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I watched a programme on Channel 4 about a man who spent a week begging on the
streets of London to see how much money he could make. It was one of those stories
that could have been told in ten minutes instead of thirty. The only really interesting
thing was to find out how much money he made (not much).
But what was more interesting to me was the fact that this man is a TV producer
and lives in London, yet only earns £12,000 ($18,000) a year.
The TV industry has such a glamorous image but, in reality, the companies use
the highly competitive jobs market in broadcasting to keep most wages down at
breadline level. It's the same story in publishing. These days a features editor
seems to earn about 20% less than I did for the same job eleven years ago!
As the old saying goes, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys, and that probably
explains why there is so much crap on TV and in magazines these days. Many talented
people simply will not work for such low wages and have moved into better paying
fields instead.
In an ideal world these companies would have a bit more vision and integrity.
But they don't.
With the average house price in England and Wales now £145,000 ($290,000)
and £242,000 ($484,000) in Greater London, many people have no hope of ever
owning their own property. Nurses, policemen, shop workers and many other hard-working
professionals are destined to live in one small room.
Even worse, with rents increasing, more and more working people are forced to
claim Housing Benefit and Working Tax Credit (in other words, state help with
their rent).
In effect, this is a subsidy to businesses that don't pay a living wage. But why
should any business owner be allowed to operate his business on the basis that
his full-time employees can't afford to support themselves properly without state
help?
Many areas of Britain were decimated in the 1980's, when manufacturing and engineering
businesses closed. Service industries such as call centres eventually took their
place and in those areas a desperate workforce would work for low wages.
But now those areas face disaster for a second time, because the companies are
moving their call centres away from the UK. They are transferring them to countries
such as India, where the people are equally as professional but, due to the much
lower cost of living, are happy to earn just $4 a day, instead of the $6 an hour
the companies have to pay in the UK. And my old favourite British Telecom is one
of these companies.
So where does this all end? The science and engineering union Amicus has warned
that 200,000 UK jobs may be lost due to this.
It could go even further... With modern communications, there are many jobs that
could be done equally as well in a third world country. The magazine features
editor and other production staff, the TV video editor and graphics designer,
the web designer...
Do we just wait until the standard of living in the UK and countries such as India
somehow equalises? And with such poverty in those countries, what will that equal
level be? Or do we prohibit companies from taking advantage of cheap labour in
third world countries?
The other side of the coin is that I could do my work from anywhere... So maybe
I should rent out my apartment in Manchester and go off to live in places such
as Cairo, Eygpt. There I could rent an apartment for £150 ($300) per month
and everything else would be much cheaper too...
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