing overheads as you have already achieved market saturation.

extractorfan wrote:Not only is profit the motive but ever increasing profit. At some point the only option is aquiring more businesses OR massively reducing overheads as you have already achieved market saturation.

The inherent flaw of capitalism.

It kills off it's own customer base's capacity to buy it's products.

In other words, the workers who the capitalist boss seeks to impoverish in the headlong pursuit of profit, are also his customers.